Recently I had a surprising experience with my friend, T. We were in a rush for some early lunch, and tried many cafes and restaurants after not having a lot of sleep. By the time we found one that was open and had an acceptable line, it was a quarter…

There’s no crisis, just clickbait. A while ago, the Canadian federal government announced a plan to increase the acceptance rate of immigrants to half a million immigrants a year by 2025. Reviews of this plan were mixed, but mostly negative. Xenophobia aside, the most pressing concern was that the Canadian…

In Quebecois French, there are a set of swear words termed the “sacres”. These curse words are more potent than any other one in English or French to the Quebecois, up to the point where they don’t even consider the word “fuck” a swear word. Because of Quebec’s unique history…

I’m going to quit drinking. I’m starting off with the month of November, probably extend it into December which will be a good challenge because there are a lot of parties then, and then try for an entirely dry 2023 if I make it that far. At the time of…

I love the terms “irreverence” and “impropriety” because they imply an understanding of decorum, but a pointed disregard for it. At a first pass, they seem inconsistent with my obsession with self-awareness: Someone who’s self-aware would generally try not to break rules without good reason, but it is only someone…

…in a resource-scarce uber-capitalistic world. It would be great if everyone could be university educated in the classical sense, to follow a curated curriculum of liberal arts courses and learn to think critically amongst a group of similarly-aged and like-minded peers. …

Here we go. Despite my protestations against my parents’ suggestions not to write anything overtly political that I might regret, I have tried my best to steer clear of actual hot topics. As my father suggests, posterity is unkind to those who align themselves with one political view, loud and…

One of the most important skills for someone to have is self-awareness. Of course, I’m not referring to artificial intelligences developing sentience, but rather people acknowledging their feelings and how others view them. This, in addition to being 拎得清, are the most important aspects of personality that I value in…

The Decision was made a couple of weeks ago. For those who didn’t read my previous post, I was given a job offer in Shanghai that paid similarly to my current job but represented a position downgrade. I have wanted to move abroad for a very long time, and Shanghai…