Overcast, undercast
"And that's it, you can open your eyes!" the nurse cheered.
I gingerly peeked at my left arm, where three doses of vaccinations were quickly covered with a tiny cotton bandage. After thanking the nurse, I dazzily stepped outside to the flowing stream of traffic crisscrossing one of the busiest intersections in District 3 of Saigon. The sun was ablaze, and the asphalt roads were too glaring for sleepy eyes to take in all the sights contained in one nanosecond of this city.
The last few days of summer have been nothing but hectic, from a short trip to Vung Tau (where I had to climb the rocks as the waves crashed to get to my room when I forgot to bring the key) to a whirlwind of medical appointments for my immigration visa. In between trips here and there around Saigon for an unhealthy amount of iced coffee while catching up with relatives and old friends, I also wrestled with the typical worries that any third-year student could have: club applications, standardized exams, and course planning, until I forgot about the end of August creeping slowly. Then one day, while Nest was lounging lazily under my desk like a milk popsicle melting under the blazing heat, I began the preternatural ritual of 5-minute packing: my laptop, tablet, and clothes (that last for exactly half a day) just in case of long delays. Another sleepless night was sure to come.
After a red-eye flight, with a layover in Tokyo and then San Francisco, I stepped off the plane, embraced in the musky scent of pine trees and the faint burning smell of wildfires that have unfortunately become a summer staple in Vancouver. I arrived home, amazed at the sprawling bed of mint in my front yard that had overgrown all the way to my neighbour's garden. The last bit of summer lingered everywhere as the days grew shorter, with the scorched grass blades withering underneath the thorny rose bushes and lilac towering over the wooden fences, the petals falling softly. In the farmers' market where I usually go for fresh fruits, the last batches of Okanagan plums were being displayed, their deep purple skin wrinkled as if they were trying to hold back their saccharine scent from wandering too far.
And so it went - the last half of undergraduate studies started on a dusty sunny day in September. On the first day of the month, I woke up a mere two days after my flight at 6 AM, with the concept of jetlag nonexistent. When you had an Imagine Day Orientation Leader training, the DAT and juggling between 5 courses coming up within two weeks, getting used to the timezone after 2.5 months abroad was probably the last thing on your mind. Again, I embarked on the 1.5-hour-long transit ride that I have known for the past two years, sipping iced coffee and blasting Mi Nuevo Vicio in my earbuds as if the traumatizing Physical Chemistry exam was just still yesterday (everyone got a 10% scale on the final exam!). As I stepped into the shiny benches in the BIOL building and met my fellow OLs, the feeling of sleepiness immediately disappeared, and replaced by the joy of meeting new awesome people and reconnecting with friends who I hadn't seen for so long. After the training sessions, we practiced giving tours around campus while gathering as many free stuff around campus as we could, from the legendary cookies at Orchard Commons to ice cold Red Bull, laughing away all of our anxiety for the big day tomorrow.
Before I even realized it, the next day, we were greeting first-year students enthusiastically, hosting icebreakers, and leading campus tours all in a span of a morning. It was so nice to meet my first-year students, who were all so sweet and took all the time to listen to my rants about some obscure buildings on Main Mall. The same routine repeated like last year - running as fast as we could to make it to the jam-packed Pep Rally (where the coordination of the Science Chant followed the footsteps in 2023), boothing for my club under the scorching sun, and collecting free merch shamelessly - but the joy was never getting stale.
This semester, I was in 5 classes as usual. Contrary to popular belief, third year wasn't getting any easier (especially after those in-class Biochem quizzes), but I got further into my studies, the workload became way more lighter. No extricating weekly quizzes or assignments remained, so 3-hour long exams worth 50% of the course final grade became my only source of solace ironically. From Psychology and Human Physiology to Public Health, the content never stopped intriguing me (except during 9:30 AM classes after 6 hours of sleep perhaps). When not staring numbly at flashcards, I relished in the moments of walking under the golden oak trees along Main Mall during the (surprisingly) sunny days, or just hanging around for a ridiculously long time in a line for a iced macchiato. Every few weeks or so, I would stay a bit later in the evening to help organize club events, where the rain slowly tapped outside the window while I ranted about my classes to my fellow club members (their understanding was greatly appreciated!). As much as I enjoyed the empty schedule that my third-year classes allowed for, I still could not believe how fast final seasons were approaching...
..and the days passed quickly, just like the blisteringly cold winds blowing from the sea as I stepped off from the Skytrain station every late afternoon. Then came a dreary day in December, when I have to battle the gusts and drizzling rain to arrive on time for my first final. As I left CIRS 1250, my forever-cherished lecture hall, I gazed at sprawling glass ceiling to take in the last rays of sunlight. Over the corner, a student was lost in studying for an upcoming exam (probably for Stats?). The rustling sound of pages flipping, intertwining with the pungent warm smell of someone's homecooked soup from the microwave nearby, aroused in me a long-lost feeling. Suddenly, I was transported back into eight years ago - when I just finished my last class of the week and stepped out of the class to see the grey skies that signal the monsoon rain. The musky petrichor of the Ca Tre's creek was warping the parking lot of my school, ensconced in a desolate corner of Saigon's District 2.
A few raindrops fell on my face and rolled away, carrying all my worries.
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