#/and then I'll be able to submit the application this afternoon

[pockets-and-paint]

hhhhhh wish me luck boys

[ut-versotale]

APPLICATION FORM UPDATE

Hey, this isn't gonna be too much of a formal post here; just wanted to update y'all on the Application Form!

Since the last devlog, we've got a couple really good submissions! Some of you who submitted will have already heard from me since I was able to take a look at your applications before college started. However, since the semester HAS started for me now, it's gonna be a tiny bit longer before I can really examine the rest of the submissions in detail.

Just wanted to update all of you on that front! Once I'm a bit more settled in, I'll be able to take an afternoon or so to look at more applicants.

Thank you for your patience on that front! I'll update y'all again later down the line when I've worked through all the current submissions, and if we still need more members for specific roles, I'll send out a second call

Thanks for reading!

[eponymous-rose]

Wednesday!

MEETING DAY. Not as hectic as usual since I'm not running a seminar this afternoon (we usually have three seminars a week, but because of the big conference so many people are out of town that two of the three were cancelled).

Read a few emails on the bus - the highlight was a request for an interview from some high school kids working on an English project about climate change! I sent them some potential times to chat. Got to work a little early and worked through a bunch more email: got the seminar info from next week's speaker and passed it along to our admin to put up on the website and department calendar, got some additional info from the student I'll be writing a reference letter for, found out about a blood drive with popups on campus (I signed up to donate next week!), an invite to a social on Friday night with faculty and students (I have D&D, so that's a no thank you!).

Taught class! I was a little nervous about this one because it's been AGES since I had to look at this kind of electronics/thermodynamics stuff, but it turns out it's not that tough to explain and the students were extremely engaged so there was a lot of fun back-and-forth. We also went over their first homework assignment (due next week), which I think they followed along with pretty well. We'll see how that goes!

Right out the gate, it's time for the Day of Meetings to commence! Met in person with my PhD student, who immediately pulled out his computer and pulled up his code to work on some debugging. Basically, he has to repeat an operation 60,000 times and currently it's taking 2 minutes per, which is way too slow. And, considering he's parallelized his code and is working on a supercomputer, that's WAY too slow. Like, suspiciously. So we ran through and searched for bugs and tried to figure out what's going wrong when he finally decided to pop up some older code that ran just fine in 8.9 seconds. So he's going to work on incorporating some of what he did in that code in terms of optimization into the new version (something about delayed compute is just not acting like it should) and I'm going to ask a colleague whether he's ever run into this problem on the same supercomputer.

Time for a break! More email. More good email, as there's a notice telling me a research project has been funded! It's not a giant one (one year of funding), but it will pay some of my salary this summer (plus a grad student!), there's money for two publications, and it's aligned with the project I wanted to do for the European conference anyway, so now I'm just actually getting paid to do that side project. Heck yeah. Fingers still crossed about a much, much bigger project (collaborative over 3 years) that I'll hopefully hear back about soon. Sent the good news to my grants administrator and also sent a thank-you to someone who sent me a copy of her successful application from a couple years ago.

More meetings! Virtual meeting with a friend - he's a couple years past tenure but at a very small and isolated department, so we both find work topics to support each other on. We also submitted the aforementioned much, much bigger project together a few months ago, which was a trial by fire where we discovered we genuinely really enjoy working together. We talk a bit about that (I work out that we're not going to hear back until June, booooo) and we spend some time discussing a review article that I was commissioned to write by February that I've looped him in on as a co-author. I bring up my PhD student's coding woes and my friend offers to send him some sample code that might help. We chat pedagogy for a bit and the joy of tiny class sizes (he's teaching a tiny thermo class this year). We also confirm we're both going to the European conference and I yell at him to submit his dang abstract already. Good chat!

Up next: in-person meeting with one of my Master's students! He's trying to finish up his degree a year early, and I'm just now realizing I might be able to apply my newly acquired summer funding to him if he needs it to finish his degree, I'll have to think about the logistics of that. I actually co-advise him, but his other advisor is off on a field campaign so it's just us this week. He shows off some new figures and we fix a quick bug in his code together. I am delighted when he parrots the "justify every single assumption you make" statement I have been trying to instill in him the last few weeks, and he shows it in action with his new sensitivity testing. We go back and forth for a bit and I realize he seems really nervous about coding this new technique, so I get to tell him there's a prewritten package in Python that will do it all for him. Phew. He also hangs around after the formal part of our meeting is done for some career advice that I hope I could help with a bit. Also a good chat!

Normally I'd be rushing off to run a seminar, but it's canceled this week and I kinda want to take advantage of that and go home early again. Email from my grants manager congratulating me on the funding and asking for some paperwork to start that routing. That... sounds like a job for tomorrow, honestly.

Up next: I have no meetings or classes tomorrow so I'm gonna WORK FROM HOME BAYBEE.

Something I wanted to do in the New Year is be more aware of how I'm spending my time at work, so I think I'm gonna try to do little summaries here of what each day entails. Hopefully also kind of interesting/useful if anyone's interested in academia?

For reference: we're on the quarter system, classes started on the 3rd, and I currently teach one class per quarter (heavy research-focused department, so very light teaching load). I also currently supervise 1 PhD student, 2 Master's students and 2 undergraduate research interns.

Monday!

Checked email on the bus to work, which mainly consisted of me seeing a colleague had received an endowed professorship, me writing her an effusive congratulatory message, and then me editing back the message a bit so it was less embarrassingly over the top. Also sent my students a reminder about their homework due on Wednesday and our little field trip tomorrow morning and accidentally sent it to last quarter's class, whoops. Luckily a former student quickly notified me of my mistake and I got it fixed!

Class was great - lots of flipped-classroom stuff that worked well even with only two students in the room (it's a conference week, everyone's traveling). I knew from previous years that the students had really, really struggled with this one equation, so I had them do a couple of examples in class and after working through the first one together, they both nailed it on the second try. Had to cancel a meeting with one of my undergrad research interns after class because the other members of our research team are out of town this week. Where is everyone? Well, at a conference and doing a two-month-long field campaign on the east coast. Forgivable. She offered to send me some of the work she's done thus far, so that's handy!

Went to check email after class and found that apparently a new remote meeting had popped on my schedule for immediately after class with an old peer mentoring group of mine (fellow 4th-year assistant profs in tangentially-related fields - we all did a professional development course last year together). Luckily it was cameras off so I could snack and decompress a bit while we caught up and made some strategic plans for the quarter.

Okay, FINALLY time to check email in earnest before my next meeting. 36 new messages since I checked last. New software package I need to bookmark and keep in mind for later work. Updates from the conference I'm technically attending virtually this week. Reference letter request from an undergrad student; add to calendar! Title and abstract to get added to the website for a seminar I'm hosting in a couple weeks. Reminder that the Zoom recording of my class is available to put online (which I promptly did). Triple-check with our tech guy that we're good to go up on the roof tomorrow to set up instrumentation for my class's term projects (all good!). Time flies, so here's the email with research progress from my undergraduate research intern and a handful of questions, we'll answer those and see how she likes jumping into a new dataset. New grant opportunities, job listings, a bunch of easy stuff to mark off. An essay about allocating time each week into the categories of Teaching, Research, and Service and strictly adhering to the percentages laid out by your tenure/promotion committee. Got a few minutes before my next meeting so I'll try it this week? Ish? Maybe? Looked sidelong at the new schedule, sure, we'll try that this week. Sent an email to my collaborator who's on a field project to see if we can do a remote meeting tomorrow to chat about a couple research proposals. Queued an email for next week's seminar speaker to see if he can send me the title and abstract for his talk/PhD entrance exam next week - no sense freaking him out before Wednesday, so we'll do a scheduled send.

Next up, meeting remotely with my former postdoc advisor! We've set up these meetings to "work on research projects" together but honestly this week it was just listening to him tell a very entertaining story about his car breaking down in rural Missouri and also listening to him describe a truly tragic tale of his very fancy sandwich getting thrown out of the office fridge by accident. That's scientific collaboration, baybee. We did talk research for a bit and he mentioned wanting to collaborate on a paper (he offered to pay for it out of the much more substantial research funds that come with his 30 extra years in the field) so I'm gonna come up with something for that by our next meeting in two weeks. I like working with him - we've published a couple papers in some pretty high-impact journals and he's always let me take the lead and go for first authorship without butting in, only providing support - so this is a fun prospect! I do have to submit an abstract this week for a European conference that'll be happening this spring, so maybe I can go ahead and lean into that idea a little.

It's now getting a little dark and rainy and I'm flagging a bit but I still have an hour before the afternoon seminar, so probably time to do a little course prep. Did some "grading" (just checking completion certificates for an introductory module the students had to go through). Fixed a mistake in Wednesday's lecture (why is there an anemometer when I'm talking about thermometers???). Reviewed some of the more complicated topics in Wednesday's lecture to make sure I'm not totally lost (some thermodynamics I haven't looked at in a while, thermocouples, semiconductors). Replacement slides uploaded to our course management system.

Aha! Email back from collaborator, she's going to be on a research flight tomorrow and won't be able to meet. All good, I don't have much to report anyway. That frees up an hour tomorrow, woohoo.

Okay, students have a homework assignment due a week from Wednesday, so I'm gonna post it this Wednesday. I have a good homework assignment prepared, I just needed to go in and write up a nice answer key. Got that done (along with some sample Python code to provide them with) and the homework assignment is scheduled to be posted, so it's time to look at next week's lectures. I've inherited this class from someone whose course notes can be a little scattered, so this is usually a bit of a process. Only two lectures to prep for next week, though!

Took a break from lecture prep to go to today's seminar, which purported to be about a really dodgy geoengineering scheme (redundant descriptor, am I right?) but in fact just rigorously tested said scheme and demonstrated it would actually have the opposite effect. Super fun and interesting seminar!

Okay, back to working on lectures for next week. Somehow got both of next week's lectures done before the end of the day, so those should just need a little polish and they'll be ready to go! Uploaded them to the course management system but sneakily and they won't appear to students until I've checked them over.

Tomorrow: going to the roof with my students to set up their term projects, then tons of sweet, sweet, meeting-free office time carved out. Hope this doesn't come back to bite me with a million meetings on Wednesday (...it will).

Important: work is done by 5PM. I try very hard to adhere to "leave work at work", which is not as much of a pipe dream as it seems, even for R1 tenure-track.

[literaryobsession]

light || ayato kamisato x reader

summary: you become ayato's assistant

warning: none

chapters: ii , iii

i - flicker

"Pray tell, my dear Ayaka, why would you assign an assistant to me?"

His sister looked at him from across the tea table, a smile on her face. "After the decree, we have been receiving more paperwork than usual. Inazuma is in a festive mood and we have been planning of opening the borders to the other nations." There is so much on her brother's shoulders already and as much as she wanted to carry his burdens, she had her own responsibilities.

To help, Ayaka thought it would be best if she gets an assistant for him, someone who would be able to help out her big brother on the rising amount of documents that are about to come his way.

"And I would be able to see the applicants?" Ayato cut a slice of cake and put it on his sister's plate. Afternoon tea is one of the rare moments that the siblings would be able to talk, it doesn't happen every single day but Ayato tries to clear out his schedule for her.

"I would send the final list to you if you'd wish me to. I don't want to bother you too much about it, big brother."

And that is exactly what she did.

You heard that Lady Ayaka was looking for an assistant for the ever-busy Lord Ayato, Thoma made sure to tell you. He actually ran to you to the Komore Teahouse just to tell you the news - you were working as a server when he arrived and you had to scold him for almost making you drop the teacups you were cleaning up.

"I know you'd be the perfect person for the job, Y/N!" Thoma followed you to the kitchen, grinning at Taroumaru as he did so. "You're organized and detailed! I know you'd be great as Lord Ayato's assistant."

"I don't think I'll be good for the job, Thoma. Lord Ayato is an important man, he must have the best assistant to keep up with the demands that go along with being a commissioner." You said as you scrubbed the teacups clean. Thoma was watching you clear disapproval on his face, "Don't give me that face, Thoma."

"What face?" Thoma turned away innocently. Then he frowned at you, "You're the best person for the job. I'll ask your dad for one of the résumés you have lying around and I'll submit it for you."

You complained to Thoma but it fell on deaf ears.

"You never know if you won't try!"

He believed in you, even when you don't believe in yourself. You don't really think someone like you would ever pass the standards set by the Kamisato siblings, they were both so... beautiful and perfect! Everyone talked highly of them, nobody ever said anything bad about them because they were both so well-loved by Inazuma.

You always loved hearing Thoma's stories about them too. He usually talked about how brilliant Lady Ayaka and Lord Ayato are, about how amazing swordsmen they both are, and how much work they face on a day-to-day basis. You often thought about working for the Kamisato clan, Thoma made sure it sounds amazing.

But you doubted that you'll do as well as Thoma so you never tried.

He was right though, you'd never know if you don't try.

Thoma submitted your application the same day and you didn't expect that Lady Ayaka would call for you the next day. Nervously, you stepped in the Kamisato estate, in awe of how big and beautiful it was compared to the houses in the city.

"Excited?" Thoma fetched you from the entrance, he was tasked to lead you to Lady Ayaka for your interview. "Just don't forget to be yourself, Y/N, you'll be great. I'm sure Lady Ayaka will see how perfect you are for the job!"

"Ah, don't get my hopes up!" You nudged him.

"Lady Ayaka, Y/N is here." Thoma knocked on the door before he opened the door to lead you in. The room was wide, heavily decorated, and it smelled so much like incense. Thoma offered you a seat by a screen and said, "Lady Ayaka?"

Lady Ayaka stepped out and you straightened your back almost immediately. You were about to stand but she shook her head, "There is simply no need, you may relax. Thoma speaks highly of you, Y/N." She sat by you and Thoma started serving tea. "I have read your résumé, and with Thoma's words, I believe you are one of the best applicants for the job."

"Thank you, Lady Ayaka." You could feel your nervousness fading away as you listened to Ayaka speak. She has such a gentle voice that you can't help but listen further to what she had to say.

"Although, I must warn you beforehand, Y/N. This responsibility is a challenge. My brother is after all the Yashiro Commissioner and it is his job to oversee shrines, festivals, and cultural events." Ayaka stated. You knew the job was going to be very demanding but even that could not prepare you for whatever is about to come. "When the Vision Hunt Decree was abolished, we at the Yashiro Commission aims to stabilize our nation. We are working to open the borders and strengthen the relationship between Inazuma and the outside world."

You nodded, taking in every word.

She accepted a folder from Thoma, she offered a paper to you and you looked over it. "This is simply a copy of what my brother goes through in a day. It will not show you the demands that are waiting for you when you accept this role, but it will give you a glance."

You were immediately nauseated by the amount of work that Lord Ayato goes through in a day, but Thoma's words to you made you stand your ground.

"Do you have any questions for me, Y/N?"

You looked up from the schedule, determined to take on the role, "I only have one question, Lady Ayaka." When she gestured for you to go on, you asked, "When is Lord Ayato allowed to rest?"

Ayaka paused midway from drinking her tea, "Pardon?"

You bit your lip, should you not have asked that?

"Well, you see," You wanted to think about your words, so as not to offend Lady Ayaka, "The schedule is packed from morning till night, surely the commissioner needs a few moments for himself."

You were expecting that Ayaka will turn you away, to tell you that the role of Yashiro Commissioner does not allow one to rest, but she gave you the sweetest smile that you were almost sure that the angels above envy her.

Thoma put two plates of mochi on the table and smiled at Ayaka, "What did I tell you, Lady Ayaka? Y/N's perfect for the job."

Ayato looked over your application, wondering why Thoma was giving him only one paper. Didn’t his sister say that she would be sharing with him the final list? From where he could choose? 

“I was under the impression that I would be given a list of candidates.” Ayato raised a fine eyebrow towards Thoma, his sister’s attendant. “Was I mistaken or this is the number that applied for the role?”

“Actually, Lord Ayato, Lady Ayaka was supposed to meet two more people today but this particular candidate caught her eye,” Thoma said, with a hint of obvious pride in his voice. This boy has always believed in you, more than you can ever do with yourself. “I’m sure you’d find them quite a character.”

Ayato covered his lips as he let out a chuckle, “If they have your seal of approval, I have no complaints. Tell my sister that I would love to meet...” He glanced down at your face and your name, “Y/N tomorrow.”

The Yashiro Commissioner is rarely interested in anything. He has seen so much, faced more than what an average person would ever encounter in his life, but how is it that you got not only Thoma’s support but his sister’s glowing recommendation?

A flicker of interest ignited in Ayato’s chest.

We shall see, won’t we? 

[marcholasmoth]

OSRR: 2665

today i went painting with my mom after getting a good night's sleep. it was really nice.

we went painting with aunt wendy and then we got lunch afterward, and we came home and i went to play with andrew but he and his wife had an emergency to attend to, so i sat and worked on stuff and then i worked with a student on chemistry and stuff and i did some research and i played around and i made more lists and did some christmas shopping and now it's almost 5 in the fucking morning and like, this shit sucks because i'm only like a quarter of the way tired, and i need to sleep.

also bek is back in town and i'm so excited to see her at some point but i need to not spend so much money because i don't HAVE that much money, and like, i've been a disaster for so fucking long that the deadline for that huge scholarship is in 10 days and i JUST TONIGHT got out emails to my professors to have them write letters of reference for me, and i added information and ordered unofficial transcripts from my old schools and i can't log in to northeastern's shit because fuck northeastern, so i have to call the registrar's office on monday morning to get a digital transcript so i can attach it to my application and i need to finish writing that essay which i should probably do tomorrow but i also have to work with a student tomorrow evening too, and i have d&d tomorrow afternoon so i'm hoping i'll be able to get everything done even though i'm a COMPLETE DISASTER and can't fucking catch a goddamn break AND i still need to do my laundry but i'll do that on monday or whatever if i can even get home because i have class and joel has an interview and i need to get my essay submitted to someone to look at it and stuff and i'm nervous because i'm fucking broke and i'm depressed and i can kind of feel it creeping back in because i'm disappointing myself because i can't fucking catch my breath because there's a million six hundred thousand eighty nine and a quarter things to do and precisely ten seconds to complete it all.

sigh.

maybe a joel hug would help. i dunno.

also? what i wouldn't give to talk to riot again.

[snk-smartpass]

SOURCE: Attack on Titan: Short Stories 2

TRANSLATION: Ko Ransom

Late Night Stories Vol. 13 Erwin Smith "A Human Story"

Soldiers gathered around a table bearing a mountain of documents. Their respective ranks--Captain, Squad Leader--were embroidered on the breast of each of their uniforms.

"…All of this year-end work is miserable every time we have to do it."

"That's why we all get together and take care of it like this, so that no one shirks their responsibility."

Squad Leaders who led the Survey Corps filled the room, together with their aides. There were busy putting together activity reports, expense reports, and other types of documents to be submitted at the end of the year to the upper ranks of the organization, as well as to the government officials who stood above them.

"No matter how we do it, it's making me sleepy… Right?"

While Mike had been coolly and silently going through his documents, he put a hand to his head and sighed, a rarity for him. His aide did the same before beginning to talk.

"There's no helping that. Expeditions generally take place in the afternoons, so we're not night owls. We should just keep talking like this to stave off any drowsiness."

"That's a good idea," Erwin agreed with mussed hair, facing the most documents of all as the Survey Corps's Commander.

******

"Oh, Captain Levi is trying to expense tea again."

"Tch… Are Survey Corpsmen just pawns to you? Don't we have the rights to do something human every once in a while?"

Erwin forced a laugh as he took the application for one of what could be called Levi's few luxuries and put his stamp on it.

"Levi's right… I'll allow this. Your research microscope too, Hange."

"Speaking of which, do you have any hobbies like that, Erwin? Like favorite foods, or maybe sewing?"

Erwin seemed to think as he answered the question posed to him, his hands moving all the while.

"Well, I focus on resting during my days off… It's a hard question."

******

"It's pointless to expect a human answer out of this guy. Don't you know that, Four-Eyes?"

"Erwin's human, too. At least he looks that way to me. So he might just be forgetting! What about when you were in the Training Corps?"

The words "Training Corps" suddenly made Erwin reminisce. He thought of the days of his youth, before the Walls were destroyed, when he was still striving to become a Survey Corpsman…

"Yes… Because there was still so much life in the streets back then. There was a pub the Training Corps went to often."

"That's surprising. You seemed to me like someone who didn't drink much unless he was forced to meet with supporters," Hange's aide cut in. Erwin agreed with a tinge of happiness in his eyes.

"Yes, because we were kids. I couldn't drink much, anyway. But we had fun causing a ruckus in the pub, because we felt more like adults just by doing that…"

******

"So you were at an age where you wanted to act older than you were. I get it, I used to intentionally read difficult textbooks when I was a kid!"

"But once I actually became an adult, I wasn't in a position where I could do that anymore. Ironic, isn't it…?"

"Yeah. All of that acting older never ended up being anything more than just that--acting."

Everyone let out a sympathetic sigh as they wrote numbers and signed their documents.

A gruff voice tore through the momentary silence.

"Hey, Erwin. When did you start holding back and not doing the things you wanted to do? You're able to think up that many strategies for the Corps, and yet you can't figure out a way to do what you want on your days off?"

"Oh! That's true! You make a good point, Levi. All right, if that's the case, then let's go to the pub after this! Mike, Moblit, you'll be coming too, right?"

"…B-But do you think the pub will still be open by the time we're finished?"

Though it was already nighttime, Hange's eyes gleamed as they tried to turn Levi's words into actions. They had no sign of stopping to think of their aide's concerns.

"We'll get it done, for Erwin's sake!"

"Sheesh… Fine, I'll try to do as much as I can."

The way that his comrades tried to take care of him reminded him of his Training Corps days from long, long ago. As Erwin shrugged, he also found himself smiling.

[bluinary]

A depress-ed vent rq since my therapist only saw me for an hour

Actually nvm because it feels like the walls of my life are closing in on me, and I have no clue where to go anymore. Right after I posted that little positivity post, I had texted my boss about being late to go to an appointment, and found out that apparently she'd terminated my employment. But she filed it as me quitting, because that's how she "understood" our conversation before winter break, even though I TOLD her I'd be going back and that if my mental health was too poor to return in January, I'd let her know. I told her I needed the money until they could place me elsewhere (long story short, the leader of the after-school program I'm working in isn't vibing with me, bc I care about the kids I work with and she's more concerned about keeping every angle of her ass covered while these kids stare at empty lunch tables all afternoon. She's not my boss though, so she has no say over my employment. The program is a collaborative effort between the school and the nonprofit I work for. She can only make suggestions about the nonprofit personnel. But my actual boss just seems to not want to deal with the pressure from her, and when I said, "I'll keep my head down until a different spot opens," she heard what she wanted to hear, which is, "I'm leaving so there's no more drama for you to deal with". I didn't give her a resignation notice. We don't even have the conversation documented. And now, after two weeks of no pay thanks to winter break, I have to wait for her to clean up her negligent fucking mess to be able to afford the gas it takes to get to the damn job.

I s2g every time I get some sense of stability or footing in my life, ANOTHER crisis drops. Idk how much longer I can fucking do this. Whenever I make an honest effort, it usually backfires so hard I'm left with less than I started with. Disability denied me, but I can't even hold a part time job, despite my greatest efforts at masking, communication, and asking for reasonable accommodations.

And when I'm at home just trying to survive, maintain my energy for the essentials, and remember that suicide isn't the answer, my mom will often get into one of her Moments and just say something biting about how lazy I am. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired.

I spent years working and going to school full-time, and then I started having siezures. I switched job types and lessened it to part-time, and I started having panic attacks and visual PTSD flashbacks. Then I took a break altogether and decided to apply for disability while doing something self-paced, but the lack of structure made my depression a self-feeding monster that ate at my motivation. I finally went back to job hunting and landed a nice part-time job at a calm coffee shop, only to have my hours reduced to zero the moment a coworker was uncomfortable with a trauma response (P.S.: it was just crying. And I explained to her it was just a PTSD reaction, and I kept out of the customers sight. But she didn't believe me and started advocating for me to go. And she won). Disability denied me. I appealed. I got a new job at a nonprofit that I did well at, that I loved. And now this. And because I'm not in a constant panic attack like my mother, she thinks I'm just a fucking deadbeat daughter. I'm trying. I'm trying so, so hard. I was never supposed to be like this. I was always doing so much all of the time, starring in musicals, being president of the choir program, winning awards, topping test exams, auditioning and writing and submitting applications for scholarship after scholarship that I never got. Riding the bus for hours to a place 20 mins away because I couldn't afford a car. Doing so even after I was sexually assaulted. Walking miles between stops in the middle of the night with my stun gun crackling because I'm working nights in a warehouse and can't afford an Uber. I used to do so fucking much.

[projectema]

Canada 🇨🇦 Student Permit Pathway Journey

I started thinking about migrating to Canada way back 2016. Back then, I'm not aware of any other pathways aside from being employed (Express Entry). I was still single then and I never really was serious about it because 1) one must have a big amount of money to pursue it and I don't have that and 2) I think that it will be difficult for me to be employed because of my work experience (it's either you're an engineer, nurse, or caregiver then you'll get a higher chance of being employed hence higher chance of getting PR).

At the latter part of 2019 and at the beginning of 2020, I started to gather my courage and learn about the different pathways. I even went to immigration agencies in Makati to better understand them.

Fast forward to now, we're currently just at the beginning of everything. This blog will be updated from time to time to see the progress of our journey. I might not write a detailed one though.

Sep. 24-Oct. 17, 2020

As mentioned, the problem with our Canadian dream was MONEY. Fortunately, my tito Nestor and tita Ana were willing to support us in our endeavor. Which leads us to the 1st step and that was to pay the immigration agent 50% of 2,500CAD. This was a very hard decision for me to make because paying an immigration agent does not guarantee that I'll be granted a student permit. It will all depend on the strategy and the supporting documents that I'll submit. After paying, the agent asked me to sign a retainer agreement and to submit the following:

Resumé

Passport

Birth certificate

College diploma (my diploma was in Filipino so I still had to request for my english diploma - it costs P100 for 2pcs plus P200 for the shipping fee from LB to Sta. Rosa. I had to wait for several days before receiving it)

College Transcript of Records

After submitting all these, I still had to take an english exam as required by my chosen college (Langara College). Without the pandemic, I had to take IELTS Academic for this one. However, it's like a blessing in disguise because Langara temporarily allowed Duolingo Online English Exam as an alternative. It's way more cheaper and easier than IELTS Academic. IELTS Academic will cost around P11,000 while Duolingo is only $49 or P2,500.

The minimum required overall score is 110. I was so nervous while waiting for the result of my exam because there were questions that I weren't able to answer well. I got an overall score of 135, thank God! 😊

After submitting the result of my exam to Langara and also sending a copy of my exam result to my immigration agent, I have to pay the admission application fee of 155CAD (once again, thank you tito and tita) and sign a consent form stating that I am allowing my immigration agent and the educ. agent to handle my application and registration.

Right now, I'm still waiting for the response from the school and it will take 2-4 weeks to hear from them. After the school confirms a slot for me, I can then pay for the tuition for the 1st sem only.

Oct. 22, 2020

Ate Lala sent me a checklist so that I'll know the other documents needed while waiting for the response from Langara. She also sent me a receipt that showed that the application was already sent. While waiting, we can start doing the following:

Study plan - among all the other documents, this is the most crucial one. A guide questionnaire was given.

Bank statement/certificate of financial support from my tito/tita

Letter of support from tito/tita - ate lala provided a template for this one

Letter of parents property - affidavit form

Nov. 25, 2020

After more than a month of worrying, I finally received my LOO (Letter of Offer) from Langara College! 😭🥳 Now, I just have to ask my sponsors (Tito Nestor and Tita Ana) to pay for the tuition (1st half of the year only) including the non-refundable deposit fee amounting to 1,500 CAD. After paying, the school will send me my LOA (Letter of Application).

Dec. 2, 2020

There are many options on how to pay for the International Deposit fee (6,000 CAD) . There's the good old credit card, Flywire, and Western Union. All of which are connected directly to Langara College. There was quite a delay in payment because my sponsors had their Thanksgiving. Of course the "hiya" in me kicked in (as always). But, I have to ask them to pay for it ASAP because we were given just 10 business days to pay for it. At first, I told them that it's easier if we use Flywire. However, the exchange rate is too high. I can't wait for it to go down you know. So I insisted to ask my tita to just give me my uncle's credit card details (hihi). I just have to wait for the actual receipt and forward a copy to my consultant so that the educ. agent can already process for the LOA.

Jan. 22, 2021

I know. I skipped a lot of updates last December because of the holidays. Fast forward to 2021, I lodged my application last Jan. 16. After lodging, I got a biometrics request. We are currently busy at work that I didn't avail for any WFH sched because we are pressed for time (I wasn't surprised. Lagi na lang ganito 🙄). But because having my biometrics is important, I, instead, took a leave. But it's like a WFH as well because I had to attend to an online meeting in the afternoon. It's kind of unfair actually. 🙄 I think I'll be having another leave once I get a medical request. Or I might as well schedule myself for my medical even if there's no medical request yet. I'll still check my budget.

February 3, 2021

At last I received my medical request! However, the earliest schedule is on the last week of February. We're still too busy at work so I decided to schedule my medical on March 5. For preparation, I ate well and exercised for the last weeks. Let's see how it goes.

March 5, 2021

Last time I went to Makati was for my biometrics. I took the 7am schedule and I didn't anticipate the traffic jam at SLEX and that it was a Friday. I barely made it to my appointment. Thank goodness, after several petty fights with my husband (because we're really not Makati peeps so we easily get lost), I just came on time. This time for my medical, I decided to take the 6am P2P bus going to Makati. Oh, I opted to go to IOM Makati instead of St. Luke's because it's a lot cheaper. Aside from finding the right building, we still have to find a reasonable pay parking space. Yup. I just mentioned reasonable because pay parking rates in Makati is NOT cheap. Kung wala lang COVID-19, malamang nagcommute na lang kami all throughout. Going to Makati will always start an argument between Kim and I because of the directions and parking issues. I hate it actually. We seldom see each other and when in Makati we always argue about these things. Thankfully we found this pay parking spot which is not full and is somewhat reasonable (I'm not really sure, we didn't have any other choice). It was too early then so we ate our packed breakfast (to minimize expense) and watched Cobra Kai on Netflix.

We started to walk to the Trafalgar building at 8.30am. My appointment is at 9.05am. I brisked-walk my way going there. When we got there, we still have to wait for several minutes then the guard let us in. They do not allow companions so Kim had to go down and spend his waiting time at Starbucks just right across the building.

Before entering, the security guard will check your appointment then he will endorse you to their health declaration area. Once okay, you will have to fill-in an application first and then they will get a photo of you for your emedical form. These are the procedures I underwent:

Chest X-ray

Height, weight, blood pressure, eye exam, medical history

Blood chem

Urinalysis

Physical exam

The medical exam was relatively fast. It only took my 2.5hrs to finish all the tests. IOM Makati is very organized. The receptionist told me to wait for 10 business days for IOM to complete all the medical tests.

I’ve also read from this group/forum that I am in that if within 3-5 business days there aren’t any calls/email from IOM then it means that there’s no issues with my medical and that they have already forwarded this to IRCC. 

March 15-24, 2021

I followed up my consultant on March 15 whether my medical results were already reflected in the dashboard. Unfortunately, there’s none. At this point, I’m still okay. My patience is still holding on. Come March 19, which is already counted as the 10th business day from my medical, I followed up again my consultant if my results were already reflected in the dashboard. Still, there’s none. This is when I decided to call and email IOM to check if they already submitted the results to IRCC. Don’t ever try to call their office. It’s just a waste of your energy and time. Try emailing them instead but you’d still have to wait for 24-48hrs for their reply. I emailed them on March 21 and got their reply on March 23.

It said there that they already submitted my completed medical result on March 13. Due to my neglect (actually, it’s not neglect really. I just waited for the 10 business days because I don’t want to insist myself early on when they already told me to wait for 10 business days), if I had known that they can already submit this early, I should’ve followed up that early as well. 

I forwarded IOM’s email to me and the completed medical result to my consultant on March 24 and on March 25 she was able to submit the webform. It will take again 7-10 business days before my results will be reflected on the webform. Patience is still there.

Today is April 5 and it’s the 7th business day from the submission of webform of my consultant. I’ll wait for the 10th business day, which is on April 8 (or 9 for them). 

April 6, 2021

IRCC already replied and said that they had a technical issue that’s why they haven’t forwarded my medical result to the Canadian VO in Manila. My consultant had to re-send the files (e-medical sheet) via webform. 

April 9, 2021

IRCC replied and confirmed that they had already forwarded the e-medical sheet to the Canadian VO in Manila. 

April 30, 2021

After how many weeks of waiting for my medical result to reflect in the dashboard, finally it came out as MEDICAL PASSED on April 27, 2021. Manifesting and praying to have an APPROVED decision in the coming days or weeks. 

May 10, 2021

No words. 🥺 THANK YOU, LORD ☝️

May 12-20, 2021

PASSPORT REQUEST TIMELINE

●May 12 - Sent passport through LBC

●May 13, 14 - Received by VFS and transferred to Canada Embassy

●May 18 - Under Process

●May 18 - Received Correspondence Letter and counterfoil status sa GCKey. — Canada Embassy sent back the docs sa VFS

●May 19 - Received an update na sinend na ng Canada Embassy to VFS yung envelope with stamed passport. After few minutes received another update na sinend back na sakin yung passport. I contacted VFS after that to ask for the LBC tracking

●May 20 - Received my passport