First day high

Today was the first day of class for General Linear Models.  First day was on discussing the class requirement, introductions, and a review of statistics.  Im glad I sat in Dr Chua's class which clearly explained the basics of inferential statistics and now allows me to follow what's being discussed in class. Also, that class sort of reduced my fear in numbers so that's good. 

Also, my years in the Centre where everyone knows and talks quanti, listening to quanti presentations and reading quanti journal articles provided explicit examples of how tests are used was extremely helpful. 

It's very different from my stats class in college where I don't even remember what I learned. I only learned about SPSS, chi square, t-test and ANOVA when I wrote my thesis. 

The lab is going to be demanding. I have to prepare for that and be strict about my schedule.

Anyway, so far so good. 

Class pic for 611

Hello

 I have been attending orientation sessions for new students for the past few weeks and this week has been the busiest so far with almost daily sessions of knowing the students in the department, knowing people in the department, and knowing international students from different departments in UCalgary. 

Today, I woke up at 8am to join a social event organized by the Soci graduate students. The group played a game of jeopardy, with drinks on hand.I just woke up at that time so my brain was still a bit foggy. I had a couple of errors (ooops) - quanti/quali error was a result of not reading the question properly, ninja turles was simply me guessing and not knowing the answer really, and the t-test - I still feel that our answer was correct since the question specially said measuring differences in means, not variance. But oh well, like what Carieta said, we're not sore losers. I think Sg's competitive spirit is rubbing on me. 

 The senior cohort seem to have good dynamics judging by the way they throw banter at each other. I am excited and nervous at the same time to be part of this group. 

Some of the graduate students in the department enjoying a game of Jeopardy

Goodbye...

 Yesterday was effectively my last day at work. I start clearing my leaves today until 23 October this year then Im officially jobless! 

Being with CFPR for 6+ years has been enriching. I've learned so much about teamwork, communications, management, friendship, politics, paying forward, and the list just goes on and on. This is actually my longest stint on a job. 

Saying goodbye is also kind of weird because firstly, we have been working from home since Mar and the lack of daily physical interactions reduced the work relationship into emails and videocalls which I feel takes out a bit of the connectedness that's present in physical interaction. The sort of connectedness that makes up workers and teammates as humans and not just workers. Online work in a lot of ways limits interactions into work-related matters and reduces the unplanned/unstructured interactions that bring about possibilities for friendship. I have cultivated friendships at work so I felt like saying goodbye virtually was not saying goodbye properly. 

Secondly, there has been several pseudo send-off meals with small groups of colleagues/friends and a virtual send-off from the Centre so it felt like there has been so many organized send-offs already to the point that my actual last day is sort of anticlimactic and repetitive. I had to send a goodbye email though for me to formally mark a closure in one aspect of my life.

Lastly, my actual last day is in October so in a way, I am still a staff and therefore saying goodbye at this point is too early? Hahaha I dont know. It's just so weird I guess because it doesnt fit the usual scenario, just like how 2020 is so weird. 

Send off gift from Nastassja which captured what I felt about the past 6 years of working in the Centre