I’ve had plenty of long days over the past month or so, but yesterday was especially bad (or interesting).

Over this semester, I’ve been working on getting myself ready to return to the lab I was in this past fall over the summer (with two friends this time, too). At first it was just the discussion and information I needed to get sorted (who was going) but afterward, I became a little bit more of a travel agent.

In addition to getting my visa ready this semester, I tried to help the two friends do the same thing (one had a much easier time than the other). Because I’m at school right now and don’t have much time to leave, I assumed it would be easier for me to apply for the visa in Toronto, because it’s close enough for a day trip.

One friend didn’t have a passport or form of ID to cross the border other than his main one (passport book), so he just mailed his visa application in in New York City. About a week later, he had it back in the mail and had been given a 180-day stay period. Pretty fantastic and seamless.

For me and the other friend, I had been unsure when I provided the information to the professor as to our application location, and chose Toronto in case mail-in wasn’t a full possibility. But not only did I end up in New York over spring break, they also do have a complete mail-in visa application system. But, regardless, a few weeks ago, we went to Toronto in the friend’s car to apply for the visas.

Other than the people at the counter wondering why we were making their administrative life so difficult, we got by with a usual level of stress about potentially having missed something in documentation (there are apparently cross-border issues with visa applications, even if the country is not otherwise involved — even if I’m not Canadian and not trying to interact with Canadian bureaucracy, there’s still a difference between the information they require for Canadian citizens at TECO Toronto versus American citizens).

Besides, after being in New York over spring break, I got to see Toronto, where the streets and metro are so nice they almost looked like Taipei and I got a little bit sad (if Canada can do it, why can’t we?…). The trains are quiet and fast, the people are nice — Toronto is one of the world’s underrated cities.

Anyway, the visas were finished processing a few days ago, so I needed to get back to Toronto. I still don’t have a car, and the friend whose car we used the first time was busy. So I decided to just try to figure out a way to get there without the car.

There is an Amtrak line, the Maple Leaf train, that travels between New York City and Toronto, but the train only leaves Rochester at around 2 PM and gets to Toronto late (after the TECO office would be closed), so it wasn’t a real option. Besides, the next returning train would have been the next morning at 8 AM, so not only would I need to stay the night, I wouldn’t have time to get to the TECO office after they open at 9.

I kept looking for options and settled on bus. There are a few bus providers in New York, and from Rochester, the two options are Trailways and Greyhound (which has the quantity of lines advantage). For price, I decided to buy a ticket for the Greyhound bus to Toronto that leaves at 6:15 AM. Yesterday morning, I woke up at around 4:15 and got a rideshare to the bus stop.

I learned once I got on the bus that the way that this route works is that there is an hour-long waiting period and driver change in Buffalo, which is why the route is estimated to take so long (about five hours total): it includes that driver change, as well as time at the border crossing and traffic on the QEW as you enter Toronto. Yesterday, the traffic wasn’t very bad, so it was actually just under 4 hours total.

After only about an hour riding, we stopped in Buffalo and I realized the amount of time that I had, so I was excited to be able to shoot photos of the Buffalo metro (I think Buffalo might be the smallest city in the United States with a metro system at all?). I took the photos from the closest station that wasn’t closed for construction (Lafayette Square station).

This is my greatest hobby — train photography might be for foamers, but I know what I like.

The Buffalo metro otherwise actually wasn’t really as nice as the bus system in Rochester. I didn’t ride the Buffalo light rail, but I did spend a while inside the transit center waiting to be able to get back on the bus, and the bus status screens had no information on them (no departures, clock was wrong, date was wrong, weather was wrong…). It’s strange to see such a large city as Buffalo unable to invest as much in something as essential as a transit system when Rochester, around the same size/slightly smaller, has such a functional, reliable, and clean one.

Buffalo is a nice-looking city from the outside, though. A lot of buildings have the mid-century modern font pasted on them (I think this is part of the city’s identity by now), and the view of the skyline as you enter (especially as you come in from across the border in Ontario) is impressive.

Once I got back on the bus, somewhere around St. Catherine’s in Ontario my phone started buzzing with messages from the agent I’ve been using to try to buy an apartment in Taichung. Actually, it was all of the finalized documentation for the rental, so I have a place to live now.

Technically, it’s two: both of the rentals are in my name, but one is for a friend and one is for me and the other friend (both of us staying for only three months). This is what makes me feel like a travel agent, but I feel good that I can be the one to offer my friends places to live and some other friends a couch to sleep on if they’re around and we want to visit.

And although the agent fee for this rental is high, I think the agent is obviously earning it for making this sale work.

I got to Toronto and only went to pick up the visas. I spent the rest of my time at a coffee shop doing a homework assignment due at midnight yesterday. It’s been busy, but at least I was primarily busy with work that I’m doing for myself and my friends rather than for a grade.

It’s very easy to get disillusioned with work after you spent so much time on it (especially as a student) for what feels like no return, especially if you don’t enjoy the work. I almost tried to transfer out of my major a couple of weeks ago because I was unsure I could finish my degree without failing after taking a semester with four EE-curriculum classes at the same time. Now, I know people with even worse schedules than mine, but I felt like the difference was that I didn’t enjoy it and they did. They were looking forward to doing this for the rest of their life because they were interested in the work, or how much it would pay, or because they had a big ego and studying electrical engineering is a great way to validate your own ego (until it isn’t).

But I’ve also heard that the idea of “dream job” is a product of the American relationship to work. It’s almost like a religion here: people find their meaning in it, they dedicate all of their time to it, they try to find it as a calling and they earn their identity from it. But for a lot of people, they just can’t do that. I think I’m one of those people, to a degree.

I mean, it feels a little bit bad when people in college identify themselves or other people by their major, but the standard terminology is “that person is an EE or is a liberal arts major”, which is like getting people started on worshipping their career early on.

I’ve learned over the course of the past few weeks that I’m not here studying microelectronics because it’s what I want to start my career in. I’m here because I think that the challenge is good for me. No matter what I end up working in in the future, I will have had this experience, and I think I’m going to be a better person for it.

When you don’t feel like you’re good at the work that you’re doing, especially when you’re doing it for 16 hours a day, waking up at 4:15 in the morning and going to bed past midnight, it gets really draining. And that’s why me and all of my friends spend all of our time bonding over how it feels to feel burned out.

I don’t plan on following my own career like a religion, and I think most people are the same way, especially these days. Options are limited. A lot of fields are dying out, jobs are being lost, and we just have to adapt. It’s called the job “market” for a reason. So I think the best thing that I can do is not think too hard about where I’m headed and stay the course.

And, like the day that I spent yesterday traveling by bus to Toronto and back, settling my apartment in Taichung and getting mine and my friend’s visas settled, the best way to find motivation isn’t just to try to find break time or to start reading self-help books or LinkedIn posts (both of which I’m fearing this blog post is starting to read like): it’s to try to find something you can work on with the energy you have that motivates you.

I enjoy student life overall. I feel like I’ve been pretty successful so far, and I’m glad I’m building connections both here and in the greatest city in the world (the 中市), but not all of those 20-hour days are going to feel good. Or even the 6-8 hour days. Really, I think the only thing I can do is take the opportunities that I get when I get them (continuing with the list of things I’ve heard, I’ve also heard that “luck” is an equal combination of opportunity and the intelligence to recognize the opportunity).

Hopefully I can keep taking opportunities to make my professional development a little bit more enjoyable. I can also keep taking opportunities to make friends and travel. I’m really looking forward to being on island time again in May (it’s interesting, the day we arrive there will be just under a year since the first time I went to Taiwan, but it already feels pretty important to me).

Overall, this blog post is more like a LinkedIn post with a slightly less business-major email memo feel to it (I hope).

…but I appreciate the read regardless and hope that, whoever you are, you haven’t cried over a Smith chart recently (or equivalent for whatever you’re studying at the moment).

Thanks for the patience!