I finally finished an assignment for my Finite Element Method (FEM) course. However, I fell into the trap of tinkering with my editor and software again until 5 PM. It’s a habit I really need to break, as it consumes too much of my productive time.

In the evening, I braised some pork ribs with yam and lotus root for tomorrow’s lunch. Afterward, I spent about an hour scrolling on my phone before calling it a night.

There are several new faces in the office today. When I went to get some water, a fellow compatriot—the one who helped us find chairs at lunch the other day—started talking to me and asked to add me on WeChat. I felt a bit uncomfortable; I’m not really interested in joining or forming these kinds of social groups.

There is also a new Chinese girl in the office sitting right behind me. I haven’t spoken to her yet. There are just too many people this term for my liking.

🕒 10:54 | Mindset is Key

I’ve been feeling irritable and anxious lately. I know that maintaining a positive and open mindset is the only real way to overcome these negative moods.

🕒 14:09 | Lab Training and Assignments

Zhiqiang gave Amir and me some lab training this afternoon, which was very helpful.

Afterward, the assignment for Civ E 665 took up our entire day. It was quite demanding.

In the evening, I had video calls with Huan, my friends, and my family. To end the night, I spent some time practicing and exploring Vim again.-

After the call, I started working on my assignment. I’ve really come to enjoy using Quarto and LaTeX to complete my homework; the results look very professional.

The weather was so beautiful today that I decided to go for a walk. I found a park bench and called my parents. My mom mentioned she wanted to take a job planting trees all day for only 60 RMB a day. I spent a long time trying to persuade her not to do it. She has spent her entire life working the soil, and I really want her to finally just relax and enjoy a peaceful life.

As it started to get dark, we hung up, and I stopped by Safeway to pick up some groceries.

On my way back, a man from Somalia struck up a conversation with me. It was a nice interaction, and it made me realize that I should head to the park or go for walks more frequently whenever the weather is this nice.

In the morning, Luis invited me to a breakfast event, but I turned him down. He then called Amir, who suggested that Luis ask me one more time, but I declined again.

However, when they returned, Luis brought a burger back for me. I felt a bit guilty and embarrassed for having said no so many times when he was being so thoughtful. To make up for it, I shared some meat and an egg with him during lunch, which made me feel a little better.

In the afternoon, Amir interrupted me more than five times within a thirty-minute span. I was starting to get annoyed, so I finally said, “Let me focus on my work for a while,” and put on my noise-canceling earphones. I think he picked up on my mood because he didn’t speak to me again until 5 PM.

My day mostly consisted of attending two classes and working on my Rock Mechanics homework.

Aside from that, it was a quiet day with nothing major to report.

In addition, I called the RBC to get $6 refund.

I was out the door by 9 AM and spent the morning working on Assignment 1 for my Finite Element Method (FEM) course.

As usual, we had our group meeting at 1 PM with Victor, Jason, Kourosh, and me. At the end of the meeting, Victor asked to have a one-on-one session with me at 4 PM.

The weather lately has been wonderful and mild, making it feel as though spring is just around the corner.

During our meeting, Victor took the time to learn more about my academic background and shared some of his thoughts. While we didn’t land on a substantive research topic yet, it was a positive step toward defining my research goals.

I finally finished and submitted the assignment at midnight.

On a sad note, I lost my favorite wooden spoon today. I’m actually quite upset about it.

I polished and submitted the final assignment of sensing.

I prefer to the individual assignment rather than group work.

I don’t like my chair because it is a little bit tall. I will choose to kneel on the ground to use the computer.

I don’t have any friends who has a deep relationships here. So, a little boring for me.

Kourush played a piano music 🎹 for us, and Amir sang two songs for us. Chat leaded us to play the cheating game. It’s very nice.

After then, Amir invited me to go shopping. I preferred to go T&T, but he thought the price is too high, so we walked over to Walmart under very cold snow. My tummy was not feeling good, and I didn’t know what’s reason. I bought some instant meal in T&T.

It’s not a good idea to go shopping in winter in Edmonton.

After that, I felt boring and lazy. Went home very early.

I didn’t sleep well last night, so I bought a coffee at Tim Hortons when I came school.

Amir and I wanted to go swimming, however the east pool was not available for public, at the same time, the west pool was very crowded.

We already changed our trunks and took a shower, we only could change back and leave.

Since we separated, amir was very happy and went to the karaoke.

When I got home, I found my cactus was freezing though I put it inside my room and next to the opened window.

18:59 Adjust the fontsize in Beamer

It’s hard to adjust fontsize in beamer, especially using Quarto as the writer.

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```{=latex}

\begingroup

\fontsize{6}{8}\selectfont

\color{red}

```


Target content


```{=latex}

\endgroup

```

I found we can easily to control the style on some specific content. It was defined at Authoring > Markdown Basics > Raw Content This method can disable raw_text to avoid output the command, refer to Pandoc - Pandoc User’s Guide

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\tiny{}
Target content

Furthermore, I still can create some \newcommand at header-includes or preamble.tex, and then I can use the new command in whole document. It was defined at Reference > Formats > PDF > Includes

How to give a presentation

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Jinpeng,
and today I’m going to talk about topic
- going to give a presentation about/on topic
- going to share about topic

The presentation will be in # parts
First… Second… Third…
The presentation will be cover subtopic 1, subtopic 2… and subtopic 3.

* Please feel free to ask questions during the presentation
or please hold your questions until the end of the presentation

Sequence/Transition words

First, I’d like to talk about subtopic 1
Why is this important?
What do we need to know?
In conclusion/In sum/To conclude, main point about subtopic 1 (to reiterate, to say something again)
…
Okay, now I’d like to move on to subtopic 2.
Lastly, I’d like to talk about subtopic 3.

• First, second, third, fourth…
• Next, then, after that, last/lastly…
• Additionally, moreover, furthermore…

Conclusions and Q&A

I’d like to conclude today’s presentation by summarizing the information.

To end today’s presentation…

Q&A: If there are any questions, I’d be happy to address them.

Thursdays are tiring days because I usually got insomnia on Wednesdays. The most critical thing is that there is the concrete class till 8 PM every Thursday, which is accompanied with hunger, tiring and boring.

Today I finished the assignment 5 of mining, and made a Tex template of Quarto for assignment. It’s really useful for produce documents. I will keep learning Latex in the future.

Grammar check

Here’s a grammar and clarity check for your diary entry:

The rest of your writing is grammatically correct and natural. The entry effectively communicates your Thursday experiences and productivity. The only remaining suggestions would be stylistic:

• Consider adding more specific details about your insomnia or the concrete class to make the entry more vivid
• You might want to expand on why Quarto/LaTeX is useful for your workflow

I mainly improved the project of sensing techniques.

Dr. Zhao met a problem about machine learning, and I tried to help him solving this problem.

20:14 Sync

It took about 40 minutes for commuting.

14:51 My phone fell into the toilet

One second before, I thought whether my phone on my leg would fall into the toilet and the next second it fell.

23:15 Write journal

I found that Amir likes to hangout around especially at supermarket.

Tonight, he wanted buy a trunks, so I accompanied him to go to Walmart, but finally he didn’t buy anything, and I bought a lot groceries.

In addition, ZJ told me that he thought we can have another roommate. It’s crazy in my heart, however I only said I don’t recommend to do that. Moreover we only have one bathroom.

He might be thinking that I’m kind and easy to get along with. Perhaps he didn’t know all these are from inclusive roommate, or called tolerance.

grammar check

Here’s a grammar, spelling, clarity, and naturalness check of your writing in table format:

The rest of your writing is grammatically correct and sounds natural. The main issues were:

• Some awkward phrasing that could be more natural
• A few missing articles (“the”, “a”)
• Some verb tense inconsistencies
• A few missing prepositions

Would you like me to explain any of these corrections in more detail?

I got up early and cooked some pasta for lunch because I didn’t cook last night.

I arrived at the office about 09:48, and got off work at nearly 5.

I accompanied Amir to buy his trunks, but there isn’t any shop selling it. Damnit.

I should be used to write diary on my phone. Turning on my laptop is a thing which is full of obstacles.

And I need to write more words to practice my writing.

Practice makes perfect!

Here are some grammar suggestions for your diary entry [[2025-11-12]]:

1. “This week is reading week, which means it doesn’t have any classes.”

   • More natural: “This week is reading week, which means there are no classes.”

2. “I arrived at the office about 09:48, and got off work at nearly 5.”

   • More natural: “I arrived at the office at about 9:48 AM and left work at nearly 5 PM.”

3. “I accompanied Amir to buy his trunks, but there isn’t any shop selling it.”

   • Correction: “I accompanied Amir to buy his trunks, but there weren’t any shops selling them.”
   • (“trunks” is plural, so “shops” and “them” should match)

4. “I should be used to write diary on my phone.”

   • Correction: “I should get used to writing my diary on my phone.”
   • (“get used to” + gerund is the correct form)

5. “Turning on my laptop is a thing which is full of obstacles.”

   • More natural: “Turning on my laptop is something that’s full of obstacles.”

The rest of the entry is grammatically correct. The quote “Practice makes perfect!” is perfect as is.

Would you like me to suggest any stylistic improvements as well?

Chatrangha delivered my new clothes to my home. I gave him some hot pot base.

21:14 Aurora

this is the first time day I saw the aurora. It’s beautiful but the light is two much. and I hope I could see aurora at a quiet environment.

Submitted the RFI 5 of Concrete.

01:21 Sleep

the guy who offend me yesterday, bought some donuts as a gift to me for apologizing. Amir and Chat said I took it.

15:45 Donuts

I shared the donuts to Mohanmod and group members.

17:49 Get off work

15:44 Go out for haircutting

An old lady cut my hair, she was really dedicated but really bad at haircutting.

I haircut again by myself after going home.

Received the parcel from Huan. It’s very happy.

15:27 Stellarium

This App can observe the sky.

16:42 Advanced Ethics and Academic Citizenship

Finished the Ethics and Academic Citizenship and Advanced Ethics and Academic Citizenship.

21:38 Deswik.CAD Essentials

Finished the Deswik.CAD Essentials module, Open Pit Metals - Scheduling to constraints, Short term ramp design.

18:59 Go home

I finally finished the project on sensing and submitted it. Felt a little release.

Today’s group meeting, Shiva pointed me out as the chairman. Unbelievable!

Prof. Liu said Don’t work too much. We should focus on our mental health.

23:05 Study the Ethics and Academic Citizenship

For the project 1 of sensing class

19:42 Go home

Boiled the chicken

In the afternoon, I decided to do some assignments. It’s so tough.

21:35 Dizzy

I’ve been looking at my phone for too long; I even get dizzy now.

23:59 Mail to Amir

Writing project phase 1 to part C4.

I didn’t sleep well due to not taking melatonin.

10:00 Sad

I only got 50/100 scores on the assignment of Mining. I forgot to click the submit button, and I sent an email to appologize, and the techer said no worries. Damn it.

23:58 准备睡觉

今天发生了很多伤心的事情

首先是查看成绩，自己因为迟交被扣除了50%的成绩，非常难过；其次和Amirthan有一些观念上的不合，关于跛脚、作业、披萨；再就是作业实在有点多。

对了，早上等 Fido 来打电话。他们一直在尝试从我的银行卡里面扣钱，好在最后他们说给我把扣款方式删除了，应该不会再尝试扣我的钱了。Bell 里的那个中国人也是有点过于自信，也谈不上特别好，还是不要带有情怀滤镜为好。

到学校已经十点过一些，比较晚了。直接去了 CatLab 学习 Deswik，然后就是上课，再然后就是困，直到开始整理自己学习记录，开始梳理完善工作流畅，才开始进入心流的状态。

梳理完毕后，开始着手写混泥土课的作业。不熟悉的领域是真的难受，写到晚上七点过，交了作业，九点过老师回复 AI 生成率过高，需要重新表述。

十点爬起来改到十二点，给老师发了邮件。也不知道可以不可以，就这样吧。

What did I do today? This is a recollection from the following day.

Right, in the morning, I waited for Fido to call. They had been charging money from my bank card, but fortunately, they said they would delete the payment method, so they should not try to charge me more money. The Chinese woman is also a little overconfident — not particularly good, really. It’s not to look at her through a sentimental filter.

I got to school a little after 10 am, which was pretty late. I went straight to CatLab to study Deswik, then went to class, and then felt sleepy. Until I started organizing my study notes and refining my workflow. That’s when I finally entered a flow state.

After finishing that, I began working on my concrete assignment. It’s really tough dealing with an unfamiliar field.

I worked on it until after 7 pm, submitted it, and around 9 pm Mr. Robert replied, saying the AI-generated rate was too high and I needed to revise it.

I got up at 10 pm, revised until midnight, and sent the email to Robert.

No idea if it will be accepted — but oh well, that’s that.

I just did an assignment of Principles of Mining Engineering

I played the Red Dead Redemption 2 for a while after school.

It was a tiring day.

Today I stewed pork ribs myself and made beef spring rolls in the evening. They were very delicious.

In the afternoon, I went to help Amirthan solve his homework problems for the afternoon.

Chat PGT is still not very reliable when it comes to complex issues. The more you help, the more confused you become. You still have to rely on yourself.

I still spent a whole day doing homework. It was still quite complicated, but I didn’t find it difficult.

I made some dumplings myself in the evening and they were quite delicious. I’ll freeze them and eat them later.

There is a big age gap and a generation gap between us, which always feels a bit awkward.

I woke up early, and then I continue sleep again. I cooked noodles with some vegetables as lunch for us.

In the afternoon, I decided to go to the T&T supermarket to buy some grocery and some food. I don’t want to do anything while I am alone.

In the evening, I wanted to have a look for assignment of sensor course. I found that this assignment was very interesting, though it had a little difficult. To finish this assignment, there are a lot of programming skills and computer skills what I really am good at.

I hope I can get the excellent grade in this course.

Come on!

Since I received a $120 bill from Fido the day before yesterday, I was still feeling a bit upset about it. So today I think I should go ask Bell, because the people at Bell had promised me that no money would be charged.

The Bell staff spent an hour helping me, but still couldn’t get in touch with anyone from Fido-totally ridiculous. In the end, I asked the person who helped me open the account, and even the manager of Bell, who was already at work. The consistent answer I got was that no money would be deducted, which put my mind at ease.

At school, I started working on my coursework. Doing assignments in English is still quite difficult for me, and I don’t even know how to get a lot of resources I need.

By the afternoon, I had basically finished the homework, so I got ready to slip back home and cook. At home, I fried some rice and boiled some vegetables. Cooking for myself feels a lot more casual and free.

Oh, and since I bricked my old phone yesterday, today I secretly took a break and flashed Lineage OS on it. With the school’s network, it should work pretty well, and all the Google apps are connecting normally.