Busy lemon squeezy.

Dear BAL Diary,

Once again, a two-week period of up-side-down occurred to me. If you have ever wondered why I wrote nothing for the last two weeks, the featured image is your answer.

I bought a new laptop

As mentioned in the last chapter, my Dell was sent to maintenance by my flatmate.

I turned out badly – multiple malware with my hard drive. It would cost me more than €3000 to fix them all. In other words, time to say goodbye to my laptop and move on.

The only good news is that I lost nothing important on that laptop. All important files have been backed up elsewhere. So if I bought a new one, all I’d have to do is to reinstall them.

But then it came to a clingy moment. My laptop and I have a bond – similar to a US man and his car. I remembered having it for the first time after getting to college – it was 2016. So far, we have traveled together through Uni times, projects, and various trips. I have made big progress from the old-time using it.

The laptop thing, plus my leg, made in total a quite considerable amount – I finally had to ask for parents’ support for the first time in more than a year. It’s hard and bitter – a step back from my initial plan, but I tried to see the economic side of it: all money is investments. I wouldn’t make it any further, being self-ego and try to work it out myself.

Then we started searching for new laptop options. It finally ended up with Asus Vivobook 15 – a medium laptop for regular users.

Holding newly sealed electronic products made me feel rich lol

And so far it has been a good decision:

  • This laptop works as good as my old one, plus it has 476GB SSD Hard drive included – I won’t have to upgrade it.
  • At the moment I bought it, there was a €200 sales-off – a bit too good to be true.

So, as I’ve always said, a good investment is never an expensive one. If it’s mandatory, spend on it.

Once again I forgot to talk about my leg

It’s getting better and better. Like, it shouldn’t be the main topic anymore, as it’s not that interesting.

But well, I still have the blue cast for less than two weeks’ time. Then start the recovery, learning-to-walk-properly process. By the end of this week, it’ll be possible for me to start walking without crutches.

Time flies fast, isn’t it? I have been inside 24/7 for exactly a month now. Damn :v

Friends

Up to this point, Tommi has helped me a lot with shopping and field trips. Rasul picks up my laundry once every two weeks. That’s more than what I can possibly ask for. Once again, thank you guys 😀

Last weekend, we gathered some dudes who are still in Lappeenranta for a small boardgame night. Ralf always comes up with huge, complicated games, but this time we managed to understand and enjoy it all the way 😀

One day I’ll bring these cool games to Vietnam

Vietnam I love

What can you contribute to society at this time? Especially when you have a broken leg and couldn’t go anywhere?

In a nutshell: Attending community programs, like this one by a bro of mine:

I’m in another extreme-busy period

Well, I finally got a job. A real good one, correct major, which I know will transform me into a much more professional version for the next 6-9 months. And it’s run completely online. A big hand for that.

Plus, getting stuffed in people’s business for a while made me realize that: There is nothing, even this pandemic, that can stop business-minded people from learning and advancing. Seeing that has motivated me to continue on deeper learning. Thus, it is true that I’m at home next to my bed 24/7, but I manage to sleep only 5-6 hours a day, wake up at 6, sleep at 0, and spent ~10 hours a day for working and learning. A great chapter ahead waiting to be explored.

Khanh Tr.