toronto on review

background §

It was an October morning, I was finishing my second last term of school when suddenly I got the offer of doing an RBC internship in Toronto. I’m already in my 5th year and was planning to graduate after spring (around now). Feeling that life is short and realizing this was the best chance for me to explore another city (and learn more stuff) while still being relatively young, I made the decision to take it.

Fast forward until now, I’m really grateful to have made that decision. Sure I’m an unc now, but in the macro-side of things, 4+ months isn’t even that much. I got to learn and enjoy what RBC + Toronto life has to offer and I got to meet many new people I learned a lot from.

what i did §

internship at rbc §

Technically it might be the biggest ‘tech’ employer in Canada - sure it’s a bank, but dang it’s a bank - it needs to care about so many things. I’m working on the cybersecurity side as dev and there are so many things we have to care about. I was fortunate to be placed in a really great team where I think the tech is pretty neat.

So what does the team do? In short, the team is developing and maintaining microservices for security stuff to consume. We package it so other devs can consume it easily through a REST API Interface. It’s not as straight-forward and there are many complexities. I really enjoyed doing it because there are so many cybersecurity things to be done, but still through the perspective of devs.

Co-workers are pretty neat, Interns are A LOT! 200ish for the larger department. Many social activities and things happening!

routine §

Not a concrete activity per-se, but I always loved building a really good routine. Last fall, I got pretty drained and wasn’t doing gym as much, but I have been back at it this term. I did the usual PPLPP routine, but recently, I’ve switched to an upper-lower routine (ULULU).

One thing about routine is how you first need to battle the mental gymnastics. I need to first frame it as not only a leveling up activity, but just a general feel-good activity. I don’t work out because I need to, but because I love to do it. This is a pretty big mindset shift for me as I didn’t really enjoy my first 6 months of gym. Systems are everything.

Secondly, more free time > more time to do stuff. I pretty much have 5pm - 12pm free as I usually wake up at 8am for office. Definitely game-changing.

My usual activity is:

1. Gym
2. Dinner + Youtube
3. Shower
4. Learning/ Building
5. Fun + down time

Having this routine just makes living the weekday life much more enjoyable. When I look back at how life is in Jakarta where one-way commute can be 2-hr, it’s just too crazy of a life that makes me grateful for the life I have now.

meraki - toronto’s socratica §

One big thing about learning is that you will feel more drained if you feel like you are alone.

Socratica is a weekly co-working session for you to work on your passion projects in any domain (art, science, engineering, etc) - anything that is not your work or school related. My first instinct was how I felt drained by the idea of it as I felt scared about showing it to public + not sure if I’m good enough + feels too nerdy(?). And meraki is the branch (node) in Toronto.

But once you come to the community, you will see that it is one of the kindest, most welcoming, and just a pretty great group of humans. I get to see many ambitious people working on really great projects.

The peak of this was when I attended the Symposium at Waterloo on March 19th. The energy was crazy and people have built companies, changed lives, and dove head-first into the fear of unknowns.

Life is hard and you gotta grind for those internships and full-time jobs, but being part of this community helps you not lose your ‘soul’ in the process.

viaduct §

I went for some lectures hosted by Benjamin Parry. Viaduct is a lecture series hosted by The Toronto Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge - https://lu.ma/toronto-society. I came across it when exploring the luma page on what’s happening in Toronto. It is definitely a very well thought and prepared event and I enjoyed attending these.

talking to humans (in a post-human world) by michelle jia §

A really insightful lecture about how to actually talk to ‘different’ people finding your cause in the society. I got to see how we, humans, tend to stereotype other occupations - like how researches and tech enterpreneur usually won’t meet eye to eye as the one is theory-heavy and the other is action-heavy.

I learnt about a story about how someone who loves the sea is able to change the fishing policy by talking to many people and understanding their concern - from the fishermen, market, restaurant, and the customer. A fish species might extinct was able to be saved by changing how its pricing and environmental-friendly tag is added in the restaurant. No lose and mostly a win-win situation for all the parties involved.

My biggest takeaway from this is how you gotta find one really small cause that you want to really focus seriously for the rest of your life. For a person to change a single thing about the world, it’s already a life well played.

into the microverse: the art & science of world-building by anson yu §

Anson Yu is one of the brightest student’s mind I have encountered. I learnt a lot reading from her substack and tweets. She is one of the great minds behind Socratica and she brought many great takeaways on what it takes to build a really strong community.

In order to find a great world to be built, you need to keep chasing for its people, water it, and make it a space where it is just really easy to be playful and whimsy. rinse and repeat.

There are so many takeaways, but what I got to learnt more beyond the information is just the vibe(?) How the community is so united in a single cause, which is to build and have fun in the process.

hanging out §

I got to meet many cool and fun people. Hanging out is always fun and I continue to learn more the structure on how to make great hangouts - which is simple, keep being present, routine-based, and plan (really well!).

• Being present - appreciate the fact that you have your own people and enjoy literally every sec of it
• Routine-based - save the headache by having a structured weekly time when the group meets (usually fri evening or saturday)
• Plan (really well) - occassionally, the group is planning for a longer trip - this is when having a great planner just really tops it all. The place, food to cook, accomodations into every details (use wanderlog btw, gamechanger)

For the activities to do, there is a room for improvement, but ideally it is something that is sustainable and just fun.

Brian’s mini hangout activity tier list

• A - cooking together, sports, strolling around city (toronto island)
• B - board games, restaurant, karaoke (good but not weekly ‘good’)
• C - shopping (seems fun at first, but get boring too fast for me)

foodies §

Toronto has a such diverse and rich food scene and I came satisfied with it. Comparing it with vancouver, I find it to be better in general just because of how it has way more restaurants here - more competition and most importantly, how the proximity between each other is just too good. I can get pretty much all the good foods in the ‘downtown’. Chinatown here is also pretty cracked.

Though for ramen and sushi or anything fresh, they say Vancouver is still better - I didn’t eat any ramen or sushi here, so can’t verify.

Some of the restaurant can be checked out at https://www.instagram.com/nyoeats/!

Some of my favourite restaurants here

• Korean
  • Daldongnae korean BBQ - op side dish, really good meat, a bit pricier
  • Mapo Korean BBQ - tbh same with daldongnae
  • Hanyang Jokbal - best jokbal
• Vietnamese
  • Pho Ngon Dat Viet - more interesting and diverse dishes. I really like their Bun Cha Ha Noi. Very tasty and deep grilled pork flavour along with many free sauces toppings.
• Thailand
  • Khao San Road - tried their beef and rice combo (forgot whats it in thai) with extreme thai spicy flavour. Finished extremely spiced up and satisfied - the best spicy food I had in tor.
  • Koh Lipe Thai Kitchen- best for group dining, a bit pricy but foods were definitely worth it for its price. Strong flavour, sometimes not much portion tho.
• Chinese
  • Yin Ji Chang Fen - best rice roll out there! decent and cheap-ish!
  • Rol San Dim Sum Restaurant - feels like home and it opens till 3am.
  • Swatow Restaurant - this is like your 3.5 star chinese restaurant, not good service, fire food, and pretty efficient and cheap!
  • King’s Noodle Restaurant - like swatow, but for the congee and noodles!
• Hot Pot
  • Souper Hot Pot - da big way contender. Really like everything they have to offer. More interesting broth (golden pickled cabbage and tom yum are peak), more thicc ice cream cone, has thai chilli sauce, and similar-ish price.
    • Note: Just went big way in Vancouver after coming back and realized they upgraded their tom yum broth to be like souper too. it’s better but bruh… everything is the same now.
  • Zhang Liang Spicy Hot Pot - best for mala lovers out there, not my niche since it’s too oily and numby, but overall still solid pick.
  • Hai Di Lao - not toronto specific obv, but their midnight deal is so goooood! I ate so much and only spent $25 (half-discount beef).
• Shawarma
  • Osmow’s Shawarma - best shawarma since the spice actually kicks and overall just fire. Modern mediterranean shawarma.
  • Shelby’s Legendary Shawarma - generous meat portion, too much sauces, still pretty good!
  • Tahini’s Shawarma - similar with shelby’s - still found shelby’s to be lil better.
  • Alpha Shawarma - Pretty good, but I like others since this is a syrian shawarma. Not too spicy to my liking
• Others
  • Raku - best udon, a bit too expensive
  • Good Behaviour - best spicy meatball sub
  • Rosie’s Burgers - first toronto food, convenient and cheap smash burgers (but for me, burger is well, just a burger)
• Chinese Grocery
  • My favourite part living here is how I barely shop at the big market (even T&T is expensive), I do almost all my groceries on this crazily cheap chinese groceries
  • Kai Wei Hung - closest for me and usually does its job
  • Lucky Moose - my go-to for grocery, most complete but farthest (still only 14-min walk hehe)
  • Hua Sheng - pretty solid selections, the median between 2

what went well §

• overall really good mental health
• routine-building is even stronger
• relationships are pretty good - new people, new friends, but old ones still stronk
  • Coming from Vancouver, I feel like I got pretty good solid set of friends from school and life. I feel like coming here, the bar is high to be met. Now, I can proudly say the bar has been met and I will really miss my toronto friends :).
• toronto is just so cool and convenient man
  • <10-min walk - gym, bouldering, cheap chinese grocery, haircut
  • 15-min walk - work
  • endless restaurants
  • I can actually walk to my friends’ place
  • FYI, I live near spadina x queen st west in a townhouse
    • unrivalled price and location, but old room and shared living space - i don’t mind the con as much

what could be better §

• too much dopamine-maxxing sometimes
  • as much as I like the routine, it wasn’t as consistent and I tend to just focus on hanging out
  • I am also not very good at resisting temptation, I tend to go for what feels more fun at the heat of moment
  • Which can be fine… but I feel this fear of not getting full-time job and coming here is just me trying to escape full-time job searching and graduation
• feeling i lack a greater purpose
  • I got to see many cracked people building cracked projects - sure the tech is challenging and it looks fun. However, i’m currently facing a dilemma where I don’t want to carelessly building for something meaningless. I see many startups or ventures that I find to not be not truly helping society directly, and just trying to profitmaxxing. (Maybe what matters is to build first and learn in the process, but it still doesn’t feel right still)
• lost relationship(?)
  • I was trying to care hard about relationship, this means that I want to go great lengths for my friends, but sometimes, the way I express my intention can be unclear(?). I put myself in a high risk, high reward situation and sure, most of the time, I can reap it and feel that I’m closer to them. But sometimes, maybe it feels too much for them.
  • What could be better - truly express my intention, avoid any misleading intention, and just be the person who is authentic all-around.

thanks §

toronto will never be fun without these people:

• AV - for always saying hi and stopping by at work, and your invitation for all the random activities
• FM - for bringing my inner child again with laughter, friendbuilding, and being the greatest trip planner
• JA - for teaching me the greatness of cooking for your friends and hiking game
• JM - for sharing your stories, being a good listener, and introducing me to the group :D
• RT - for speaking whatever is in your mind and truly be intentional with it
• KN - for your authenticity and sillyness outlook on life
• KS - for your calm and collected attitude but can be wild at times too
• YB - for introducing me to meraki and the great playful spirit you have around people
• SY - for your grindset, authenticity, and whimsical attitude
• KV - for your cheerfulness and great inviter for activities
• KX - for the being the best host ever, carefree, but thoughtful attitude - best community-builder
• TE - for being a very kind housemate, sharing whatever resources and daily life stories you have and many more people that I meet maybe only once, but the memory lasts forever ;D

thank you toronto, hope to see you again!

brian at porter airlines (mostly) 01.21am est