My last time seeing Vivi for a while, but it was so pleasant. I woke up and packed from 10-12pm, then I went to Market Mall to pick up my new iPhone 16 Pro. Felt so meme to get a brand new phone — partially because I didn’t need it, but also the day before I left; I didn’t leave the 21st specifically for the phone but… also it worked out that I did.
Vivi and I hung out with Matt/Nolan at Matt’s dorm; we just sat and talked with Nolan for a while. Then, we went to Nolan’s favourite Ramen place, Shimizu; it was a super small restaurant with 2 employees (one chef, one server). It was surprisingly good, I’d rate it a solid 7-8, which is really solid for Calgary. I took the bill for the four of us; it was the last time I’d be in Calgary for a while, and they saved me a ton of money by me not having to pay active living fees for badminton.
She gave me a Daruma; a Japanese small hard doll which has two blank eyes. You’re supposed to fill in an eye when you think of a goal, and the second eye when you complete it. I commented on how it was cool a few days ago, and she gave me one — quite a sweet parting gift.
Then, Vivi and I went to Hexagon cafe. We played We’re Not Really Strangers; I’d seen it on TikTok before, and it was great. We asked each other honest thoughts, first impressions, reasoning, etc. At one point we were both like “tbh I thought you were out of my league”, which I found really funny; probably positive we both think that. I ended up getting a selfie of us and a portrait of her on my Instax, which I kept in my wallet.
She said that she found my smile cute and she had a thing for guys with glasses. She said she found me easy to talk to. I don’t think anyone’s told me that before.
One thing which surprised me was that I asked her how she would intro herself; or how she would describe herself in 5 sentences, and she said that it differed; she didn’t have a set script. I did, literally word for word, to the point where Eugene was like “bruh why do you always say ‘I’m from Calgary, you’d probably know it for the mountains nearby, if at all’.” She said she just bounced off what other people seemed like they were interested in, or what they were wearing, or what seemed unique about them. She said that people usually made it very obvious what was unique about them.
I again encouraged her to dream and think about the future — there’s so much to life and I just know she can and will do great things if she just dares to dream. At one point, she asked me “what is one thing that you think I need to hear”? I thought about it for a while. I said something along the lines of “you’ve done so well for yourself” and mentioned how truly impressed I was her by who she was. I almost cried and I think she did too. We shared a warm embrace midway through.
We had a long, tight hug at the end. It was glorious. I guess this is bye, for now.