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On the day my sisters arrived, we had shawarma and immediately upon being seated at a table to eat our food, they began telling me things and doing humor in Malay and I’d missed it so much I began laughing so hard I started tearing.

We went to Capilano Suspension Bridge. I’d told Aqilah that her Korean idols had been there because we’d watched an episode of a variety show together that featured the place but she didn’t believe me. It turns out, I was right and she found the episode and took the same photo they had. See, who says I don’t pay attention!!

Pre-Christmas, we went to the Christmas market. There was a lot of delicious food but as my sisters are Muslim, we were rather limited. We still had the best pretzels we had all ever had in our lives, though. It was so good, when my sister accidentally dropped some, we all felt bad and wanted to eat it. My youngest sister actually did eat the fallen piece, and she’s still alive.

We went to Grouse Mountain, where my sisters ice-skated and I watched them and looked after their things. I think we all wanted to try snowboarding or skiing but it would have been even more expensive on top of our entry tickets, and there are four of us, so we didn’t. It was still very fun, though. It’s a very pretty mountain.

Over the week, we did our usual things of cooking kimchi jjigae (that’s jei’s job) which tasted remarkably more inviting in the cold snowy weather. We watched Hamilton while making breakfast. We bickered and had drama and made fun of each other and it was a little bit stressful with a broken table, and an airbnb host who did not understand my sisters’ fear of dogs. But it was the family I grew up with, and I was so, so, so happy to have them close the year with me.

In the past week, I believe I may have caught Covid, or a particularly nasty cold that’s taken so long to shake off. I only had a bad fever and headache on the first day, but the congested lung passageway and nasal nasties have stayed the past six days. I’ve got two days to the start of the new semester, and have just completed a rewatch of The Good Place. I think this new year will be pretty good for me, watch as I attempt to be ever more communist and make it a better year for more than just myself alone. I wish you all the very best. May we all prosper so we start living our lives in the most wholesome ways for the world.