Wang Ting Ting- or, as it read on her newly issued student visa, Wang, Ting Ting (noting the inserted comma)- was on the ferry to Vancouver Island for her first day of university in Canada.

She had landed in Vancouver a few weeks earlier, and had spent all of her savings and then some on the down payment and security payment for an illegal basement suite somewhere in the outer reaches of suburban Surrey, at the far southern end of the SkyTrain, with a long industrial walk still to go. She was good to go for a year.

The basement suite had three windows in the main room, up high beyond her reach, with a view of people’s feet walking by, or the exhaust and roar of buses going by. There was a bedroom adjacent, with no windows, a cube roughly the size of a twin bed, with room to stand precariously at the side of the bed and not much more. It was likely partitioned off from the main room as an afterthought by the landlord to maximize rent (one bed vs. bachelor suite made a big difference in a capitalist society).

It was only after she had settled in, found a local market that sold accurate jiaozi and Sichuan peppercorns and lychee fruits (fresh), and bought bedding, utensils, and throw pillows, that she reread the acceptance letter from the university where she would be studying for her MBA.

The university was located, she suddenly realized, on Vancouver Island. Not Vancouver. Vancouver Island. Several hours away by bus and ferry.

She realized this new commute could potentially be nearly as long as the one she had back in Shanghai, when she lived in LingGang New Town and worked out at Hongqiao train station (as a barista at the Starbucks by Gate 65). That one was a doozy.

She went out to Canadian Tire to buy an extra big insulated travel mug for tea for the journeys.