Morning: Received the puzzles, and I was happy. Went to office to do boring stuff. Afternoon: Samuel and Francis were supposed to come at 1:30, but after some frantic searches and lots of missed calls, they finally got here at 2. Samuel didn’t look too happy when he got here, but once he had some food, he loosened up a bit and we all had a good time. Well, at least I had a good time. Well, actually, it’s mostly the three of them that talked, and I was mostly silent, but that’s just the status quo. Evening: Went to Yen’s place to watch The Amazing Race. Not bad, lots of improvements, but a bit long. And now, I’m very very tired…

Living in fear. That’s what’s been depressing me for so long.

One of the things that bothers me a lot is that there would be these waves of thoughts and feelings coming all at once, making me feel really queasy. And the bad thing is, I couldn’t sort them out. So I really don’t know how I’m feeling… Maybe this is a psychological problem that requires therapy…

I did very few things today, especially the things that require my attention, i.e. research work. I figured, there’s this mistake in this paper that I cannot fix…that should be enough on a week when mom’s here, right? Sigh…me being lazy. There was supposed to be a Bible study this afternoon, but few people came, and most were late…so my mom cooked dumplings for all of them and called it a day, postponing the study to next week. In other news, I embarrassingly watched Deal or No Deal. It was really exciting, but it simply takes too much time for each game to play out. The suspense building was too long, with a potentially poor payoff. Anyway, The Amazing Race returns tomorrow, and I’m very excited about that.

I finished my super hard sudoku book today…yay! And it just happens that the new puzzle books have arrived, and I can pick them up tomorrow…yay! Pretty good timing, eh?

This comes from last Friday at the New City Supermarket…I honked the horn of my car for the first time in my life. It was on somebody who was obsessed with backing up even though I’m behind him…anyway, there’s always a first for almost everything, I guess.

7.5 hours, 4 cities, 5 people, 2 cars, 1 boat, 279.5 kilometres. Yes, we were at Toronto again, this time, catching up with Peter, Andrew and Mary. It was quite pleasant, actually, more so than I thought. Before that, though, we made another round of T&T, and then Toronto’s version of Fairview Mall. Then off to Peter’s place where we then went to Highway 7 for a Japanese dinner. Dinner went well, I got my usual eel rice thingie, and then we visited Andrew’s fabulous place…it is very big, and empty… And then we were home. I should now congratulate my car for hitting 44,000km while on its way to Toronto, about one kilometre past James Snow Parkway. Oddly, this parkway seems to show up quite often during these milestones…

More reflections on friendships… Part of what made the trip so enjoyable is the fact that I like Peter and Andrew a lot. There’s something about them that is quite different from the friends I have here in Waterloo. There’s this sense of honesty, genuineness, and maturity in Peter and Andrew. So there’s a surprising pleasantness when being in their company. And I think back to the friends I have in Waterloo…most seems to appear to be “cool” (whatever that means), smarting off with jokes (or insults), and overpowering with their intellect. There’s this sense of fakeness to it, and there’s always that wall that they put up which hides themselves from the public. Perhaps I’ve become like that as well, being in this environment for so long…and I’m starting to regret it. Of course this doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be friends with them, but I need to be aware of the superfluousness that exists so that I don’t get swayed that way myself.

It is better to give than to receive…however, it seems that as much as I want to give, nobody seems to want to receive…

Yesterday: Finished marking and sent off the exams. Onto William’s and then Fairview Mall, where mom bought a stuffed animal (it was a rabbit) for my birthday…yikes. Went off to Stratford afterwards, where it was wintery, and pretty, and cold. There was a full dinner with the Yens and the Chens, and then a trip to Conestoga to bother Roger, and then we were home. I think the trip was around 120 kilometres in total. Nothing too interesting happened, I guess.

Today: Bored at home while mom worked on more cleaning, then fellowship that included a meal, then bored at home while mom talked to me for about two hours. It’s a shame that I still could not muster enough courage to talk about the real problems I’m facing.

Yes, I like to have friends, I like to invite them to my place for food and chat, I like to go out with them for some activities. My problem: I’m too shy, and I’m really really afraid that I’m bothering them too much. After all, this is a hardcore university town…everyone seems to be busy, so I don’t think I fit in to their schedules. Besides, I think most people don’t like me anyway…but what does that matter? I’m not supposed to care much of what people think of me, right? Sigh…I’m as confused about friendships as ever.

Tuesday: Worked at school…sort of. Came back early to sleep. Then the boring proctor. Then going to Yen’s place. All on the day before supervisor meeting…eventually I gave up on preparing for it.

Wednesday: Supervisor meeting…wasn’t too bad, I guess…presented a paper. And then…8.5 hours, 3 cities, 7 locations, 200+ good dumpling shells, 5 bowls of Mongolian, 256.9 kilometres. Yes, my mom complained about me always at school and keeping her at home alone…so there you go, we went to Toronto. Very tiring shopping trip, and as with all shopping trips, it was pretty boring.

Thursday: Decided to mark the exam. Went to school, couldn’t find the prof, and came home. After lunch, received an email saying the prof is now in his office, so I stormed out of my home and went there. Lots of (slow) marking follows. Went to Yen’s place again during the evening, and watched the three short films of W&G. They certainly weren’t as interesting, as compared with the recent movie, but still quite funny. So of course I didn’t finish the marking…until this morning.

Mom did it again…on Sunday night, she felt that my mattress (courtesy of St Paul’s) is too soft. Come Monday, she already bought a new one, to be delivered this Sunday. Yikes. Of course, this comes as not a surprise anymore…

I still feel quite queasy about things…I don’t know, too many things are still bothering me, and I still couldn’t express them clearly. Sigh…

There was a lunch at Charlie’s Lunchbox place with Francis. They somehow had extra salmon and put two pieces of it on our plates as a bonus. That led to a really really full meal…hehehe.

Early this morning, I was woken up by a phone call from Aaron. He needed help because his car was somehow stuck in the snow. Oh, by the way, that was around 2:30am. My initial instinct was to complain about how he got into this situation in the first place, but realized quickly what he needed then was some help, not finger-pointing. But still, I was too tired and sleepy to send his girlfriend home, so I didn’t do it. What happened after that, I have no idea. Of course I couldn’t fall asleep afterwards for a while, which caused a pretty loopy morning service for me. It is interesting how this sort of illustrates the human nature (at least my human nature): quick to blame, slow to help.

I had stomach problems throughout the day, with the lack of appetite and stuff. I think it’s most likely because I’ve drawn back to the thinking-too-much days already. After the morning service, a group of myfers decided to go out to eat, but I refused because of my stomach thingie and the lack of sleep. In reality, I wanted to go and try to socialize with them, but as the scripture said (which I’m applying inappropriately), “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” I guess either way, it would be a waste of time regardless and I would feel empty anyway. So yeah. I sent mom to Yen’s place while I went home to eat a little bit, sleep, and do a bit of exercise. I went to Yen’s place afterwards, and had yet another small bite of things. We watched Wallace & Gromit, yay! It is still very very funny, and the airbag joke is just hilarious…I don’t remember that from watching it in the movie theatre… Anyway, they liked it (well, Ginger fell asleep, but anyway). It was to New City Supermarket to get some groceries before coming home to eat dinner and here I am. I still stare into space and do my mad thinking a lot, which still disturbs me. Often I would have several streams of thought coming together all the time, so it is kind of difficult to actually write them down or share it with others. So the day starts and ends with this sad note.

I truly don’t know how to communicate with people.

There are so many stories that I can tell about the past two weeks, but it is so hard to put them all down in words! I guess I’ll try… I just absolutely love telling the story in Genesis 15 about God’s act of promise to Abraham. It is just so amazing. I told the story during the pre-study yesterday just as an aside, but apparently Laura told the story to her group in today’s Bible study! Too bad I didn’t do that to my group…

My mom and I went shopping this morning. It was all fine and good except for the brief moments when she was looking at women’s underwear…hehehe. I bought the Wallace & Gromit DVD set at Future Shop, but was kind of disappointed that I actually bought the full frame version instead of the wide screen version. But I still wanted to have that second DVD that contains all the old W&G stuffs without shelling out too much money…so anyway, I guess I won’t return it.

It was very cold today. -15 the low this morning at 7am with windchill -26. The temperature never reached higher than -12. Too bad I forgot to bring out my snow pants!!!!!

So…what do you know? My mom turns out to be kind of a psychic (well, through the help of the Lord, clearly). We were having dinner and had a long chat again, which, as usual, is mostly her talking. We started by talking about the Bible study today, but the subjects evolved into precisely the ones that I’ve been thinking too much about and have been depressing me for so long: trying to please men instead of God, and doubts and inexperience in the long journey of faith. She still has some misconceptions about me, but I pray for the courage to talk to her about what’s been going on in my mind. The Lord is funny, isn’t He?

Being put into the same Bible study group, my mom quite liked Samuel, actually. Funny how her perception of Samuel is completely different from mine. In any case, I think I have truly annoyed Samuel, so I shall retract back to my own cocoon, back to the reactive state instead of being so proactive. I still like Samuel, I guess I just need to learn not to be so attached to him, just like what I did to other people before. As an aside, it was funny that he basically copied my joke about “vengeance belongs to the Lord” thingie from last week and made this his mantra when we tease him about Laura.

So about today’s Bible study. I still had some butterflies prior to the actual study. Once we got going, however, things were good. It was a wonderful experience to deliver the message from the Lord to my group members, as they all participated in studying this very difficult passage. But it was indeed very tiring, and by the end of it, a few of us were basically drained, and not able to continue on with life discussion questions. I love this group, and I love being used by God as His instrument. I pray dearly that I am doing this for the pleasing of the Lord, not for the pleasing of men, for surely it is impossible to please all men and earthly applauses are worthless in heaven anyway. That’s one lesson I’m truly hoping to learn.

Boy, what a day. I was my old depressing self in the morning, planning to get away from mom by going to the office. Long and behold, my mom also decided to come to the office anyway, so that plan was foiled. Once in the office, I didn’t do anything significant, except waiting for the magic time of 11:30, when mom goes out with Francis’ mom, and I go find Samuel. Once I tracked down Samuel in DP, we had a long talk that included my relationship with mom, philosophy on Bible studies, and lots of other stuffs. I do enjoy talking to Samuel as he does bring the depths that I wouldn’t get from talking with other friends. However, there are two things that I’m afraid of: (a) I’m afraid that I’m bothering him too much, becoming an annoyance for him, and (b) I’m afraid that I would be too proud and not humble enough to take his suggestions and criticisms to heart, which would defeat some purpose for talking to him anyway. I’m very much still a new learner in interacting with people. Anyway, after that, I went back to my office (with a very empty stomach), and kept on thinking and thinking and thinking (despite Samuel telling me not to think too much…heh). Alright, this paragraph is too long already…I should make a new paragraph to continue…

And here is a new paragraph. Francis later visited me, and said his mom’s coming back to get him, so I guess I should tag along. A lunch and ice cream at his place is followed by a couple more hours of Francis playing his game while I stare into space doing more thinking. Of course Francis offered to talk to me about more of my problems, but seriously, he’s playing a computer game, I don’t think that would do much good, so I declined. The adventure continues when we went to pick up Mama Yen at his work place and crashed her place. I started to feel very strong heart beats and a lost of appetite there. This continued until I was sent home by Ed to get the pre-study going. Once in the pre-study, however, things got really interesting. It felt like we were all humbled before God, praying that He would lead us through this difficult passage…and He did! I was suddenly quite excited about the scripture that we were reading, and had wonderful amazement in sharing God’s word. It took 3.5 hours, but it was a joyous ride as we discover what God is saying through the scripture. Of course the amusements of talking to Samuel through MSN were fun, too… Anyway, after it’s over, I felt like a huge burden has lifted from me, and came home. I actually managed to have a nice long chat with mom while eating dinner, which is the first time that we had such chats in a long long time. I felt very relieved, and I discovered one of the major problems that I was really facing in the past few weeks. I unknowingly put so much weight on this Bible study that I forgot all there is to life. A few reasons that I can think of now about why I worry so much about it: (a) I was the one who picked this book for the term’s Bible study, so I felt responsible that it goes well; (b) the last Bible study was a complete disaster; (c) this passage is incredibly difficult to study, and I certainly forgot about God’s help; (d) I have some discussions with Samuel about our Bible study philosophies, and I may have subconsciously trying to please him with this Bible study, thinking more of how someone attending the study could learn the material, instead of focusing on God’s words. I praise God for this development, and am very ashamed that I put so much burden onto myself that I caused so much pain for me and for others. I apologize to everyone that has been affected by this. Of course this doesn’t mean that all my problems were solved, I still have a lot of problems. But still, at least I know now that I need to be patient, and God will pave the way eventually.

Boy, two long paragraphs… Anyway, more trivially, there’s this strange weather that we have going on here. Temperaturewise, we have this between 3am and 8am: 7, 3, -1, -4, -6, -7. Incredibly strong wind throughout the day, with gusts of up to 82km/h. The snow was on and off throughout the day, leaving us with intervals of very heavy snowstorm (which is a snowsquall because of the wind) and sunny periods. It has been very wild. Right now, it’s -9, light snow, winds 59 with gusts 74, and windchill -21.

Yesterday: 3.5 hours, 3 cities, 4 people, 0 rain (yay!), 195.8 kilometres. And then my mom was here. It was the grace of God that we didn’t experience any of the freezing rain that was predicted. Other than that, and the luggage conveyer belt that refused to move, it was pretty eventless.

Wow…a thunderstorm in winter…amazing. Lots of rain and freezing rain today. Closes the school, that’s for sure. Quite surprising.

Yes, I literally had a mental breakdown today that locked my mom out of the house with lots of groceries for about an hour. My version of the story: I planned to prepare a Bible study this morning and afternoon. However, with mom here, I was constantly interrupted by her, to a point where I just go, forget it, I’m not preparing this Bible study anymore. Later when she went off shopping with Francis’ mom, I kept thinking and thinking, and eventually reached a breakdown that, for some reason, made me run away to the office. I guess I was hoping for some time alone in a different environment, but that didn’t work when two officemates were there. So I went off to an empty bench outside to puzzle and study. When I came back, officemates inform me that mom’s being locked outside. I had a struggle as to what to do, because at that time, I think I intended for mom to be locked outside, but then go to Francis’ place when they find that I wasn’t home. Turned out that when mom was locked outside, she ran around the building looking for me, for about an hour. Eventually I got home and I stayed in my bed. Of course, mom’s version is different…she thinks that I went to office to work, and forgot the time. My version is, I really didn’t want her distraction. Anyway, so why exactly did I have a mental breakdown? I think the main reason is that I’m already burdened by a ton of things, and now that mom’s here, she was already a giant distraction on day 1. My mind was weak and couldn’t handle it anymore, so it snapped. Ah…so that’s the kind of scary things that happen when my mind snaps…yikes.

Very very emotionally distressed today. A mix of supervisor meeting, a lonely lunch, tiredness, and mom’s coming arrival. Yikes. Not feeling well, certainly.

Praying that there won’t be freezing rain until I come home from the airport…

Tomorrow: laundry, prepare Bible study, proctor an exam, pre-study.

Two things that, at least in my mind, are not occurring today: Valentine’s Day and the Winter Olympics. I just don’t care about them.

I spent the day alone at my place, struggling to keep up with research work while trying to keep off distractions such as puzzles, sleep, television, and staring into space with deep and shallow thoughts. End result: not much of research work done. Sigh…I need a break. And mom’s really coming tomorrow evening. My mind is exploding.

Here’s a classic example of how I have no clue how to interact with friends. Part of my mind wants to take Samuel out for lunch tomorrow and have a quick chat. However, the other part of my mind is saying, what if he’s too busy? What if he had other plans? What if he, in fact, doesn’t like me? So then I decided not to ask him anyway. Sigh…so much for reading the “free to fail” thingie from Traveling Light. I’m simply too afraid to take rejections.

O Lord, have mercy. Three phone calls from mom in one evening. The gist of the first phone call…Mom: “Can I go visit you?” Me: “No.” (repeat). The gist of the second phone call…Mom: “I’m going to visit you on Saturday!” Me: “Aaaaaaahhhhhh.” The gist of the third phone call…Mom: “I’m leaving tomorrow, arriving on Wednesday!” Me: (drops dead). I think I have the right to become crazy at this point.

So what have I been depressed about? Spiritual doubt, dealings with friendships, and now my mom coming over. And yes, I’ve been staring into space very often these days, now getting caught by Shengjun in the office today.

I guess all that time (i.e. my entire life) spent mostly alone is now really catching up to me. Now I get caught with having too little human contact, and afraid to contact people as well. Sigh…

Morning: Went to church; finished church; sent the three village people home; after some discussion, though, they decided to stay in the car and tag along for the ride to send Alice home; then the four of us went to eat breakfast at V1, which, needless to say, took a year off my life. Afternoon: Sleep first; exercise next; went to school to record marks and to send out the assignments, which was foiled when the faculty mailroom was locked; then went and tried to find Samuel at DP, but found Zhenhua instead; came back to office to call Samuel, only to find out that he was playing ball (he still had time to do that?!); came home and find myself to be pretty stupid.

Recently, I have lost a lot of interest and energy in things that I’ve been doing, e.g. preparing Bible studies, researching, making games, watching television. That’s what happens when a lot of thinking was done…

Is this what happens when I get a new close friend? I start to get attached and then depressed for no apparent reason. You know, my history of friendships had been embarrassing and terrible in my memory, so I guess that’s why I’m acting so strange whenever new friends emerge.