Saturday: A quick trip to Mississauga that’s worth 220.0 kilometres. First it was a Christian apologetics workshop, which I was reluctant to go, but went because a driver was needed. As for the workshop itself, I don’t think I’ve learned anything new, but it was good to be reminded of things regardless. There was a trip to T&T (of course), and then rushed back to Waterloo for myf. I was surprisingly engaged in the myf Bible study on 1 John 2, and so were the people in my group, which led us to finish last… There were some heated discussions between Ed and John over strange stuffs, which I felt was unnecessary…both of them are very argumentative, so what can you do? I was asking some questions, but somehow didn’t express my intentions clearly, so they weren’t properly discussed, unfortunately. Oh well…maybe next time. There were 18 of us who went to dinner at the green place, and it started snowing pretty bad during the dinner. The drive home was slow, but manageable…with a surprise bonus of taking Li Zhen to the rental car place…more driving on snow! Anyway, I got home safely, and that’s the day.

Sunday: It was still snowing in the morning, so I was debating whether I should go to cfc or not. Eventually decided to go, and found out that the roads were surprisingly clear, so that was nice. What’s even more surprising was that I got into the worship at cfc, which was something I didn’t experience for a long time. Is God really stripping me of my cynical heart? Could be… The kwcac sermon on the priviledge of being a child of God was slightly mindblowing and at the same time made me long for such a relationship with God… After the service, it took a long time to decide with Kai and John on where to go for lunch. After an agonizingly long process, the winner was JJL, which wasn’t too bad, I guess. Went to Ed’s place to play poker (which was another one in a long string of mistakes I’ve made this day in avoiding to work on research). In a remarkable hand, I had a pair of kings, and lost. That’s because John had a pair of aces…oops. Anyway, came home at around 5 (which was way too late for me), went to sleep, and ended up missing the mccf prayer meeting once again…oops. Tried to do some research overnight, which I did, but only very little.

Monday: Supervisor meeting day, of course, and I wasn’t absolutely unprepared, of course. I briefly talked about what I thought during the night, and that’s about it. She didn’t look happy, and I felt very sad. I just can’t take this research thing seriously at all, constantly pushing it aside for other things. Anyway, it was a strange day at the office where both David and Jeff showed up and were in the office at the same time…so that was a surprise. Slept through the afternoon and went to brothers prayer meeting in the evening. 3 people this time, and it didn’t take as long as last time, which is sort of good. But still, I don’t know how to pray… Went to Ed’s place afterwards to work together on the new myf website. It still feels kind of unsatisfactory, but at least we’re getting to some kind of a complete thing…so, hopefully it works.

Quick recap… Overall: Snowy. Cold! Wednesday: Received assignments to mark. Didn’t mark much during the day, nor the night, because of puzzling distractions. Thursday: The head TA was really really pushing for me to get it done by 4pm, which was plausible but not much time to waste. I was also hit with an office hour where 14 people came by…breaks the previous records…yikes. Went to lunch/dinner with Tony, then mccf where it just felt quite odd…like something’s missing in the fellowship… Friday: Supposed to do work, but the snow and the cold outside were really discouraging me from going to the office. Instead, I ventured out to Conestoga to buy some necessary items. Bad idea. The roads were in pretty bad shape, and I slipped a little, but not too much. I needed toothpaste! Anyway, going to be driving to Mississauga today…hope that goes well…

Random notes…

• The sort of big residence news is that the cable in my suite is finally fixed! Now I get to watch beautiful pictures on my TV. It is so clear that I can even spot tiny snowflakes falling from the sky…
• The prepaid cell phone that my mom left me is now getting outrageous…with more than $50 in credits, it’s going to be impossible to get use it all and then get rid of the cell…sigh… So, I guess people should start calling me…or maybe I should start making long distance calls from the cell…
• There was news report that says someone was fired for writing a journal in her work computer due to its content (which was pretty funny, actually). Now I hope I don’t get fired for my writings here…
• I do realize that I indeed need a life change. This life I’m living is dead. But…I hate changes…
• Every time I listen to my CDs of Chris Tomlin and Starfield, I still get flashbacks to the time in Bulgaria, as that is where I first listened to them. Speaking of which, I still haven’t written up my experience in Bulgaria…and it’s been more than 3 months already. And I’m sure that eventually somebody will google up this post using Chris Tomlin or Starfield only to find nothing useful here…heh.
• I finished a Nikoli puzzle book today. When I added up the time that it took to solve the whole thing, I find that it totals around 3.3 days…yikes. Now I love doing Nikoli puzzles, but I’m starting to feel that they’re all more or less the same… Occasionally, I get a puzzle that is very well constructed, but that doesn’t happen very often. I’m contemplating getting a new batch of their puzzle books soon, but I’m wondering if I should do that… Puzzling has been too much of an addiction now.
• Friends come and go at such a blistering pace…I feel numb from all the comings and goings… I can’t cover all my friends here, and I lose touch with friends that are not here. Sigh…I still attach too much emotions to friends…or maybe that’s a good thing? I guess I still don’t know how to deal with friendships in a proper way.

I’m grateful to God for…

• His protection in my driving in snowy conditions;
• helping me get through my office hour and the marking;
• the preparations for the new myf site;
• the fixed cable; and
• constantly put Himself into my thoughts.

Random wedding notes…

• I really like Andrew’s grandmother (the mother side). Also his uncle.
• With all the things that went on, the cynical side of me kept thinking, this whole wedding thing felt more like a show rather than some monumental event…but I must be wrong.
• I loved meeting people old and new during wedding day. New people like Ricky (Andrew’s brother), Danny (Andrew’s best man), and David (Peter’s brother). Somehow I got along with them quite well. Then there’s the old people whom I have not seen for a long time, like Paul, Eugene, Hansel, the other Rebecca, and Irving (!). I guess that’s a positive side of having a wedding…
• My body was essentially in pain the day after the wedding. Slightly sore arms, majorly tight thighs and legs, and later really painful kneecaps. I had trouble walking, especially up and down the stairs… It’s been better now, and so I got some exercise out of this wedding thing…not too bad.
• I guess this comment is more general. I don’t like to be photographed, but apparently the others like to photograph me, which is fine…I just hide and stuff. But when someone (like what Laura did during the wedding, and Ingrid in a previous setting) succeeds in photographing me and then goes on to boast about it in front of me, that just feels absolutely disgusting.

What happened since the wedding? Sunday morning I drove back to Waterloo and went to church, obviously. Kai and Sophie came, so a bunch of us went to John and Tim’s place to play pool and table tennis and stuff. Got home after 5pm where I crashed and burned…slept until 10pm…heh. Tried to do last minute research, and failed. The next morning, the dreaded supervisor meeting, and it was a bit disasterous, I guess. I don’t know. Later in the evening, there was a brothers prayer meeting where there were about 4 hours of heated discussion (also known as debates, and of which I stayed out of most of it, because I hate this kind of stuff), and about 4 minutes of praying…oops. Seriously. And then there was today, where I was planning to mark assignments. But I didn’t get them, so I wasted it away to puzzling…granted, those super giant cross sum and slither link puzzles are great, but those took a long time…

I’m grateful to God for…

• helping me stay up through the wedding;
• meeting old and new friends at the wedding;
• healing my sickness;
• getting me through supervisor meeting; and
• giving me this sense of desperation about life, so that I would continue to seek Him.

Andrew & Mary’s wedding: The entire trip is 65 hours, 5 cities, 384.3 kilometres. First of all, it was really cold…the weather, I mean. I was supposed to be the (amateur) photographer for the groom’s side for the day, but at the end of the day, I find that it’s not the job for me…I’m just not comfortable to walk around in the crowds. The day began early, with some tea ceremony thingies, which is some tradition that I’ve never known before. I put on my modest suit (you would rarely see me in it), and off to Andrew’s place to pick up the people to the bride’s side where the bride’s maids played silly games with the groom’s men. It got so silly that even the professional videographer was shocked…heh. Then back to Andrew’s place for the tea ceremony there. And I was already tired…of course.

Went to church, and at the church, I had the dilemma of whether to charge my camera’s battery or not. If I do, I don’t have time to fully charge it and this is bad for the battery…if I don’t, then I might run out of battery, obviously. I made the wrong decision, and the battery was dead by the end of the wedding ceremony. Oops. Anyway, the wedding itself was shorter than I thought, I guess. The funniest thing was when exchanging vows, the pastor wanted the groom to say “I, Andrew Wang…” to which Andrew said, “I, Andrew Lee…” I’m not sure what to say about the wedding, actually… I tried my duty as a photographer, but most photos turned out bad, so I don’t know why I even signed up for this.

They had this wedding banquet at PacMall. It was Saturday evening. So for sure parking was a problem. I used the usual strategy of getting to the furthest place and parked there. Bad thing about that: I had to carry a big box of flowers and my photographic equipments from the car to the mall, in -10 temperature plus windchill. Painful journey, I’d say. The food at the banquet was nice, but a bit too much for my table since we had 7 people eating 10 people’s food…heh. That’s ok for Eugene, but not ok for Wilfred, who claims that he needs to lose weight…and Eugene and I just shook our heads in disbelief… I had to leave my seat constantly to get photos…by that time, I really had no appetite for photographs, really…dead tired again. But it was good to eat with Jackson & Rebecca (Lee, not Chen…heh) and the others. I ended up at Peter’s place at close to 12am, and went to sleep at around 2. Such a long day…and that completes this “brief” summary for this crazy day.

Another fast recap… Pretty much all the time was wasted since Tuesday…I didn’t go to the office until Wednesday afternoon, and even then, I went there, felt sleepy, and came back after an hour. Thursday saw some more action as yet another 12 people showed up to my office hour…yikes. This time I was probably not in a good mood and wasn’t in a good attitude with some of the students…eventually two people were left and they just frustrate me to no end, and they even spent more than half an hour after my office hour was over. Anyway, in the evening, I came to Toronto to attend Andrew & Mary’s wedding rehearsal, which was ok. But the 2 hours 15 minutes of driving was brutal, and I was really tired. Spent the night at Peter’s place, because I don’t want to drive back and forth twice in two days… Yesterday, went out with Chen Jie and got a huge lunch. Also went to Yorkdale where I picked up a bubble tea and a $3 calendar, and that’s my haul for the shopping day. In the evening, there was this meet-and-greet at Andrew’s place, and a bunch of guys had a field day trying to decorate Andrew’s car…heh. It was freezing, though… And that brings me to now, which is around 4:30am wedding day. I was sleeping with Ed, but got up now (probably because of jetlag again). It’s going to be such a long day…

Random notes…

• Once again, I’ve proven to myself that I’m just not a shopper. Essentially, I go into a mall, and with very high probability, I won’t buy anything that is not on my shopping list. I saw a bunch of stuffs that I really want to get, but I always manage to find reasons to convince myself not to buy them. So…is that a good thing?
• I had a dream where there was a huge earthquake at St Paul’s…bricks were falling apart and stuff. I don’t know why I have earthquake dreams…maybe it’s because Peter’s place was on the 8th floor, and that was a bit high?
• I’m kind of in a non-caring mood in terms of the Andrew & Mary wedding thing…it’s a big deal for them, certainly, but I don’t feel excited or anything…I don’t know why. In a not-so-related note, Andrew’s relatives prepared “sweet water” thingie for the guys (plus some other desserts). Not wanting to embarrasse them, I tried it, and even ate one of the round solid thingies. Not wanting to embarrasse them again, I stopped eating it because it just makes me want to vomit…really. My body is not fit for these kinds of food, I guess.
• Gas prices…while I was in Waterloo, I filled up the tank with 79.9, which was great. The next day, though, it went down to 77.9, but that’s ok. When I came to Toronto, however, I found a gas station with 68.9…wow. Haven’t seen a 6-price in years…
• Wow…so many msn messages while I was away…man, I felt bad.

I’m grateful to God for…

• helping me through the tough office hour;
• healing my sickness a bit;
• the safe driving to and around Toronto;
• meeting Peter, Andrew, Paul and Chen Jie again; and
• His love and grace for this rebellious soul.

A fast recap… Friday: overslept in the afternoon due to jetlag, and didn’t do anything for the day. Saturday: afternoon fellowship and evening meeting left something more to be desired…like sleep. Sunday: Snow! Two services, slept for most of the afternoon and evening, hence skipped the mccf prayer meeting. Monday: Freezing rain! University closed! And of course I wasted this extra time by doing nothing of importance. Meanwhile, all throughout these days, I was sick and jetlagging, and running out of food. Not fun.

Random notes…

• Sigh…my spiritual state is so bad. I go to church services and fellowships, and it felt like I was an outsider looking in. I cannot connect to what they were doing or saying. I look at anything that deals with God in a cynical and skeptical way. I find myself still very much an idiot when it comes to “a relationship with God.” Not being able to give up on certain worldly pleasures doesn’t help, either.
• I did manage to put up photos of my trip to Taiwan. It’s nothing interesting, though…
• Ed and I (well, mostly Ed) had been working on a new myf website…still not sure if it’s going to be worth the trouble that we go through…

I’m grateful to God for…

• continuing to drive the notion of forgiveness into me;
• getting back to the fellowship and seeing the people;
• carrying me through these times of sickness;
• getting me away from a supervisor meeting; and
• the despair that I feel in not connecting to Him.

So of course jetlagging was in order here. I woke up very early, and couldn’t sleep again until after breakfast. There was a brief shock and confusion when I discovered that Scott was back as well…that was freaky, both of us returned during the same night. There was an office hour in the afternoon, at 3am Taipei time… I was wobbly, and my mental capacity was so-so at best. So I was exhausted after a total of 12 people showed up to the office hour…boy, these are diligent students that we have there… I didn’t prepare for this office hour, of course, so things weren’t going so well there. There was mccf in the afternoon, which felt really weird…kind of cold, I think. Especially since so few people I know showed up…sigh… Dinner afterwards, Li Zhen returned car, went to his apartment to see Ed Ingrid and (coincidentally) Tim. I was very tired by then, but I still had to make it to Mary’s place to send off some things and get instructions for her wedding… Finally, finally, at around 11:30, I got to crash and burn… For the day, there was a general surreal feeling to it, like everything’s back to normal…I’m sure the wonder will end soon.

Random notes…

• There’s this sudoku that I’ve started on the Vancouver-Toronto plane which I still couldn’t finish…so hard.
• Even though it was 3 degrees outside, I decided not to put back the inner layer of my jacket. Bad move.
• Oh yeah, research…I should do that…but I really don’t want to.
• I picked up course notes for the class that I TA for…and it’s printed backwards. This is going to be an interesting term…
• Nope, I still can’t cope with life.

I’m grateful to God for…

• Li Zhen helping me with the car and stuff;
• keeping me awake for the afternoon;
• helping me get through the office hour;
• the mccf; and
• seeing friends again.

…and I was greeted with a -8 temperature and some snow on the ground (only in Waterloo, not Toronto…). The flight from Taipei to Vancouver is one where too many things have gone wrong that I was wondering if everything will go wrong…heh. First it was a 1.5-hour delay, which is crucial considering that I have only 2.5 hours of connection time. On the plane, I realized that I’ve lost one of the replacement headphone covers somewhere. Not only that, I found out that my iPod contained nothing. So there goes my major form of entertainment there… I was sick, so there was liquid coming out of my nose… I tried to do puzzles (eventually “finished” a puzzle book), but when I decided to go to sleep, I found out that I couldn’t move my seat back, since the guy behind me was tall and had his legs against it…so I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which position is the best for falling asleep. Sitting beside a big (but short) guy who dominated the armrest (and even the legroom) wasn’t helpful, either. There were also a lot of strange noises coming out of the plane, which was kind of scary. But it was a pretty smooth flight, no turbulence at all, and we landed after what they claim to be 9.5 hours of flying time. But that still leaves me with only about 1.5 hours of connection time. When I rushed to the customs, I find an extremely long line-up…but it was a good thing that they moved things pretty quickly, and after picking up the luggage, I had about 45 minutes left to catch the flight. Running with luggage carts in the passageways of the airport doesn’t seem like a good idea, but I did that, caught the flight, and caught my breath. I was basically in a delusional state on the Vancouver-Toronto flight, being so tired and stuff. Anyway, the rest of the story is Li Zhen took me back to Waterloo, had dinner, and came home, and that’s it.

Random notes…

• Vancouver was snowing during the brief moments that I was there. It looked beautiful from the plane, but apparently it was a nightmare for ground traffic. Apparently Waterloo had two days of big snow storms before I arrived…which is sort of what happened for my return from Bulgaria…heh.
• I only noticed it this time around…but the international airport in Taipei (sort of) is no longer called CKS International…apparently CKS is too controversial? So now it’s called Taoyuan Airport…which sounds strange.
• Of course I’m jetlagging…and I have office hours to do today…

I’m grateful to God for…

• the very smooth flights;
• getting Li Zhen and I to avoid driving in a snow storm;
• helping me through everything in the tight connection;
• the beautiful scenes I’ve witnessed on the plane, including a sunrise and a white Vancouver; and
• the book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

…for a while, I guess. I’m kind of in a “don’t care” mood. I don’t care about leaving Taiwan, and I don’t care about arriving in Waterloo. Well, it’s more like I don’t want to be here nor there. Anyway, I got sick again last night, so that’s not good. I’ll be facing work soon after I arrived…including an office hour the next day. So, at the end of this journey, I wonder if the trip was worth it…at least if it’s worth $2080… And I would say no, actually. There are some good things here in Taiwan, but the bad outweigh the good, I think…anyway, I’ll try not to come here so often.

Yeah, the last post was in keeping with the tradition that all lists here must have an odd number of items.

I’m grateful to God for…

• the various things that happened during this stay in Taiwan;
• getting the timing for my return just right;
• teaching me a small lesson in joy;
• keeping me aware of spiritual things; and
• this time of relative calm.

15 things to note during my stay in Taiwan…

• Pollution is still the killer for me here. I can’t breathe properly whenever I’m walking outside. Whether it’s the vehicularle exhaust or cigarette smoke, it’s all unbearable for me. I had to learn to hold my breath quite frequently. Maybe this means that I can go swimming now?
• I had a chance to go out for hot pot with Austin, and I was being reminded of his mischievous nature (which is not easy to detect normally). There was a plate of fresh clam, and the clams were so fresh that one of them started opening and closing its shell. Austin played with that clam for a while, even putting it in shallow water for it to blow bubbles…and eventually when it stopped being entertaining, he put it into the hot pot and later ate it…I was laughing hysterically, because I had no idea what to think of it.
• A year ago, my parents bought this sudoku calendar, which had one sudoku puzzle per day. During this one year, they didn’t do much with it, since they find it too hard. Apparently my puzzling expertise led them to start doing more of it, and they got addicted to it. So I inadvertantly created this sudoku craze in my family (especially mesister and her boyfriend)…oops.
• Even though I had gotten thinner since the last time I came to Taiwan, I’m still a bit annoyed at the constant talk of “body fatness” within almost all normal conversations…it’s like an obsession with the body image which I don’t quite understand…
• On a related note, normally I don’t look myself in the mirror (yeah, I know, I’m an anti-narciscist). When I got here, I got a giant mirror in my room, and when I looked into it, I see someone that I don’t know much about…also someone who’s a lot older than I thought…
• Walking around with mom guarantees embarrassement. Yes, I’m an adolescent.
• I find that I’m the type of person whom you could give me a ton of money and asked me to spend all of it, and I still wouldn’t know how to spend it. Because I’m so picky about everything that I buy…
• I noticed that people in Taiwan generally talk really fast…
• My parents keep wanting me to get a new laptop to replace this supposedly ancient one that I have. But really, my laptop is still workable, and I wouldn’t be able to bring a new one into Canada anyway (at least not without paying taxes). Still…they constantly bug me about it…and I’m tired.
• One pleasant surprise that I’ve discovered is that the sweet food and drink here tend to have very little sugar. And I like that. On a related note, I didn’t get to drink any bubble tea here…that must be some kind of travesty.
• I had two chances to visit my grandmother (my dad’s mom), and boy she looked so much older than before…yet she still thinks quite clearly. She’s 91 now, and I don’t know how long she’ll be around. There was definitely a mix of strange feelings inside me which I cannot describe. During both visits, right after I went out the door, I looked back to take a peek at her again…and in both times, I saw her wiping away tears…
• I don’t like eCards…they feel kind of cheap. But they’re better than nothing. I sent no Christmas cards (e or not) this year, and I don’t remember sending out Christmas cards for a few years now. I don’t know…somehow I grew colder than before.
• Why was it my worst Christmas ever? Because all my mom wanted me to do for Christmas was to go change my national ID. That involved long lines, getting through a sea of people, and eventually finding out that I couldn’t change the ID because of some complicated stuffs. I was very frustrated, got angry and said that I didn’t want to do this anymore. Somehow this eventually led to my mom being angry, too, and it was just a bad day.
• I was with Austin in the subway when we saw a trailer for Rocky Balboa on the big plasma TV screens. They showed a very brief scene (about a couple of seconds) of the main fight. When I saw the opponent of Rocky, I briefly thought to myself, “that looked a lot like Antonio Tarver…” I didn’t think much of it at the time… I was looking aimlessly on the internet today and stumbled upon this tiny bit of information which confirms that indeed that guy is Antonio Tarver. And I thought…really? Are my memory and pattern matching ability that good?
• Having unlimited bandwidth for the internet here is another killer for me.

9 things to note during the round-the-island trip…

• Everywhere I go, I keep thinking, how can I turn this into a leg in The Amazing Race?
• We stayed at really luxurious hotels (at half the price, or free), and ate at fancy restaurants for most of the trip. I find that I don’t enjoy this kind of things. I could stay at regular hotels and eat regular food, and might feel better that way. Of course I’m not saying I would like to stay at the worst hotels and eat the worst food…it’s just that I don’t find luxurious things to be enjoyable.
• I find it frustrating to take photos now. I could never get the shot that I wanted…so I just let my dad take pictures for me sometimes.
• One of the most interesting (though weird) places that we went to was this tiny little town whose name literally means Big Bird. We came here because mesister wanted to go to the washroom…and we detoured here. We ended up at the Big Bird Elementary School for the toiletry, and eventually ate lunch here, on one of the traditional school stools. It’s a tiny school, but it had a beautiful view of the mountains. The kids were friendly, too, constantly welcoming us. It proved, once again, that mesister’s urge to use the washroom is a good stimulant for visiting “exotic” locations.
• Getting into hot springs in Chihben (a) was another dip into the sensitive subject of nudity; and (b) reminded me of yet another supposedly enjoyable activity that I don’t enjoy.
• It’s not good to dream about an earthquake when sleeping on the 49th floor.
• I picked up a nice dolphin named Andy…well, at least a stuff animal version of him…I think Andy will replace the role of Nemo in my car…let the sun tanning begin!
• Apparently we avoided a cold air mass that hit northern Taiwan when we were traveling down south. We had like 20-25 degrees during most of the trip while Taipei gets 10-15. It was nice to avoid the cold air…but then again, after we returned from the trip, there was yet another cold air mass, and people kept saying it was cold and stuff, and I just thought it was ok…must be my Canadian skin there.
• There was something about the chaotic traffic which I find really funny. For some reason (and this is especially true in southern Taiwan), when the traffic light turned green, there’s usually an extraordinarily lengthy delay (about 3-5 seconds) before the first car would start moving. I don’t know what’s going on there.

I wrote this down on New Year’s Eve…here are 11 things that shook my world in 2006…

• Spiritual depression and revival. This is the year when God challenged me to take Him seriously. There were a lot of pain, also a lot of joy, and I’m still learning.
• Emotional trauma in friendships. This was way too painful, so I won’t say anymore.
• Samuel. I’m very grateful that God put Samuel in my life to guide me through these spiritually challenging times, and I have a special bond with Samuel that I hold dear to.
• World Puzzle Championship and addiction to puzzles. Ah…puzzles. I continued to do a lot of puzzles, and somehow qualified for the wpc. The wpc in Bulgaria is such a great adventure. I just loved it.
• Taking exercise seriously. First it was hitting the heavybag. Then it was running around Ring Road. Then it was squash. Took some weight off, improved physically, and it was good. I never thought that I would ever do so much exercise (even though I’m only doing a little).
• Combating sexual temptations. Finally took this on seriously. Yeah, that was a tough one, and I’m still having trouble with it.
• Family trouble. I find myself to be quite distant from my family, to a point where I just find my family to be too annoying.
• Gaining new friends. New officemates, new mccfers, new myfers, and more. I thank God for this. I couldn’t name all of them, of course. On the other hand, it’s getting harder to be in touch with all of them…
• Long distance road trips. There was the just-completed trip in Taiwan. There was Montreal. There was the Algonquin region. Each had its own unique moments and memories.
• Dabble into games. First it was warfish. Then it was Wii. I had my share of fun and frustration with them. And I found out that it is ok to want to win…just be ready to be disappointed…heh.
• Research, or the lack thereof. Yeah, not much progress in the research front, and the weekly supervisor meeting scramble isn’t helping, either.

I’ve been in Taipei for a few days now. A few things have happened. First is taking the new high speed rail from Tainan to Taipei, which was slightly cool, especially since we were almost alone in this really long train. Then there were some shopping trips (many fruitless) and many big meals. There was the fellowship where I felt like I wasted time there. There was also a return to depression… I have this strange feeling where I was glad to see so many people in church, but I just don’t know how to talk to them, and I don’t have this strong desire to see them again (maybe it’s because I’ve been here for so short, I don’t know). It used to be that I would miss them…oh well.

I’m a few days away from leaving here. On one hand, I’m happy to be leaving Taiwan…this is such a horrible place to live. I like seeing friends and family, but man, the environment is so bad. On the other hand, I’m afraid to go back to Waterloo, where I’ll face the pressures of school life, and I still don’t know how to handle the spiritual life. So I’m caught in the middle of this conundrum. I also have this sense of despair that life around me is changing so fast…time doesn’t wait for me to catch up… Sigh…I’m lost…nothing is making sense.

I’m grateful to God for…

• this interesting opportunity to take the high speed rail;
• the friends I have at church;
• helping me to search for Him in all my struggles;
• providing more than enough earthly things for me; and
• this time of relaxation.

But leaving for Taipei soon…and I’ll be taking the new High Speed Rail! Yay! Tainan to Taipei in 1 hour 43 minutes…now that’s fast… New year’s day: woke up late, went shopping for shoes for the third time, and actually bought two pairs of shoes. So the shoe-buying saga ends there. My dad even bought one that is the same as mine (except for different sizes), so now we have a father-son matching shoes… The evening was spent at a busy road where the family wanted to buy clothes. They were desperate to get me to buy something, but I just couldn’t see myself wearing anything that they suggested (or I have similar clothes already). On one hand, I’m very picky…on the other hand, that saved some money…heh. The best way to buy clothes for me is to have my parents buy them in Taiwan while I’m in Canada…

Second day of the year: Went to see Iris, Lawrence and Henry. Yay! It’s nice to see them again, and I still feel a bit of a shock every time I see the grown-up Henry. I’ve played with him in Vancouver while he was 5 years old…heh. There was a big and delicious lunch. Went to the department store again in the evening, where Jeff and I played some arcade-type games…yeah, I still don’t think I would ever find myself there alone…heh. Ok, that’s it for the trip…going to really complete the round-the-island tour tomorrow…

I’m grateful to God for…

• relatively calm state of mind so far this year;
• getting to reconnect with cousin Jeff again;
• His protection all the way in the trip around the island amongst dangerous roads, giving us great weather most of the time;
• this sense of hope for the new year; and
• finally get the shoe buying thing completed!

And Happy New Year! New year’s eve began early as we rushed from Kaohsiung to Tainan to join a Sundary service with my grandmother. Saw cousin Jeff there, and I was excited, so I didn’t pay much attention to the service, unfortunately. A big meal follows where I met even more cousins. Somehow they seem to be able to accept me or something…which is good. An attempt was made to buy shoes again, but that was in vain again. I was dead tired before the dya ends, and even had to go take a nap about 90 minutes before the new year. Reluctantly woke up to cross the year (in Taiwanese time) with mesister, her boyfriend, and Jeff. Went to sleep right after watching the fireworks from Taipei 101 on TV, which was nice, I guess….heh. So anyway, not much of a new year thingie for me this time. It was a tumultuous 2006 for me…lots of ups and downs, and sometimes just unbearable…but I thank God for (almost) all that has happened. Here’s looking for even more adventurous journey for 2007…if I can take it.