…with Montreal in between. That was a strange weekend, for sure. Friday: Spent the day at Western, met some people, studied a bit, then off to Montreal at 5pm, arriving at around 12.25am. Already being greeted with a big meal on arrival…heh. Saturday: Interesting prayer meeting. Spent much of the afternoon riding with Jackson Rebecca Samuel in a futile search for a dishwasher. Returned home to play boardgames…yay! Was hurriedly sent to Samuel’s family restaurant after the games, had a huge dinner, then returned to play one more game…heh. Sunday: Morning service, lunch at grandmother’s place, then headed home at around 3.25pm. Hit a snowstorm in Toronto, and that slowed us down significantly (especially considering that Jackson was driving 140-150 prior to that…heh). Arrived at London at around 10.75pm. Bonus overnight stay at Jackson’s place for me, and then… Monday: The drive home was smooth until I hit a blockade of 6 snowplows…had to take an early exit and took a detour around the cities until I got home at around 10.5am. Supervisor meeting at 11.5am…oops. I was tired and hungry, so I wasn’t in the best mood or shape. Wasted the rest of the day, except for the mini-trip to deliver bagels. Tuesday: Wasted this day as well.

Random notes…

• Stats for the trip… 5 cities, 89.5 hours, 258.6 kilometres on my car, 1,538 kilometres on Jackson’s car.
• For the trip, the only thing I had in mind is that as long as I don’t make a fool of myself (and quite frankly, I do that a lot), then it should be fine. I still think that I’ve made a fool of myself, but it was still ok, I guess. It was good to get out of my usual environment, stripping away the computer, the television, and the puzzles (mostly). I felt like I was being binded to these things at home. Also it’s interesting to be spending the time with a different group of people, or rather, family. I love Samuel’s family, and this kind of warmth from the family was something that I don’t think I have experienced elsewhere… I’m concerned about Samuel, though, as his behaviour was weirder than usual (as if it’s possible) (well, it’s more like my behaviour, I guess), and he didn’t really talk to me much, except maybe trading during Settlers…heh. Anyway, the trip leaves me with a puzzling feeling which I don’t understand…
• I do find myself getting slower in finishing puzzles…my observation skills are getting worse…does that mean that I’m really getting much older than I thought? Hmm…
• So many people are sick… I got better during the weekend, but now I’m back down to being sick again…sigh… This means no board game sessions here…awww.
• Boardgame reports… Two games of Settlers with a game of Ticket in between. Also, two nights of dreaming about Modern Art…

  Settlers game 1: Rebecca teamed up with a first-time player (ZingYi? I don’t know the spelling), and there were also Jackson Samuel (another first-timer) and I. Rebecca’s team had a settlement around the two adjacent 10-hexes, and one around two adjacent 8-hexes, and they just kept getting a ton of cards because we all kept rolling 6s and 10s. At the end, not surprisingly, they won. Beginner’s luck, as we all say.

  Ticket: A 5-player game. Even the 8-year-old could play, except that she got called to go home soon after we started, so Rebecca replaced her. I got lucky with a Seattle-New York draw initially, as players who get this ticket and completes it usually wins… Even more lucky for me, the tickets that I drew during the game were either ones that I already completed, or took only one more short connection to complete. So it was kind of embarrassing that at the end of the game, I won with a very high score… I hope that didn’t dampen some interests in this game for the other players… Samuel (jokingly, I hope) complained that this is not fair since I studied graph theory…heh. In the end, Rebecca and I were tied for the longest route again, and Jackson regretted playing safe by not taking more tickets. Final score: Zing Yi 92, Rebecca 96, Jackson 113, Samuel 61, Me 150.

  Settlers game #2: Rebecca Jackson Samuel and I played this late night game. It was a brutal one, though, since so little wheat was produced. They kept on getting development cards until there were only 4 cards left…heh. In the end, though, Samuel built a long road and had 2 VP dev cards (as he called them), and he won. Jackson was close at 9 points, while Rebecca and I were lagging way behind…(I think I had only 4 points at the end…)

I’m grateful to God for…

• the safe travel through long distances and tricky weather;
• the joy in seeing Samuel and his family again;
• this hard pounding through Sunday’s sermon and other situations;
• reminding me of how my life could have been much better had I remembered Him; and
• His saving grace when I have sinned against Him.

…Ontario, of course. I typed up a long post for this, only for the browser to crash…sigh…that’s pretty frustrating. I guess I’ll have to make it shorter this time. So I’m now in London, but the drive here was horrific. The weather was fine in Waterloo, so I came here just as planned. Little did I know that I faced fierced winds on the 401, jerking my car left and right, making it very difficult to control the car. When I was near London, heavy snow came down, and snowsquall made visibility terrible. My car came to a screeching halt at the exit off ramp since there was a truck jacknifed on the side of the road…yikes. The heavy snow made the streets of London really slippery, and the traffic jam didn’t help (although the slow speed was good, I guess). Eventually made it to Jackson’s place safely, thank God. That was a hard drive. (No, not the “hard drive” as in a kind of data storage device…)

We played an evening of board games…yay!

• The first game was Ticket to Ride. It’s the first time that they’ve played, and they got into it pretty quickly. Jackson was mysteriously taking a ton of train cards. I was in the lead for the first while, but that was gone when Jackson and Rebecca started to trade in a lot of length-6 routes, and jumped into the lead. Turns out that Jackson had already finished his two tickets long ago, and was just randomly claiming these 6-tracks for lots of points. Hmm…I smell a new strategy here… After we scored the destination tickets, Jackson and Rebecca were tied for the lead, while I was far behind, and all that’s left was the longest route bonus, which we all thought was mine to take (meaninglessly). But it turns out that Rebecca and I tied for the longest route, so we both claim that 10 points, and she won the game! Score: Rebecca 117, Jackson 107, Me 89.
• Settlers was next. Rebecca was a bit startled at how fast Jackson and I were off the start, building things here and there. I claimed the longest road card early on, and was never taken away from me. There were lots of trading, but mostly between Jackson and Rebecca, as I’m not good with the trading aspects of this game. We found out that Jackson would trade with almost any offers that he gets, even if it doesn’t give him any advantage…heh. We started buying development cards late in the game, and I bought one, too, which turns out to be a 1VP card, surprisingly. As the game went on, I built another settlement, and Jackson thought that I have won at that point, which I didn’t believe. But with a more careful counting, I did have 10 points, so shockingly I won! I think one of the things I did was putting an initial settlement around a 5-9-10 corner, which isn’t the most attractive place to put it, but when the dice rolled strange numbers, I usually get a resource.
• It was 11pm, and we kept on playing! This time with Scrabble. I brought a timer, so we put a 45-second per turn limit, which neither Jackson and Rebecca were obeying…heh. We finished the game within an hour, and apparently it was shorter than usual, according to Rebecca. Jackson won hands down, scoring double-digit words on almost every turn. So in the three games that we played, each of us won once…nice ending, I think. Too bad we didn’t have time to play one more game to break the tie…heh. Score: Rebecca 125, Jackson 176, Me 135. Longest word: Painted.

I’m grateful to God for…

• His protection in the dangerous driving condition;
• healing my sickness (mostly);
• continuing to challenge me to get real with faith;
• this opportunity to get away from home for a while; and
• the hospitality of Jackson and Rebecca.

Just a quick post saying that I’ll be on a road trip for I don’t know how long…maybe a day, or four days…not that anyone would notice, of course.

Here’s a quick reminder of what I did in the past few days… Tuesday: Went to pick up Forest, went crazy by buying even more board games, and got a haircut. Still sick. Evening board games with Scott and his girlfriend. The girlfriend beat us twice on Scrabble (and she’s Japanese!), and I got lucky with Trivial Pursuit… Wednesday: Wasted the entire day to puzzles and sleep. Felt better, I guess, but still not fully recovered. Today: Went to the office to do some work, and now heading towards London…

Sunday: The day that I went crazy. To provide the context, I was sick, so just “living” feels uncomfortable. Anyway, the day started at 7 when I woke up. There were the standard two services in the morning, with the second one being extra long, which made me extra sleepy. Lunch was at Duke of W’s, which was essentially breakfast. Came up with the idea of saving Brian some transportation time while getting my “special” rice… Afternoon board game was standard fare now, although watching Kai and Sophie play was really funny. Even though I was sick and dead tired, I still went for the Mississauga trip anyway, picking up Danny and reluctantly agree to let Laura hitch…which might have been a mistake. I can only thank God for the nice (though cold) weather for the trip, and keeping me awake during the entire thing. Monday: Start of the fake reading week (fake since it’s not for grad students, but we still get some kind of a break anyway). First, I cancelled supervisor meeting because I was still sick. The entire day was spent on sleeping and doing this crazy cross sum puzzle… And there was the brothers prayer meeting, too, but only Harry and I were there since Ed was sick (my fault). And that concludes this paragraph…

Random notes…

• We’ve just hit +3 degrees in temperature. Some TV news is already calling it a heat wave…heh. It is the first time that we went + in a long time, though… Perhaps the annoying snow around the tires of my car will finally melt away…
• Stats for the Sunday trip: 2 cities 5 hours, 198.6 kilometres. It was good to be with Danny and Brian. The way Laura acted to get this ride was just disgusting… Anyway, somehow Danny and I talked for the entire ride, hence keeping me awake and making the drive feel much better. There was one incident where we drove around Square One and was kind of lost. I used some logic and the strange directions from the compass to make a decision as to which way to go. After a while, though, I started to feel like I was driving in the wrong direction, so I found a parking lot and flipped through the map. Turns out that I was in the right direction, and the turn that I was looking for was only a block away! I shouldn’t have doubted myself… By the way, going to Mississauga always reminds me of Wayne…awww, I miss Wayne…
• I had a strange dream where I was at the puzzle championship again, but their “weakest link” section was a Monopoly board…weird. And a battleship section contain lots of picture puzzles…weird. I got seriously injured, but John from the Canadian team rescued me, and I cried a lot. The rest of the Canadian team was there, too… Weird weird dream.
• It was Chinese New Year, but really, I don’t care much for that…
• Sunday board game report… There was half a game of Ticket played with Harry Kai Sophie. Kai and Sophie kept blocking each other, which made it quite funny. Unfortunatley they had to leave early…Harry and I continued the game by ourselves, and eventually Harry conceded the game to me even though we didn’t count the points…

  Settlers: I played 2 games. First game with Ed and Brian was won by Brian. I think I just never had a chance in that one. Second game was played with Ed Ingrid Brian. Ed was dominating early on, putting a settlement around a 6-6-8 corner. I was quite behind on this one, and was constantly blocked by Ed. But then I upgraded on some hot properties, and during one rotation, 3 rolls with the same result yielded 12 bricks and 6 sheep for me. We were just laughing hysterically at things that we really didn’t need…heh. I had 9 points. I used the bricks to do massive trades and bought 2 development cards (which were my 3rd and 4th for the game). One of them was a victory point card, and I won. Meanwhile, Brian bought 13 development and only got 1 vp card…oops. So, I won with a lot of luck there…

I’m grateful to God for…

• keeping me awake and safe in the trip to Mississauga;
• the opportunity to help brothers;
• meeting Kai Sophie Jackson Rebecca;
• the rest for the day; and
• stirring up a fear and hunger for Him.

Wow…already 4 days without a post… Wednesday: Ah…yes, that’s why I don’t remember what I did this day…it’s because I stayed at home the entire day! Of course the windchill warning helped with that decision greatly…plus, I had to do laundry. Oh, and it was Valentine’s Day, which means nothing to me. Thursday: 4 people made a tag team during my office hour. Thanks to Bertrand, there was a scramble as to what exactly are the proctoring procedures… The proctor itself was interesting, in the sense that people kept asking questions because of confusions created by the exam…heh. Later in the evening, played 3 games of Settlers with Ed Ingrid, in which each one of us won a game. I won last. Friday: The madness that is marking…I picked the standard question about duality (as I almost always do in CO350 midterms), and thought that it would be a breeze. Little did I know that I ended up being the second last one there, spending 6 hours total (including breaks) on this…yikes. Bertrand reminds me that I should remember to pick an easy question for the final…yeah, I hope so… Oh yeah, and I got sick, so that’s not good. Saturday: Still sick, so I couldn’t go skating…boo. Afternoon and evening at church for the dumpling/potluck Chinese New Year event. I spent most of the time talking to Forest, which was immensely enjoyable. And apparently, I am him…heh. Also met Danny’s brother, who looks almost exactly like Danny… So it’s more of a social event for me, I guess. Left early to get Forest and two of his friends to the train station…and that’s about it for these four days.

Random notes…

• Proctoring complications: There was one question where a silly “+” is missing in an equation, and three people asked about it. To avoid further complication, I announced about this silly +. After the announcement, however, many hands were instantly raised, asking what did I just say…oops. So that was a tactical error there… Other stuffs: I got asked what is “fluctuate”? A couple of us also got asked what is a “tie,” to which Tony joked that it’s that thing you wear around your neck and stuff… I was selected to escort two students who had another exam following this one, so they left 15 minutes early. We were walking outside, in the wind and snow, and I didn’t have my jacket…oops. It was quite interesting to talk to these two, though…one of them complains that of course we knew it was his birthday, so there would be 2 exams scheduled on that day…heh.
• To keep track, that’s a total of 5 games of Ticket to Ride (I won 3), and 9.5 games of Settlers (I won 2) that I’ve played so far… The others have played more, though.
• I spent some time playing around with Drupal, trying to set up a puzzling page. Unfortunately, I got frustrated that I couldn’t even get something as simple as displaying an image on a post working, so I ditched that idea and used blogger to create this page. Not much on there yet, and the quality of the puzzles aren’t guaranteed to be remotely good, but at least now I have an outlet and motivation to create more puzzles…yay!
• This just felt like the snowiest and coldest winter I’ve ever experienced in Waterloo. Something I noticed, though, is that because of the strong winds, all deformaties made to the snow accumulation on the ground are constantly being erased, creating a dune-like structure that looks quite beautiful. It’s like a sanddune with snow…so I guess we should call it a snowdune…
• I have a really weird sleeping pattern these days. I would fall asleep without really wanting to, and wake up in the middle of the night to clean myself up (or maybe use the internet a bit as well) before getting back to sleep. Basically I don’t get consecutive sleep time during the night, which is not so good… Maybe that’s why I got sick…
• This goes into the “I must have been bored” file… I calculated how many pictures I’ve taken (including deleted ones) since I’ve received my digital camera. Here are the “crucial” numbers…
  

  2004 (since Oct): 1182 photos
  2005: 3932 photos
  2006: 2693 photos
  2007 (so far): 815 photos on my camera + 209 photos on Andrew’s camera. (For future reference, start counting new photos at 0842.)

  So yeah, that’s a lot of photos…imagine the massive rolls of films that I would be using had this not been a digital camera…

• Is it wrong to think that I shouldn’t make any “close friends”? The reason being, I would expect too much out of close friends, and I’m bound to be disappointed or heartbroken, if past experiences continue to hold… So basically, it’s all my fault.

I’m grateful to God for…

• keeping me alive;
• the many warnings that He gave to me;
• helping me get through the proctoring and the marking;
• the blessing of friends that He’s given to me; and
• rescueing me out of depression over and over again.

Monday: Supervisor meeting was ok. We tried to figure out a definition which didn’t make any sense…and failed. I brought Ticket to the office, and invented a puzzle on the board with David…heh. Evening brothers prayer meeting was followed by the long awaited squash session! This is the first time that I’ve played this year, and it was bad. I think I managed to play for about 20 non-consecutive minutes, and I injured my hand…I was in very bad physical shape. Tuesday: Pretty much a do-nothing day, really. I have done a couple of things, but they are pretty tiny stuffs. There was a lot of talk with David about Ticket…heh. And now, a giant snow storm is occurring.

Random notes…

• I caught around 20 people using previous term’s solutions in their assignments last time. I wasn’t expecting anything to be done on that, actually. To my surprise, I’ve heard from David that all of them were sent to Dean’s office and are now under probation. I think there’s something satisfying in that…for me, anyway.
• I wish I know how to help Forest in some way or another, but I don’t know how. Also, knowing that my time with Forest is very limited doesn’t help, either.
• All that spiritual optimism for the week was crushed today, when I realized that it was all an illusion. Is it even possible to rebound? I don’t know. I don’t have faith, it appears.
• I find that I have trouble expressing myself clearly using the English language (or any other language, quite frankly). That was brought to my attention recently with an innocent blog post on the myf website that got misinterpreted and misunderstood. So…have I been misunderstood all along with the emails and instant messages that I’ve sent, and the things I’ve posted here? And have ramifications of this been catastrophic without my knowledge? Hmm…interesting question…
• Upstate New York got about 3.5 metres of snow in the past week and a half…with more to come tonight. Now that’s something worth going to see…
• I enjoyed watching 1 vs 100 Last Man Standing. Annie Duke was fun to watch. It was a lot quicker than I thought, probably because they have included very tricky questions that are quite creative. Questions like, which has more stories: The Chrysler building, or the complete works of Stephen King? (It was Stephen King.) And the deciding question, who had married the most times: King Henry VIII, Larry King, or Michael Jackson? (It was Larry King.) Five people remained, and only one guy named Larry (appropriately) answered it right…so did I, and I was quite surprised. The fact that the questions are not in any order of difficulty was also another tricky thing…a question would pop up in the middle that seemed almost too obvious…and the obvious choice was the answer. That threw off a few people, I think. Excellent show.
• Settlers report…yeah, they stopped playing Ticket once they started playing Settlers. Go figure.

  Friday: 2 4-player games. Harry won the first one. Once that happened, we were kind of determined not to let Harry win in the second game…even though Harry was at 9 points for a long time, Ed came from behind and scored 10 points first, so he won. I was quite frustrated since I placed a lot of settlement around the “8″ tiles, yet the dice hardly ever rolled 8s…

  Saturday: 5 4-player games. First game: Alice Harry John Me. Alice won…beginner’s luck, maybe? Second game: Same players, and Harry won a quick game. I was a bit frustrated that I haven’t won a game yet… Third game: I sat out and Ingrid replaced me. I liked playing the banker…heh. This is another quick game where John won. Fourth game: John and I trade places. This time, I finally managed to see an opening, and after getting lucky with two road building development cards and one victory point card, I finally got my first win. Last game: Ed woke up…he and John replaced Alice and I for the final game. It was a lot longer than the other games, but after the long battle, Harry came out on top, and we were all exhausted.

I’m grateful to God for…

• waking me up spiritually (a bit) through the cfc sermon on Sunday;
• the brief exercise;
• the good (but tiring) times with playing board games;
• the chance to connect with Forest and Danny; and
• helping me keep Him in my mind constantly…

Boy, I’m slacking off on posting here as well, eh? Friday: Took some time to finish up editing the “Niel project.” A trip to Costco is followed by 2 games of Settlers with Harry Ed David. I was so tired even before the games, and it was even more frustrating during the game.

Saturday: Woke up late, which means that I had to change my potluck contribution from green onion eggs to soy sauce eggs…still not too bad, I guess. Myf lunch and sports is the usual boring event for me, for obvious reasons. We headed to Ed’s place for an evening of Settlers…little did we know, we ended up playing 5 games for a total of 6 hours, ending at 1am. It was the day that we went crazy… Reactions to this night include “that’s not good” and “that’s disgusting.”

Sunday: The cfc sermon in the morning was really good…made me want to change the way I live…except I have yet to see those changes realized. For once, I slept on a Sunday afternoon, and it was good. I had to refuse an invitation to play board games (really!) because (a) I don’t want to be crazy and (b) there was a prayer meeting in the evening and supervisor meeting the next day.

The deep freeze continues…I don’t remember winter being so continuously cold in the four winters I’ve experienced in Waterloo. Monday: Supervisor meeting day, of course…it was strange, discussing things that went nowhere. That is exactly a portrait of my life, I guess. I had bonus proctor in the evening, where I started in a room with the instructor, who later sent me to the other room with another TA because he suspected that there was some cheating going on…hmm…ok… I guess I look intimidating enough to scare away the cheaters? Yikes. Tuesday: The start of two days of marking madness. I didn’t mark much this day, though…it was not hard to mark, it’s just very tedious. There was the evening brothers prayer meeting, which was supposed to be followed by squash, but eventually we ended up with a round of Ticket to Ride. I won this game of 4 people with a record score…heh. Wednesday: The continuation of the marking madness. I didn’t finish until 12am…just goes to show how slow I was. If I total up the “net” marking time, though, it was around 4.5 hours. So…lots of distractions then. There was a dinner with Carlos and Irene at ESM, which was nice, but I don’t remember ESM being that expensive… Thursday: Brought Danny to his RIM interview in the morning, which he didn’t do well, unfortunately. There were 3 people in my office hour, which was surprisingly low, considering what I thought was a pretty hard assignment. I tried and failed to make sense of Niel’s update to our own little project…going to try again today. Ad hoc planned evening of squash was ruined when no squash court was available…instead, it turned into a very exciting board game night, playing both Ticket and Settlers! Both were very close games, and both won by Ingrid…oops.

Random notes…

• Thursday, temperature finally broke through the -10 degree mark…feels so warm with -8 and windchill of “only” -16.
• Did I just hit rock bottom in my spiritual state? I hope so, because that means I’ll be improving soon…
• I spent $118 on more Nikoli puzzle books…not sure if it’s a good thing or not.
• Tuesday Ticket game score: Me 135, LiZhen 99, Ed 105, Harry 115. I had the longest road at 35.
  Thursday Ticket game score: Me 118, Ed 132, Ingrid 133. Ed had the longest possible road at 45, yet still lose by 1. Ingrid, even though she’s won, was furious that her road was only at 44, and couldn’t take the longest road bonus to beat my 135 record…heh.
• Alright, the first game of Settlers between Ed, Ingrid and I. We used the beginner’s board, and they got the rules pretty quickly. We all had our niche on the board to expand on, so there wasn’t much blocking going on. Ed was especially amused by the trading aspects of the game, and made some shrewd trades with Ingrid…heh. Eventually, Ed was the first one to get 9 points, while Ingrid and I were still far behind. Some time later, he declared that he’s going to build a settlement and earn the 10th and winning point. Groaning from Ingrid and I ensued, which turned into laughter when we realized that Ed had no settlement left to build! So he had to upgrade one settlement to a city instead. Knowing this, Ingrid and I stopped trading with Ed, knowing that one trade might push him to victory. And of course subsequent rolls didn’t gain Ed anymore wheat or ore, so it was hilarious to see a frustrating Ed, so close to victory, yet so far away. Meanwhile, Ingrid and I were building up our points as well. It eventually got to a point where all three of us had 9 points each! A good roll by Ed meant that I will have 10 points on my next turn. It was then Ingrid’s turn, and she then declared that she’s going to upgrade one settlement to a city, which would earn her the 10th and winning point. Ed and I groaned, being so close to victory ourselves…and the groaning turned into laughter once again when Ingrid didn’t have any cities left to build! So she had to build a settlement in order to win…I was delighted, since I would have the next turn and win…so I took the dice, ready to roll, and…hold on! Ingrid can make some trades using her massive resource collection with the bank so that she can indeed build a settlement! So she won… I was groaning since I could have won had she not won, and Ed was groaning since he could have won during his next turn had Ingrid and I not won…so it was a very close game, and it’s only the first game we’ve played! Now the expectations are going to be so high on subsequent games…heh.

I’m grateful to God for…

• helping me get through the supervisor meeting and the marking;
• the opportunity to play board games with brothers and sisters;
• keeping many friends in Waterloo, extending my “borrowed time” with them;
• the constant desire to know Him more; and
• giving me this slightly more joyous life these days.

It was cold. Really really cold. Hitting -18 with -30 windchill. And a ton of snow, too. Anyway…Friday: Early morning running around with Li Zhen to do health card and stuff. Had a big breakfast (which was the second one for me for the day) then came home to sleep. Got called over to play more Ticket, which attracted the attention of more people this time… Evening coworker meeting was, as usual, extremely long. During the end prayer, I think I heard somebody snoring…hmm… Saturday: Fiddling around with a photo collage in the morning in preparation for the launch of the renovated myf site. Afternoon myf was ok, nothing remarkable, and then an evening of nothingness. Sunday: Two early morning services. Saw Jackson and Rebecca again, which is nice. There was a long search for locations for lunch, since a couple of places we went to were closed…eventually ended up at a Vietnamese place. Then it’s board game afternoon at Ed’s place…heh. Initially 5 people played the Ticket game, where I sat out of the game and played the role of the train bank dealer. Later Brian and company returned, and there were 4 of us who played Settlers. It was an interesting game where I didn’t receive an ore card ever…heh. Eventually we had to leave early, so we didn’t complete the game, but John won with 7 points, me second with 6. Rushed to the UW worship night, which was ok, I guess. Met another Tim, but then he left early…heh. There was evening, and there was morning, and it’s supervisor meeting day.

Random notes…

• I find in me an urgency to get right with God as soon as possible. I’ve been running away for too long, and I’ve probably lost all my faith already (as if I had it before). Hearing people talk about how they know Christ, I just feel that it’s such a foreign concept to me…
• I guess I can blame my family, my friends, or even God, for the mess that I’m in right now. But ultimately, God will hold me (and me alone) responsible for my life. He’s not going to say, alright, my family left me for so long, so it’s ok that I don’t care about them…no, that’s apparently not the way it goes.
• Score for Friday’s game of Ticket: Me 102, Ed 127, Ingrid 120. So Ed won for the first time. But Ingrid had an incredible 37 as the length of the longest path on the board. For Sunday’s game: Harry 122, Ingrid 126, Jessie 76, Ed 114, Swee 101. So Ingrid won for the first time.
• When somebody says or writes “no pun intended,” it’s usually the case that a pun was intended…is that right?
• I forgot to mention that during Thursday’s office hour, only 1 person showed up. Nice.

I’m grateful to God for…

• once again, His proctection in the driving and the slipping around;
• re-igniting this burning desire to seek Him;
• the joy and fellowship in playing board games with brothers and sisters;
• giving me the short-term patience to live out the frustrating parts of the day; and
• the good interactions with officemates.

Tuesday: Wasted the day, except for doing the laundry. That’s pretty much all I can say there. Wednesday: I actually went to school to do some research work…which didn’t yield much, quite frankly, but at least this marks the first time in a long time that I did research work way before the next supervisor meeting. Thursday: I went to a game store and bought myself three board games…hehehe. I was giggling (mostly on the inside) like a kid again…although I wonder if I had ever grown up to begin with. There was a strange mccf in the afternoon, and then playing Ticket to Ride with Ed and Ingrid in the evening, where all three of us enjoyed it greatly.

Random notes…

• Scores for our Ticket to Ride games…
  

  Game 1: Me 116, Ed 102, Ingrid 94. So I won, and it took about 90 minutes.
  Game 2: Me 130, Ed 88, Ingrid 108. So I won again, and it took about an hour.

• I think last weekend, I caught myself making some crude remarks that may have been taken offense by sensitive people…so I guess I need to watch myself a bit. Even if it’s with good friends, still best not to push too far.
• So yeah, I’ve been “researching” a lot on board games. Eventually found out some of the more popular ones, and also found out a store in Waterloo that sells board games at pretty good prices. It’s called J&J Cards and Collectibles, and this store is simply amazing…I’m afraid a lot of my money is going that way in the future… The three games that I bought: Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, and Ticket to Ride.
• I still feel that my prayers are kind of fake…which is especially true during these times when I’m constantly avoiding God.
• According to 1 John 2:9, I’m still walking in the dark. Sigh…I still cannot genuinely forgive Francis…
• The strange thing about buying toothpaste… It comes in two sizes, one is 75mL, the other 130mL. The smaller one costs about 75 cents, and the larger one costs about $1.50. So usually I just go with two smaller ones…
• When I look back at around the same time last year, I’m just amazed at how much courage and how much faith I had back then. I was determined to leave my sinful life, bring reconciliation with friends, and even evangelized to Li Zhen. Now, I’m just a wimpy little guy trying to figure out what exactly is going on…

I’m grateful to God for…

• His protection in all the driving in snowy weather;
• Li Zhen’s spiritual growth;
• getting me to do some school work;
• the joy in playing board games; and
• constantly getting me to think about my relationship with Him…