So there was this pastor from Indiana who came to speak for three days. He’s funny yet tough at the same time. He talked mostly about family and home, how this church family should live, how the home in heaven should not be missed. It’s so easy to lose the eternal perspective…and I’m glad that was brought back to my mind. Also his emphasis on life and death…wow. Can’t say that I don’t have time now…only dead people don’t have time. While I’m alive, there’s still a chance to change and make a difference eternally. It’s so easy to just take life for granted…

When trying to go home after kwcac, I started driving (in a full car), and felt something strange. Some bizarre noise came from the tire on smooth surface. I had to stop and look, and found a flat tire. The right wheel on the front was basically done. Dejected, not sure what to do… Fortunately, I was surrounded by people who had better ideas, like putting on the spare tire! That turned out to be an interesting experience. Thank God that the flat was discovered at church, and there were people around to help out. With all that talk about being a church family, this was yet another positive experience of it. Now, the question is, what to do next…

It’s so hard to see personal conflicts arise from other people… It’s made harder when I see that it appears they will just pretend that it never happened. That’s how friendships erode… Boy, reminds me of so much painful memories from the past…

I did indeed buy some boardgames Friday morning, but managed to cut my spending down to 3 games and a measly $98…heh. I was most excited about TAMSK, which included this intriguing element of hourglass as part of the game. Unfortunately, one of them was broken when I opened the box, so I had to return it and get a new one. Once I started playing, though, it felt a bit flat. Maybe the timing aspect of it is still alluding me…but it seems like most of the time the hourglass didn’t matter in the game. So maybe it will take a few more plays to get it, but with the size of the box, it’s a bit hard to travel with…

At night, we broke out the Power Grid expansion and played the Benelux map. The map was designed with a shorter game in mind, but for some reason, we still played for way too long…with a Harry win that we could have easily prevented…boo.

The game that intrigued me the most was GIPF…almost a chess-like abstract. I played one game with Forest for which I lost (of course), and the game seems longer than meets the eye. There are many subtle strategies in the game, and the geometry of it makes it really mindblowing. In any case, I like it, and most likely I’ll play more games of it…

I simply couldn’t make any significant progress on writing the thesis! This is crazy! Of course I had no shortage of distractions…from playing squash to taking Tony to the career fair, to scrambling for Zhentao’s thesis, to silly tv game shows, I’m basically screwed. And now I’m sick. Great…

I almost went ahead and bought $218 worth of boardgames tonight…but somehow managed to restrain myself for now. Apparently ever since I bought Genial from Vienna, I got interested in two-player games, so that’s how I now really want to have the Gipf series of 6 games…oops.

Yup…still depressed. Actually, I’m now so used to being depressed that it’s becoming very normal, and I don’t notice it much… This must be really sad.

Alright, so I’m officially depressed. Too many unresolved memories from the past came up, too much work that I was not able to do, too much sin. I started doing a ton of puzzles for no good reason, yet another evidence that I do these as an (unsuccessful) escape from the real world. I even turned down not one but two invitations to play last night…yikes. Anyway, I’m depressed. Go figure.

My right wrist has healed now…yay. So now I can go do things. Or not.

Nobody else’s in the office. Even so, I still can’t work. This is sad.

Played squash with Forest yesterday. It wasn’t too bad for me, but mostly because Forest wasn’t at the top of his game yesterday. Or maybe it’s because we used a more bouncy ball, so I was able to make some impossible catches. In any case, Forest was frustrated since normally he would beat me like 90% of the time, but it was only around 60-70% yesterday. Of course it’s always fun to see Forest’s overdramatic actions…heh. In any case, I injured the second finger on my left hand (stupid racquet), and this morning discovered that I’ve injured my right wrist…doh. So now I have to be careful when doing stuffs with my right hand…and I can’t play again until it’s healed…doh.

I’m in absolutely no mood to write my thesis thingie. I woke up late, came to the office even later, and couldn’t even write a paragraph. I don’t know, something’s really wrong with me, I guess. Maybe it’s my negative attitude…there’s no way that I’m going to finish this thesis by December…

I’m thankful that I have so many friends around me. On the other hand, I’m trying very hard not to attach to any one of them. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Between Dr Tong’s satellite evangelical thingie and Sunday’s sermons, and other things, I thought for once I might be spiritually awake…only to fall once again into an ugly hole. Doh…

I still haven’t got the time to go through all the photos from Europe, nor write up what went on during the trip. I hate how these trivial things are burdening me for no good reason. Actually, I haven’t even written up last year’s trip to Bulgaria…doh.

My new roommate arrived in the middle of last week. Nice little guy, I guess. He’s from Hong Kong. Unfortunately he brought a ton of stuffs with him, so space might be a problem. So far, he’s been cooking every dinner, and woke up early. I didn’t talk to him much, though.

Last Friday, last supervisor meeting until December… I still don’t believe that I can finish the thesis by this term…nor next term. And the fact that I indeed got the degree-completion award meant that I really need to finish by next term. So…what choice have I got? Afternoon mccf was awkward, and the dinner afterwards at Mr Sushi took way too long (until 9pm, I think). At that point, I was tired, but still wanted to do something, but didn’t have the will to call around…so I was kind of depressed, actually. Anyway, the night was wasted away…

Saturday…went to Tim’s place first, tried going into the swimming pool (without swimming), then tried going into the sauna (which was like torture). So I went to Forest’s instead…heh. Got some shopping done, and I bought a cheap low-quality poker chip set! Now I play Power Grid with these chips, and these games go so much faster this way. We also had two straight poker nights in a row for the next two nights, which was brutal for the time it took. I won the Sunday-night game (surprisingly), Forest’s pal Peter won the first Monday-night game, and I won second game…oops. It was tiring, though, and took too much time, and I find too much profanity being thrown around at the table…so I don’t know, should I have bought the poker chip set? Hmm…

Sunday was Kai’s birthday, and we used it as an excuse to have games night, even though Kai didn’t come back until 11pm…heh. Monday, I wasted the entire day, again, which makes me really sad. Prayer meeting was also sad, I guess…I don’t know, something feels awkward in there. And because of the poker thing, I came home at around 1am…oops.

3 painfully wasteful days. Monday: Got the expected sores after playing squash the day before. This time it’s particularly bad…maybe I didn’t warm up and stretch well. Anyway, woke up early, did the laundry, and went to sleep…oops. I really wanted to change the way I do things, but I didn’t…instead, stayed at home doing nothing until I went to Toronto with Forest to pick up Harry. 5 hours, 2 cities, 215.4 kilometres. First picked up the ownership from Toyota (took a while), then picked up Harry from the airport (took a while…about an hour, actually), then T&T shopping (took another while), and finally back while I almost fell asleep and the other two really fell asleep.

Tuesday: Went to school a tad too late (around noon), and managed to do almost nothing. Well, David did call for my rescue of Betty, and I did, running and driving around under the rain, in pain. Came home to cook and then brought Forest here for dinner. I might have put too much salt in the food…heh. Anyway, Forest was trapped since it was raining hard outside, so we played this boardgame I brought back from Vienna called “Genial!” (or “Ingenious!” in English). Played 3 games, I took 2 out of 3, and Forest is addicted…heh. Today: Went to school late again. Wasted so much time. I just couldn’t bring myself to typing up these research thingies for Friday’s meeting. Even just thinking about it is too painful. Anyway, I finally saw Tony again, and had brief interactions with our new officemate…

…who is Mathieu. Though I didn’t get his name when he first said it…and thought that he said the short form is Mac when it’s Mat…oops. He talks very fast, so I had trouble understanding him initially, but now it’s fine, I think. First thing he said to me: “I’ve heard that you’re the one who plays Settlers!” Heh…oops, exposed already. So apparently he was here briefly during the summer, and got excited when he saw my drawing of the Settlers board on the blackboard. Now I’m thinking that he might have specifically asked for this office…heh. He has connections with Zhentao, so I guess the boardgame aspect shouldn’t be a surprise. Anyway, I’ve checked his name through google now, and apparently he’s a brilliant genius…now I’m afraid…heh.

Saturday, beginning early when no-longer-homeless Clarence woke me up to bring him to the u-haul place so that he can start moving. Then Gary visited, and we checked photos and moved his stuffs, and went for groceries (once again, much better to be shopping with him than some others…like John). Immediately went to help Clarence with his moving afterwards, and boy did he have a ton of stuffs…that was tiring. Went to fellowship, which was karaoke, so of course I shouldn’t have gone there, except maybe hook Forest into Power Grid…heh. Evening dinner, met some new people, and that’s about it. Well, except for that strange unsettling feeling that I got when I arrived home…that’s weird, haven’t felt that for a while.

Sunday, morning joint service. Afternoon, helped Kai move his stuffs, then squash… Ah, squash…I thought that I would have improved a lot by practicing last semester, but nope, Forest slaughtered me. I was depressed, and prayed dearly that my jealousy which have returned would go away…and it did, sort of. After some rest, Forest and I played again, and this time I was a little better. Later I played with Kai, and I was entirely exhausted by then, so I didn’t even try hard to play. But overall, it’s a positive experience with the interactions and stuff. However, the usual conclusion: I hate squash. Anyway, started to clean my room in the evening, and that’s about it for now.

What’s in store for the future? Tomorrow, need to start doing research work, do the laundry, go to Toronto to pick up car ownership paper and Harry and go to T&T. Then hopefully madly doing more research work before supervisor meeting on Friday, which would be the last one for a while. Then I die.

Surprisingly, it’s Vienna that’s having more water than Waterloo… But yeah, I’ve been back for a few days now, and it’s been crazy…but not as crazy as what I went through in Europe! I’ve typed up things on my trusty laptop along the way, and took more than 1200 photos on my camera which is showing its age. I haven’t got the time to organize these things, and I probably won’t do it for a while, since I’m just so crazily busy with trivial stuffs.

Thursday night, after I arrived home, somehow I invited homeless Clarence to come to my place to stay for the night. I was dead tired, so I don’t know how I still managed to do that.

Next day, had a supervisor meeting to make me depressed all over again, since I really really don’t want to do this thesis. Later went shopping with Forest, went to Costco, Futureshop and Superstore. It was great to see Forest again, and shopping with him caused so much less pain than shopping with some others…like John…heh. Forest invited me to Prof Lu’s place for an evening of potluck and Bible study. I was tired, but I thought I might get over jetlag that way, so I went. I ended up spending about an hour driving around carrying a family there, with a detour in between. The potluck started late, the food was ok, and there wasn’t a Bible study…oops. So that ends Friday.