Haven’t written here in a while… Too many things happened, I guess. At least the non-thesis part of things. There was the new Power Grid Power Plant deck that I bought, where two hilarious subsequent games ensued. There was the meeting with Joseph because supervisor was sort of complaining about my lack of response (due to purposely not checking my email…). There was the late-night session that happened because of that. There was a surprise Saturday when Jeff showed up to fellowship. There was a big shocking surprise Sunday when Samuel and his family showed up suddenly. There was a freak snow storm that combined with wind made for a zero-visibility afternoon yesterday, for a while, anyway (I don’t remember such a storm in November before…). There was the driving in slippery condition to get 3 haircuts, also where the price of the haircut had gone up. And now, my absolute zero progress on the thesis, since I really don’t know what to do with it…

These days, I’m being quite cynical with issues of faith. I don’t know what’s going on.

I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. So much mixed emotions that it’s just unbearable.

I’m just in an agonizing mental state these days. I try and try to do work for my thesis, yet words are simply not coming out. It’s extremely frustrating.

In lighter news, Tim Horton’s sandwich has shrunk…I guess I won’t be getting their sandwiches anymore now.

More leather came in…and apparently I underestimated the size of my head…

Saturday also included a mind boggling series of coincidences. First, I thought I need to bring a new CD to the car, and decided to bring the Rachmaninov playing Rachmaninov 2-CD set. I played disc two in the car. Then Forest came to the car, heard the new tracks (without knowing what they are), and suddenly he asked if I have something like the Rhapsody something… Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini? Yes, I just brought it to the car that day and it’s on disc one! So we played that over and over… Later in the poker night, Ingrid suddenly started to hum from that piece of music as well! I was like, she wasn’t in my car, so why was she humming it? It appears to be totally random…so yeah, I don’t know, something’s up with that Rachmaninov guy, apparently…

Kai got me to play squash yesterday, and as usual, I sustained an injury. This time, though, it’s particularly bad, since I might have twisted my hip. I couldn’t continue after that… So we’ve only played for half an hour. Oops… Now I still feel a bit of pain after bending my body a certain way…doh.

I actually managed to write a few sentences for my thesis yesterday, which was a great improvement over the past three weeks… Now if only I can continue with it today… Also happening yesterday: received new toys to play with! So pretty…

There was an extreme mix of emotions that ran through me during the weekend, and now at weekend’s end, I end up terrifyingly depressed. What do I know? Sigh… Anyway, Friday night, Gary was here for dinner, and later I joined Forest for pool and Numbers. Saturday morning, bad thing happens yet I felt relieved? What? Saturday afternoon, the fellowship was strange, with Tim trying to argue for arguing sake on a topic about hypothetical situations that he later admitted will never happen…ok… Saturday night futile search for an alternative dinner spot ended with the usual location…oops. But somehow, with just the 7 of us, I managed to talk a lot…which is strange. Later, somehow we ended up playing poker until a little past 12, and I kind of enjoyed that greatly. Sunday morning the usual, with lunch then shopping and Forest coming over to study and dinner. I’m supposed to feel good about these things happening, yet I find myself feeling so guilty about feeling good and happy because all throughout this, the gloomy cloud depression over the thesis hangs around me, dampening any joy that I have. And now that the weekend’s almost over, I’m very depressed. Back to being angry, being in angst, being totally lost and confused, being insecure, being insane, being hopeless, being paralyzed. What is this life? I don’t get it.

About poker… We ended up playing 3 games (beside the trial runs). The first game was funny. It had a slow start…until that last hand. It was pretty “straight” on the board, and all you need is a jack to make a straight. What happened was, everybody went all in! So what’s going on? Well, Ed Harry and Forest each had a jack! Ingrid went all in for no good reason, and I don’t remember why Zhenhua went all in…heh. I think Forest or Harry even had an ace so that his straight has the highest high card. Well, turns out that I won…because I got a flush of hearts! Ok, so I won the first game…yay. The second game, a few hands in, Ingrid went all in. But she retracted. But on Ed’s advice, she went all in again. As a result, Zhenhua also went all in, and I also went all in. Turns out that I won this one (another flush, I think?), so both girls were out. Ingrid berated Ed and apologized to Zhenhua…heh. Later, Forest lost, so it was just Ed Harry and I. We played quite a few hands, with chips rotating between the three of us…heh. Eventually I decided that we should get a new game going so that the others can play, and since I had way more chips than Ed and Harry, I won this one as well…wow. In the third game, though, I went out pretty early, and so did Ingrid…heh. Forest surprised himself by winning a couple of big hands, so he decided that he would try to win this one for me…heh. And he did! He was shocked that he actually won at poker! So yeah, I thought it was a thrilling night.

I managed to online shop and spend about $1,500 within one week. I think that’s bad.

Being absolutely depressed is very depressing. So many things are so confusing and frustrating for me. Yesterday after the prayer meeting, I almost broke down. I don’t even know if I can talk to anybody about my conditions. I’m paralyzed to a point where I cannot do anything that I need to do. This mental roadblock is terrible. What ever should I do? In any case, right now I’m talking in very soft voices, feeling dejected.

First snow of the season today. That’s…pretty late?

Oh yeah, David’s wedding (299.8 kilometres). It was a terrible day for me. First I took two completely wrong detours so as to arrive late. The wedding itself was ok, I guess, though I was mostly not paying attention. Then a bad decision of driving from T&T to Metro Square meant driving all the way to the other T&T, then driving in the wrong direction, then finally settling for a restaurant on Yonge for dinner, waiting an additional half hour for it. By the time the dinner’s done (and the dinner was good, by the way, though expensive) and got home, it was 11pm already. It was such a frustrating and exhausting day, and I can only call it “one of those days”…

A few notes before I’m off to David’s wedding… Well, the fellowship singing thing…I can’t help but think that by trying to be perfect, they are simply discouraging people from the singing. So I have no problems with not going on stage there. The thing at Paul and May’s wedding was better.

I’ve wasted 3 weeks of time on the thesis. Close to zero progress there. I don’t know.

Wednesday night hanging out with Forest was fun. Initially shopping in the afternoon, then pool (where both of us made some incredible shots, and some very funny shots) and Wallace & Gromit in the evening. W&G is still the funniest movie ever. Friday night hanging out where I foolishly tried to give wardrobe advice…heh. And going through photos. Nice. And what’s up with all the wardrobe talk anyway? Do I really need a hoodie or a leather jacket? Probably not.