My two-week stay in Taiwan has expired. It felt more relaxed this time, as I didn’t even travel beyond Taipei. Initially I didn’t know why I was here, other than that the plane ticket is cheap and I can do this. Then I had a pain in my tooth, and I had hearing loss. Ended up getting a wisdom tooth removed and having a ton of things sucked out of my ears! So I guess that’s why I got here…all part of God’s plans, of course, except I didn’t know ahead of time. Thank God for this, and the trip was not wasted.

I think I’m getting used to the idea of spending time with my family. We’ve met at least 4 times this year, and that’s way more than usual. What it does is removing the awkwardness and unfamiliarity out of being with family, and make it ok. Sort of. So that’s another good thing.

Thinking ahead to my return to Waterloo…I have to say I’m not entirely looking forward to going back. I still don’t like to stay in Taiwan, but at the same time I will miss some things that won’t happen in Waterloo, like wearing t-shirts and shorts at home, and getting easy access to cheap food. Also I will go back to dealing with the church, fellowship, school, job application, all those things that could depress me quickly. So…I don’t know. Oh well. At the very least, the travel between the two places should be good…got confirmed upgrade for NRT –> YYZ!

I’ve described my painful experience in my last post (the one below this). Now some reflections on physical pain. (1) I have very low tolerance for physical pain. Even though (thankfully) the pain I experienced was over in less than a day, I was exploding during the entire thing. I take comfort for granted, so whenever I’m in some pain or I’m sick, I have a very difficult time in enduring it. I can see how this could strengthen a person’s faith in God, as you could think of anything else but ask help from God. But for me, the experience made me feel so distant from God…I don’t know why.

(2) I cannot fully sympathize with another person’s suffering. While I’m experiencing the pain, sure my family would comfort me and stuff, but I was like, you’re not experiencing this…you have no idea how painful this is, even if you have experienced it before. So on the flip side, I don’t think I can be entirely understand and sympathize when another one is in pain. This makes me a bit sad, actually. Of course I want to make you feel better, but I cannot offer anything but empty words, and these don’t help much at all.

(3) The pain that Jesus Christ endured on the cross, that is so unfathomable. I really cannot imagine what He went through. It must be infinitely worse than what I’ve been through, yet I complained the moment it happened. I really need to think more about this and put this into a better perspective in my daily Christian life. Somebody once asked me, if I was told that I could save the human race by going on the cross, wouldn’t I be happy to do it? This is coming from a skeptic, of course, but I can definitely answer a resounding “no” to it… What Jesus did is far more than I can imagine and endure. And to do it obediently…that’s just impossible for a human.

It all started as an innocent trip to Taiwan, but the experience is unforgettable. A couple of days after I got here, the leftmost area of my teeth was in pain. Specifically, the area just above the lower wisdom tooth was painful whenever I eat something. In addition, I get this intermittent sharp pain in my left head. I thought sure enough, this happened before, it would go away in a couple of days. That didn’t happen. Come this Monday, my mom got me into a dentist appointment to look at it (the dentist had a full schedule, but I squeezed in somehow). Turns out that my upper wisdom tooth bit on the wall around the lower wisdom tooth, and it got infected. The suggestion: remove the wisdom teeth. This came up ten years ago at the same place, where the other dentist then did not want to remove them for me because of possible danger. But now it appears it is impossible to avoid it now…but because of the awkward way that my wisdom teeth have grown, it requires a specialist to do it. But since it would take a week to recover and my flight out is in a week and two days, it is essential to have it done on Tuesday. But of course the specialist’s schedule is full, but somehow I managed to squeeze into the schedule and after an x-ray check up, I was indeed scheduled to have my two left wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday.

I was calm and collected going into the dental specialist’s office, ready for the removal. Or so I thought. I was actually a little bit nervous, but the fact that this surgery is taking place didn’t sink in until the anesthetics drugged half my mouth. I was a bit woozy, but I was assured that I wouldn’t feel any pain, even though I would know what the dentist was doing. After some anticipation, the surgery started. A piece of cloth with the mouth area open was put on my face, so I couldn’t see the dentist and the nurse, but I could certainly hear them and feel what they were doing. What followed was a violent mix of cutting, drilling and pulling of my tooth. The nurse kept saying “you’ll feel some pressure” and then the dentist would cut in with a lot of force and then try to pull it out. I could feel that he was struggling to get it out. Even though I was promised I would feel no pain, I did feel some pain during the surgery. I tried to endure it rather than asking them to stop and slow the progress, and of course eventually the news that the tooth was out was very welcomed by me. I was so tense by then. Whenever I think back to the procedure, I feel all squeamish and uncomfortable…like right now. The sewing up of the wounds was ok. After it was done, the dentist decided that he would not take out the upper wisdom tooth, for fear that it might be too difficult and take too much time. So I was certainly very relieved…little did I know, it wasn’t over yet.

The nurse put a cotton cloth in the area where my tooth used to be in. After explaining what I should be doing (lots of things), we left. This was also when an extraordinary pain started. Biting on the cloth caused this continuous pain that, while not extremely painful, it hurt enough that I just wanted to get that thing out as quickly as possible. I couldn’t describe how it felt…but I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t distract myself so I don’t feel the pain. Every second felt excruciatingly long, and I had to keep that thing in for 3 hours. I used an ice thing to soothe the pain, but it was only temporary 10-second relief every time. I was very depressed, and couldn’t stay still. Eventually, of course, time came to get it out, and indeed it felt slightly better. But still the pain lingers on, and I was struggling to find a reason to live. I ended up just staying in bed for the night, but I couldn’t sleep much since I had to take medicine every 4 hours. Thankfully, by the time I finally woke up in the morning, the pain is mostly gone. And I thank God for the quick dissipation of the pain. My mom says the painkiller medicine that I took worked quickly since I rarely take any medicine at all. Maybe that’s true… But yeah, that was such an incredible experience. I’m still shaking my head as to what I went through. Now…some reflections on my next post (which would be the post on top of this).

Blogging from the United lounge at rainy Narita, using this extremely slow internet! I didn’t upgrade the YYZ–>NRT flight, but I was given an emergency row window seat with super comfy leg room and headrest! Too bad I didn’t sleep much. It was a day-flight anyway, so no need to sleep, I guess. But whenever I start to try sleeping, small turbulences would occur. So, it was all in vain anyway. The 13+ hours in flight is definitely very tilting, though. I’ve done a lot of things, and then realized it’s only been 4 hours… Definitely not good for the mental health.

Only have 2 hours at Narita, so couldn’t do the original plan of getting out and shop thing. But I did do the standard shopping inside gate area, spent a lot of my Yens, and got lost! I didn’t know it was possible, but seems like I made a lot of wrong turns. Oh well. At least now I can relax a little.

The lounge is so crowded, and very little food…which is too bad, because I’m hungry. Good oolong tea, though. Ok, let’s see if this slow internet lets me post this… (Looks like it does.)

Sitting now in the international MLL at YYZ. It’s different from the domestic MLL, a bit more classy, I guess. I could have asked for an upgrade for the flight, but decided against it and save it for the trip back. Hopefully my assumption that the plane is not full is correct and I’ll have two (or even three) seats to myself anyway. Highly doubt it, but eh…

I’m still not sure why I’m making this trip, but there’s no time to doubt it, I guess…heh. Still going to work on things a bit while in Taiwan, but I don’t think it will be productive…

I found out the shop in Narita airport that sells Nikoli puzzle books, but I need to get past customs in order to get there… So…not sure if I’ll have time to do that… In any case, there should be a massive spending spree at Narita. Hopefully. Well, not that massive, I guess.

I really hate having these flashbacks of horrible things that happened from the past. I try to block these memories out, but they constantly come back at the prompting of anything remotely related to them…

I guess this has always been the case, but there is no conversation topic that I’m interested in which is also a topic that any of my friends are interested in. I really don’t care about camera lenses, cars, clothes, house works, and all the consumerism stuff. Then again, I’m not sure what I care about. Pretty much nothing at all, I guess. Sad life.

Going to Taiwan tomorrow. Not exactly a trip that I want to take…but whatever, I booked the tickets, might as well go.