Last day of January already...spent some time marking, and puzzling, i.e. no serious work.

I think the fast-heart-beat-after-dinner effect is due to eating too much for dinner...or maybe not. It occurred again today, though.

Hi, I'm Martin. I'm introverted. Please talk to me. Or maybe not.

There was this boring episode of me bringing in the car to the shop, return immediately afterwards, waiting 3 hours for it, got a 10-second phone call when they're done, scramble to find transportation there, and drove back. No money charged, so that's good...but, boring.

Spent much of the day on the Bible study which turned out not too bad, I guess. And that's the end of my Bible study prep-athon for the month of January. Really, prepared 6 Bible studies this month, and I had Bible study fatigue. By now, I simply don't study hard enough for it...but anyway, it shouldn't be too bad for the rest of the term.

I don't know, my heart's racing at top speed again after eating dinner, this time without the mystery food. Anybody know anything about this kind of strange condition?

8 hours, 6 cities, 9 locations, 4 people going there, 5 people back, 1 engine light on, 291.6 kilometres. Boy, that was not entirely pleasant, especially with the heavy rain and my poor stomach. But at least it was quite warm, and the crowds weren't as bad as I've imagined. One funny thing is there's this store that we're planning to go, but when we got there, it was some kind of an industrial place with Arabic signs, and one door marked "women's entrance"...so that was the wrong place. After placing many calls to places as far as Windsor, we finally got the correct direction to that store. When we got there, however, we found out that it's closed on Sundays...so...pretty fruitless search, but sort of fun in a way. Meanwhile, I'm glad to be able to get David home.

I guess the trip took my mind off of the harsh reality for one day.

Right now my heart is just racing at very high speed...sort of. I don't know why, but I'm guessing it's because of the microwave food that I had for dinner whose ingredient included "cooking wine"...hmm...if that's the case, then I have to give away more food now.

My Bible reading plan is going at the pace of a crawl...but at least it's still going. There is a substantial part of Genesis in each reading, and I would go back to briefly glance through the notes from a couple of years ago when I led the BBS on Genesis. Boy, how sad was that? I don't remember much of it...there are a lot of wonderful material there, and yet I simply don't remember them, let alone following them in life. It's like all that I've learned is lost. It's very depressing, that this pattern is repeating itself in the current Bible studies...

I doubled the bed yesterday, and that seemed to work fine, until I simply couldn't fall asleep last night for about two hours. Maybe it's something else that's the cause of my sometimes insomnia.

I have a strange back problem, like the lower back felt "chilly" sometimes...very strange. Also, both of my calfs were semi-cramping a few times...again, very strange.

Yesterday evening: Well, it was a Friday evening, and Friday evenings are just the worst, quite frankly. That's because I usually have nothing to do (or at least I don't want to do anything). So the night went on, I saw a bit of TV, FNF on TSN stuff. Then I started a chat with Samuel which led to the two of us plus Laura in William's at 10:30pm. Yes, that's pretty late for me to go out, and yes, that's the first time I've been to William's. So we had some beverages, me a vanilla milkshake, and had a lot chitchat along the way. Two and a half hours later, we came home. I don't know, but I felt quite empty inside...it felt superfluous (if it's the right word to use), sort of like last Friday's party. But I guess it's better to spend time with friends than to spend time alone.

Today: Morning was wasted, as usual. Afternoon and evening spent at fellowship's dumpling thingie for the Chinese New Year thingie. I actually don't know why I was just not happy at all. And even though I was super hungry, I was only able to consume 15 dumplings. Well, I ate 10 and didn't want to eat anymore, but I was still hungry, so I forced myself to eat 5 more, and that was it. I had an uncomfortable stomach. Maybe I have some kind of a stomach problem, quite frankly... Anyway, not a bad event, I guess, I was not into it, though.

Chinese New Year has no meaning for me. I don't even like most of the traditions that go along with it...so yeah, me: not Chinese.

Had a sudden inspiration to come to school today, and then suddenly discovered another possible improvement in the paper that I had been dissecting for a while now. This led me to the supervisor's office, and it seems that she have thought about it already, and was simply waiting for me to come up with it. Heh. So yeah, that's the kind of morning it was.

I think I bought some pretty bad items from Costco yesterday...the duster, doesn't do much; the chicken wings, too much oil. So...looks like I'll be giving away some stuffs soon.

Fish are friends, not food...except for smoked salmon.

This is a day where I felt like I did a lot, but accomplished very little. It's also a day where I tested my fear of talking to people to the max, or at least 20% of the max. First, confirming that indeed the 5th floor lounge here is already booked for Saturday. Next, getting the car to the shop to check for the "engine light on" problem. Turns out there's a failed sensor somewhere, and I will return to get that replaced on Monday. Finally, a trip to Costco, where the cashier handed me the right change but said the wrong number (she handed me $14.12 while saying, "four dollars and twelve cents is your change"...). It was just funny, that's all.

January went by so fast...

Why am I feeling so bad right now? Hmm...

Remind me to never go to a fast food restaurant to eat again. Yeesh...that was horrific.

Back to winter weather. It's not good to go out during winter weather.

A light symbolizing the transmission lit up in my car's dashboard during my excusion today...so that means the car needs fixing?

My sleeping pattern is wrecked. Those long afternoon naps are the culprit, but they are necessary to keep me awake in the evening...so...tough choices there.

Supervisor seemed relatively happy today, so the meeting wasn't too bad. Now I'm on my own for two weeks, and that's not going to be good...

Sigh...my life needs some overhauling...of course I've been saying this for all of my life, and nothing's been done.

As reported many times before, I have an intense fear of calling strangers, or even those who are mildly familiar with me. Hence, I'm letting the GIC at CIBC slide this time...

Samuel and I braved the blowing snow outside to have an eelie lunch and then have a hot drink. That's probably the best thing that happened in this, the day before supervisor meeting. Sure I did a little bit of research, but I'm just not focused on it...

Strange lack of appetite these days, I don't know why. Probably because of eating the same kinds of food day after day after day. It would be good to change my diet, but I'm just too lazy to do that...

Yesterday: A Sunday service, a haircut, a skating rink, a terrible stomach, a long nap, a Bible study prepared, and a Mythbusters episode watched. A total of 60 kilometres were driven within Waterloo, and considering that 90 kilometres would take me to Toronto's airport, that's kind of scary. The morning was filled with really queasy stomach, probably because of my continued struggle with life, and also because of my horrific breakfast. Later the stomach turned empty while on the ice, which was fine, but was painful right afterwards. Prepared (or underprepared) the Bible study in considering of a busy day today. Mythbusters was just a lot of fun to watch, including the steel toe amputation and water rockets. Fun stuff.

Today: Research, marking, seminar, Bible study. I managed to do a little research, surprisingly enough, but then decided to quit right after. The marking was pretty easy, and took about half an hour. The seminar was funny, probably because all of us were friends together so we could joke around a bit. Rushed home for the Bible study, which I felt was not as good as before, with the material a bit jumbled up. I was extremely tired by then, however, so I didn't really attempt to make sense. Now I'm just super tired, but if I sleep now, I would wake up too early...hmm...decisions decisions. Oh yeah, and I decided not to vote, for reasons previously given. Whether I vote or not vote, my conscience wouldn't let me go, so that's that.

There were a lot of discussion of the differences of men and women, especially in church. One thing that came up is that men tends to be private while the women tends to share quite freely. I guess that's part of the problem that I'm having. I would like to share some of the troubles I'm facing, but I find no one to share them with (save perhaps one). So then I had to bury them down inside me and that's bothering me quite a bit. Anyway, that's about it.

The more Bible studies that I prepared, the more I'm ashamed of myself for not being a good example of what I teach in the Bible studies.

Crazy weather these days. Monday: cold but sunny. Tuesday: freezing rain. Wednesday: heavy snowfall and wind. Thursday: warm and sunny. Friday: super warm and sunny (8 degrees!), which turned into very heavy rain at night. Saturday: very heavy snow in the morning followed by sunshine in the afternoon, pretty cold (0 degree).

I don't think I am able to handle whatever problems I'm currently facing. I just wish that these things would just go away very quickly...

Yesterday: Got to school in the morning to finish the marking; couldn't do any research work; went out for lunch and stuff; came back to sleep; evening partying for Aidan. I keep thinking, how is it that I'm wasting time like that? Or am I really wasting time? But anyway, about Aidan's party. It was nice, kind of. We all stand around chatting with our own cliques and stuff. It was fun to chat with the usual suspects, like Berkant, Pan, Aidan, Carlos, Jessica, and Karel. But it was also interesting to chat with the people I rarely talk to, like Ian, Bruce and Craig. By the end of the evening, though, some of us usual suspects sat down on a nice couch because our feet were sore. And then we were home under heavy rain.

So here's what's happening inside me. I'm back to a state of depression, I think, having the pressure from so many fronts. So instead of tackling the works, I resort to my own bed and work on my little puzzle books. That's probably not a good idea, I'd think.

To me, the prospects of living in a large house and stuff really don't motivate me to graduate sooner...

Today: Laundry, prepare a Bible study, rearranging the room, lead a pre-study, marking. And still marking. The marking is not fun. Couldn't get a haircut because the usual hair cutter (heh...forgot the proper name...oh yeah, the barber) went to Korea for two months. So...need some alternative. Also, I really should have gotten that haircut late last year...procrastination sucks.

Have I mentioned that I'm really tired of going through all the motions of the day? Yeah, that's really tiring. I need a break already.

The Bible study plan is all messed up for me. I'll be playing catch-up for the rest of the year, I guess. It takes quite a bit longer to do each study than before, around 1.5 hours. I just hope that this doesn't become merely an academic exercise, but something that would really change me.

Yesterday, freezing rain. Today, blistering snow. It's crazy out there.

Right now, I'm just very tired and weary of everything. Preparing Bible studies, researching, marking, keeping up with friends, all getting to me. And it's only the third week of the year!

Stayed up quite a bit last night to finish some typing, which wasn't good to begin with. Supervisor meeting today, which didn't go quite as well as last time. Went to the ECE symposium thingie, and met Victor, Tony and Samuel. Nice suits they had... Office hours, this Mexican girl came in saying she had difficulties with the material. The scary thing is, she promised to be back every single week...hmm...does that mean that I have to really know the course material now? Tomorrow: haircut, prepare Bible study, mark assignments, laundry. Yikes, I don't even know how I'm going to survive that.

File that in under "Jeopardy clues that I should have gotten if I was paying more attention"... In the category of Twain Twips, for $1000: Twain wrote of how the "maid of the mist descends the fearful rapids" in a piece called "A Visit to" this place.

Boy, the freezing rain today is terrible, but funny. Slippery sidewalks all around. There's a hill right beside where I live, and I couldn't climb up that hill, nor could I go down the hill. Needed to walk around into the grass, and even then, it wasn't easy.

I've been thinking about The Amazing Race too much recently, particularly planning for one here and one back in Taiwan. Yes, I think too much of these strange stuffs.

Today: sleep, prepare Bible study, lead Bible study. That's pretty much it. The Bible study wasn't too bad, I guess. I certainly wasn't well-prepared, and I feel that I didn't do what I tried to teach...so that was a bit sad. I mean, on comparing the old life and the new life of being a Christian, quite frankly I don't know how that was for me, and maybe it got a lot worse recently. Also, on personal testimony, I really couldn't think of it for myself...so, again, kind of sad.

Still feeling a bit sick, but it is not as bad as before. Tomorrow, a ton of work to catch up.

I feel so sad that for many times now, I get to know someone just when they are about to leave...sigh... All in the Lord's will, I guess. Ok, so it's a day of sadness.

So, what do you know, after staying away from Vietnamese restaurants for a long time, I finally ate there...for two meals! First, after church, I took people home, and took Samuel to the bus station. The bus was scheduled to leave in about an hour, so we went to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. That's nice, until we had only about 6 or 7 minutes to spare for him to catch the bus...he made it, though, so that's good. I enjoy Samuel's company greatly. Then there's the dinner. It is Elaine's birthday the next day, so they have decided to go to Ben Thanh for dinner. There were 14 of us there, made a fool of ourselves, and had a good time, apparently. Now, my question is, is it true that the more expensive a meal is, the less satisfying it gets? Just curious. And by the way, I still don't like to eat cake...

Yet another very funny Mythbusters tonight, doing the confederate rocket thingie. The narrator managed to squeeze in a sexual joke in there, and he definitely rocks. There was a silent moment displaying a sign that says "Warning: Science Content" which made me laugh so hard...after all, this is a science show, right? Also, when the build team described the procedures for making parts of the rocket fuel, they had to censor parts of it to avoid people doing these things at home. For example, Grant was making nitrous oxide, and his description of how he made it were censored several times using the symbol of a dog, a cat, and a monkey (or something like that). And then the narrator would say, "So after a dog, a cat, and a monkey, Grant made nitrous oxide!" Ah...I love the narrator...

Incredibly busy week ahead, including marking, research writing, two Bible studies, laundry, and a long-overdue haircut. I wonder how I'm going to survive them all without giving up on the puzzling...

I'm still sick, but feels a lot better tonight. I managed to clean up and re-organize some of my shelf space and drawer space. It's actually quite nice, so now my bookshelf actually has a few books on it, plus all my dvds. Now I need to clean the recycling things lying on the floor... There was a love feast tonight, and I managed to cook 12 eggs with green onions, so that wasn't too bad. It got cleaned up pretty quickly, though...hopefully nobody gets a sick stomach tonight. I missed Samuel on the way there, but got him on the return, and he's still funny. In the mission conference, I stayed behind in the computer room, and talked with Li Zhen for most of that time...it was quite pleasant to talk to him, but it's too bad that I basically missed the message. Anyway, it's late, I'm tired, and I still got things to do, including the Bible study plan thingie, which took about an hour yesterday. Hopefully it's going to be shorter today.

Scrabble last night:

Round 1: Francis 199, Me 228, so I won. Longest word: nature. Most valuable word: zeal (triple word score).
Round 2: Francis 176, Me 222, so I won again. Longest word: strides. Most valuable word: queen (double letter on the Q, then double word score).

Staying home for 3 straight 24-hour periods is apparently not good for me. Once I go outside, the sickness seems to be gone.

Still sick.

After encouraging other people to start a one-year Bible reading plan, I've decided to start one myself. One motivation is that I've just finished my most recent plan, where I would read through The Message. Now that that's done, I'm going to be using The Nelson Study Bible that Michael kindly gave me a couple of years ago, and the four-tiered Bible reading plan (which is the one I used back in who knows when...1999?), to do my daily Bible study this year. I'm quite excited about this right now...hopefully this will last.

About the election...right now my thinking is I cannot vote for any candidate with good conscience. So unless things change soon, I don't think I'll be voting this time around.

Still sick, and the symptoms seem to mutate all the time. Yesterday, supervisor meeting where I could barely talk, but eventually it was not a bad one. Then an office hour where only one person showed up on a very hard assignment. Today, wasted the whole day to puzzles.

Hmm...should I talk to Aaron about the importance of commitments? Hmm...

What is it with the weather? 8 degrees yesterday, 7 today, yikes...

So now I'm officially sick. Headache, sore throat, clogged throat, feeling hot. Not good when there's a supervisor meeting on the line... I had to come home early to get a long nap, because I was just too sleepy in the office (even though I woke up late). Slightly better now after drinking a ton of hot water. But still, not feeling well. So much for the Florida orange juice commercial...

But, all is not lost with the research writing when I managed to almost finish a part of it in the evening, and still continuing with it right now. Hopefully it won't be too bad...

Hmm...apparently yesterday's Bible study has been more stirring than I thought... Interesting how God works, isn't it?

Original plan for today: Wake up, do the usual morning stuffs, go to school, work hard, come back, prepare Bible study, and lead the Bible study. So of course that didn't work out...I woke up, do the usual morning stuffs, and fell back to sleep again...sigh... When I woke up again, it's around 12, so I don't really have time to go to school, hence the very risky plan to work hard at home. I did manage to do a bit of work, but it wasn't significant. Eventually I had to prepare the Bible study, so I abandoned the work to do that. The Bible study itself wasn't too bad, with 7 people attending. It could have been better, but I'm not complaining.

I'm having a minor headache. I hope it's because I'm under tremendous stress, and not because of some serious medical condition. Still, it would be nice if it's gone.

I didn't go outside today, but just seeing the temperatures listed on the envcan website, I'm wondering where did the usual frigid winter go? A high of 1 and a low of 0 for today, when the normal high and low are -2 and -11 respectively...strange.

I haven't done a "congratulations, car" for a while...It hit 42,000 yesterday on its way to the fellowship on Erbsville. So, congratulations, car!

Mythbusters is so enjoyable to watch. Today, we have the myths of the "compact compact," and some vodka myths. Poor Grant...he had to smell Adam's feet and breath...yikes.

I don't really know how to prepare for this Bible study tomorrow. It's a bit crazy here.

It was fun eating dinner with Francis and Samuel. I never knew that Samuel talks so much.

I may be taking on too much work for MYF...I guess time will tell.

Yeah, I'm supposed to do some school work...but...

Wednesday: Sad and disappointing supervisor meeting. Of course I did nothing during the vacation, so that's understandable. But it's sad enough that I decided to start intense puzzling again...which is bad. For Jackson's class, well, even though I'm being told that I have a "solid background" for this course, I'm not taking it. Primarily because I don't remember much of that "solid background"...so yeah. It was funny to see Jackson trying to figure out who I am, though...

Thursday: Stay at home all day, doing nothing important, except during the night when we had a pre-study. My idea of having the first study of Galatians to be a reading of the entire book went through, but I started to have bad feelings about it...anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Friday: There was a water shut down just after I finished my shower, but unfortunately this means that Alan couldn't clean up. We both went to our respective offices soon after. For the first time, I brushed my teeth and washed my face in the school's washroom...hmm... Anyway, there was tetris, there was a TA meeting, and I was back soon after. The hair salon place seemed to have closed today, so I have to try again tomorrow and live with my long hair for one more day. Of course I did nothing of importance today.

Ah...the first day of school. And I find no classes I'm able to take, except possibly Jackson's class, which I won't take anyway, so I don't know. I tried desperately to go to school early and get some things done, but unfortunately, sleep deprivation overnight wasn't helping that, so eventually I got to school at 12. Even then, I only got some writing started when Francis came in and we went to Bubble Tease. The Portuguese chicken really is a bit "washroom inducing" so-to-speak, so I had to come home early, hence ruining my plan for the day. And it was at home when I received notice of the supervisor meeting today, so I really needed to get some writing done. But...for some odd reason, after having written only a little bit, I got so tired that I had to sleep again...hmm...this is not looking good for me. So, there goes the day.

I had the weirdest dreams last night. I dreamed that both of my parents were dead, and then were alive. I have no idea.

I did some sort of a monthly budget thingie. Apparently I have no room for frivolous spending.

At first, it seems that I have abandoned all plans of productivity. All play and puzzles with no work...until I actually cleaned my room and the suite late in the evening. It's not that bad, really, just tedious work. Now I will definitely need to get things done tomorrow... Oh yeah, and I did some exercise for a brief moment, during which I probably hurt my shoulders...hmm...

The Taipei 101 New Year's display is beautiful. Much much better than the sucky New York City display...

I was quite shocked by the fire alarm this morning. It's not a constant beeping, only two or three beeps at a time with a few minutes interval in between. I had no idea what was going on, and was awfully annoyed by it. Eventually I went to take out the trash to find them checking up on the fire alarm system...sigh...they could have told us about it so that I didn't need to start panicking...

Happy New Year! Sort of...

5 cities, 36 hours, 2 calendar years, 322.1 kilometres. This would be the trip to Toronto and back, staying over at Eugene's, wasting a lot of time, and crossing the new year at MamaYen's. Very tiring, I'd say.

The countdown to the new year thing is kind of...well...disappointing. And anticlimatic. Like, 3...2...1...1...happy new year! Now what? Go home and sleep.

I'm very afraid of what's coming...the work, that is. Being relaxed for too long now.