A few more notes from yesterday's trip: Chiayi was really warm compared to the cool weather of Taipei...the lunch was a bunch of really strange Japanese dishes which are supposedly delicacies but I find them to taste pretty bad...my dad borrowed my book Abide in Christ on the plane and immediately used it in his talk...too bad I didn't get a picture of the monument for Tropic of Cancer, it's not that interesting, though...the flights were bumpy, but the view on the return flight was excellent.

I don't know why I just felt really tired the entire day. So I wasted the entire day mostly to sleeping and stuff. There was a strange noodle lunch... The evening was better, I guess, with attending mesister's some orchestra practice thingie. Met up with Timothy there, not too bad. And that's about it for this boring day. Well, I guess I could add some excitement to this day by saying that there was another minor earthquake in the afternoon...

When I used to have too much quiet time, I complained about boredom and loneliness. Now that I have very little quiet time, I complain about the lack of it. That's what happens when I'm so unappreciative of the environments that God has provided me with...

What can I say about what happened today? Well, in conclusion, let's just say that if God really wants to torture my soul, then He would make me really famous. So what happened? My dad was invited to speak at Chiayi National University today, and he decided that he would take me there as well. We actually flew there in the morning, he gave the talk, lunch, tour, then flew back in the afternoon. The thing is, these people treated my dad (and as an aside, me) like a superstar or something. It's undescribable what they did...what with the flowers, song and dance, applauses, unnerving praise, a mass send-off at the airport...yikes. I obviously felt very uncomfortable with all the attention. Eventually a few guys did talk to me a bit privately on the side, and that was comfortable enough.

I think my dad took me with him because I was disappointed that he would not spend any time with me while I'm here. The price he paid is exactly the cost of my plane ticket...which is almost the same as his speaker's fee. So essentially he took me along to gain nothing but my company. And for that, I'm kind of touched. Sure we still didn't talk much, but I guess the intention was good enough. Also, at least now I get a sense of what my dad does for work, and that's not bad, either. Of course I still have no appreciation for what he's doing, but that's beside the point...

No pain, no gain. Really.

I need to have the discipline to keep myself away from the TV here whenever I'm bored. There are just too many possibilities for temptations from the television...

Lunched with 5 women (4 of them old, 1 of them mesister). They almost laughed their heads off, really. It was amusing.

I don't like it when people are fearful of me...

Interesting how I had my very first home-cooked meal in Taiwan last night...(well, dumplings don't count.) Really, I'm very insensitive to food, actually. I couldn't tell if a dish is particularly good or just ok. As long as the food fills the stomach and doesn't leave a particularly bad taste in my mouth, I'm ok with it. At the same time, I don't appreciate good food at all, just because I couldn't tell. So yeah, when people tell me that I must be getting really good food here in Taiwan, I really didn't feel it...certainly it's better than my mundane meals back in Waterloo, but it's nothing to drool over...

I've discovered a good way to fall asleep in times of insomnia: just pray until you sleep.

Lots of rain these days...makes the temperature cool, and I can live with that.

It's Tuesday already? Wow...time flies by very quickly, eh? Boring shopping in the morning, with the company of rain. Afternoon was spent composing an email which ended up having more than 2,000 words...and it was good. I was quite depressed recently, but now I'm receiving peace from God.

Is it really possible to study the word of God and pray for 2 hours first thing each morning? I very much desire to do that...but... I guess it's good that I still desire for it...

Wallace and Gromit rock.

Two emails today. The first one made me smile, the second one made me cry, and drove me to church to pray, and cry some more. That's the day it's been.

I have very little faith in my prayers. I prayed my hearts out at church this afternoon, and I received a sense of peace immediately. However, soon afterwards, I started to doubt about the faith that I had in that prayer, and it's just bad. I don't know what I'm doing.

Watched half of Wallace & Gromit...sure it's amusing, but my heart's still weary of the reality... Oh yeah, and it appears that my laptop couldn't read DVDs anymore...

I realize that the puzzle books are killing a lot of time that could have been spent in prayers and studying the Word. So now I've put them away...

A bit of a massive shopping at Elim yesterday, bought 5 copies of Abide in Christ to give away, 2 copies of miniature Bible also to give away, and a compilation worship CD which I may also give away as well... Well, I guess for the CD, I'm used to the mp3 from the Willingdon website, which is live worship in church, and has a sing-along factor which is lacking in the compilation CD. I also feel the songs in the CD are closer to a performance than worshipping the Lord...then again, I'm new to this.

Oh yeah, there was a lunch yesterday which mom initiated for no good reason, but indeed got 11 people to attend. It wasn't too bad, I think...

It appears that I have a sad history of losing close friends...maybe that's why I'm so afraid of making new friends? Or at least get too close to friends? I don't know...

Why is my heart growing weary of getting close to God?

One thing I've observed in the church here is this lack of freedom. It seems like everything must go a certain rigid way. Only an observation that saddens my heart.

Two restaurant meals yesterday. First one, a gathering of 9 for an Italian meal. I don't know...that felt kind of disappointing, actually. The conversations were kind of...shallow? Yeah, empty of any real substance... Maybe I was expecting too much. The second meal, a private Japanese bbq dinner with Austin. Both of us are kind of awkward, but that was ok, we managed to have a good time. I don't know how he perceived the disturbing things that I talked to him about, but at least it opened up a brief conversation about faith, so that's a good step.

Even though I thought I've overcame jetlagging, I still suffer from it...hence a 5am post here.

Maybe it's because of the new uncomfortable environment, I find it really hard to desire to spend some serious time in God's words. I can pray, I can worship in songs, but when I couldn't find a table to put the huge Bible on, I couldn't read the word... Sigh...that's just the worst excuse ever...

Back to Taipei now. Getting agonizingly depressed. The silence from Francis is, as the cliche goes, deafening. The temptations are just coming on very strongly. I have trouble living with my family. And my heart couldn't settle down to seek God. Just a few little things that are bothering me...

I guess I should mention the trip down to Kaohsiung and then Gongshan on Thursday. It was good, I think, but probably not as good as I hoped. The best part was to chat and play with Henry and Joy. I was really tired, but still managed to stay awake somehow...

I really like the trains here.

I simply don't have enough love...not enough to forgive people...sigh...

Here in Taiwan, if I don't die out of heat exhaustion, then I'll most likely die out of air poisoning...

Still jetlagging a lot. 3am here and I couldn't sleep. Of course it didn't help that I passed out at around 8:30pm...

Morning was spent with grandmother at the hospital again. Nothing interesting happened, although the food at the hospital cafeteria is amazing...as hospital food goes. There was a point where I got so hungry that I was shaking pretty badly...hmm...that's not good. Anyway, here I am in an afternoon that is being spent aimlessly doing nothing. That's not good.

Oh yeah, I forgot the small earthquake this morning...which happened while I was on the 11th floor of the hospital. Interesting...

Strange dreams recently. And the fact that I actually remember what I dreamed? Just weird...

A relatively quick (but sometimes slightly shaky) train ride took me to Tainan this morning, and we were whisked away directly to the hospital to see grandmother. And oh my, she has changed a lot...looks a lot older, but still as enthusiastic as before. I was pretty dead tired by the time I got to the hospital, just wanting to get some sleep... I don't know what to say...it's all pretty shocking for a tired body.

Long afternoon nap (which isn't good for adjusting for jetlag), then a strange fishy dinner plus ice thingie, and here I am, typing away and trying to stay up for at least a while before I go to sleep again.

I feel pretty depressed again...sigh... This whole Francis thing is somehow really bothering me, mainly because I have no idea what's going on. Also, there's the adjusting to a life surrounded by people...which feels kind of odd.

Walking aimlessly around the 101 district, that's what happened for the evening, after a deep afternoon nap. In another startling realization, even though my main hope for coming here is to meet people, unfortunately most of them are still in school, or at work, or at military service, during weekdays...and I can only hope to meet with them during the very short weekends...sigh...

Jetlagging is getting worse now, actually. Woke up several times this morning, the latest of which was 3am. I visited the washroom a bit too frequently...and I had terrible dreams, one where Francis treated me like he treated Ed, and that was just awful. Off to Tainan in a couple of hours.

To me, faith has at least two levels of meaning. On one level, faith is believing in the doctrine, the standard Jesus is the only son of God and He died on the cross for our sins, etc. To me, that's the easy part. There is another level of faith...faith that leads me to believe that Jesus is indeed my heart, and is working inside me, etc. A personalization of the doctrine, basically. Now that's hard, and I'm continuing to struggle with this, having doubts all around. I keep repeating this prayer from the Bible: "Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief!"

Wooooooo...finally, internet connection from the laptop! Too bad I'm leaving tomorrow to Tainan...

Easter church service this morning. It's very hard to make the connection when the main language is Taiwanese... But anyway, a lot of people saw me and exclaimed, "You're back?!" And I'm thinking, of course I'm back, how else could I be there? Had a nice (if not large) lunch with mom, mesister, and her boyfriend...heh. Her boyfriend and I do have a few things in common...like our collective distaste at mushrooms and our enthusiasm for puzzles...interesting...

Yes, people see that I've lost weight. Yes, I've been doing exercise. But no, I don't have enough courage to say the kinds of exercise that I used to do...before the huge giveaway... Sure it would be a good opportunity to share my story if they ask, but the story is maybe too long? and disturbing? Well, at least I couldn't just say it within the realm of normal conversation... Yeah, I guess I'm both too eager and too passive about this sharing thingie...

First post from Taiwan...

Well, here I am in this tiny little crowded island. I think it has been an interesting experience traveling here. In a surprisingly smart move, I actually dressed for comfort instead of the usual, so I wore suitable sleep wear all the way, and it was good. Once in the airport, for some reason I broke down and cried a couple of times, not knowing what I'll face in the future... In the Harmony flight, I scored an aisle seat at the emergency exit row, so I got a ton of leg room there...heh. The only downside is that the washroom is right in front of me, and it gets a bit crowded. I did manage to get some sleep there, but not much. It was a very smooth flight, I have to say, even though the aircraft seems a bit old... Once landed, I had to make a long trek within YVR to catch the CI flight. And boy was it a long long way... The CI flight itself is far from full, so I got two seats to myself, and that's kind of nice. The surprise when I got on the aircraft? The announcement that the flight is 12 hours and 45 minutes long (instead of "just" 12 hours). Yikes. But, the seemingly grueling flight was not too bad. I managed to sleep a few times as well, and these are quality sleep time, I believe... The food was strangely luxurious, so to speak...I mean, eel and smoked salmon for lunch? Wheee.... On both flights, I went into deep thoughts and wrote down a ton of things. One page worth of stuff. And considering my incredibly small handwriting, that's a lot. Most of what I wrote, however, is too personal...so, probably won't post it up here. In yet another surprise, I actually wasn't afraid during both flights, like I usually do previously. There was a sense of peace through all the take-offs, landings, and turbulences. I thank the Lord for providing such peace, and for the fulfilling time I had on board.

Once in Taiwan, I was whisked away directly to church (with a washroom detour at Costco). I really didn't feel tired, actually, so I enjoyed the time of fellowship at church. Meeting these old friends was great. Hope to bond with them during my short stay...

I don't know why I'm so frustrated by the inability of my laptop to go online here. It never happened before...something went wrong and I have no idea what it is. It frustrates me even more that I would be so frustrated with it and wasted so much time on it! Sigh... So I guess I can only use mesister's computer to do these online stuffs while she's not using it...like right now, 6am in the morning...yes, still a bit jetlagged...woke up at around 4. Oh well. Oh my...I'm experiencing an earthquake...

Last post from Waterloo...

...for a while, that is. Off to the airport in 3 hours, and I still haven't gone to sleep...not sure I will have any sleep tonight, though. If I fall asleep now, I'm not sure I would wake up on time, so that's a big risk...

So why am I still awake right now? Lots of things happened. First it was a dinner for four at Lunchbox (I know, it sounds ironic). Then a trek to DP where we found no one there (no one that we know, that is), and that was quite strange. A trip home is followed by a walk around campus with Kai. Then a last meeting with Samuel in Waterloo resolved some problems in my life, and revealed others as well... Man, I'm really going to miss him...

Courage. I need it.

After a few errands in the morning, I started frantically trying to find a lunch buddy, because there's nothing to eat at home now. I called a lot of people, and all were unavailable. So I went for a desperate attempt where I decided that I would go to my office and if I meet someone I know on the way (which never happened), I would have lunch with him. I really didn't think much of it, but while I was approaching Tim Horton's, David was in there, he saw me and waved to me, and there you go, I've found a lunch buddy. Now it really shocked me that this had happened, actually...it's almost mindblowing... Later we spotted Kai and Sophie walking by along Ring Road, and I went out to try to shock them, which didn't work...but still, it's even more amazing how all these things happened...

Sigh...I really wanted to see a few people before I go... Oh well, there're still a few hours left to do that... And why is it that I can cry so much these days?

When I focus my life on Christ, everything else does seem secondary...

Made a phone call home this morning, and mesister picked it up. I don't know why it feels really depressing that she keeps talking about what I can do and where I can go once I'm in Taiwan... Maybe it's because all I want to do is to see the people and chat with them... Hmm...that sounds like a strange ambition for this extremely shy person, eh?

It was raining really hard all day yesterday...strange weather we have here. Made the marking all the more depressing, I guess. And it also forced me to get lunch at C&D, which made my body feel bad, so yeah...

23 hours left until I fly...

It's been a tiring day. About 7 hours of marking pretty much drained all my energy. Sure there were some funny answers in there, but the whole process was as tiresome as usual... I'm having a giant headache right now. I'm certainly not complaining, since as compared to many of my friends, this is probably the least stress that could be experienced...

You know, I have a fear of heights...so why am I flying in less than 36 hours? I guess it's the destination that matters...but still...

Need to tie up a few loose ends tomorrow before heading off to the airport Friday morning. I really wish I could visit a few friends here before I leave, because they would have left Waterloo by the time I return... Sigh...since when did I become such a sentimentalist?

Ah...I hate the research I'm doing (or not doing). It just horrifies me to think that I'm expected to do this for a long time... Couldn't I get a break for a while? What is the Lord's calling in all of this? So yeah, the supervisor meeting inspired all of these thoughts...

Morning meeting...lunch with David and Clarence...long and deep afternoon nap...very boring proctoring...heh, I annoyed Chen Jie to no end. In other news, an excellent J! yesterday, and an excellent Millionaire today (a 20-year-old kid won $100K, and is still going on tomorrow...).

My God, why are temptations the strongest during my dreams?

A couple of days ago (maybe), I've planned to cook some leftover stuff from the fridge for lunch today. Well, when the time came to cook, I really want to just give up, mostly because I find it too tedious... I thought about inviting people for lunch, but didn't make it happen. I grudgingly started cooking anyway, but not long after I started, Li Zhen called asking me to go out for lunch. Well, good idea, why don't you come over here for lunch? So there you go, Li Zhen and Chen Jie came over for lunch, and I started to enjoy the cooking...who knew? Nothing's a coincidence, that's what I believe. So anyway, we had a nice home-made three-course meal, and then had fun at the game room downstairs. I won't say how I crushed them in foosball...heh.

I was tinkering with another idea this morning...how about if I drive around to visit people between the end of August and the beginning of September? I can start to imagine the places that I would visit already...Montreal, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Seattle, Boise, Pittsburgh...it would be a long drive, and contribute to global warming, but it sounds too good to pass up on. Maybe a bit too adventurous for me... I guess I also need to find someone along for the ride and share in the time and driving, for otherwise I might go insane...

I sort of did my taxes today, and boy, I have to pay over $600 in income taxes...yikes.

I've done a lot of sharing of my experiences of this past term lately. But I have to remember, almost all of them were done at the prompting of the Lord, instead of being initiated by myself. That is quite important, because only the sharing done for the Lord seems relevant, and yielded peace in my heart afterwards. If I am the one initiating the sharing, then it usually ends up flat and becomes a bit self-centred? Another interesting thing I've noticed is that when the Lord wants me to share, it's usually without preconceived scripts and it just flows fluently and naturally; but when I share on my own, I would think about what I would say, and usually end up stuttering through it and missing the main points. Again, this lends to the notion of surrender all of myself to Jesus, doing what He wants me to do instead of doing what I want to do...

Before, I find the notion of living day by day in the Lord to be a daunting task, probably because I can't seem to imagine myself keeping this up for the rest of my life (which may be long). But the epiphany for today is that it shouldn't be like that...instead, living day by day is exactly living one day at a time without thinking about what might happen in the future. So each day, decide to live for the Lord for the day and that's it. It also lends to the notion of living each day to the fullest, which to me means living this particular day for the Lord. Surely I see that there may be times ahead where I may walk in a spiritual desert, but that's not my concern right now. My concern should be the present, as the present presents enough to handle already.

Re-read chapter 2 of Abide in Christ for the third time this afternoon. This book is simply a gem. Need to remember to trust and obey, obey and trust, and surrender every part of my life to Christ, and then I shall find rest. I still long for this abiding unbroken fellowship with Christ as promised...

Pastor Henry talked about life on earth as being temporary, and also experiences in faith and stuff, and I kept nodding my head because that is exactly what I had experienced in the past week or so. Also, the last time Pastor Henry spoke, he talked about being weak for God, and that is exactly what I had experienced as well. So yeah, that's pretty special.

After the service, I sort of played up the "playing at Kai's place" bit and got strange reactions from Samuel...heh. Anyway, we simply moved some stuffs from Kai's place to my place for temporary storage while he's away. Later I offered mom's dumplings as lunch, and he was a bit stunned, because he hasn't had a dumpling in a long time. Makes me wonder if I have taken a lot of things for granted and forgot to appreciate small things like having dumplings and stuff... Anyway, we had a nice chat, nothing too serious, and that's that.

Mix bag: Skating at RIM Park was cancelled, so I was kind of disappointed. The mccf prayer meeting attracted a lot of people this time around, actually, so I felt a bit uncomfortable...and the loud music next door didn't help, either. I guess I still need a lot of training in prayers... In other news, I finally finished the giant puzzle book today, so it's time to start a new one? Five days away from flying to Taiwan...seems like there are so many things to do, yet I just couldn't do them? I don't know. Also, it may have been the last time that I see some of these people in Waterloo...and it brings a bit of pain in my heart. I have a lot of mixed emotions once again, but the joy of the Lord is still here, and I'm thankful for that. I just hope that the disappointments in life won't trump the joy and peace from Jesus.

Morning and afternoon were spent mostly on sleep, read, pray, and puzzle, amongst gospel music. Fellowship was great. For some odd reason, I shared my experience this past semester again...almost drew a tear out of my eyes... We had a wonderful prayer meeting. Mary's talk was good too...heh. Nice to see Paul again. Looks like more targets for weekend visitations coming up...

Ah...but the main event was the dinner. Wayne and I went out for dinner. At first, we searched for a non-full restaurant from Northfield and King down to Erb and King...heh. Settled on a Viet-Thai restaurant...and we proceeded to talk for more than two hours! It's amazing, isn't it? A once shy person in me can participate in a conversation that lasted that long. We talked about lots of things, some serious, some not so serious, but somehow we seem to end up praising Samuel at the end of each topic, to which Wayne is indignant about...heh. Anyway, we had a wonderful time of sharing, and hope to do this again some day.

This past week has been one where I became a testimony for God using the weak to accomplish His works. And I'm definitely humbled by it.

This is how we should serve God isn't it? Wait for God to prompt you to do something, and then just obey. O the joy of obeying God! It's not "I want to do this and this for God," but instead, it's "Lord, here I am waiting for You."

Surprisingly, I'm actually looking forward to this trip to Taiwan. I really want to meet my old friends, and I feel that I'm returning as a new person. Whatever the Lord has planned for me, whatever surprises that I'm going to face, I'm ready. Sort of. Well, on second thought...nevermind.

Still looking for an alternative sport...preferably an indoor sport, hopefully it can be an intense exercise, and one that doesn't involve balls...

Lesson for today: When God provides an opportunity, don't pass it up. I felt this sense of calm, peace and joy after all is said and done, and that is good enough for me.

Woke up, studied the Bible, short call from Samuel, office hour where nobody came, Francis and I had a nasty conversation on msn that lasted about two hours, home to sleep, went out with Li Zhen, and here I am. Nope, despite what it seems, I absolutely did not waste this day at all. In fact, it was one of the more fulfilling days that I had in recent memory. Thank God.

There is still this sense of regret that I could have attended the accountability group meeting yesterday, if only I knew it was happening after I arrived back in Waterloo...oh well.

8 hours, 3 cities, 280.0 kilometres. Clarence is quite a character, isn't he? It was fun having him around. First stop, visit Christina in downtown Toronto to have lunch. But we got there too early, so we took a detour around Lakeshore, visited a park there, and had an impromptu prayer meeting. Noodles lunch was ok, I guess, but the main point here is that the couple hasn't seen each other for weeks, so this would be a nice reunion of some sort... Then it was off to Metro Square where I finally picked up my plane tickets...wheeeeee! Talked briefly with Joseph before being interrupted by a visiting customer. T&T was next, and then a couple of Christian bookstores, and then we headed home...but not before hitting multiple traffic jams while I was falling asleep (and so did Clarence...heh). Overall, a nice (and tiring) trip, and a bonus of sunshine and (very) warm temperature throughout, thank God.

How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great, is our God.

Tomorrow: oh boy I just hope I don't waste tomorrow like I did yesterday...

Ah...I wasted most of today...and it didn't feel good at all. In fact, at one point my stomach was feeling quite queasy about having wasted the day, spending a lot of time on puzzles...then again, it could be the terrible food that I was consuming myself...

I'm spiritually weak. I'm starting my life as a Christian from the beginning. It pains me when some see me as more than who I really am. I just hope and pray that I don't become a stumbling block.

Going to Toronto tomorrow. This used to be a good idea, but now I'm starting to think otherwise...probably because I would be missing a lot of stuff here in Waterloo, which I didn't know. But anyway, I need to pick up the plane tickets, so that's that.

Back to the present...I had a very dizzying head when I woke up this morning, and that continued through the day. It was a terrible reminder of the past when my head does that all the time, and it seems to have come back today. It's like, if I don't make sudden movements to my head, then it's fine, but once I start to move it, I get incredibly dizzy. Eventually had a long nap in the afternoon and that made it a lot better. By that time, however, I had stayed at home for the entire day, and I thought that was not good. So then I went out with Li Zhen to do some grocery shopping and then dinner at my place. It looks like I should start driving people to grocery shopping everyday...that would be fun.

It's actually snowing pretty hard outside right now. Amazing. April 4th, and still snowing. It's even more amazing considering that it was 19 degrees yesterday...

A note from the past... For the mccf dinner, I uploaded my photos in a zip file (more than 200MB) and put compressed versions on my gallery. Just for the night of that dinner, bandwidth usage shot up to 1.6GB! Wheeeeee! Finally I get to use some of the promised bandwidth...I mean, normally the website uses only around 3-5MB of bandwidth per day when I'm allowed to use 10GB per day...somehow it felt good to put all that wasted bandwidth to use!

More reminiscing... Saturday: The day of the games. I've never cut it so close before with preparing a game. I was far from finished, yet there was a coworkers meeting in the morning. During the meeting, I was struggling between concentrating on the meeting and preparing the games. That almost led to a breakdown, and I simply went outside and prayed. Eventually what I decided to do was to stay outside the meeting and they can call me in if they need me. I felt peaceful about this decision, actually, and got something done while they keep on meeting. Eventually got home, had a quick lunch, continued to make the games, and got it done with a few minutes to spare before I have to leave for church. That was way too close. As for the game itself, it was ok, I guess. I don't feel like my heart was totally in it. There were some good moments, but I don't think people learned anything anyway. Interesting how a puzzle that I thought would take 20 minutes to solve (and that sounded very generous) ended up taking the teams an agonizing hour, and only one out of three teams "guessed" solved it. This always happens, apparently, me overestimating these people...heh. Anyway, by the end of the night, I was so tired, and pretty much dropped dead after the pita dinner...and adjusting the clock...

Sunday: First day of relative freedom. First, the early church service where I picked up 2 out of 4 regular passengers, an improvement of 1 from last week. Had a nice chat with Jackson afterwards. After some waiting after the service was over, 6 of us went to Red Lobster for lunch. Yes, we all went crazy. Nice meal, but I guess I really didn't appreciate the food as much as the fellowship. At one point I was in the washroom and thought to myself, "My God, what have I done?" But it was a good time, and we probably won't return until a few years later... Sent the guys home after a short detour through Wal-Mart and David's place, and I was off to skating at RIM Park, which was later joined by Francis, and then by Elaine when there were 10 minutes left...heh. Went home, and then got to the mccf prayer meeting, where I was finally calmed down by God somewhat. I'm really afraid that my encounters with some of these brothers and sisters are way too short before they leave Waterloo... There's something about mccf that felt a lot more mature than myf...there are pros and cons, of course, but it looks like I'll be staying, even though a lot of them are leaving. It was a jam-packed day...and it was good.

These four days from Thursday to Sunday had been very interesting, to say the least. They are so full of activities that I didn't have time to post them up here. Sometimes I wish everyday could be this lively, living to the fullest as cliches go, but sometimes it's necessary to be quiet and alone.

I have never cried so hard in front of another person...and it was good. Thank you, Lord.

It was funny how Li Zhen's seat in DP was right behind Samuel's... Anyway, for today, woke up, cooked rice, went to sleep, woke up, lunch with Samuel, walk with Li Zhen, laundry, fire alarm, dinner and shopping with Clarence. Only the second "free" day and it was jam packed...excellent.

Really weird weather today. Very windy all day (up to 59 km/h), very warm at around noon (18 degrees), and it constantly shifts between sunny, cloudy, and a variety of rain. Supposed to be snowing tonight...hmm...

Ah...haven't posted in a while. Lots of things have happened.

Thursday: Day of the second stage comp. I guess the surprise of the morning was seeing Furino while I was walking towards the office (for the second time of the day). The exam itself went surprisingly well, and a few fellow students attended as well, so that's nice. I didn't feel this exuberant joy after I passed the exam, probably because there was an expectation that I would pass beforehand. Anyway, my mood crashed soon after due to temptations... Then there were the mccf sharing thingie and dinner at some Mediterranean place. This was where I got to know Wayne a bit, and I enjoyed his company. Too bad he's leaving soon... A note about the dinner: I was mighty hungry by that time, so much so that my stomach was in pain. It also didn't help that the air vent was blowing cold air directly to my head (and of course it was blowing warm air just when we were about to leave...). Anyway, I had a wonderful time in the interactions with the fellow brothers and sisters.

Friday: Day of preparing for the Bible games. Let's just say it was a painful experience. So desperate for questions. I didn't even start the programming this day. I don't think I've ever felt this way when serving God, which leads to the question of whether or not my heart was right in this. I struggled a lot with it, and mix that in with the pressure to get things done, plus the spiritual depression I was experiencing...it was terrible. But anyway, I got a break in the evening to go to mccf's end of term dinner in St. Jacob's. First, the dress code fiasco...Kai went all in with a nice suit and tie...I had a shirt and vest just for fun...and Samuel had this ordinary sweatshirt. It's all the same, apparently. Anyway, the food was ok, but the fellowship with brothers and sisters was wonderful (and quite frankly, a bit crazy). The amount of flashing that was going on was crazy, people taking picture after picture after picture...it was fun, though. Wayne and Samuel took interest in the zoom lense of my camera and shot a ton of those close-up pictures without people knowing they're being shot. I ended up having 101 pictures in my camera (most of them not taken by me...heh). Anyway, the fun had to end...I eventually got home at around 9, and struggled my way through the game until 3 in the morning...