Yesterday...woke up early...tried and failed to do the matroid exercises...frustrated with matroids in general...really depressing lunch...supervisor meeting ok...started marking, but soon had to come home to sleep...evening marking...sleep. Well, one interesting thing, during the evening marking, there was this sudden urge to do something...I don't know what it was that the Holy Spirit wanted me to do, but I just felt compelled to do...something. It's really weird. I stopped marking, and eventually started singing with the worship songs aloud, and that was a good time of praising the Lord. But, maybe there's something else? I don't know.

Today...essentially all day marking, finished at around 3:30. I felt quite relieved, actually...and went home to sleep...heh. But in the evening, I read more of Wild at Heart, and then all of a sudden, I felt a strange fear. I don't know what's going on. It's just very strange. Perhaps it's the fear that I could never do what the book says...and interestingly enough, that's exactly what the book predicts some of my reactions could be... Yeah, the attack from the enemies... Trust in the Lord, that's what I need.

The weather is the interesting story today. Hot and sunny in the morning. In the afternoon, there was a thunderstorm accompanied by huge rain (and some say there was hail as well). The rain died down shortly, but the thunder continued throughout the afternoon. There was even a tornado warning, though none spotted so far. It's calm and quiet now.

I guess the only plan that worked for today was doing laundry in the morning. Other than that, all the work that I wanted to do at the office was essentially ruined when I arrived in the early afternoon. On a hot day, it was really bad condition to work in. I did eventually do a little bit of research and a little bit of matroid exercise, but that was far from what I wanted to do... Anyway, evening Bible study and dinner, now three of them are downstairs playing in the game room while I'm up here trying to type and then fall asleep. Added to that, I had this headache, which, for one moment, turned into involuntary dizzyness. That's definitely not good.

Question for today: why did Jesus fall asleep on the boat?

Yesterday's morning run was the first time that I actually managed to run an entire lap of Ring Road without stopping. Well, I almost stopped a few times, and the run was really really slow, but at least it didn't slow down to a walk. I reversed the direction this time around, and maybe that have helped? But really, I tried to push myself as hard as possible, and that's how it was done. Meanwhile, still on the topic of exercise, I'm kind of frustrated again that I'm barred from doing what I really wanted to do by God...sigh... A lot of jealousy that other people can do it, but I can't... Then again, it's only an earthly thing, I don't know. I'm confused.

Another full Sunday without doing any work. That's the life I'm living, I guess...leaving everything until Monday. Two church services this morning...one got me crying a bit uncontrollably when the sermon got me thinking about what God has done in my life so far this year...the other, well, got my name mentioned in the sermon...heh. Lunch with Clarence. Home to sleep. Evening prayer meeting. Home for dinner and television, where I took yet another risk, but this time it was ok.

About the prayer meeting. It was a joint prayer meeting between the three ccf's. Initially I was struggling as to whether I should go or not, because it is a totally unfamiliar environment for me. There would be new people, and I don't know if I would have any people to relate to. Eventually I simply "faced my fears head-on" so-to-speak and just went there. Initially it was slightly uncomfortable because we were sharing and praying in English, which I never do in public, only in private. But I got over that quickly, and it was a wonderful meeting. And these people are so young! Most of them, anyway. One slightly funny anecdote...I was sharing, and I briefly mentioned the word "temptations" and didn't expound on that. After I finished sharing, Sai Kit immediately asked, "what was it that you said about temptations?" Well, I didn't say anything about it, so I could only respond by saying, "I'll leave that for later..." (whatever that means.) So yeah, it appears that people are interested in this topic, except not many people are talking about it. By the way, it baffles me how I can actually have conversations with Feng...amazing...heh.

Isn't it disturbing that there is so much parallel between my conflict with Francis and Clarence's conflict with his girlfriend?

Friday...another day of frustration. First braved the heavy rain to school, intending to mark assignments, only to realize that I don't have access to solutions. Wasted an hour doing nothing, then went to Costco with Li Zhen and Chen Jie. Lunch at McD's...which I'll need to remind myself never to go there for a meal again. Really, the only things I could order are the toasted subs, and now this one I got was just cheap and horrific... Anyway, returned home and then Clarence visited me. For some odd reason, I slinked back to my old self again, unable to share my story, and I felt really bad. Especially because once Clarence left, I faced a serious temptation of the crisis level. I took a small risk, but that ended up being more fatal than I've imagined. I didn't fall into the temptation, but I broke down over my own weakness and returned to the Lord for comfort. So I guess on one hand it's frustrating, but on the other hand it's good to realize my weakness once again. I'm not sure I can take another risk again, even though I want to...

Today...pretty much slept over the whole morning... David Lee visited in the afternoon and we played board games. Somehow he finds the Trivial Pursuit questions to be very funny...heh. But really, we both suck at it... Scrabble was much more interesting, though, where being a first-time player, he beat me by 3 points. Awww...heh. Fellowship was made more interesting because Clarence and I had some emotional conversations back in the control room while the worship team was out there singing. I cut myself off from the refreshment...didn't know why. At the dinner at the uptown Viet-Thai place, I just felt horrible. Something was wrong, and I didn't understand why. It got slightly better eventually, I guess, but it's still weird. Got home and received a short email from Wayne, and that made me feel better, mysteriously enough.

Yeah, I don't know why I still couldn't forgive Francis...is it because I think he's a hypocrite, or because he's actually right? In any case, I just don't know how to approach him anymore...I fear that I would get hurt again if I do...I don't know.

Yeah, matroid assignment. If there's anything that could quickly kill my interest in matroids, that would be it. Why do profs give extremely difficult assignments like if we knew this stuff by heart for a long time? They just extinguish any remnants of desires for learning this stuff... Anyway, had an overnight pizza party with Tony and another guy (whom I don't know the name of...heh), came home at around 2:30, slept until 7:30, worked some more, then off to school again. After the class, I returned to the office to the greeting of Berkant saying, "Martin, are you angry?" Heh...well, I didn't know that I was angry, but apparently I was, subconsciously. Certainly I was very frustrated with it. Anyway, the post-matroid lunch was somewhat hilarious as I return with wet pants due to an unstable table...

Evening mccf (10 people) made interesting with Feng this time around... Post-mccf dinner was also interesting, having sat in the middle of two conversation groups... And I got them to be interested in Trivial Pursuit...yay! Hehehe...

Crazy life ahead...

Jochen becomes the first prof ever to visit me (albeit accidentally, I guess) in my office...and that was at around 8:30pm...heh. Very nice.

Ah, matroid assignment...how I wish you don't exist...unlike your exchange axiom... At least Jochen provided some confirmation that indeed it is a tough course...so it's not just my imagination.

I need a break already...

For me, it appears to be very easy to lose sight of Jesus in the face of chores of life. Just look at how easy it is for me to despair over the matroid assignment due Thursday... I even prayed dearly in the morning and handed this burden to Him, but somehow I've lost that almost immediately after. I guess this is another example of how little faith that I have. In a related note, I'm at a point where I would ponder a question that a lot of other students have pondered already: why am I studying this? There is a standard answer that I always had, but that was for other people...what does it mean to me? What's the point of studying this apparently pointless material? How is it that I can honour God in all of this? I don't really know.

I guess I'm hanging out with the fellow grad students more often these days... There was a lunch and an afternoon milk shake for today. I don't know...it somehow feels a bit...empty?

Yeah, Deal or No Deal is just the most stupid game show ever...and I'm addicted to it. The online game, too...I played it more times than I should. (As an aside, I did pick the $1 million case twice. The most I've ever won on that is $750K.) Last time Tony started a conversation with Carlos and me about this show, which now I've heard attracted the attention of Ashkan, Daniel, and a pure math prof...heh.

What is up with the weather lately? Granted, I like the coolness of it, but it's just strange... Most of yesterday was around 5 to 6 degrees, cloudy, windy (which made it even colder), sometimes a bit of rain. The high temperature was 10 degrees, which occurred at 1am... And then today, high of 8, mostly cloudy, sometimes the sun would peek through, no rain, but still windy. This morning, I did my run/walk around campus at 4 degrees...yikes.

Today, Victoria Day. I was going to go to my office in the morning and do work, but that didn't happen. Instead, I slept through most of the morning. And most of the afternoon. When I finally got to the office at around 4, I didn't do much before going out for dinner. Eventually I did do a little bit of research, but the tediousness of it stopped me from doing any more. Right now, I'm just very frustrated and baffled by the matroid assignment. It just seems impossible to solve. Really. Is there hope for this course? By the way, I'm having this headache, which I haven't experienced in a while...

Alan told me about this friend of his who has this cool job of being a pilot flying around the Northwest Territories, who knew he wanted to do that since very young. I'm starting to think, why didn't I pursue some of my dreams while I was young? Now I'm stuck in this labyrinth of academia, and I really don't like it... The book I'm reading, Wild at Heart by John Eldredge has something to say about this, and the wheels are turning in my head on perhaps pursuing my dreams...ah, it's impossible. And there's my defeatist attitude again.

I spent about a month's time studying Psalm 19, and it finally concluded today. I have now memorized this psalm (and hopefully not forgotten already...). It's just such a beautiful psalm, so deep and full of amazing descriptions of God's wonder and His Word. Last verse: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord my strength and my Redeemer."

Today...cfc service with David...kwcac service alone...lunch at church...Scrabble...long afternoon nap...evening prayer meeting with 3 people. I learned more lesson this morning on patience and stuff. Before I left home, I called David to say that I'll pick him up in 10 minutes. I arrived in 10 minutes, and started to wait. I waited and waited and waited...for 10 minutes I waited, which is more than I would, quite frankly, since I always want to be on time. I was seriously considering leaving him behind. But then the Lord seems to tell me this: it's more important to pick up David than to be on time. But I was still struggling with it. I have originally set a time that I would be absolutely need to go, and David ran out just when the clock hit that time. The timing was amazingly perfect that it must have been a test from God. Turns out that David forgot that I don't have a cell and was waiting for me to call, until suddenly he had this revelation (which must have been God's prompting) and ran out...heh. So yeah, that was the mini-lesson from God for today. We ended up arriving just on time anyway, so that was wonderful. The sermon at cfc was wonderful, too, and challenging as well...stop, look, and listen.

Imagine this...I was once afraid to pray out loud among a group of people...I would refuse this task as much as possible...that had been the case all my life, up until these recent life-changing experiences. Now I would be more than willing to pray. It's another hidden transformation that God did in me, which is quite amazing. Sure I would still be afraid to pray in front of people, but for different reasons. It used to be that I simply didn't like this kind of thing, thinking that this would be more like a speech than praying to God, and I would be afraid of what people think about my prayers. But now, I'm afraid of being proud and selfish, and not humble to pray before the Lord. I'm learning to let go of trying to pre-think what to say to God. Instead, just realize that my soul is weak, my words are inadequete, and rely on the Holy Spirit to guide me in my prayers, direct them to God, focusing on Him only, give my heart to Him, and not care about what people think. It's still a lesson that I'm learning.

I did morning jogs/walks for three days in a row now, which is still a shock to me, quite frankly. But the strange thing is, I would record the location at which I first stopped jogging and started walking...and as days go on, those locations get closer and closer to the starting point... Am I not supposed to improve over each day? Or maybe I just need to relax the muscles before continuing? I don't know.

Naively, I'm still waiting for a response from Francis over a couple of emails that I wrote about a month ago. Realistically, I think I'm crazy.

Struggle on faith... See, on one hand, faith is hard, because I need to believe something that I cannot see. On the other hand, Jesus said that faith is easy, just believe like a little children would believe. It's very hard, then, for grown adults like me to have faith, isn't it? I want to believe that Jesus is in my heart, working in me. But this belief shouldn't be based on flimsy words and feelings, it should be based on concrete evidence. And what does the Bible tell us about what this evidence is? It's faith! "Faith is the evidence of things not seen," says the writer of Hebrews. Now I'm just dumbfounded. No wonder the gospel is for the simpletons...the complexity inside me makes it unnecessarily difficult.

Yesterday...yet another day of frustration and disappointment. Particularly frustrated with research and course work. It's just unbearable to me. So I wasted the day pretty much to being frustrated, and eventually came home to sleep. The lunch was frustrating probably because the place was so jam packed and noisy, and apparently Li Zhen was in a hurry... The evening trip to Costco was disappointing in that they don't sell a few things that I regularly buy anymore... And I made a big goof when I realize today that I kind of forgot to take the smoked salmon out of the bag to put in the freezer...sigh... $13 wasted just like that. Mom made a phone call with lots of bad news, and I simply couldn't absorb it. That's a lot of things to pray about, yet because there are so many things to pray about, I kind of didn't want to pray anymore...that's just sad.

Today...well, at least the clouds gradually rolled away throughout the day, so some people might be happy to see the sun after a week-long cloudy/rainy fest. I wasted the day again, mostly to sleep and puzzles. I simply could not do any work. Worse of all, I could not read the word of God and pray, either. It's just very frustrating (which seems to be a theme for my life recently). I got quite depressed all day long, especially during fellowship where I sort of couldn't get over my failure in following the words of Jesus that we studied today in life. What is forgiveness, I ask again?

Long weekend? What long weekend?

I did something strange this morning...woke up at 5am again, and this time went out for a jog/walk around Ring Road...under heavy rain. I don't know what got into me, really...trying to experience nature, maybe? Coincidentally, today I heard that the rain here is actually quite acidic, so maybe that wasn't such a good idea... Also coincidentally, when I mentioned to a couple of people that I woke up at 5, their first response was "what did you do? went for a morning run?" Seriously, this is only the second time I went for a run, so I'm not sure how they knew...heh.

The mccf today...well, I didn't know which room it was at, only knew that it's at SLC...so I wandered around until I coincidentally (is that the key word of the day?) bumped into Jeff and got info on the details...heh. 11 people for today, and again Yiwen made it more interesting than it's supposed to be, I guess. But there is one time when I really wanted to say something, but they just kept talking and talking and I couldn't jump in. And by the time they finally had a break, they were on a completely different topic already...oh well, maybe next time. The dinner at Mikey's afterwards was kind of fun, and long as well. Nice chatting with the two Davids.

Spent the afternoon writing two long emails, together over 1700 words... Not sure why I wrote them, and not sure if anyone will read them. But I wrote them anyway, just out of the urge from God, apparently.

I feel very empty right now. There's a sense that I might have ignored the Holy Spirit and did things my way. Last night, Clarence needed someone to talk to, but I refused because it was already my unusual bedtime and I wanted to sleep. Today, Penny needed advice and help on 342, but for reasons unbeknownst to me, I ignored her mostly...perhaps out of my general uncomfortableness in dealing with people of the opposite gender? I don't know. In any case, I just felt terrible for being so selfish. Maybe it has something to do with my lapse in spending time with God?

Today...artificially induced frustration in the morning...went to a Christian bookstore to buy something...lunch alone...office hour where somebody actually came...long afternoon nap...woke up just in time for Amazing Race finale, which started well and ended up pretty badly... Sorely lacking is the academic work that I'm supposed to do...sigh...I have pretty much given up on that. So about the shopping, I bought (against my better judgment, apparently) a Robin Mark compilation CD. Now here's the thing: what is up with all the really long introductory instrumental for each song? And why is it that every song sounds the same?

Strangely enough, I feel that I have all this physical energy to expend, yet I have no outlet for it... Somehow this has something to do with strong temptations recently?

Started with a very frustrated morning. First, I couldn't pray. No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn't pray. It was agonizing. I even skipped the Bible reading this time...which is pretty bad. Then more frustration as I tried to read this paper in preparation for supervisor meeting...I simply couldn't understand it. Then even more frustration as I was totally lost in the matroid class. So that wasn't a good start to the day... It got better, I guess, with a lunch with C&O people, a super quick supervisor meeting that wasn't entirely terrible, 2 hours of dinner preparation, 5 people enjoying it, and xbox with projector. I enjoyed the dinner and games, even though I hardly play any video games, really. I suck at tennis, but somehow I beat Li Zhen in hockey...who knew... Anyway, nice to have some "bonding" time...

What is forgiveness?

Strange weather it has been...cloudy with rain off and on...cool temperature, like around 13 as a high... Meanwhile, it's around 30 degrees near Vancouver, record high temperature...

Fell asleep for a bit longer than I thought when waiting for the laundry...and had really vivid dreams where friends started to leave me one by one. It's a terrible thought...but anyway, it's only a dream...I hope. For the rest of the day, I pretty much wasted it all. I was too frustrated with the paper that I'm reading for research, so much so that I'm seriously considering quitting this PhD thingie...I don't know...probably nto a good idea. But then again, it's just torturous right now. In the afternoon Bible study, it seems that we were all taking a lighter approach to it, with 11 people and all. I'm kind of ashamed that there are a lot of things that I could have shared, but was still not able to speak up...sigh... The guys went to Morty's for wings, which I haven't done in a couple of years, I believe. It was just as I have remembered...the first couple of wings were good, but then it gets worse to a point where it was down right disgusting...the usual, I guess. And now I'm home, very sleepy, unable to do any of the research work that I wanted to do, which is sad...

Tomorrow...I've invited people to come to dinner, which I'll cook...heh. The good thing is I can force myself to cook the things that I've bought from T&T on Saturday. The bad thing is I hope they don't get sick after the meal...heh.

Spiritual status report...it's still a constant struggle between Spirit and flesh... Part of it is with the temptations...another part of it is the struggle between trusting God and doubting Him... Of course I can't expect to improve at lightning speed, but I was hoping to see at least some improvement already...yet I'm still this faithless being...

Saturday...10.5 hours, 4 cities, 288.6 kilometres. First trip to Toronto since I was back. Originally this was supposed to be a private affair, which then turned into a plan of a convoy of 2 cars, and then turned into my lonely adventure... But that's good, I get to visit Peter, have a nice chat, go shopping, and have a dinner. Too bad the bowling place was just too full... Picked up David on the way back. The weather was weird...cloudy, windy, sunny, rainy, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, all that jazz. By the end of it, I was Exhausted, needless to say.

Sunday...woke up at 5 again, this time decided to go for a run...which I haven't done in years, quite frankly. I think I managed to make a slow jog for about 3/5 of the Ring Road, so that's not too bad. A lot of my muscles hurt right now, though, making the task of walking a bit difficult. Went to CFC for the first time, and that was interesting. Parable of the lost sons. I think I used to be this younger brother on the inside, and the older brother on the outside...and both are bad... Came home, called mom because it was her day, then prayed and accidentally fell asleep. Woke up by a phone call from Li Zhen at around 12, 15 minutes after the KWCAC service started...oops. Went there, drove Li Zhen to buy flowers, then back... Afternoon lunch was barely bearable. Tried to sleep after coming home, only to be woken up by Francis on the phone, telling me to go drink bubble tea... 8 people there, played mini-Scrabble twice. Off to mccf prayer meeting, where all 3 present are myf people as well...so yeah, a joint prayer meeting, apparently. Then came home and crashed on the bed. So that's the unusually busy Sunday that has been...with no school work done...

This morning...woke up at 5...again! This time, prayer and reading. Now waiting for laundry to be dried...yeah, I have no clean underwears and socks left...for a few days already...

Thursday...huge rain showers...really muddy road outside...matroid class where I've discovered that I did too few exercises...lunch with Carlos and Irene...afternoon of very slow progress...mccf Bible study with 8 people...dinner at Border City (at least that's my translation). Friday...once again, unable to find lunch buddies, which was pretty frustrating...afternoon of extremely slow progress...a nap to restore my jetlagging...evening love feast of strange food. Today...should be off to Toronto.

It's only in a conversation with Carlos and Tony could we, within a couple of minutes, seamlessly take the topic from Macs to the expanding universe.

It's kind of disheartening that for once, I want to follow a commandment of Jesus, only to hit a wall that is Francis...sigh...

One song from yesterday that I've forgotten for a while now, and is currently running in my head...

Jesus, all for Jesus
All I am, and have
And ever hope to be

All of my ambitions, hopes, and plans
I surrender these into Your hand

For it's only in Your will that I am free
For it's only in Your will that I am free

Jesus, all for Jesus
All I am, and have
And ever hope to be.

Originally, I was really excited about the possibility of having weekend trips to visit people this term. But now, this interest has faded dramatically...perhaps it's because of the stressful workload from school, or it's because I suddenly lost my courage to do things...in any case, it's kind of disappointing.

Woke up at 5am again this morning, and a thunderstorm was greeting me. I spent an hour on prayer and on the Word, and it was a good time. Even though I've only studied one verse (still stuck in Psalm 19), it was already very good. Maybe this waking up at 5am thing isn't such a bad thing...

Why do I create unnecessarily pain for myself? Finding lunch isn't supposed to be a pain...

After flip flopping a few times, I finally decided to go to that Paul Baloche-Robin Mark worship concert thingie...alone. I don't like answering questions such as what do I think about it, because usually I have no strong opinions on this kind of thing. The more important question is, what does God think about it? And I don't know. My heart was half in, half out, so that wasn't so good. I think familiarity plays a big role...like, if I'm familiar with the song, then I can follow along quite nicely...if not, then the time was spent familiarizing with the song... Anyway, new experience for me.

Today...woke up at 5am...spent some time on prayer and meditating on the Word...tried to study matroids and failed...afternoon trip to UW Kitchener...concert...back home...and now very very tired.

Yesterday...started with an early morning jetlag session, where I woke up at around 2 and couldn't sleep again. I was bothered by more thoughts, and eventually wrote a long email to the set of coworkers for no particular reason. It seems that I like writing long emails these days, eh? Anyway, a brief nap later, it was off to school for the first matroid class. I didn't quite get it, but that's ok. Supervisor meeting was short and awkward, but that's ok. Later wandered around fifth floor MC and bumped into Jochen, and we had our TA meeting there and then. Wandered into Tony's office to chat about the matroids class, which is later joined by Carlos (to chat about other things, e.g. fun customs stories). Got home, sleep, wasted the evening, and that was it for the day.

I'm going to try something that requires a lot of courage today...may the Lord be with me.

If something you've done wrong is being used by God to turn into something useful and nice which glorifies God, that still does not mean that what you've done is right...

Woke up with 6 hours of sleep...strange phone call...accidentally discovering that I have a new officemate...discovering that I have two new officemates...lunch with David & Li Zhen...trying hard and failed to stay awake in the office in the afternoon...did very little work...Bible study...being disappointed by Francis, again...dinner at Keg. Strange day it was, the first full day in Waterloo...

I felt that the Bible study went a bit too fast...or rather, my mind works too slowly. I guess I just want to be careful about saying things nowadays...I only want to say things that I can relate to personally, not just as something I've learned before but I don't have experience of.

There are a lot of life's supposedly enjoyment that I really don't appreciate. For example, Taiwanese food, massages, hot springs (or "dip in soup" as they call it), and now, steak.

Back in Waterloo...

A 25-hour journey from the church in Taipei to my place in Waterloo...boy was it a long and interesting one. Travel from church to airport started at 11.5am local time, and involves my whole family plus mesister's boyfriend (soon to be part of the family?...heh). The flight to Vancouver was very bumpy, but I felt ok with it. The interesting thing is the guy sitting beside me started talking to me from the moment he sat down, and by the end of the flight, I've got a new friend...first time it has happened. The customs and the luggage were extremely quick, like it has never happened that way before... In Vancouver, Mo, Stan and Gini came to spend some time with me, going to Richmond for a meal and then getting lost everywhere...heh. It's so nice to spend the 5-hour layover this way. I pretty much passed out for the flight from Vancouver to Toronto, so it felt pretty short. In Toronto, we arrived early (9:40pm as opposed to 10pm), but the luggage didn't arrive until 10:40pm. I was surprised and delighted that Clarence and Li Zhen came to pick me up (Mary came as well, but didn't pick me up as planned...heh). And I drove home, with just enough energy, and with a detour through McD's and Sobey's... By the time I got home, it was around 12.5am here. So there it is, my journey back to Waterloo...

Even something as simple as toothbrush and toothpaste showed God's blessing. Here's the thing: I needed to replace my toothbrush and add stock to my toothpaste soon, because the ones that I brought back from Taiwan are trashworthy. Coming back to Waterloo, Clarence decided that he wanted to go to Sobey's to get toothbrush and toothpaste (strange request, I'd think?), and I thought I might as well go with that and buy some myself. Even as we were inside the store, I had a brief moment where I thought maybe I'll just buy them later...but decided to buy them there anyway. Then I came home, and discovered that I've actually forgotten to bring my toothbrush and toothpaste from Taiwan...so, if any one step in the above process had gone wrong, I wouldn't have clean teeth right now...heh. I don't know, I just felt like that's too strange a coincidence that it must have been that God wanted me to have clean teeth...

Ok, start of my supposedly stressful day which will not be stressful if only I can rely wholly on Jesus...

Last post from Taiwan...

Boy, what a whirlwind final two days that I've had... In simple terms, it involved my family, a secluded mountain retreat, Japanese costumes, tatame, good meals, painful massages, hot springs, nudity, paintball, visiting grandmother, driving a treacherous mountain road, driving with almost no gas (and almost no gas station), driving with almost no room to spare on each side, driving while being lost, all dominated by painful thoughts of my problems back in Canada... It's a very tiring trip. Sure the experiences were interesting...but, I'm not sure that I fully appreciate the family time that we were supposedly having.

A few leftover notes from the past... I'm having problems with love and forgiveness...I have trouble relate to the recent chapter that I'm reading in Abide in Christ, especially when the author keeps referring to the first time that I have came to Christ, which I don't remember...I love Globe Trekker, especially when Ian is on...I may be the only person who can have a lot of cash ($5000 in NTD), and yet unable to spend it...I got addicted to this game called Crazy Machines, which unfortunately I won't be able to play on my own computer...I am weary of this world that I live in, and I wish to just disappear from it (at least for a while)...I'm kind of stuck on Psalm 19, with its beautiful words which I cannot comprehend fully even remotely...Is it even possible that one can be so busy that he is not able to spend time in prayer and reading God's words everyday?

Final thought from Taiwan: Goodbye, little island. I won't miss the environment, but I will miss the people I've met. I feel that I did not do whatever it is that God wants me to do here, because I may have shut off the voice from the Holy Spirit a few times. And for that, I feel painfully sorry to the Lord. There were some good times, there were some bad times, but I felt that the bad overpowered the good. Anyway, may the Lord lead the way to Waterloo, help me face the problems there, and not forget about my connections here. Oh yeah, I'll definitely miss the trains here...

Once again, I've wasted a lot of time yesterday, mainly to sleep, staring into space, television, puzzles, and more staring into space. Sure there was a brief excusion to two bookstores and a Chinese restaurant whose food tastes like Chinese restaurant in Waterloo...but other than that, nothing interesting.

Trying desperately to stay away from possibilities of temptations. They're everywhere. But most of all, it's all in my mind...

Still struggling with faith.

Backtracking a little bit... Saturday: skating at a tiny rink with rough ice and a ton of people...evening fellowship that was both funny and good...surprise tour of the 101 district at night with a Starbucks vanilla frap. Sunday: church...extremely uncomfortable lunch that was matchmaking in disguise (which I didn't know)...nothing for the evening. Monday: two moderately uncomfortable meals, making the stomach way too full. Tuesday: making my mom angry in the morning...pray in the afternoon...went out with Waterloo friends in the evening.

Today: 9 hours outside, half of it spent on transportation, the other half spent with mesister's boyfriend! We actually managed to sit at a small restaurant to eat and talk for about 3.5 hours. In it, we shared a ton of our stories, and it was good. Things are hopeful that he will become my future brother-in-law...heh.

Much more relaxed now. Sure the tendency to worry and think attempted to come back, sure the temptations attempted to barge in, but they didn't find a door open for them...at least I hope not...

I'm thinking of this story from the Bible where Jesus and His disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee on a boat. Midway through, there was a great storm. The disciples panicked while Jesus slept like a baby. Here I am in the middle of a life storm, and I panicked just like the disciples... So now I can hear Jesus' soft rebukes to me: "Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?" "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" "Where is your faith?" Don't I believe that I can have peace in the midst of a storm? Don't I believe that with a word, Jesus can calm the storm? Why don't I believe?

Another Biblical question that comes into mind: "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

I stayed at home most of the day, after having angered my mom and made myself depressed and stuff. The evening was spent with Jack and Bobby (isn't that the name of a TV show?), and we had a good time, I think. Nice to catch up with old friends. Tomorrow: catching up with mesister's boyfriend!

This is what happens when something bothers me...I start thinking about it over and over, paralyzing my whole being, even if thinking about it doesn't help at all.

Last week here...I don't know, as much as I don't want to stay here, I don't want to go back to Waterloo, either. It's just too much pain to bear either way.

Can I say that I'm very tired of these meaningless meals?