I find that most of what I do are solitary activities, not competitive ones. That's why it was sort of a culture shock when being thrown into warfish and stuff, where I'm not really familiar with the competitive nature of most men. It has something attractive to it...like there's the element of thinking what others might do or think in order to make my own move...this is something that's lacking in pretty much all my activities, like puzzles and research... Interesting stuff. Wonder when I'll actually enjoy this kind of things...maybe I already do, except I just don't put myself into such situations...

Interesting mccf where we played Apples by Apples and Trivial Pursuit (yay!). The apples game was kind of fun, but it's quite subjective... I'm just happy that I get them to play the Trivial Pursuit game, where Feng was one team, I was one team, and the rest are one team...it's called Feng and Martin against the rest of the world. Feng won with 4 wedges, I was second with 3 wedges, and the world sort of cheated and got 1 wedge... Dinner at Taiwan place where I got Wilfred and David to play my Biblical games on computer...Wilfred seems quite interested and was very reluctant to quit even when everyone else left! Heh...anyway, interesting evening. Now, two hours of sleep, then it's off to Montreal...

I'm grateful to God for...

• being the comfort amidst all my fears, letting me cry in front of Him;
• continuing the process of "thwarting my false self," which started earlier this year, and is still going on;
• this wonderful evening of games and fellowship;
• rescueing me from strong temptations today; and
• the music ministry at Willingdon in providing the worship songs that I have immersed myself in.

So what can I say about the RRRR this morning? Well, I woke up at around 2am in the morning, after having just 2 hours of sleep. There was this strange urge to do something to release the energy that has mysteriously built up in my body. Also, my violent impulses were back, and I just felt like releasing them through sin, but thankfully that didn't go through. Eventually decided to do some very quick warm up and went out to run like crazy. Granted, when I run like crazy, it's still pretty slow, but I was running at a pace that was faster than before. Obviously I wasn't able to keep up the pace all the way, but I still scored the fastest lap time ever for me... And I felt better afterwards. Sure, I still hate running, but at least it was some kind of a release...

With the Montreal trip just hours away, I'm suddenly having a lot of fears about it. Maybe it's because this didn't turn out to be the little private trip that I was hoping for. Maybe it's because of the intimidation of driving in Montreal. Maybe it's because the car feels quite strange lately despite having done the maintenance a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it's because I've been procrastinating on school work and this is not going to help. Or maybe it's because I went ahead with the planning of this trip without praying much about it...

I did some minor cooking last night and the house is a mess right now. Need to clean up...but I want to sleep...O the dilemma...

Today is one of those days where I went crazy and bought 103 pounds of stuff for 120 bucks. I still don't know what got to me...

There's a spectacular thunderstorm going on right now. Earlier, there was a spectacular rainbow. It's all spectacularly spectacular.

I'm grateful to God for...

• giving me such a nice roommate for the past two years;
• keeping me sane amidst all the mental and spiritual turmoils and struggles that's been going on;
• an afternoon of reading on the internet that both enlightens and boggles my mind, while keeping me from falling into sin;
• slowly shaping my thinking so that I start to know that being masculine (whatever that means) is nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of; and
• reducing the level of anger that I had toward Francis.

With all that talk about physical contact, maybe all I want is to be touched by God...

I was flipping through Traveling Light by Eugene Peterson this morning, and this quote caught my eyes: "No life of faith can be lived privately."

Went to the office at around 12:30, hoping to get some research work done through the office hour. And as expected, that didn't happen. I ended up searching the internet for stuffs that, well, I guess I'm not supposed to search for. But it ended up being quite enlightening, but also mind boggling, and I had a giant headache after all that. So yeah, I came home and here I am wasting away more time...

Boy, how in the world did I spend the time today? Lots of sleep, eat, walk around in random places, read, pray, and tv...missing in the list: research. I just don't want to do research. Oh yeah, and there was an attempt made to find someone to go out for dinner, but that failed...

In playing and discussing warfish with David Lee, the term "finish (someone) off" often came up. And I feel kind of queasy whenever he mentions that, because that phrase has a meaning that is perhaps a lot more brutal and personal to me than him...

I'm grateful to God for...

• once again reminding me that this journey of faith and intimacy with Him is going to take some time to grow, and I should stop panicking;
• the comfortable weather and temperature which allow me to do random walking and soul searching (and God searching);
• the opportunity for the long-distance adventure this coming weekend;
• keeping me in a generally non-depressing mood today; and
• giving me this difficult exercise through Samuel, which revealed to me a lot of my deficiencies.

In matroid class today, I've only done one exercise. So when Jim asked who would like to volunteer to do a question, lots of hands were raised, he picked someone else, who then proceeded to pick the question that I can do. A perhaps not-so-subtle silent "doh" caught the attention of some people and generated some laughs. The guy did it in a very rigorous but complicated way. Jim asked if someone else has a simpler solution, and he picked someone else to do it. Well, this other guy did it in a strange way. After it ends, Jim asked again if someone has a simpler solution, this time with a laugh. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, so I didn't go for it. I had a proof by picture (heh), and it's supposed to be a lot easier to understand than the other two proofs...but anyway, it's all in the past. Now I'm supposed to do some research work today, but didn't...

There is something mysterious about physical contact, the human touch...I don't know why, but somehow I kind of want to have more of it...whether it be handshakes, pats on the back (or other nonsensitive body parts), hugs, punches, or even wrestling...I guess something about the Chinese culture limits this kind of thing, especially within my family. Maybe it's because of this lack of physical contact that makes me desire more of it...

I find that I have been sort of retreating back to my little cocoon, so-to-speak, becoming ever so solitary. I don't know why I just didn't want to go to the office, I didn't want to contact anyone to go out for a meal or other activities. I just stayed home most of the time now. What's going on here is kind of bothering me, because I'm afraid that I would lose the close connection that I had with my friends. I'm also afraid that this is dragging me back to the dark old days...on the other hand, perhaps this is a sign that I'm not so dependent on the validation of friends...but maybe I'm just deceiving myself.

It was a tough run this morning. Started with a bit of rain, which made me hesitate about running to begin with. My legs felt really tight all throughout the very slow run, so that was kind of painful to push through to complete the lap. I have this theory that the warmer the temperature, the harder it is to run...ideally, I find that 15 degrees is probably the best temperature. It was 19 today.

I keep thinking about this lyric, which I so wish I could sing with all sincerity...

When we see You, we find strength to face the day;
In Your presence, all our fears are washed away...washed away.

I don't know...perhaps it's really not such a good idea to try to please everyone...after all, that's usually not possible anyway.

One day, I've given up on Francis...and the next day, Francis offered to give a response...later. O Lord, You are a joker, aren't You? I don't know, I was just being very cold to him, and my heart pains even more about how I've treated him. And I hate his excuse of being so busy...it would have been better if he simply said that he just didn't care...at least this sounds closer to the truth.

Sigh...what is it with this rollercoaster of emotions just in one day? How can I be so joyful in the morning and so depressed in the evening? I'm feeling so bad right now that I even started to think about cancelling the Montreal trip...what exactly am I doing here?

I'm grateful to God for...

• continuing to teach me and pull me back despite me being such a hypocrite;
• helping me solve an exercise for the matroid class;
• protecting me from falling into sexual temptations today;
• providing enough financially so that I don't have to worry about it; and
• giving me the ability to have enough sleep each day.

I do realize that I desperately need to get back to the Word of God. But now I'm stuck at another psalm...this time, Psalm 20. It's like there's some kind of resistance to something that is refusing to be understood...it looks simple, but there must be a lot behind it... I've memorized the first three verses...

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble;
May the name of the God of Jacob defend you;
May He send you help from the sanctuary,
And strengthen you out of Zion;
May He remember all your offerings,
And accept your burnt sacrifice.

I guess I was kind of saddened by what I heard about what went on in yesterday's myf coworkers meeting. This is only from what I heard, of course, but it seems that they continued to discuss very trivial details at great length, and some disrespectful comments were made at each other. I don't know...I guess on one hand, I'm glad I wasn't part of it...but on the other hand, the lack of love and unity is a bit disheartening. I can only pray that the Lord will hold them together...

I'm supposed to do a lot of work today, especially considering that I will be away from a while starting Thursday. But...you know...things never work out the way they're supposed to... What is wrong with me? Why am I so lazy?

What I wrote during kwcac service today: "Lord, why do I have so many hateful thoughts toward Francis? Why couldn't I truly forgive him just like You have always forgiven me? These harmful thoughts could not have come from You, for You are Love. Lord, teach me to forgive and love." I guess I should add that the "hateful" thoughts are more along the lines of anguish, desperation, and injustice. Sigh...not sure what to do there. It's been going on for too long now, and it's probably too late to talk about it, hence too late for healing of the wounds. It's quite disappointing.

The long weekend trip to Montreal is suddenly taking shape quite rapidly... I'm both excited and fearful about the trip, actually. Also, I'm slightly reluctant about taking Cindy and Sarah on the trip, but I guess if they really want to tag along, I really have no good reason to refuse. Does that mean that I'm too soft?

I'm grateful to God for...

• adjusting the service time at kwcac and bringing me to cfc this term, so that providing the service of taking David Lee to church is just the natural thing to do;
• making my body do things that I've never imagined that it could do, like running around Ring Road;
• reminding me to shift my focus to Him;
• healing my sickness of three weeks; and
• continuing to pursue me even though I have been so unfaithful.

Ran 'round Ring Road (RRRR) this morning. Man, I still hate running, but for my body's sake, what else can I do?

Once again, I'm being reminded that I have a focus problem. "Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." -- Colossians 3:2

Witnessed baptisms at cfc today. It's always very touching to see someone who loves God so much...at the same time, it brings shame to me for being so far from God...

Pretty much wasted the day to sleeping and puzzling and waiting. I did manage to watch The First Action Heroes musical from Willingdon kids on the web. Slightly funny, and learned lessons about trust, courage, forgiveness, obedience, and love. Needed the kids to remind me of Colossians 3...boy, that chapter looks so different now than before... Also the talk about fathers made me sad, because this feeling that I don't think I've ever had a loving father re-surfaced to my mind...if I ever become a father (and that is a big if), I need to do a lot better.

I am having some frightening thoughts...I'm slightly enjoying this sabbatical from serving a bit too much, so much so that I'm a bit reluctant in coming back to serve God. Then again, when I see myf having 5-hour coworker meeting and discussing trivial stuffs to no end, I'm not sure I want to go back there anyway. Perhaps I should serve in a different place? mccf, for example? Or perhaps, as a really scary thought, go back to chair myf and fix some things...but man, this is something I've always been avoiding, for its responsibility is far more than I could handle... Anyway, I guess I'll need to pray a lot more about this.

I am grateful to God for...

• pulling me away while I rebelliously create temptatious situations today;
• the beautiful sunsets these days;
• relieving my sexual pressures at sleep;
• David Lee, through whom I was taught a lesson about competitiveness;
• constantly testing the limits of my patience.

Back to doing puzzles again...and I do see puzzles as some sort of an escape from life's problems...it's kind of like a drug, except it's not harmful, just wasteful. So maybe I should cut that down...

"Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" rebukes Jesus, to me.

Wow...I underestimated the ability for myf to screw things up... Waited about half an hour outside the church for nothing. Of course it's all my fault...everything's my fault.

I've been crying almost everyday for quite a while now. Pains past and present repeatedly float into my mind. I have trouble letting go of the past and move on forward. I couldn't even remember the good times, only the bad. I feel like a mess right now, with a vague sense of hopelessness. Maybe that's why I've been so bitter, so thankless, so unappreciative of everything around me, complaining to God day in and day out. Maybe that's why I couldn't have this intimate personal relationship with Him.

My mom now calls me at a frequency that's unheard of before...and I get very annoyed each time I receive her call. I wonder...why do I hate my family so much?

I've been repeatedly playing this CD of worship music from Willingdon. The more I listen, though, the more I couldn't connect with the lyrics. And the more I grow tired of it.

19 hours, 3 cities, 269.1 kilometres. Funny how the distance from my place to Wayne's place in Mississauga is about 85 kilometres, but the round trip from Wayne's place to T&T Warden is about 100 kilometres! Wow...Toronto, is, huge. So anyway, we couldn't find Samuel, so we went to Metro to have a nice lunch, then T&T to buy a ton of junk food, back to Wayne's place for a brief rest before I come home to arrive at around 4:30pm. During lunch, I was talking to Wayne about the thing with Francis, and it was interesting how he had similar experiences recently, except his thing is with a girl, and he seems to enjoy pointing out this gender difference between our experiences...heh. Anyway, I enjoyed this trip greatly. Perhaps I just needed a break, and some meaningful human contact...

An evening of warfish made me wonder, have I gone crazy? Playing games for an entire evening?

I am grateful to God for...

• keeping me safe through all these years of driving;
• not letting me continue to go astray from Him;
• the generosity of Wayne's family for letting me stay overnight in such short notice;
• temporarily lifting me out of this depressing state; and
• placing Samuel in my life at just the right time this year, and, through him, turned my life around.

Greetings from Mississauga! Yeah, I made this secret last-minute trip to Wayne's place. Still couldn't entirely understand why I'm here...probably just want to get out of my depressing life, I guess. We talked until 1:30am this morning, mostly about cars and fellowships (strange combination?) and it was good. Not sure what's going to happen today...we'll see. As an aside, I really admire the closeness of Wayne's family, something that I just don't have.

TP and Sinnie came by Waterloo yesterday. That was nice. Sinnie had a big stomach now! Well, not that big, only five months into the pregnancy... We all had this big dinner and stuff.

I guess I really should have followed through with that urge to come to Toronto on Wednesday, eh? Sigh...

Today...summer solstice...sunrise 5:41am, sunset 9:05pm. Repeatedly woke up and fell asleep for the entire morning, up until around 1pm. I was just tired. In the morning, I had this sudden urge to just go to Toronto and talk to Samuel, but I didn't follow through with that. In the afternoon, went to the office for an hour of office hour which nobody was coming anyway. Came home, felt that I needed to go somewhere, because my mind was going crazy with all these questions. Eventually decided on Stratford and off I went...alone. Interesting how it was all cloudy and stuff in Waterloo, but sunny in Stratford... Once there, I saw this biggest swan ever...yikes. But anyway, the main thing was to walk around the river bank, settle down at a bench, and started praying. I just poured out all my questions to God, and trust that He will answer them...eventually. There was a sense of relief, I felt a bit better, and I came home. But I was faced with a test immediately when I received a call from mom and sister. Man, I acted like an idiot with the call, because I just didn't want to talk to them. That was bad, and my emotions plunged into depression once again. How can that be? It's just...I don't know what's going on anymore. There was a thing for Clarence's birthday, and even though I didn't feel like going, I went anyway, for Clarence's sake. And that's the day.

It's very very hard to give up something that I love so much...yet that seems to have always been what God wanted me to do...

There's a fly in my room that is bugging me right now...but somehow it got itself into the inner tube of my desk's light and couldn't get out...oops...it just got out...man, that's sad. How am I going to sleep then?

Monday...supposedly the day before supervisor meeting and matroidal tutorial. Supposedly the day that I work till I drop. So of course it wasn't the day it was supposed to be. Woke up late, slept some more, did a tiny bit of work, didn't go to school at all until the Bible study, came back and still couldn't do much work, and then slept. I wonder why I could never get anything done.

Tuesday...had trouble with devotion time, kept falling asleep while praying. Matroid class was slightly embarrassing, because I don't know why I volunteered for the question that I felt was strangely too easy, only to have errors discovered. I guess it's the participation that counts, not the accuracy, eh? After class, I was plannning to do more supervisory prep, but that was disrupted by David's full office hour where I sort of helped out to ease the crowd... The meeting was ok, supervisor took the little thing that I've done and ran with it.

After the meeting, there were two hours of break, then two hours of proctoring where I almost fell asleep. In the email, Jochen mentioned something about marking right after the exam (two sessions, I proctor the 5-7 session, second session 7-9). I thought that might have meant marking the next day. Nope, he meant after 9pm, just a couple hours before my bedtime...heh. So I had two hours of break, hoping to catch up to some sleep, but wasn't able to because of phone calls and more emotional breakdowns. But I had to compose myself to go do the marking...which was kind of funny, or laughing and lamenting simultaneously at the students' incompetence... There was a pizza break, which is nice. The funniest thing is that one student got so bored that on the last page of the exam, he drew a replica of what is on the other side of the exam, so it's essentially that other side in reverse. It was so good a replica that when I held up that page under the light, I couldn't even see what was printed on the other side... Anyway, David and I finished slightly earlier and played a game he invented of some sort...we all left at around 12:30. That was quite an experience.

Backtracking once again... Sunday...cfc...kwcac...well, it wasn't all smooth, really. Initially I get to pick up Samuel for kwcac, but then I got a call asking me to pick up Ice as well, and that I struggled with a lot...but eventually I had to bite my tongue and say that getting people to church is more important than my private interests, so I picked up Ice as well. Once in church, just as I've just sat down, I got enlisted to the isolation booth to do computer and sound control...yeah, that was yet another struggle on several fronts, but agreed anyway. I'm still trying to process what exactly did the Lord want me to learn there...that was strangely coincidental...

Anyway, after service, I skipped the church lunch and went to hang out with Samuel, Jackson and Rebecca at Jeff's place. There were some chatting, a lunch, some shopping, a ton of fast driving, some surprisingly slow driving, a light saber thingie, some wasted alcohol...all in the name of preparing the mccf bbq for the night. Jackson's clearly-marked bandaids on his forehead were good enough reasons to talk about male aggression, apparently...heh. Somehow I particularly enjoy being in the company of this group of people...something about this group just felt quite different from other groups...I couldn't put my finger on exactly why, though.

Evening bbq...after that big lunch, I really wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat much, just a couple of slices of watermelon and half a burnt sausage. The itching for my eyes got really bad, though, so that was kind of painful. Leonard called me David again, this time intentionally like a running joke... Also we had this strangely funny conversation.

Me: "How old are you, Leonard?"
Leonard: "23. How old are you?"
Me: "26."
Leonard: "Why?"

And I didn't know how to continue after that... There was foosball thingie during and after the bbq. This guy George and I somehow won two games before losing to Cindy and Feng. Yeah. Anyway, the night ended with me being handed the awkward task of collecting money... I think the whole thing ended at around 10, and I got home at around 11. It was a long day.

Sometimes I'm horrified by the thought that this life that I live, is actually not mine. It should be lived God's way and not my way. Yet I so want to control what I want to do in my life!

Very frustrated with the academics right now. So much so that I'm starting to think that it's ok to just quit... Long day ahead.

What, if anything, makes me come alive?

Saturday...the wpc qualifier, otherwise known as the Google US Puzzle Championship. It was really intense, I think...I surprised myself by managing to solve 12 out of the 23 puzzles in the test, possibly scoring 219 points, which would be my highest score ever. Then again, I have to wonder whether it is because my solving skills improved, or it is an easier test this year? I don't know. In any case, I had a good time solving these puzzles at lightning speed under sweltering heat (yeah, without air con, the room temperature went up to 85 degrees F).

Headed off to the end of the engineering convo after the test was done. It was really hot outside, so my hats off to the grads who stayed in the grad gowns. Stayed around, took some pictures, didn't talk much. It's nice, though, I think. For some reason, Leonard still called me David...heh, strange but fun guy. I guess I sort of wanted to stay a bit longer, but for Michael's sake, went to the fellowship instead.

Fellowship was ok, I guess. The dinner at a downtown Korean restaurant was also ok, but once again, a bit overpriced. I just felt tired the entire day, actually, and just quite depressed about the fall earlier in the day. It was a mix of extreme emotions the entire day, which I had a hard time handling.

Yesterday...morning car maintenance...afternoon nap and convo visitations...evening group dinner. Meanwhile, I was pretty depressed the whole day. It started with the incredibly strange fear about the discrepency between the devotion that I did in the morning and the life that I was living. Sounds familiar? I guess so... I struggled with a lot of questions throughout the day, getting no answers from anywhere. It was quite frustrating to me. Anyway, it was nice to see Wayne and his family again after the convo. Also glad to see Michael here. Yay! The dinner was overpriced and ok, and really, I felt sick the whole day, so it wasn't pleasant to begin with.

Today...my God, did I really do that? Fell into temptation and sinned, just like my old self... It's very disheartening. Three months of work from God, all gone now? Starting over again...

Annual WPC qualifier starts in less than an hour. The events of this morning really dampened my enthusiasm for it, though...sigh...

Morning class...afternoon sleep...evening mccf and dinner. Slept a lot, actually...still sick, though. Nice to see Samuel and Wayne again in mccf. Funny how it started with only 4 people... I don't know if I shared perhaps a bit too much during the Bible study, though...and why is it that Feng's idea is similar to Francis'? Is it really a common practice to ignore wounds inflicted in the past?

So yeah, I'm still quite depressed. I'm not sure if I'm really connecting with God. I had a lot of trouble and frustration during prayers. I just don't know how to pray. I wish to be given an opportunity to talk to someone about this..........I don't want to struggle alone.

Convo season...

Took an evening trip with the car that went nowhere for 45 minutes and 32.7 kilometres. I don't know...I started to realize that I'm slowly going back to my old ways again. I got depressed, I didn't know what to make of it, I had no idea what to do, and I had a mental breakdown. But then I returned to God, and once again commit to surrender all of myself to God. I kept saying, I want this, I want that...but God is saying to me, "deny yourself." O Lord, please take this rebellious soul back to you.

I think part of the problem is that I wasn't able to discuss my personal problems with anyone. The only person I'm comfortable discussing these with is Samuel, but I would much prefer to talk in person rather than electronically. So I could only wrestle with these problems on my own, and with God, whom I had a hard time hearing from, I have to confess...

To only a God like You...do I give my praise.

Very thankful to the Lord for insisting that I should take a look at the 370 game theory stuffs seriously, for otherwise I wouldn't know how to handle the crowd at the office hour today... It's slightly unfortunate that I gave out some wrong information, but I hope that wasn't too harmful...

Being sick is not fun...

I do realize that I get very jealous when other people get to play the sports that they enjoy, and I can't... Sorry, Lord, I just don't trust You enough...

Morning run where I got my best lap time ever...even though I felt like I was only slowly slugging through the road, feeling more pain than ever. I did indeed cancel the supervisor meeting today. Coincidentally, the supervisor passed by my office just as I was opening the door. Strangely enough, that never happened before. For the matroid class today, I finally get to present an exercise, but that's the exercise that Jim sort of forgot and presumably didn't care about. I was quite shaky on the board, but got it done regardless. It contains a secret fault, but I guess that will remain a secret for now. Lunch at East Side. Afternoon supposed to be spent on game theory, but I fell asleep after reading on it for a while...

I've been sick for more than a week now, and it's not looking good.

Please, can everyone just stop asking how my thesis is going? It's going nowhere! Also, can everyone stop asking how long until I graduate? I don't know! It could be in a year, or two, or even five! Man, I'm so tired of this PhD thingie...

Apparently I take a lot of things personally, and it appears to be true even for playing games...I don't like winning games...

A day of frustration where I worked on these matroid exercises with the extreme pressure that I need to get something done. I didn't manage to finish any question until just now. It's really sad, the whole day of solving, and only one exercise to show for. I tried some of the other exercises, but couldn't solve them...one is particularly frustrating because I can solve everything up to the very last step, and then I'm stuck. Anyway, this means that I got no time to do research, so maybe I need to cancel the meeting tomorrow.

There are times when I would do something and start to think, I did that just for myself, didn't I? It's very obvious that I was doing it for myself and not for God. Jesus asks me to deny myself daily...how hard is that?

I had a strange dream where someone (perhaps God?) knighted me and gave me some strange names... It was a good dream, but I don't know what to make of it...heh.

Sometimes I just feel so lazy as to avoid the morning devotional time...sometimes I don't know how to pray anymore, and sometimes I don't feel like reading the scripture for the day. But I really need it. I really want to connect with God each day so that I don't go astray during the day...

The song that is now constantly playing in my head...

Holy one, Holy one, all creation bows to worship
Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory in the highest
I will sing, I will sing His praises forevermore
God He reigns, God He reigns, Holy is the Lord of Heaven
God He reigns, God He reigns, Forevermore.

I was very touched by the story that I've heard from cfc this morning about this child who had such simple faith and prayed, "Jesus, I want to be your forever friend. And if you can, please come into my heart." My God, how I have made it so complicated!

The cfc sermon talked about faith. The main point is that Bible is a product of God. But something else caught my mind, and that is, faith is an action. We exercise faith many times each day, and the same faith is required of us in believing God. Not only is faith an action, a consequence of faith is action as well. Just think of the cereal and milk...heh. In the kwcac service today, the sermon is on the feeding of the 5000. The key points: (a) See what Jesus wants me to see; (b) Realize that I have nothing (just look at Moses and what he realized about his communication abilities); (c) Wait patiently for God to act, but actively obey Him so that we don't miss Him when He acts; (d) Watch and see how the mighty God works! The third point is the one that caught my attention, because that is indeed something I've been wondering about, like what it means to wait for God. It's not a passive waiting thing like a spectator waiting to witness what great things God will do...no, it needs obedience, actively listening to what God is saying, doing things that God asks us to do without even understanding why...but just wait until God acts, and then maybe we will understand.

I'm suddenly struggling with a thought...it's the thought that I could lead worship for mccf once... It's kind of an unsettling thought, because I have never led worship before. In fact, it used to be that I would never sing during worship (not anymore, of course). And also, I never knew how to sing, really, and my voice has this cracking feel to it. But now, there is this strange desire to give it a try...last week, when Feng asked me if I could lead worship, I instinctively denied it. I'm wondering where this desire comes from...is it from God, or is it from other sources? Am I holding on to this sabbatical thing so hard that it's preventing me from serving God as He wants me to? Or am I just attempting to show off myself or something? So anyway, this is one more thing that is being put to my thoughts these days...

Saturday...a lazy stroll around Conestoga where I found out that it's really boring to be in the mall...alone...spent the afternoon and evening at David Lee's place, where we played Crazy Machines, Monopoly and Scrabble, and then had a dinner. Once again, David beat me at Scrabble, making my years of experience entirely useless...heh.

Today...I really should give up on the idea that I can do any work on a Sunday...two morning services again, both are thought provoking...passed on a lunch today, surprisingly...slept for most of the afternoon...evening prayer had the largest turnout so far this semester, yet it just felt kind of a let down, like not much serious connection with God for me personally...

Here's a test of how open one can be: are you able to let someone else use your computer and browse through everything in there without hesitation? For me, it used to be the case that I always have fears whenever someone borrows my computer...but now, the fear is gone.

Backtracking once again... Wednesday...arrived in the morning to do more work for the supervisor meeting...supervisor meeting ok...nobody came to my office hour, well, except for Li Zhen...finally got the courage to talk to Francis, only to be shut down once again...went to Costco with Li Zhen while I was on a complaining mood...that's about it for the day.

Thursday...early morning Google talk with Aaron...morning class where I'm sure Jim made a brief detour just so that there are some easy exercises that I can do...lunch at Bangladeshi place, which isn't too bad, but made my stomach sick...afternoon showers delayed my return home...mccf with 10 people, including Wayne...dinner at a Korean place, where the Bible study continued at my corner of the table...evening visit to Jeff's place for ice cream and strange chats.

Friday...morning run and laundry...planned a big meal for lunch but unable to get anyone to come here to eat other than David...nice lunch...evening love feast and stuff, where Francis finally talked to me, albeit still unsatisfactory because of the time constraint...late night game of Monopoly at Chen Jie's place which lasted about 3 hours, and all of us were fake angry at Li Zhen for winning the whole thing...heh.

Today...absolutely embarrassed in the matroid class when Jim personally asked me which exercise I can do, and I said none. Sigh...I really tried hard...but maybe not hard enough. Because once I saw the solutions, they became quite simple...but there is just some strange mental block that prevented me from thinking about them the right way. Oh well...looks like I'll have to work a lot harder next time. I guess what made it even more embarrassing is that after class, I went to my mailbox and saw my assignment there, with the comment that I should ask for a hint if I'm stuck. Well, looks like I got that comment one class too late...so no wonder Jim was disappointed when he heard that I couldn't do anything. So was the trip to wonderland worth enough to endure this kind of embarrassement? Yup...definitely wouldn't have traded the trip and the chance to be with these soon-to-depart friends with anything else. Now the question is, how will I do with the supervisor meeting tomorrow?

Questions about friendships: What are friends for? How is a friendship different from a brotherhood in Christ? Is it necessary to "fit in"? Why do I get attached to a select few of them? Why did God bring me really good friends just when they are about to depart from me? Why do I have so little contact with people who used to be good friends with me and are now away from me? How did Christ feel about being rejected by the very people whom He had just called friends? What does it mean that He calls me a friend?

Finally got the courage to send another email to Francis. As expected, the only reaction I receive is silence.

Yesterday...Wonderland! But first, a long wait at SLC, then made a huge mistake in the car ride to Wonderland...yeah, I played Scrabble with Cindy and Sarah, and all three of us got quite sick when we got there. That's not a good start... Anyway, a total of 11 people were in our group, and we were off. There's a sense of "what in the world am I doing here?" the entire morning... First, the top gun ride. The line-up was long, and the anticipation was long as well. This would be my very first major scary rollercoaster ride ever, and I wasn't taking it very well, constantly trying to laugh it off or threaten to quit the line. But I did go on, and it wasn't too bad. I learned that the harder I hold on to the thingie, the less intense I will feel, so all that spinning didn't feel too bad at the time. Of course I felt very dizzy immediately afterwards...and on to the second ride, the psyclone. It's just a ton of spinning around, and I treated as if I was sleeping and was being carried off everywhere, so it wasn't that bad either. After that, we immediately headed off to the sledgehammer, where I had the priviledge of hearing Samuel scream...well, at least his version of "screaming"...which consists of very low hums...heh. I felt pretty bad on this one, though, most likely because I haven't recovered from the previous two rides yet. Rushed off to the washroom, anticipated myself to vomit, but did not. I body just felt weird...so I passed on the next four rides... I was at the line for the jet stream, but that was simply too scary, so I chickened out on that one as well.

A long lunch break later, I recovered, and we ventured forth into another section of the park. A bunch of us got scared just by looking at the cliffhanger, so we just let the brave ones go forth with it, and they definitely complained a lot about it...heh. Next comes teacup, which is the funniest ride ever. I was with Feng in one cup, and the way it spins, he's basically crushing me the whole time. We just laughed like crazy for the entire time, and it was quite a comfortable ride, surprisingly enough. After that, there's the pirate ship thingie, and that was ok, after I figured out that I needed to lift myself up a little at the top of the swing in order to reduce the scariness... Jeff and I were together, and we yelled as much as possible...the other four guys sat across from us, and once they saw us do that, they faked screamed at us...heh. Apparently it's not that scary, but still pretty scary for me. The last ride for me was the nightmare, where you stand against the wall and get spinned around...this one looked scary, but it was not too bad, actually. After this one, however, my whole body felt sick again, which would be the third time it happened this day. Park closed at 6pm, and we had dinner at an all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant, and this is where we realize something truly scary: that the girls ate way more than the guys. I bravely tried to eat raw fish this time around (and apparently it's "try this for the first time" day...). And I'm yet to see why this kind of food is so popular...yikes. Arrived home at 11:20pm.

Misc notes: Apparently Jeff and Samuel were not rollercoaster fans, either, but somehow Samuel was brave enough to ride all of them, while I desperately try to keep up with Jeff, not wanting to be embarrassed...heh; perhaps the most dangerous ride the whole day took place in Feng's car...of course, the rollercoasters have high safety measures, and the car...doesn't...heh; this is indeed my first extreme rollercoaster experience, and all I can say is, to me, these rollercoasters are simply tortuing devices...; I think through the down times, God has revealed something to me that actually made sense of some of the things that's been happening, and that was a great relief; I still can't believe I did this...; I still can't believe the games that these guys play during the line-up...heh...sigh, more signs that I just don't fit in; I passed up studying matroids for this trip of torture and hanging out with friends...was it worth it? Absolutely!

Ah...time to catch up to what's been happening. Briefly: the trip to Mississauga to visit Wayne was awesome, yet there seems to be something missing... Samuel's visit here is so short that it's kind of disappointing that I don't get to talk to him privately. But it's still very good to see him. Went to both services again, this time bringing 3 people to cfc...heh. The evening prayer meeting had only 2 people, but still we had a wonderful time of sharing and praying in the Lord. Tomorrow, I'm going to Wonderland! Shocking, I know. It was a struggle, but I've decided to take the adventure and time with soon-to-depart friends rather than with silly matroids.

Finished reading the book Wild at Heart today. Boy, that was a really good and challenging book. Thanks, Samuel, for recommending the book! It's so good that I'm thinking of giving away several copies of it...

What I need now, I believe, is solid faith. I could go from one moment being absolutely sure of the love and power of Jesus working inside me, to another moment having doubts as to whether or not that is true. There's this constant spiritual battle going on here, and it seems that my faith in God just fluctuates quite easily. Now I'm starting to understand (just a little bit) what it means to have Jesus as my rock, my fortress, my strength. O Lord, be the solid foundation in my life.

I kind of wasted today, actually...but I kind of felt like taking a day off anyway, because of so much pressure recently. So what did I do today? Morning run...study the anatomy of a Biblical tempest...morning class...lunch at home...warfish with David...puzzle and sleep...brief meeting with Jochen, which was kind of fun, sort of...read Abide in Christ in SLC...mccf in MC...surprised when Wayne and CK showed up...dinner at Pho, which was surprisingly enjoyable, actually...now back home and more warfish...heh.

One question that I'm considering recently is how do friends play a part in my life. It's so confusing that I don't even know how to write it down.

Going to visit Wayne tomorrow...yay! Yeah, I know, I've just seen him today... By the way, how much did I get excited about Samuel's visit to Waterloo this coming weekend? He appeared in my dreams for two nights in a row...it's either pretty good or pretty disturbing...