Pain After Pleasure

Good times. Wasted day, but the night made up for it. Woke up late this morning, barely considered morning actually, and had brunch around 12. Slacked off for the entire day basically, and I have a big assignment due in less than a week. I should've been more productive, but my mind wasn't in it. Like I've been telling myself for weeks now, "gotta focus tomorrow and get some work done." Never happens, but tomorrow, I'll focus and get some work done.
Salts tonight was pretty fun. Helped Kim make games for Candy Carnival, and in the end the group I was in produced a sexy target for an accuracy game including a bull's eye and weighted balloons. I was also the model for another game, but I won't expand on that. You'll see it on Hallowe'en if you come out to RHCBC for the Carnival.
The game making process didn't take up the whole 2 hours, so I joined the Bethelians for gym night later on. First as a spectator, then as a basketball player. I always look forward to balling after fellowship, since that's my only source of exercise these days. Not exactly too busy for it; I'm just too lazy. Basketball, however, is something I enjoy playing tremendously. Rarely do I say no to an opportunity to ball, and when I get to play, I try to give it my all.
It's been tough though these days, with a knee injury I've had to endure since March break this year. I still remember how it happened, or at least what I think to be the cause of the injury. My friend grabbed the rim, so I scoffed at him and attempted to do the same thing, knowing I would miss the mark by far. To my surprise, I went a few inches higher than I've ever gone before and pulled down on the rim hard. That was the only time in my life I've successfully reached that height. That was my moment to shine. Later that night, however, my left knee was in pain. It's been like that for months, and it never fully recovered.
Since then, I've been balling as usual, never letting my injury hinder me. It was never an obstacle on my decision to play, but physically, it was a great barrier. I can't cut hard anymore, and I can't make quick stops on that side. I still try, but pain would shoot up my leg as a result. So all you ballers out there, you now know my weakness. But whatever. I don't play competitively, and a win or a loss makes no difference to me. I never considered myself a baller, but someone who likes to play ball. Some think I'm good at this sport, but that's their opinion. I'm not that great.
So to sum it all up, tonight has been a fun workout for me. It was a good day for me on the court. For like VC, I'm inconsistent. And also like VC, I get hurt easily. Always the same knee, and sometimes more than that. Usually lost skin or blisters, cuz I don't wear proper footwear. I play with sneakers I've been wearing almost everyday for 5 years, and the grip has just recently started to disappear. Yes, I'm in pain, but I'll still be on the court when I get the chance. For life is short, might as well have fun with it.

Help Wanted

While playing a game of Bookworm on Yahoo, I started thinking. Actually I started thinking an hour before, when I was on the phone with a friend. And then another friend afterwards, and a troubling thought clung to my head. I tried to work this out myself, but I can't do this alone. I paused the game to do this entry.
First phone call. My friend and I were talking about meeting new people, and the conversation turned towards church. He was interested in coming, but only to meet people. However, he said he would not participate in Christian activities because he was a Buddhist. Not allowed to take part in Christian events, he said. How do I pass on my faith to someone who's not interested, or unwilling, even? He's not too close of a friend of mine, but that doesn't mean I should give up on him?
Second phone call. My closest friend on the other end. We've been friends for about 6 years. We've been through a lot; lotta laughs, don't remember any tears. Definitely no fights or disagreements though. Both of us has changed since we first met, but our relationship has been tight throughout. I've become a Christian, and he's into other stuff. Stuff a Christian shouldn't be involved in. Yet we've been close for so long, and I won't let our differences separate us. I still respect him of course. Who am I to judge him, right? After all, everyone is a sinner. He asks me now and then about Christianity and I answer him as best as I could. I've talked to him about going to a church, but it happened rarely. I want to pass on my faith to him as well, but I always feel...scared, I guess? Maybe deep down, I find this topic "uncool" or something, but I know that's the wrong way to think. I'm not exactly sure why I keep hesitating. I care about him, and I want him to know about Christ as soon as possible, but whenever I want to, I tense up and avoid the whole thing altogether at the last moment. One reason I think is because I don't know enough about Christianity to tell others about it.
I need help. I don't know how to pass on my faith. I need lots of advice, readers. Hope it's not too late for my non-believer friends.
Please post comments/advice. I'm sure there are others out there struggling with the same problem and looking for answers.

(Insert title here)

Coughing still, but the headache is gone. Thanks again for the prayers, readers.
So enough about my health. Had a great time last night at Janette's. Even the journey there was full of jokes. Thanks again to Gummi for the ride and sorry for disappointing you with my lack of rhymes. Yup, we had a great time flowing to the beats. Had a good time talking with Gums on the ride there. We first stopped by at Food Basics to buy ingredients for dinner. Both of us didn't know much about garlics, so we bought 3 for the night. We also bought an overabundance of pasta.
Steve, Janette, Gums and I had a great time cooking the meal. The pasta consisted of ground beef, mushrooms, green pepper, and garlic. The guys did the the dicing of the veggies while Janette cooked the pasta. She emptied half a bag of it into the bowl at first, asked us if it was enough, then emptied the whole thing. The end result was enough pasta for 6-7 ppl, and we only had 4. That comes to my next point. Where were the rest of the Black Rhinos? Skipping cell group? Tsk tsk. Heh heh, I'm sure you were all busy. No hard feelings.
Anyway, we had pasta, beef balls and dumplings. Too much of it too, but it was great. Good time of bonding.
After dinner, we watched My Best Friend's Wedding on dvd and Black Cancer joined us later. Saw the opening scenes of Rush Hour 2 after that, and then it was time to leave Janette alone. It was fun. Thanks again, Janette, for opening your home to us. Hope we didn't trash it (or stink it up) too much.
Well, that's it for now. Looking forward to next cell group.

Whew

Feeling a bit better, but sick still. Thank You God for Your healing, and thanks for praying, my dear readers.

*Groan*

I'm sick. I feel terrible. I have school work to do still, but I want to sleep...
Please pray for me.

Another burden lifted

Once again, God saved the day. First university mid-term for me, and I think I did pretty well. Granted some of the questions had me puzzled, but the exam was relatively fair. I studied for hours, or rather read the text for hours. 2.5 chapters behind in my reading, and with the grace of God, I completed it. I wasn't stressed, or nervous for the mid-term. I knew the Lord would give me wisdom and guidance when the time came, and fair enough, my prayers were answered. Don't get me wrong though, I didn't slack off completely and solely depended on God's guidance to help me pass. I did a bit of work myself, but I give Him most of the credit. Those who know me know that I have a bad memory. Reading the text just a few days before the exam usually doesn't work for me. This time however, the answers to the exam questions came to mind swiftly. Another interesting point. I never knew why I stayed in data management last year. I failed tests and quizes, and I almost didn't graduate because of that course. There really was no reason for me to take that. Math is not a prerequisite for English programs. But now I know why. The psych exam asked questions on differences on pos/neg/no correlation, something I learned in data last year. Like I said before, I didn't really study much for the exam. Had I not known how to do correlations, I would've lost 5% for the entire exam. Thanks again, God.
So that's another burden lifted. Just a few more assignments and another mid-term to go. For this semester anyway. I think. I hope.

Not so heavenly after all

I can't remember the last time I did school work from 2 in the afternoon til 11:30 at night. I should be studying psych right now, but I can't read anymore. Too much to take in at once. Readers, please pray that I'll know most of the material by Tuesday. I've procrastinated the past few weeks, but I've learned my lesson. Don't put off work in university. It'll come back and bite you in the rear. Hard.
I read the psych text for hours, then stopped to redo my assignment for writing when my completed work was criticized. So I did that, and it turned out our printer ran outta ink. $70, used up already. Sigh. We need a new printer. So I had to redo my assignment on my computer at first, then redo it again in writing. My hand was rigid afterwards. But I'm a writer, I'm not complaining. I just prefer typing over manual labour, that's all.
Did some more reading after that, then I watched Peter Jackson's old school film Heavenly Creatures. Don't let the title fool you though, it ain't no love story chick flick. Well, in a way it is, but it's definitely not for the squirmish folks. Especially Sammi. I knew what was coming though, and I expected the worst. Not as bad as I had anticipated, fortunately. If it was remotely close to what really happened, I'm sure it'd be revolting. The film itself was done nicely though, just the content is kinda discomforting. I give it four stars still. But once again, don't be fooled by the title!
That's about it from me for today. I need my beauty sleep. Lotta studying to do tomorrow.

One down, more to go

Stupid blogger screwed up my original entry for today. I ain't mad though. I'll calm down, give me a few seconds.

Ok. As I was saying before it got wiped out, today's been a tough day. The whole week, really, has been tough. I finished my first, true university assignment. A benchmark exercise and a restaurant review. The entire assignment is worth 15% of my mark for the course, and that's not all. I just installed Microsoft Office on my laptop on Tuesday. A big thank you to Roz, for if it wasn't for her, I would have to type it out on my virus/spyware infected computer, and that piece of junk is so slow, it would've taken 10 minutes to start up. No printer plugged into either one of these two computers, and the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. My desktop comp has terrible internet connection. There was no way I could transfer information from one to another. The only printer in the house is in Jalen's room, and it spits out expensive ink. Around $70/cartridge. The assignment's due on Thursday (tomorrow) and I have nearly have of the assignment completed. Ohhh shoot. Pressure's on. Full blast.
From 10 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, I read and reread notes and tried to get past the writer's block in my mind. Thanks to the gracious God, He pulled me through just in time. Under such circumstances, I had no choice but to use the printer in the house to produce pages of expensive text. The content, of course, probably decreased the value of each page. I was never a fan of non-fiction writing, or at least writing under guidelines. After printing out what I wrote, Jalen, my aunt and I went to the North York Public Library to print out our sources and photocopy our entire assignments. We each had about 20 pages at the end. We were also fortunate enough to find the film we were required to watch for English...last week. Yes, we're behind in that, but we can still make up for it now.
So that was that. First real assignment finished. What a relief. But I know it will be short-lived. Got a psych exam next Tuesday and I still have 3 chapters of text to go. Over 100 pages I'm sure. And more fun the following week. Evo exam. Joy.
I'm tired of writing. A whole day on the keyboard. I need a break.

Party at Lunny's!

Another blog entry. Didn't think I would do one everyday, but so far life has been eventful.
Had Thanksgiving dinner at the Chan residence. First off, a big thank you goes out to the entire family for opening their home to us and being so hospitable. My aunt, Jalen and myself were not the only ones invited over tonight. Tim and parent were there, along with an auntie and uncle Harold's highschool buddy's daughter. 15 years old, fresh out of HK. Must be tough adjusting. But then again, I didn't speak English back then, so that was a big difference.
Dinner was amazing. Uncle Harold prayed for us, and then we helped ourselves to turkey, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, ribs, cajun fish, and roast beef. Just thinking about it now makes me salivate. Gravy, cranberry sauce, everything was delicious. After the main course, desserts were served. Since it was uncle Harold's bday last week, Candace and Tiffany made him a cheesecake. Good stuff, ladies. Sweet and fruity. We also brought banana bread and fruit along, and we also had pie which was left untouched because everyone was so full from all that meat. I'm sure we all had a great time feasting, especially seeing Aaron's attempt at massive weight gain.
Let's take it back an hour or so. Jalen and I had a tour of the house with Lunny as our guide. We then went down to the basement for some pool. I lost the first few games, but then I gradually got a hang of it. I started using the mini stick they had for the last 2 games and I schooled them. Yeah right. Just sank a few more balls. We had a game of 8-ball with Aaron and I on one team and Jalen and Tim on the other. We started off well, clearing the table on the first 2 or 3 turns. I sank the first 2, then Lunny finished off the rest of the solids, but missed the 8-ball. They still had about 5 stripes to go, and we knew victory was ours. I was next up. I took aim and shot the cueball. The black ball just missed the pocket, but then I noticed the white ball was still rolling. Into a pocket it went! So upset! But we had such a great time.
So fast forward to post-dinner. We sat down in the living room for a movie. My Sassy Girl, to be exact, but that turned out to be a dissapointment. Mandarin with no subtitles! After a few minutes of trying to get the dang thing working the way we wanted it to work, we moved on to the next movie. An anime called The Grave of the Fireflies. Seemed like a sad, ghost story or something. I saw it ages ago, I believe, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. Too bad we had to leave minutes after the film started.
So that was it for Thanksgiving dinner. The best one I've had in years actually. Thanks again to the Chan family for their hardwork and organization. It was perfect.

Haig Homecoming

Another late blog, but I'll keep this brief.
As the title suggests, today (Friday October 8) was homecoming, or high school reunion for Earl Haig Secondary. I didn't plan on going at first, but due to certain circumstances, I was in the area at the time. I planned to stay at home the whole day and work on my assignments, but that didn't happen. Initially, I thought it would just be an unofficial meeting of grads at Haig, maybe 10 people max. Little did I know there was a room reserved for us with free food. If I had known, I would've skipped breakfast. I got there around 2:30, because I was already in the area and my friend Li told me he would hook me up with a copy of Microsoft Office. On my way to Haig with my brother, Ben jumped out of his car and ran to us, arms flailing. So the three of us went to Haig together. Met up with a lot of old friends, people I haven't seen in a long time. A bit of catching up with out of towners and teachers. That was great. Li was there, but he didn't bring the CD. What a fool. But I forgive him. Maybe I'll smack him later, but I'll keep my blows light. Haha. Kidding, Li. Stop hiding.
After that, I went home empty handed, and I typed away on my other computer. I figured I could finish up my diary entry for the day and get some work done before heading out for church, but my time management was off. I didn't even finish writing my entry. By the way, readers, if I miss out on details here, that's because I refuse to retype the same thing twice. Once in my personal diary and once here. You don't need to know the details anyway.
So, I went to church about an hour and a half earlier than usual because Jalen had worship practice. Around 7:20 some of the Bethelians showed up for prayer meeting and I tagged along. Second prayer meeting I went to in my life, and that was pretty good.
After prayer meeting and Salts, I played 5 on 5 ball on one basket. That was a good workout, although my knee did hurt near the end. Just a slight pang, so I'll get over it in a day or so. And after that, a whole bunch of us went to bbtea at Bubble Star. The usual Friday night spot for Salts. Stayed around until 1 or so, and went home. So that's my day. Real brief. At least on this blog it is. That's about all I wanna write for tonight (morning). I'm out.
Oh, one more thing. Congratulations to Rosalind for winning Jr. Mayor position at Haig. It must have been the powerful speech she delivered at the assembly :) Good job, Roz!

Last day ere Thxgiving

First time at this, don't know how it'll turn out.
Ok. Last day of school before Thanksgiving weekend. I don't think this will be much of a break for me though. With 3 assignments due in the next three weeks and a psych exam in two weeks, things can't get much worse academically. Of course, I'm just a lazy first year student, so all you studious individuals out there may read this and laugh. It's not that I don't have the time to do the work or that it's too hard, no. I've just been distracted with other things in life. Mainly useless things. I've been asking for God to give me guidance and to lead me back on track, and I think it's starting to work.
I'm a writer for those who don't know me, so I've been trying to solve my own problems by scribbling little inspirational rhymes or short messages to motivate myself. For a week or so, I failed. But last night, while laying in bed, I came up with a few statements that I think may do the trick. Here they are:

Don't blame anything on God.
Don't blame everything on Satan.
Instead of asking God what you did to deserve the problems and sufferings you face in life, ask yourself what God did to deserve your crimes against Him when you sin.

I hope these lines will help you get yourself back on your feet whenever you fall. That's about it from me for now. God bless you all.