Home Sweet Home

East, west, home is best.

I was dreading going back to Toronto at the beginning of project because I feared the loneliness that awaited, but it has never been so good to be HOME. Coming back to MY apartment was pure relief. It really is home, and I feel very blessed to be living in such a sweet pad. Travelling around has really made me count my blessings.

I was ready to be back a few weeks ago even though Paris and London were fantastic experiences. Now I know that my travel max is two months. Glad I figured this out before I bought a Round the World ticket (they exist) for a year. I might still do that, but not for a year.

5 Good Things (Paris Edition)

1. The pastries.
Oh mhhmm...the pastries. I'm salivating as I type this. Words cannot express how delicious they were.

2. The monuments. Eiffel Tower, Versailles, Notre Dame, Louvre....
Sigh.

3. Walking along the Seine.
It's just so beautiful, romantic, and...funny.
I went to Pont St. Louis, apparently the most romantic place to watch a sunset...to watch a sunset and there was this man there with the weirdest contraption protesting something or another, but he was serenading the passerbys with "Fly Me to the Moon." The juxtaposition was too funny. I couldn't help but smirk and chuckle.

4. The streets.
I love the windy, narrow streets with quirky, unique shops in the them. The architecture is so quaint.

5. The fashion.
Everyone is dressed to the nines. Coming back from project, that made me feel uber grunge. And the guys know how to dress well too!

Paris

In Shakespeare and Co. a famous bookshop located on the Seine across from Notre Dame, there are nooks and crannies where visitors from all over the world leave their marks. A few words here and a few words there. So I thought, 'Why the heck not?'

On a ripped piece of paper I wrote, for the lack of a better imagination:
It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Dreams come true in Paris.

Not that I've had a GREAT romance the pass few days in Paris, but I think it sums up all that Paris means to me, the embodiment of childhood dreams. As a child I dreamed of Paris. Of its famous monuments, of its paintings, of its streets, of its history and I thought to myself one day I will go to Paris.

And now I am in Paris, and I love it. Every minute of it.

Tanzania

Well here I am safe and sound in Tanzania. It feels so good to be back on an international project. Fish back in water. But it's definitely different being staff on a project though.

Campus cycle starts this week. I'm leading a team with Jamie Strickland, Tim Lee, Vanessa Fabish, Zoe Klintberg. Love the staff and love the team. Everything is going swimmingly.

Health is a bit wonky. Perpetually fatigued all the time. Hopefully this will pass.

Curbside Centerpieces

Wedding Guest: "So where did you get your centerpieces?"

Irene: "From the curb."

And that my friends is how conversations will go at Irene's wedding.

We were thinking of having branches as centerpieces, but the problem was where to get them. As we were discussing this during lunch, Terra, Irene, and I, Terra remembered seeing newly pruned branches on the curb...somewhere during her drive earlier in the day. So off we went after sushi to find centerpieces on the curbside.

Sure enough there they were on the curb calling to us: "Pick us up!" Use us!" So we opened Terra's hatchback and shoved it all in and took them home.

April Shmapril

I will never again underestimate April.
It's pwning me like no tomorrow.
Who knew? Who knew?

The City Comes Alive

Living in the city during the winter is dark, dreary, and depressing. It's also claustrophobic. But now that spring/summer is here, it's as if the city woke up. Suddenly everything's bright and cheery. There's so much to do. I've already started making a list.

Things I want to do in the summer.
1. Take a swing dance workshop (not exclusively a summer thing, but still...)
2. Explore and window shop in:
a) Upper Village (Eglington W. area)
b) Yonge and Eglinton
c) Fashion District
d) Roncevalles
3. Blade along Harbourfront (no blades though...)
4. QT at Harbourfront
5. Eat out at a restaurant with a patio at Harbourfront
6. Go shooting (with a camera not a shotgun) around the brickworks.
7. Sit in Dundas Square and people watch.
8. Go to a Jazz Festival
9. Play beach volleyball at Ashbridges Bay
10. Last but definitely NOT least: Shakespeare in High Park (although I hope seeing a Shakespearean play at the Globe in London won't ruin me for this.)

Can I just say how good life is? It's as if Someone gave me a goblet of golden nectar to drink, and I'm savouring every little drop. What a blessing it is to be exactly where I am right now and I thank Jesus for every day that I get to live.

Pick Up on Day of Prayer

While on a prayer walk today with my roommate in Streetsville (a dinky town in Mississauga), the following happened.

Walking, walking, walking...

Me: Father I thank you for this beautiful day.
We stop at streetcorner.

Random Voice From Behind: Yeah it is.
We turn around. There's this random sketchy looking man leaning against the wall staring at us.

Sketchy Man: But not as beautiful as you.

AWKWARD. Seriously I have enough awkward stories to film two high school chick flicks. I deserve an award or something.

A Salad of Thoughts

1. I use to think that my cooking skills were decent. Now I know better. It's not that they're decent, it's just that my palette got worse. I had the best chinese food these days. It's ruined me for the ordinary (my cooking).
2. All the chinese food and all the ads for the Beijing Olympics make me want to move back to China long-term. Not the best reasons to move. I know.
3. I need to work on my chinese.
4. While watching an ad on TV...
"She's so pretty. I want to be like her. I want to be chinese. Wait, I am."
What the heck? Oooh the power of advertisement.

Culture Shock In My Own Hood

Mom's in town, and that means requisite visits to all extended family members in the area. I love the wining and dining part that comes along with these visits because food that tastes this good and in this much quantity only comes my way every so often. I love being able to converse (loudly) in my mother tongue again. I love hearing old family stories. I love being spoiled rotten and being doted on in a way that only an only child from a chinese family can be.

But this time around there was a bit of culture shock. While there has always been things about the chinese culture that irk me like horking, this time I haven't been able to "slip back in" to the culture as smoothly as before. I feel disoriented like a fish out of water. I can't put my finger on it, but it disturbs me because in the past four years it wasn't that hard to go back and forth between Guelph and the yellow side of the family. And going from burgers and dogs to chicken feet is a pretty big jump.

When I knew that I was moving back to Toronto, I made a conscious decision not to get sucked into an Asian bubble again, but now I wonder if I had gone too far and have actually moved away from my roots....

Savouring Solitude

It's 1:30 at night. The only one up in this apartment is me. The silence and the stillness of night weighs on me, pressing against my skin. The noise and the rush of day has melted away. All the ten million things that clutter my brain have been swept away. I'm sitting on the hardwood floor savouring the stillness, and the silence that comes with night. Solitude tastes so good.

Brush with Black Ice

I was on my way to Harvest Oakville for church this morning with a friend, Emily Terreberry when I had my first brush with black ice and hopefully the last. We were on the QEW going west when all of a sudden Sunday morning traffic turned into Friday afternoon rush hour. It made sense on our side because there was an accident ahead of us, but the lanes going east were also as slow as a snail. This puzzled my mind until we hit our very own patch of black ice and skidded. We ended up at a 70 degree angle to the barricade. Yikes. Providentially we were in the exit lane so we were already slowing down and didn't skid into the middle lane; the car behind us also skidded so he didn't ram into us; the middle lane was empty for a bit so no threat came from the left . Whew. Praise God for safety.

It seems like this winter is the winter for car issues, but I rejoice when I reflect on how much God has grown me over the past few years. If these things happened a few years ago I would really be flipping out, but now I plod on with the knowledge that He will get me through this.

Happy Heart Day

There was going to be an ingenious albeit cheesy card floating around this year with the above tagline, but due to technical difficulties there will be no cards bearing Lydia's and my own brilliance.

That said, Happy Heart Day!*

Funny enough I kept thinking that today was Chinese New Year's. I think it's the hot pot that I will eating in an hour.

.

O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N

Shelly will learn to organize her time better. Shelly MUST learn to organize her time better.

In Love

A couple of friends and I rolled into Montreal late LATE last night around one in the morning. After getting a few glimpses of the city during the wild drive downtown, I fell in love immediately. Today my friend, Lydia is going to take me on a grand tour. I am so excited.

The Calm After a Storm

I don't like trials. I don't like discomfort. I don't like feeling crappy. I doubt anyone does. Three posts ago I was praying that things would continue to keep going up instead of going down or even just staying at the status quo.

Yet sitting here in the calm of the previous storm I would not trade the howling winds for anything else because Jesus showed up in the midst of it. How can I explain the love, the peace, and the gentleness that I felt as He calmed the raging worries, doubts, insecurities, accusations, and fears inside my weary heart? I tear up when I remember it. The Lord, He is good. I have tasted and I have seen.

The things that brought me closer to God were the storms in my life. Next time I will not hold such disdain for them.

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Inclement Weather

Tonight was suppose to be the first pool practice with this dragon boat club that I sort of joined, but due to inclement weather practice was canceled. I had been looking forward to it all week. Boo.

Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

The most wonderful lesson that God has been teaching me this past month through all the ups and downs of transitioning into a new season of life is this:

Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The gospel, simple, but not plain.

It has been pounded into me minute by minute, day by day. It is my lifeline in more ways than one. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's not just something that I preach to others, but something that I have to preach to myself everyday. The majesty of it is that the wonder of the gospel never ceases or diminishes but keeps on growing. How can I explain how much more precious it has become to me recently?

Storms may come, but on Christ the Solid Rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.

Treading Water

I have never been stretched so hard since my first mission trip four years ago. Everyday my faith in Christ is put on the line. I almost feel like I'm facing the firing squad on daily basis. On one hand it's very uncomfortable. On the other hand I have never been so so dependent on Jesus.

I thought that I would be swimming smoothly right off the bat so it was a shock to find that I could barely keep my head out of the water. There were times when I found that I could keep my head out of the water, but then a wave would come and I would be struggling again.

It's tempting to want to cop out and go do something else, anything else, but this is my calling. The only way is forward until His calling on my life changes, if it changes. So to Him I cling.

The Upswing of Things

Things have been rough on the inside this past month. There was and still is much to ponder and chew on as I continue to make the transition from student to a "grown-up". I think one of the issues amongst many was and is that on the outside I'm "here". I'm "grown-up" now. I have a job. I have my own apartment.

Letting that sink in.

I take care of me. But on the inside I still feel very much like a kid. I still haven't figured out life yet at 22. Devastating, I know. This is all to say this is why I have neglected this poor corner of the web. Too much going on inside to post it on the outside.

Things are on the upswing and God-willing they will keep going up.