Busy, yet nice weekend: The weekend started off on Friday with Genesis fellowship - we had a sharing night where a pen was passed around, and whoever had the pen could share their testimony if they wanted to. I let it pass the first time, then the second time, I hesitated, but decided to share. The sharing felt like fast forward of my life going from grade school to high school to university, to post-grad (now) and I didn't want to ramble on too long, so I cut out stuff, and missed things to tie it together, but whatever...the 'just' of it was shared I guess. Afterward, a bunch of us went to Kenny's noodles for some good ol Chinese food, and it was nice to hang out and chat with friends from fellowship after having not seen them for a while.
Saturday, I got a chance to meet up with a couple of old friends from Mac for lunch downtown T.O. at Tokyo Sushi - it was like the good 'ol days when we'd have lunch together 1/wk, and also 1/month at some nice restaurant of a different culture each time. After lunch, I went to Eaton Centre downtown, since it was just around the corner, and did some shopping on my own for formal shoes and accessories, and ended up buying a new Columbia winter/ski jacket from Sport Chek since they had nice sale prices - I thought, "finally, after wearing an almost 10-yr old (but nice) 'hand-me-up' from my younger brother for about 6 years, I finally get my own nice/new winter ski jacket I've wanted for a while now". yay! I was happy :)
Sunday, I went to church, and attended a new Sunday school class "Losing Face & Finding Grace" for Asian Americans - how do we find the balance between pleasing our parents, who have certain expectations of us, and pleasing God? doing good works/feeling proud vs grace in the face of humility? many questions and issues will be talked about over the next several weeks - seems like it'll be good. After service a few of us went out to eat at Congee Wong at First Markham Place - after finding a parking spot outside of the parking lot (i.e. on a back side road) and walking through the freezing wind/cold to Congee Wong, it was nice to just sit there and hold a cup of hot tea, then eat all the delicious hot food, though that didn't keep me warm once we had to walk back to the car afterward.
So, after lunch, I was dropped off at Fairview Mall, and I continued my shopping for shoes and accessories, and this time, I wasn't distracted, and ended up finding everything I needed by closing time. I almost got distracted when I saw in-line skates on sale at Sears, but I had spent too much already, and didn't really have any energy left to even think of carrying those back on my treck back to res, even though I just took the subway for 1 station (too cold!!).
Did my day end there? nope...When I got back in, I ran into some friends in res who were on their way out to Peoples Church for the Spiritual Life Convention 2003: "Maintaining the Connection" and they asked if I wanted to go...I decided to go...it was really good. The speaker was Hans Peter Royer from Austria. He talked a lot about 'Rights' vs. 'Privileges', and how we as humans tend to believe that we have a right to everything good - safety, health, relationships, family, money - but they are actually privileges given to us as blessings from God; gifts that he can give or keep from us for His purpose. By the end of it, though, I was really quite exhausted from the busyness of the weekend, and was ready to go back to res, have dinner and rest/sleep.
Monday classes: by the time the evening class rolled around, around 4/5pm, my head was doing those fish-bops, with my hood over my head and covering my eyes cuz I was soooo tired/sleepy...surprisingly, I still took good notes of what was taught in class. Why is it that when you're in class, you get so tired/sleepy and can doze off so much easier, and then as soon as class is over and you get up and go outside, everything is so clear and awake again??
Monday evening: went to dinner at Chiu Chow Koon restaurant with my dad. It was yummy, and I had one of my favourite Chinese desserts - 'Wu nei' (mashed sweetened taro w/fruitillaria)...mmm...
I think I've eaten out quite a bit the past several days...time to cook for myself the rest of this week and have some 'Charlene' home-cooking...
Saturday, I got a chance to meet up with a couple of old friends from Mac for lunch downtown T.O. at Tokyo Sushi - it was like the good 'ol days when we'd have lunch together 1/wk, and also 1/month at some nice restaurant of a different culture each time. After lunch, I went to Eaton Centre downtown, since it was just around the corner, and did some shopping on my own for formal shoes and accessories, and ended up buying a new Columbia winter/ski jacket from Sport Chek since they had nice sale prices - I thought, "finally, after wearing an almost 10-yr old (but nice) 'hand-me-up' from my younger brother for about 6 years, I finally get my own nice/new winter ski jacket I've wanted for a while now". yay! I was happy :)
Sunday, I went to church, and attended a new Sunday school class "Losing Face & Finding Grace" for Asian Americans - how do we find the balance between pleasing our parents, who have certain expectations of us, and pleasing God? doing good works/feeling proud vs grace in the face of humility? many questions and issues will be talked about over the next several weeks - seems like it'll be good. After service a few of us went out to eat at Congee Wong at First Markham Place - after finding a parking spot outside of the parking lot (i.e. on a back side road) and walking through the freezing wind/cold to Congee Wong, it was nice to just sit there and hold a cup of hot tea, then eat all the delicious hot food, though that didn't keep me warm once we had to walk back to the car afterward.
So, after lunch, I was dropped off at Fairview Mall, and I continued my shopping for shoes and accessories, and this time, I wasn't distracted, and ended up finding everything I needed by closing time. I almost got distracted when I saw in-line skates on sale at Sears, but I had spent too much already, and didn't really have any energy left to even think of carrying those back on my treck back to res, even though I just took the subway for 1 station (too cold!!).
Did my day end there? nope...When I got back in, I ran into some friends in res who were on their way out to Peoples Church for the Spiritual Life Convention 2003: "Maintaining the Connection" and they asked if I wanted to go...I decided to go...it was really good. The speaker was Hans Peter Royer from Austria. He talked a lot about 'Rights' vs. 'Privileges', and how we as humans tend to believe that we have a right to everything good - safety, health, relationships, family, money - but they are actually privileges given to us as blessings from God; gifts that he can give or keep from us for His purpose. By the end of it, though, I was really quite exhausted from the busyness of the weekend, and was ready to go back to res, have dinner and rest/sleep.
Monday classes: by the time the evening class rolled around, around 4/5pm, my head was doing those fish-bops, with my hood over my head and covering my eyes cuz I was soooo tired/sleepy...surprisingly, I still took good notes of what was taught in class. Why is it that when you're in class, you get so tired/sleepy and can doze off so much easier, and then as soon as class is over and you get up and go outside, everything is so clear and awake again??
Monday evening: went to dinner at Chiu Chow Koon restaurant with my dad. It was yummy, and I had one of my favourite Chinese desserts - 'Wu nei' (mashed sweetened taro w/fruitillaria)...mmm...
I think I've eaten out quite a bit the past several days...time to cook for myself the rest of this week and have some 'Charlene' home-cooking...
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