| This article attacks questions such as: = why not stay in your own home church fellowship? = will your church lose out if students are involved in a campus ministry? = why chinese? = can the local church do the same thing?" |
| July 21, 2002. 5:06pm Jus came back from Queen's Park, skating boarding. Yeah, it's a new thing. I jus picked it up lately. Got a skateboard from a friend, and bought some bearings and parts and put them together yesterday. I learned some new vocabulary: the biggest and most expensive part of a skateboard is called the "deck". and the second most expensive is the truck, like the metal part that connect the wheels and the deck. And those nuts and bolts and bearings are called "hardware". Sometimes, I wonder if it's actually dangerous to do this. What if I totally lose it one time, mess up and fall on the ground on my back? Or what if I break my arm or leg? Aaaah!!! It's always these thoughts that make me lose my focus during my ride. Well, of course I am playing it safe. I am not planning to do all those crazy bouncin' up the stairs or down the rail type of things. I think I just want to learn to control the skateboard, to steer where I want myself to go, and to balance properly. I guess my goal is to be glide around the UT campus relaxingly with a light backpack behind me. |
| So far, I have difficulty going in a straight line, so I just remind myself to go slowly to make sure I am in good balance. I just discovered that if I lean my body forward a little bit, follow the momentum and keep my body low (as opposed to fluctuating all the time), I actually can glide much more stably! ... Well, sometimes, I guess I don't know why I am skateboarding. I think in the past like five six years, I don't seem to have done much of any sport. I tend to choose the easy ones like tennis - called the "slacker sport" in my high school. you sort of go at your own pace. Even though I really admire and even envy people who are scoring in a team sport like hockey and really wanna be one of them, I never really had the guts to pick up a team sport. I always feel that people on the team are already experts, or they have the natural talent for it, and scared that my being there would just be in their way. Or I would be scared that I look like a weirdo who stands out because she doesn't know what she's doing. Tennis was a sport that I felt I could master better. So I played it. But even being on the team in a small high school, I still felt that the people on my team are so talented while I was such a beginner. For some this summer, I tend to do more exercise than the past summers. I think it's 'cause I wanted to relieve my stress. Yeah, 'cause people told me exercising helps me sleep better, and it does. I think it feels great. Now I know that feeling of jogging and jogging and wanting to jog more. Then I went swimming too. That felt great as well. In part, I start to feel like I am back to when I was a kid again. I guess I used to jump around and do all the risky and exciting things like hanging myself upside down on my legs high up in a park. That was when I was 8 or 9 years old. That was me, much like a brat who likes to do these tricks in a playground to impress some passersby or kids there. And me and cousin, we used to be so cheezy. We call it the Olympics, and we imagined all the other kids in the part are trying to compete with us too. And we always have to feel like we are outperforming them. Well, now, I am skateboarding. I don' t think I want to outperform anyone any more. I don't think I can anyways. And I don' t really need to. Not in a sport; at this age, an academic score sometimes perhaps? On the other hand, that nerve-wrecking, shaky type of excitement, that feeling of uncertainty while I skate really makes me feel like a kid sometimes, wanting to be adventurous and almost overcome something.... It feels sort of fun. I don't know what it is... but it's there. |
| J u l y 2 0 0 2 |
| July 31, 2002. [ Fw: the personal email ] I do consider myself living in Toronto, even though my family's not here. One of the things I struggle with very frequently, i.e. almost weekly, is loneliness. Loneliness for me is being in my quiet messy room by myself, longing for the feeling of being with someone. Sometimes, I wish I am with my parents. Sometimes, I wish I can see a close friend. Sometimes, I wish I can live with my sister. Sometimes, I just hope to have someone listen to how "pathetically lonely" i was feeling at that moment. Yes, that's how it looks like. At times when a person feels lonely, he/she does feel as if no one can understand him/her, especially at that "lonely moment". That's what makes it so lonely - sometimes even getting angry, jealous or bitter that there is "no one there". That's a feeling. It's usually set stage by emotions such as periods of stress, big changes or after a certain departure with someone. Personally, I admit, I get these quite often. Today, I came across an email a close friend of mine sent me months ago. She forwarded a personal email she received from her other friend. It was a personal correspondence betweentwo good friends. They share very honestly. My friend was very encouraged and touched by it. So was I after reading it. It's not a cure for loneliness. But for a person like myself, who |
| sometimes become too self-contained about my own "unique" neediness and homesickness, this is an option. And it does hit me and comfort me that I am not the only person who suffers from loneliness on this earth. Others do too, yet they look at much more positively. If this is an area you struggle with, I invite you to read it, too. This is definitely something that touched my own life. [ to read the personal email forward ] I've also received another forward email on friendship. I am usually not big on forwards. For some reason, I've developed a visual inhibition to the symbol Fw: and the texts that follow. Anyways, I just happened to read one today, and I am glad I did. It's a forward of a website that reminds me of essential things, such as friendship. And I find it so true, so true. I want to visit it again and again once in a while. Please read [ Snail Tales ] |