July 31, 2002 (Wednesday)

I almost exploded in my Spanish class today. There are so many things for me to study. I have a dictation at the class, MCSE exams tomorrow and also Cisco configuration. Plus, I have to organize the Sept 1 music offering before I leave in about a week. The short term ministry from Toronto will arrive tomorrow too and I want to attend the dinner/prayer meeting. Wow! I feel like, what I am doing in these few months make up for the 8 months idle period.
I spent several hours today figuring out what's wrong with the malfunction routers (continuation of yesterday's work). Dr. Chu asked me to go home eat dinner at about 7 because Pastor Semson were there with them. However, I stayed at work to studying for the Cisco Firewall and IPSec configuration. I got some improvement, but not much. I went home at 10. I use my brain too much today; hence, I have to calm down or else I cannot fall asleep at night.

July 30, 2002 (Tuesday)

There are many problematic routers. My job of the coming few days is to determine what is wrong with these equipments. It was fun for the first few times, but then it got bored. However, this is better than reading books endlessly (like what I was doing in the last few days)
I spent about an hour brainstorming about the Sept 1 Evangelical program. I enjoyed singing by myself, but of course, I would be even more excited if my friends are here.

July 29, 2002 (Monday)

I passed the MCSE 70-224 (Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server) exam this morning. And then I spent sometimes home studying and sleeping too.
I spent about two hours trying to install the IOS image to the Cisco 2650 routers. It made me mad again. I can not ping the device, but somehow I can still TFTP the image. Why?
At night time, I phoned Pastor Semson about the music offering in the movie evangelical day in Sept 1. And I brainstormed for a while what songs we shall sing and who will be in the team. It is not easy to organize mainly-Spanish-speaking people to sing Chinese songs.

July 28, 2002 (Sunday)

I went to Baptist Church in the morning. Afterward, all of us helped out in preparing the places the Short Term Ministry people who will arrive coming week. It reminds the HK day when the whole family helped out in church event. VCAC is a large church and there is no such opportunity.
I went to MB Church in the afternoon (it is usual for me now to attend two Sunday services). Afterward, the family of Chi Kong invited me to go out for dinner. We had some fellowship time; I was also spreading my suggestion about a new Sunday Worship style. (His dad was the chair of the Church board).

July 27, 2002 (Saturday)

I went to Spanish Class in the morning (Wednesday was a holiday). And I went to work from 2 to 9:30. I spent 30 mins sleeping there, and played around with routers. As far as my current situation, it is a normal day (class in the morning, work in the afternoon and night)

July 26, 2002 (Friday)

I spent about an hour talking to my boss today. He wants me to take more exams! I thought that after my 7 MCSE exams, I can rest for a while. However, that is not true. He wants me to have at least two more certification by the end of the year. Each of these needs about 5 exams each. That means, if I take one exam a week, and I don't fail any of these exam, I still have to take till the end of the year. That is a lot! He said that, my bonus rests on these. The company would not wait for anyone. If I can't do it, he will find someone else to do it. Extremely result oriented. Did I ever mention before that, I want to work for some company that has ambition when I am young? My dream comes true. The price is that, I have to work very hard.
As if this is not enough, my boss asks me to work. (Isn’t it strange for me to say that "my boss asks me to work" is a surprise for me?) He said that, he has two purposes in me. One is the potential for me to earn the company certification, and the other one is to use my knowledge to serve the customer. Currently I am not making any money for the company. So I would have more chances like the one I had last week, when I had a terrible time with fixing the network of Magnabyte.
Currently, he said that, people within my team are jealous about my situation. They do not find it fair to hire someone oversee and pay him higher salary than they are. (As if the situation is not serious enough, I have not make any money on behave of the company) I need to earn their respect. And in the mean time, I must persevere.
We had family worship at night. I expressed my opinion about the MB Church Sunday Worship. There are many rooms for improvement, yet I am not sure that whether the church leader acknowledges it or not.

July 25, 2002 (Thursday)

Spanish class in the morning as usual. And I did not get a call from company! I borrowed some routers and played around with it for most of the day. I also did some catch up on my Spanish course and other stuff too.
I went home at about 9. YiSon was crying and yelling because he wanted to watch the cartoon "Master Q" ("lo fu chi" in Chinese). Not even the cartoon "Ding Dong" satisfies his need! Wow, I never realize that the cartoon "Master Q" is so attractive. They told me that, usually when YiSon is sleepy, he "lau kai". That almost makes me mad too.

July 24, 2002 (Wednesday)

I surely hope that there is no phone call for me today. I do not want to work!
I went to the Baptist Church outing. There are six students from my Spanish Class (one of them is Mrs. Wong) join the event today. Wow, that is good. How did my teacher manage to invite them? We went to some park (I don't know the name) to play "soccer-style monkey get ball" and soccer. It is hot and lots of sun. I hope that the students enjoy too and come back again.
After exercise, shower and violin-practice, I went with the youth in the Baptist Church to the "Marco Witts" Christian concert. I am aware that this is a Spanish event and I know that I would have a hard time to understand. However, I hope that there is some Christian song that I am familiar with, and to bring back my worship memory in Vancouver. We arrived there at 5 and the event is from 6-10:30. There are some other band perform too. However, I did not enjoy it. First, I have a flu (coincident or what? last time when I was exposed to the sun, I was sick afterward too). Also, all the songs are new to me. Plus, the language barrier is bigger than I thought. The music was loud, and people yelled around me. I had a tough time and those 5.5 hours seems like forever to me. I am thankful that I can go home afterward!

July 23, 2002 (Tuesday)

I went to Spanish class this morning, and the worst thing finally happened. In the middle of the class I received a phone call saying that the network I implemented yesterday does not work. They can browse Internet but the mail and web server is not working. I hate to be interrupted, but my boss still demanded me to visit the customer site immediately. I went home, took a shower, practiced violin, and waited for the ride from the customer. I felt so frustrated because yesterday things were fine but now it failed
There is another person from Desca go with me. He had more experience and should be able to give us a hand. However, he speaks very little English. Hence, it is what had happened. Instead of explained to me using his poor English, he did everything himself. Therefore, I had nothing to do for several hours. Luckily I brought my laptop here and I can browse Internet or send email.
There are another several hours that that person is sitting besides me. Nothing really big happened. He is implementing the temporarily solution that I created last Thursday. And they are going to move the server from the LAN to the DMZ and then we will configure the Firewall again at that time.

July 22, 2002 (Monday)

I passed my MCSE 70-221 (Designing a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure) today, but with a relatively low score. But it does not really matter, because a pass is a pass.
My boss called me about the Magnabyte problem last Thursday. He told me that I have not fixed the problem yet. I told him that the customer was happy the moment that I left; I also double checked with them the following day and he was happy at that time. However, my boss has another version of the story. The boss of my customer said that they will replace the firewall. I was informed that on last Friday afternoon. I plan to start on this job soon. However, my boss phoned this morning that he wants that done NOW. (What a demanding boss!) My customer emailed that someone is going to fix their firewall last Friday. I thought that that is the end of the story; however, it looks like that the firewall is not fixed yet and I need to get that done soon. Stress!
I went with a person from my company to Magnabyte (the company that needs help) to install a firewall. I learned quite a lot about it. It seems to me that it is working. Users and servers can browse the internet. However, people can not browse their website yet and the email server is not working. Once again, I am a router, or "may be a bit" Firewall person. I have no idea about how server works. However, as I recalled last Thursday night, my boss wants me to fix the network. What should I do?
After a few hours of work, the network seems to be up and working fine. I have satisfaction and learn a lot about the firewall configuration. I reported to my boss about that. However, the "report card" time is tomorrow. I have to wait till my boss confirm with the customer before I can lay my burden.

July 21, 2002 (Sunday)

I went to Baptist Church in the morning with Mrs. Wong. This is the "children day" today and we enjoyed snack. We also helped to move furniture and clean up stuff for the Short Term Missionaries from Toronto that arrive the coming week. And then I went to the MB Church in the afternoon. As a follow-up of July 6 talk with Pastor Semson, he asked me to write a proposal (wow, proposal for church event?) for the worship suggestion. Therefore, at night, I spent some times writing the suggestion/sharing and also studying for the MCSE exam.

July 20, 2002 (Saturday)

I had good sleep today. I slept until 10:10. And after my devotion and some studying, I sleep for another hour again. After lunch, I planned to go to work but ended up sleeping for another hour. There is almost 12 hours of sleeping today, good enough to make up my Thursday under-sleep (well, to some people, 6.5 hours is already very good. But I call this "under sleep" and need 12 hours to make it up!)
I do not have mood to do anything else after I wake up, so I went to work place to check email, upload photo, some studying and photocopying a new song book (btw, the paper is bad initially and caused a lot of jamming. But thing settle down half way) from 6 to 10.

July 19, 2002 (Friday)

I skipped my Spanish class today (first time, except going for test) because I slept too late last night. I would be too tired anyway. So why bother (I am not a skipping class person. In my UBC and SFU life, I VERY SELDOM skip class and stay home)
Yesterday’s company is using "checkpoint" firewall. My boss asked me to configure a "PIX" firewall and sell this to them. What a strange way to do sales. The company did not request for this service. However, my boss asked me to configure the firewall and sell this to them. I don't think that the customer know this plan yet. For me, I don't care. I asked for two routers and played around for most of the day. I enjoyed this more than reading books (this is what I did for the last month).
There was family-worship at night again. The two little kids are yelling, crying, singing, and making noise the entire time. I was quite annoyed. However, I can not do anything. After all, Jesus says that, if we are not like little kid we can not enter heaven. And in the future, I would have my own yelling and noise kid too. I must learn how to adapt to this environment.

July 18, 2002 (Thursday)

Excitement comes at the end of the day. During 6:30pm, I planned to go home (I do not feel like to go to the Baptist Church prayer meeting today) And my boss went in and asked me to go to a customer site for support. They lost their router configuration after the power failure in the afternoon. This is my first on-site visit. (Previously in my Glenayre and TELUS job, I sat in the office only, and worked during the office hour)
It is exciting. This is my first time to take a taxi by myself. And I have to go to some unknown place, meeting unknown people. And this is my first real life job experience. I was looking forward to it during my ride there. I am anxious too, because after passing my CCIE test last summer, I have not really touch a router. But I still welcomed the challenge.
I learnt that there is someone else working on this after arriving there. Later I found out that this person only knows one tenth, or less, of what I know. But I still have to be patient because he is the first one to arrive and also I do not speak Spanish.
It takes a short time to solve the router problem. However, there is still Firewall problem. I do not have Firewall training at all. Until 10:00, I figured that since I have no more contribution, I should go home. And right at that moment, my boss phoned. I told him that there is not much that I can do. However, my boss said that, I send you here is not only to make the router work but also to make the network work. He questioned whether I can go home comfortably and left the customer out there in the dark. It translated to me that, he wants me to stay until the end. Oh well...
There is another person working on the firewall. He is not knowledgeable, but better than I am. I was sitting at the chair and meditating (and try to gain some rest). Thought came to my mind. I know how the TELUS FSR (Field Service Representative) felt. At my time in TELUS, they complained that my work is not always complete. I was thinking at that time that, it seems obvious to me. Well, to make a long story short, I don't enjoy working with them and vice versa. Currently, I can feel first hand what they are feeling, and I do regret that I did not try my best (I thought that the work is way to easy and bored for me!) This is a dark area inside my mind that I do not have 100% courage to face since my laid off. I felt quite sorry for them, and much better about my present condition of staying at work late. After all, a Network Engineer has to stay late all the time. I somehow managed to avoid it in my last 3 years of work. But the time finally comes.
At around 12:00 am, I was told that the Firewall situation is more or less hopeless and a temporarily method must be thought of. They want to do NAT (Network Address Translation) on the router and ask someone to fix the Firewall tomorrow morning. So I have some job to do. It seems working at first and I can connect to the Internet. However, the web server and the mail server do not work. After spending 2 more hours, a temporarily solution final been reached. Eventually, I arrived home at 3:50am. It is definitely a long day.

July 17, 2002 (Wednesday)

The day did not start off good. The water supply is not running (someone turned it off). And so I am having a small cold. And I can't find my Metro Pass. The elevator takes a long time to arrive too. It is a perfect day to fail my MCSE exam. Somehow, I still manage to pass my MCSE 70-217 (Implementing and Administering a Microsoft Windows 2000 Directory Services Infrastructure) Exam.
I went with a friend from MB Church, named Chi Kong, to music store. I told him earlier that I would like to buy a digital piano. Then he showed me to the Yamaha store. The price is not differing from the Canadian price. However, there is only one Model P80; that means that I have to buy the one that is in the show room. It does bother me. And we went to another music store. There is no digital piano, however, there is a "Fender electric guitar combo" that consists of an electric guitar and amplifier for only USD $240. It sounds like a good deal. I plan to buy an electric guitar for about a year already. Now it may be a chance. It sounds a bit too good though. I need to check that out to make sure that they are real.
It was pouring rain at night. The street were flooded with water and made me wonder about where the drain is. I went to the MB Church Bible Study/prayer meeting. Most of them spoke Spanish. I was eating my dinner at that time, and playing around with little kids. Because of the thunder storm and lightening, the electricity and the water supply of our building went out. Hence, we have to walk 11 floors back home. I carried YiSon because Dr. Chu helped Mrs. Chu walked up (she was not healthy enough to walk). YiSon was sleepy and wanted her mom to carry him. I have to "lie" to him that, we are racing upstairs and play my guitar so that he would let me carry him. (Of course, I did not play guitar after arriving home)

July 16, 2002 (Tuesday)

After a day of dryness, I feel fruitful today. I feel energized and have the mood to study. Therefore, I spent until 9pm at work studying. Today, however, my focus is on Cisco and not on Microsoft, even though my MCSE exam will be tomorrow.
YiSon slept early (and I went home late); hence, I felt quite "empty". I chatted with Mr. and Mrs. Chu. I did laundry too. I spent sometime with my cell phone playing "Snake II". (Hope that I am not going to rack the buttons)
The water supply is turned off by someone. That annoys us. Later we found out that it is the lady living in Rm 105 turns that off. She complained that water was leaking to her apartment; after turning off our water supply (but we live in Rm 114) the situation improved. We left all these to the building management.

July 15, 2002 (Monday)

I started my "level 2" Spanish Class. Nothing really special except the class has some new students that seem to know Spanish quite well.
Feeling very dry and exhausted after a day of studying. I am tired emotionally. Being isolated from my family and friends and locked myself to study, it is not that easy. Previously I thought that I can handle this situation without a problem. However, now I realize that it is not as easy as it seems. Studying MCSE is dry! I want to get rid that within a month and move on to something else. I usually take my notes to study during transportation time (including taking elevator!). This may contribute to part of my dryness too!
When I think about the illegal Chinese immigrant, I feel that I am comparatively lucky though. At least I have a hope and I know what I am doing. And there is email, icq, telephone. So if they can make it, I can make it too!

July 14, 2002 (Sunday)

The Pun's family left HK 12 years today. I would not expect at that time that I would end up in Venezuela.
I woke up and found out that my new friend Mrs. Wong (who accepted Christ last week) can not make the Sunday worship. So I just stayed home and study and sleep. Afterward, I went to park with the Chu family. YiSon was having fun with the outdoor activity, yet Mrs. Chu was not feeling good because she can not be exposed to sunlight for a long period of time.
We went to MB Church in the afternoon. I did not attend their Sunday school because I do not feel "fitted" in the class. Rather, I helped to take care YiSon. (I was sitting on the floor; a three years old girl walked by and tripped. She fell and hit her lips; it was bleeding. Is that my fault? I did not move though)
At night time, I need to relax. Guess what! I played with YiSon again. I treat him like he is my little brother/son/toy.

July 13, 2002 (Saturday)

I never expect that my Saturday life would be more or less the same as my weekday life. I went to my last level-1 Spanish class (to make up Thursday class) in the morning (I have completed level-1, but don't expect me to be fluent yet!) And I went to work to study, check email, update homepage and so on. My previous life had a "colorful" Saturday (fellowship meeting, worship team meeting, gathering, sport and so on). Now I am "enjoying" a quiet, hardworking yet lonely Saturday. (The only enjoyment, really, is to play with YiSon.)

July 12, 2002 (Friday)

The Pun family has lived in the 5319 Norfolk St. since Jan. 1, 1991. Today, we (they) are moving. There are lots of memories in that house. This is also the house that I lived for the longest (Kowloon from 0-4, Nam Fung Estate from 4-8, Tai Koo Shing from 8-15) This house also witnessed the growth of Hubert Pun (and Hansel Pun, of course). Bye! When I go back to Vancouver, I will stay in the new house (27th St). I still miss the old house. (But during a trip to Taiwan in 1982, Hansel complained that he wanted to go home. My grandfather saying that, wherever there is us, that is the home). Thanks to the help of Wu family, Poon family, Carmen Mok and others for filling in my place.
I wrote my MCSE 70-216 (Implementing and Administering a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure) exam today. This time, I just "barely" pass the exam (they did not give me a score. it is only pass or fail. But I have a feeling that I just pass the exam). Some of the questions are not from the past exam. That is really scary when they are the first few ones. Thanks God (<-- this time, this is not a religious expression but just a common phase that people express. It does not mean that I do not thank God though) that I pass the exam!
I have invited several people from the MB Church for the family worship at night. As I have stated before, this will not be easy this time. There are little kids to disturb us, and there is a language barrier. Nevertheless, life still has to go on. By organizing a "family praise and worship" reminds me about my fellowship life. My best time in the VCAC and FCGC are the time I spent with my peers to worship God. I tried my best to teach them some new songs. I hope that they enjoy this experience as much as I do.

July 11, 2002 (Thursday)

Today there was strike (again!). People marched around and that's why my Spanish Class is canceled. I ended up staying home studying, sleeping and playing around with YiSon (I like to play with him using my weird method. e.g. ask him to lie down, drop the ball to his tummy, use a high school mind to play hide and see with this 1.5 yrs old, show him my guitar/violin without letting him to touch, fight with him, talk to him using ET-language, and hug him really tight and so on). People do not like the president. Whenever he talks, everyone makes noise (e.g. use the stick to hit the pan, burning fire cracker, yell...) I am amazed that people are so united in hating him and making the noise.
I received a lot of books today. I have asked the secretary to make copies of the MCSE books several times and all of them came to me at once! Plus the Security CCIE book is shipped to me today. I have a mountain of tasks in front of me. What should I do? (I consider myself pro in handling this kind of scenario. I will just tackle them once at a time. My UBC and working life really trained me well)
Since the person who usually drives me went back to Canada, thus, I walked to the prayer meeting at night. This is the first time that I break through from my comfort zone in Venezuela (hey, I always think that, since I have the courage to go to Venezuela, I would have no comfort zone!) and walk to some unknown place. That is quite exciting. I am lost and nearly give up (i.e. phone for help). But I walked back to the major street and find the right way. It also tells me that, not every stranger that looks like a thief is actually a thief.
I need some kind of thing to distract me from the usual studying. It ends up being my cell phone! I am "addicted" (what I mean by addicted, is only spend 10 mins a week. But that is a huge increase compare to my previous life!) to the "Space Impact" and "Snake II" game! I guess that I need to get a game boy when I go back to Vancouver!

July 10, 2002 (Wednesday)

I aced my MCSE 70-215 (Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows 2000 Server) exam this morning. It is time move on to the next one.
I spent some times at night to prepare for the family worship. It is not easy to pick the type of the song. Most of them do not read Chinese; they used the Spanish way to pronounce English words and it sounds weird to me. So let's see. I will pick a mix of both with easy lyric, and I surely hope them to pick up fast.
I can sleep late tonight because I can wake up late tomorrow. Spanish class will be canceled because of the strike. I can go back to my old life, when I go to bed at 2 and wake up at 10 (but I ended up slept at 12 and wake up at 8)

July 9, 2002 (Tuesday)

I am quite "brain-wise" saturated and decided to go home early (7:40pm). I went with Dr. Chu and YiSon (Mrs. Chu needs rest) to pick up their nephew. I had my first fight with YiSon in the car. I was playing around with him and tickled him. He was annoyed (I guess) and then hit and "meet" me. I decided to teach him a lesson; therefore, I hit and "meet" him back. It is funny to watch this scene (We "meet" each other's cheek) Finally, he had enough and gave up (i.e. I won the fight). The whole thing happened without the knowledge of Dr. Chu, of course.
I have not ironed my cloth for 13+ years. I invented some "Hubert" method to iron my shirt and my pant. It is not the best, but it is not too bad for me. (In the future, I should buy some iron-free cloth)

July 8, 2002 (Monday)

My diary is getting shorter and shorter. The "excitement" and the exploring time in Venezuela is almost gone. And I, more or less, have settled down. (by no means has it implied that I don't miss my Vancouver people anymore. I still dream about that often!)
I spent time in preparing my exams, and unhappy about how the speed of the secretary is booking the exam. I do not want to escalate to my boss unless I have to. I am aware that people here are slow; now I believe that this is true most of the time (however, for the technical people here, they are very ambition in getting the certificate)

July 7, 2002 (Sunday)

Last week, I introduced Mrs. Wong from my Spanish Class to Christianity and she accepted Christ today at Sunday school. (My first task in Venezuela is completed?) It is so fast! God has His timing. For a logical person like me, it may take a longer time. My hope is that, she knows and commits what she believe.
Mrs. Chu's health is deteriorating. It is a blessing that her husband is a doctor. People from church came over to visit her after the Sunday worship. I can see that, health is important, life is short, friendship is important, and money is not.
Dr. Chu had to take care her, so I helped out in baby sitting Bison. I am preparing myself in two ways. First, I am learning that little baby is energetic and would never leave me alone. In addition, I am observing the sacrificial love between husband and wife. I must do the same thing, if not more, when Carmen one day is as sick as her. (But I hope that these days would never arrive!)

July 6, 2002 (Saturday)

There is no water supply to the building; therefore, I can not take a shower in the morning. I have not missed a shower for several years. I felt quite uncomfortable. So how can I go to "real" camping?
Since I have nothing to do, I went to my "home" (work place) to keep in touch with the world. Check email, update webpage, study....
At night time, the Chu family treated Pastor Semson's family for dinner (and I just sneak in for food). We recognized that there is lots of improvement in the worship flow and Pastor Semson invited me to help out in the worship team. All the memories about my worship teams in Canaan and Carmel came back to me. This time, however, will be more challenging. They do not know English and most of them don't read Chinese either. So what songs should I teach them? I will organize a singspiration and pot luck night coming Friday and I will see at that time.

July 5, 2002 (Friday)

Today is a public holiday, so I invited my friends William and Mrs. Wong for the Baptist Church picnic. We climbed the mountain and were quite a physical challenge to most of the people. We played volleyball using feet (which is called "hacky sack" in English) and had BBQ too. I tried to race with cars when we go downhill and I won. (The price is that, there is some "water pop" in my two feet)
I had a good 4 hours chat with Mr. and Mrs. Chu at night. I have not shared opening with people after I left Vancouver. We shared about my struggle in settling down in a church, my mission in Venezuela, my character of showing off, and the power struggle in leadership, raising up a child and many other things.

July 4, 2002 (Thursday)

There is a lot of noise in my office. People talks to each other (and to themselves) The phone rings (I hate the cell phone "music" after listen to it for sooooo many times). The computer has the music turned on and people whistles and sings with it. All these add up and drive me nuts. I am not a person that requires absolutely quietness, but still I am in the process preparing the exam and need fewer things to distract me. (Btw, the office has the air condition switched on and it is always freezing here!) I need to find a corner that I can do my work!
I joined the Baptist Church prayer meeting at night. We had some interesting discussion on Baptisms.

July 3, 2002 (Wednesday)

At night time, I joined the Bible Study of the MB Church. I discovered that I am more silent than before. My mind "had" the answer of the questions that the pastor asked. However, I don't want to say everything. I know that if I start to say something, I wouldn't stop. I don't want to appear to be "hu". During the Bible Study, YiSon pooed to his diaper. Therefore, it is not me, but Dr. Chu carried him home :-)

July 2, 2002 (Tuesday)

I am thinking about the story of "footprint" at night. So is God carrying me now?
The Venezuelan church people are nice to me (I don't think that I have been that nice to the new comers when I was in Vancouver church). Moreover, I have the feeling of a family (thanks to the Chu resident and also little YiSon). In addition, there is nothing wrong with my family and friends in Vancouver (or else I would be very worry). There is email/icq/telephone too! (One of a reason that I am proud to be a Network Engineer!) Last, but not least, Carmen still miss me (hey, who said that 7.5 years of relation would guarantee that? Haven't you heard of the term "itchy in the seven year"?)
I tried to be skeptical and thought about the other side. Yes, it is true that life is difficult now. However, I am having fun and enjoy (easy to say!) every aspect of it. I have a gut feeling that Jesus is carrying me now. Thank you!

July 1, 2002 (Monday)

Nothing much happened today. I went to class and I went home.
For some reason, I feel emotionally tired. At work, I have to be in the "top alert" state because I need to guess what is happening around me (remember that they speak Spanish!) At home, I can not relax because they are not my family. I need to smile at them and always says that the food are good (second thought: is it wrong to be "relax" at home - can be angry, can ignore dinner call, can make noise!) I want to go home to enjoy and relax. But I also understand that, only a tough environment can produce good personality. Therefore, I need to "suffer" now so that I can be good later. Carmen phoned me and let me know that she is doing well in the gospel camp. This is an energy boaster!