The Marathon

Oct 22, 2025

The long anticipated marathon finally came on Sunday. I thought I was more prepared than 2 years ago when I ran the same race, but ended up taking about 30 minutes longer to finish this time around. The time limit was 6 hours and I finished the marathon in 5 hours and 58 minutes! šŸ˜‚

I probably overestimated my ability and walked the course way longer than I should. The months of practice on the treadmill gave me the illusion that I had improved my fitness beyond the time 2 years ago. In retrospect, I really should have done more training outdoors in the real world.

The weather felt comfortable for running throughout the whole 6 hours. Temperature was in the teens and cloudy skies blocked direct sunshine most of the time. It only started raining after I finished my run.

All in all, Iā€™m grateful for the weather and am overjoyed to complete the race within the time limit. I seriously had to squeeze the last drop of energy to run the last kilometer or so for fear of not getting the medal. And even after receiving the medal at the finish line, I was still wondering I may have gone past the 6 hour time limit. It was only after I finally had time to look at my phone and see my friendsā€™ congratulation messages that I felt relieved. Apparently, quite a few of my friends had been tracking my run via the raceā€™s official app and had been cheering me on virtually. They must have felt a little anxious seeing the clock rundown and that I didnā€™t cross the finish line until the very last minutes. It was almost as though I could sense their virtual cheers that I was able to pick up my pace to run the last kilometer or so. I was deeply touched.

This wasnā€™t the first marathon I finished, but it was definitely the one I felt most enjoyable and grateful to have completed. Thank God!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Oct 15, 2025

It was the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend the last few days. On Saturday evening, the meetup with a couple of my high school friendsā€™ family was finally successfully organized since my return to the country in November last year. It had been nearly a year in the making, a couple or more attempts for us to gather were called off due to sickness by one of the members, thank God we finally got to meet and catch up.

Sunday evening was a meet up with my university friends. They consist of friends who gave me a car to use and who helped me find the condo Iā€™m living in right now. Grateful that we were able to meet and catch up again after about half a year.

On Thanksgiving Monday, a friend invited me to have dinner with his family and watch the Blue Jays game on TV together. I was very thankful for the invitation but kindly declined it because of my scheduled marathon training. I ran for more than 3 hours which included a few short breaks, a couple of gel packs and water to boost my energy, and a 30 min practice outside for the first time. Running outside seemed much more exhausting than the treadmill. Canā€™t imagine the level of exhaustion Iā€™ll experience when running the full 42k marathon outdoors. But I think Iā€™m more prepared than the time 2 years ago when I ran the same race. With only 6 days left to the race, I canā€™t afford to cram in any more strenuous training, and the best remaining strategy is probably to carb up and rest up, and maybe have a haircut to lessen some weight and air resistance for the run. šŸ˜‚

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever. (1 Chronicles 16:34)

A New Rhythm

Oct 5, 2025

Started getting more and more anxious as the marathon race day approaches. In response, I got more serious with my training this past week. One big change I made was forcing myself to wake up early to do the running practices in the morning instead of at night. Set my alarm to 5am yesterday and started hitting the treadmill at around 0730. Managed to complete my longest running practice of 3 or so hours. My legs were really tired afterwards. I rested a bit at home before heading downtown to meet my friendā€™s family to see the annual Nuit Blanche for the first time. I was debating whether to go after the 3-hour running session and I figured the evening walk in downtown could be considered part of my marathon training. I was totally exhausted after that.

I have been tracking my heart rate during my running practices. I seemed to have more or less found my rhythm, a comfortable pace that I can keep running long distances without straining my heart rate pass peak levels.

Slow living, early morning routines, comfortable running pace, and a new ā€œfull time jobā€ of managing my investments during weekdays are all contributing to a new rhythm of life for me here in Canada.

End of Summer

Sep 28, 2025

I started playing basketball again after moving back to Canada. Itā€™s all thanks to a friend (ex-coworker) who introduced me to his special group of basketball friends who have met each other from playing in the same court for over 10 or even 20 years. Yesterday was the last time a few of us will be playing outdoors this year because weā€™ll be moving to play indoors in a few weeks. The group of bball friends are one of the friendliest and most encouraging people Iā€™ve met. They are of different ethnicities, age groups, and play at vastly different levels (Iā€™m the suckier ones), and are brought together by the love of the game. I find that to be rather amazing and lovely. It is also one of the things I love about Canada, a country where people with different cultures and backgrounds can respect and live in harmony with each other. Not many countries in the world celebrate multi-culturalism as well as Canada in my opinion.

The last outdoor bball yesterday marked the end of summer for me.

Also finished off the season with a few other small accomplishments this past week. The poster I was invited to help design for my church for an upcoming event was completed and submitted for printing. B/S from church thanked me for helping out, I thanked them in return for the opportunity to serve our God. There was a call for entry in an upcoming design festival, I managed to prepare and submit my application just before the deadline on Friday. My Fitbit watch band broke and, instead of buying a replacement, I managed to fix it with my 3D design and printing skills. These are not really major accomplishments to speak of, but Iā€™m happy for the time to do the little things that I find rewarding without needing to worry about my finances.

In retrospect, this summer had been considerably slow and quiet. One of the major accomplishments was learning about economics and investing and setting my finances in order. I think Iā€™m ready to start a new chapter as the Fall season arrives. Will shift my focus away from finances and investments to spend more time in doing art and design and in setting up the sustainable design studio Iā€™ve long been dreaming of. But the first major hurdle to tackle is to survive the marathon on Oct. 19th. Add oil!! šŸ’ŖšŸ»

Slow Living

Sep 22, 2025

Slowly weaning off my compulsive habit of constantly checking my investment portfolio throughout the day. After about 1.5 months of playing in the stock market sandbox, I think I have more or less seeded all the investment fund into about 10 dividend-paying stocks (mostly ETFs). Ongoing work should just be leaving the stocks to grow at its on pace and occasionally cultivating them by harvesting (sell with gain) the ones that grew and bare fruits and fertilizing (buy) or even pruning (sell at a loss) those that are not growing healthily.

I came up with the investment metaphor while I was adding a little garden on the kitchen countertop. My friend bought me a thoughtful gift of a mint planting kit, I planted the sesame-sized mint seeds and finally installed a LED grow lamp with a timer that I bought months ago. Now I eagerly awaits for it to spout. While designing the little kitchen garden, I prepared a few extra plant pots to grow more edible herbs in the future.

Besides investment, I did manage to find time to work on more ideas for my sustainable design studio. I continued the experimentation with paper making and successfully recycled some of the juice cartons I had saved up into handmade paper. I also kept up with my running practices of 2-3 times a week and about one hour each time.

My current pace of life in Canada is much slower compared to when I was in HK. Itā€™s not easy to slow down. Often times the fear of time being wasted comes to haunt me. But slowly Iā€™m coming to realize that itā€™s ok to rest and just let time pass and the world runs its course. Itā€™s like planting a seed, you canā€™t rush its growth by over fertilizing and watering. With the right conditions the plant will eventually grow at its own comfortable pace.

A protest by Palestinians against the Israel invasion was happening in my neighborhood earlier today. Brought back memories of the many protests that happened all over HK back in 2019. It also reminded me of the reasons I decided to return to Canada. Diversity, peace, and freedom (despite the slow pace) are the essential nutrients that kept our country strong, and I can only pray that it will forever stay this way. Amen.

Paper Making (contā€™ d)

Sep 8, 2025

Continued with my paper recycling project this past week. Successfully recycled the many paper coffee cups I had saved up into beautiful handcrafted pink and white paper! I find much satisfaction in transforming waste into beautiful and useful things. Would be nice if I could make some decent income via such joyful endeavors.

Iā€™m still trying to wean off my addiction on compulsively logging into my investment account and checking my portfolio value throughout the day. Sometimes I would sit in front of the computer reading up stocks for hours without noticing the passing of time. This past week I started selling off some of the ETF shares I bought and made some decent profit. It felt surreal to see the price rise so quickly in such a short time despite constantly hearing about bad economic news like tariffs, job losses, high unemployment rate, war, etc.

I really need to get more serious in my plan to setup a sustainable design studio here in coming weeks! šŸ’ŖšŸ»

Paper Making

Aug 25, 2025

Since making my first ever self-conducted investment a few weeks ago, it has become a bit of an addiction to check up my investment accounts compulsively throughout the day during market hours to see how the value of my portfolio fluctuates. Didnā€™t make a lot of buying or selling, but Iā€™m quite fascinated to see the numbers going up and down and couldnā€™t stop wondering about how they reflect the inner workings of businesses and the economy in general.

Slowly Iā€™m trying to wean off the addiction so that I can shift the focus to my more important goal of setting up a sustainable design studio here in TO. Reached a big milestone this past week. I had finally made recycled paper for the first time using the many coffee cup sleeves I had saved up since moving back to Canada. This was something that had been sitting on the back of my head for a long time but I just never got around to actually doing it. My thought is that if I can prove that I can make a profit in recycling paper, albeit very tiny profit, I can make it a proof-of-concept business case for scaling up a sustainable business by recycling other materials and with higher volumes.

I can be a bit of an idealist sometimes. I still think itā€™s possible to set up a profiting business without harming the environment, or better yet, a business that can make a profit by healing the environment from all the damages we collectively as humans have inflicted on earth. Making recycled paper this past week was a tiny step in the right direction for this grandiose dream of mine. May God continue to bless my endeavors ahead. šŸ™šŸ»

Personal Finance

Aug 20, 2025

Made a major accomplishment a couple of weeks ago. I finally made my first ever financial investment after a long studying period (2-3 weeks) and after some self-conducted research (another week) and after overcoming some minor technical difficulties in setting up the investment account! What did I buy for my inaugural self-directed investment? Just some shares of an ETF that included all the major Canadian banks. I figured that itā€™s an improvement from investing in GICs because it offers higher interests (dividends to be exact and that is better in terms of tax) and better liquidity without needing to be locked in for long periods of time. The risk should be relatively low I think, what are the odds of all the major banks collapsing?!

After making my first ever investment, I continued to log on my brokerage account daily to make additional investments and check on their performances. After less than two weeks of a few hours a day, Iā€™ve finally used up about 70% of the funds given by my parents to buy roughly 8 stocks, mostly bonds and ETFs that are relatively low risk and pay decent dividends.

Having my personal finances settled was a big relief. The fear I always had was being the servant in the Bible parable who dug a hole in the ground and buried all his masterā€™s money. He was seriously scolded by Jesus for being an unfaithful servant. Having made the investments gave me the peace of mind that I wasnā€™t wasting away the money that was entrusted to me.

With my personal finances more or less sorted out, I can now finally shift gear to set up my sustainable design studio here in TO. Hope that I can be a faithful steward of Godā€™s gracious gifts to do good works. May God bless my upcoming endeavors. šŸ™šŸ»

Horticulture

Aug 11, 2025

My friend leaving me many plants to take care of while heā€™s on vacation had triggered my passion for indoor gardening once again. In addition to my friendā€™s many plants, I bought many more of my own. My northeast facing window sill was perfect in recreating the Garden of Eden planting system I designed (and still testing and improving) from my HK studio.

Besides my favorite succulents, which are hardy and requiring minimal maintenance, I was also given the opportunity to care for a few orchids. Read up on it from Wikipedia before attempting to repot them. Also scaled up my planter system by using buba straws to incorporate the bigger houseplants. The planter system was installed at a small corner of my kitchen counter because orchids donā€™t need much direct sunlight.

This home gardening project had brought me much delight, the new home now feels more complete with the added greenery. It had also got me fancy the idea of opening a small flower shop cafe once again. Wouldnā€™t it be nice to have a little shop where plant and coffee lovers can meet and shop for a pretty plant to bring home, not just to beautify but also to suck up the carbon dioxide and oxygenate their interior space? Wouldnā€™t the world be a better place with more plants?

Mr. Procrastination

Jul 28, 2025

After my childhood friend gave me his old (2007 model) car back in January, I was given the full responsibility of maintaining a second hand car for the first time. Though I have been worrying and praying for safety every time before I drive the car, my friend Mr. Procrastination had been dragging me from getting the car checked and undergo maintenanceā€¦ until last week. My newly met mechanic friend from church helped me change the fluids and replaced a head lamp, but the winter tires still couldnā€™t be replaced yet because the wheel lock and rims were still with my friend. Picked that up at my friendā€™s momā€™s place on Friday and treated their family for dinner afterwards.

Some of my good friends seem to know Mr. Procrastination pretty well too. When I had lunch with a couple of high school friends a couple of weeks ago, they told me that they still hadnā€™t ask for permission from work to take a few weeks off for their family vacation thatā€™s happening this week, and they had bought the tickets way back in January!

Besides car maintenance, I managed to tackle a few other tasks that had been burdening me for a long time. With much patience, I managed to (partially) unlock my CRA account after waiting more than half an hour on the phone and finally found out that I didnā€™t have any TFSA room for investment because I was a non-resident. Also managed to contact the bank of my business account and asked about the credit card application. After many minutes of investigation while I waited on the phone, the staff told me that there was ā€œan errorā€ on the credit card application last month and they had now reactivated the application and will expedite the process. Fortunately, or it may be Godā€™s timing, the month long wait for the business credit card had turned into a self enhancement opportunity to learn about economics and investments, a topic I had been procrastinating to learn all my life.

While on a roll winning over Mr. Procrastination this past week, I finally started doing some gardening at home once again. And one of the good friends who will be off for family vacation for a few weeks just brought me the many plants from his place to look after. Seemed like he had undergone some serious procrastination to have that task completed!

Oh Mr. Procrastination, what will I do without you?!

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