Had dinner at one of the usual restaurants near the studio on Fri. The restaurant owners seemed especially happy seeing me dining-in, they mentioned that it had been 3 years since I last dined in. It felt strange but true, having lived through the long years of pandemic still seemed like a surreal experience.
Have never stopped asking myself (and praying to God) about my long term plan since returning from my summer vacation in Sept. Had been talking with my Canadian friend who is temporarily staying at my apartment about this, no conclusion was reached, but I seemed to be more certain about the possibility of moving back to Canada.
So what’s the plan? I don’t know (yet). I just know that the city is deteriorating rapidly and it’s sucking up much of my joy to live in an unjust dictator regime. I can’t envision a happy future here. But what would I do if I move back to Canada? What about my elderly parents staying in the city? I need to think harder. May God continue to guide my steps. 🙏🏻
After a couple of days of studio work, I managed to make the RoboArm kit come alive! With the stepper motors and end stops now under control, the next step will be to hack the code and program the RoboArm kit to do something useful. I’ll spare this fun for a later time as there are a few other projects that are of higher priority.
Spent the majority of time this past week to clean up my home to prepare for my friend’s upcoming short stay. I moved all the junk from the storage room to the living room, then moved the living room’s sofa bed into it. Now with all the junk in the living room, I decided to turn it into a temporary private “trash art gallery”. There’s much less freedom in public art expression since National Security Law was imposed in the city, and I’ve grown less interested in the local art scene. Nonetheless, It’s still nice being able to draw and paint privately without an audience, I enjoy the solitude and creativity in the process.
The HK gov. surprised the city with the sudden lifting of the compulsory mask mandate on the first day of March. After ~2.5 years since the “emergency” law came into effect, it’s a much welcomed relief to see the long overdue mandate to finally be axed. Most people on the street were still masked, I on the other hand was happy to be one of the few oddballs to put off the masks! I felt invincible having just recovered from COVID last week.
Finally started a new project in the studio this past week. The little side project will assist my good friend’s dad in programming a robot arm kit, hopefully I would be of help for this long time endeavor of his. I had to go out and hunt for some electronic parts after calligraphy class on Thur., was happy to find exactly what I was looking for despite not knowing the component’s name. Spent the whole day on Sat. to work on the project. After many hours of trial and error, I was thrilled to finally be able to control the stepper motor using the Arduino development platform! It felt good to be doing some engineering work again. I now understood better about the satisfaction that can only be gained from doing “deep work” and overcoming difficult tasks.
Making the stepper motor work was a good start, I hope to make the robot arm kit fully functional by the end of this week so that I can show it off to my good friend’s dad before he travels to Canada to see my good friend. Also need to finish cleaning up my apartment and prepare a room for my Canadian friend’s upcoming week-long stay. Will be a bit busy this week, add oil! 💪🏻
Though more or less expected, I was especially ecstatic yesterday morning when a single line on my rapid test reassured my recovery from COVID! I immediately told my fellowship caring group to let me join the scheduled dinner meetup!
Stayed home the entire week without stepping outside. Took the opportunity to put in some finishing touches on the website project I had been working on since CNY holidays. The website is ready to launch anytime but I hope to design and make some product samples first so that potential customers can order online immediately after I officially launch the website. Should be ready to launch in mid-March!
Finally get to see my parents tonight since my mom had her heart surgery and me catching and recovering from COVID about 2 weeks ago. My mom seemed more frail than before, but I’m confident that she’ll eventually improve to a better state than she was before the surgery. Looking back at the surgery, I am filled with thankfulness because the regular body checkup helped my mom find the clogged arteries and avoided the potential serious stroke that may result for many elderly. My dad strongly agreed with me.
Thank you God for healing my mom and myself of our sicknesses. 🙏🏻
I finally tested positive for COVID today since the pandemic broke out in late 2019. Symptoms are mild – occasional coughs and chills. The symptoms actually started emerging after I did my evening run last Wed. Didn’t sleep very well that night and felt especially sore the next morning. I thought it was just caused by the extra effort I put into the running practice.
I didn’t take any COVID test then because I hate to generate unnecessary plastic waste. Instead, I took extra precautions by keeping my mask on during calligraphy class and meeting a friend on Thur. Also took the Fri. off to WFH just in case.
I wasn’t worried about my sickness as much as my mother’s. She had to undergo a minor heart surgery on Fri. evening following her annual body checkup that found clogged arteries. I didn’t visit her in the hospital because I wasn’t feeling too well and that I know my dad and siblings were there with her. Needless to say that I was worried and so asked my fellowship caring group for prayer support. The operation was successful and I was much relieved and fell to sleep shortly after hearing the good news at around 2130.
Stayed at home today for online Sunday Service just in case. My sister visited my mom at home and was really worried seeing her feeling unwell in bed. She urged me to do a COVID test and move back with my parents for a week to help take actions in case her condition suddenly worsens in coming days. It got me worried too. I was already thinking about what to pack to move back in with my parents before my positive COVID result came out. Called my parents, they seemed to be ok, it just so happened that my mom was at her worst when my sister visited. My mom was actually scolding me on the phone for catching COVID without a hint of sickness in her voice.
I was just wrapping up an ambitious website project this week after demoing the prototype briefly to family, calligraphy class, and a collaborator, and was already planning to work on a new project this coming week at the studio before sickness struck and pushed me to make alternate plans. Sickness seems to have a good way of making life pause and giving us extra time to think things through. Thank you God for Your goodness amid sickness. 🙏🏻
