Sketch… Sunday Service

September 23, 2018

Awaiting Storm…

September 15, 2018

Typing up this weekly entry in the studio as the whole city anxiously waits for the approaching super typhoon Mangkhut…

Started off this week with a little family storm of my own.  Had a big argument with my mom on Monday over dinner.  It was a recurring argument about me not willing to eat the large bowl of rice that my mom thinks I should be eating.  I usually just shove the extra rice back to the cooker and silently let my mom scold a little before peacefully eating the dinner with my parents.  But this time my mom snapped and yelled and wouldn’t let the issue go.  I was angry but couldn’t talk back and reason with her because that’s useless and would make the situation worse.  I ended up not eating dinner at home for the rest of the week.  Truth is that I’m more worried than angry, according to my sister my mom has been arguing with her and my dad since returning from Canada, and now even me (her most spoiled son) was not exempted, what’s wrong?

Had been spending a lot of time this week figuring out a good way to vectorise some of my brush-and-ink artwork.  Seemed to have found a good solution and will try to archive the pile of artwork I had accumulated over the past year or so.

Met and caught up with a relative new friend over lunch yesterday.  She’s an interesting friend who serendipitously found me when I felt lost after my uncle passed away more than a year ago.

Met and caught up with an old friend today.  It’s nearly 30 years since I first met this friend and his brother in TO, we were play buddies whenever our parents played mahjong together.  We lost contact until we bumped into each other again in UW enrolling in the same undergraduate programme!  I invited him to play badminton with the UW Alumni group this morning, he injured his ankle halfway.  We had lunch, visited a Chinese doctor, and shared a cab home.  We had plenty of time to catch up as he had to walk slowly and the taxi ride was also slowed down due to congestion.

Enjoy meeting and catching up with friends, and I’m still eagerly waiting for the girl-I-like to free up some time to meet up with me as the city anxiously waits for the approaching super typhoon Mangkhut…

Sketch… Sunday Service

September 9, 2018

Picking Up The Slack

September 8, 2018

Sunday – Back to my home church’s Sunday Service after my ~1.5 month vacation.

Monday – Still jet-lagging and woke up early, went for a morning run after my usual morning routine.  It was my first run since May, could only complete ~2.5k and could barely catch my breath afterwards, totally out of shape.

Tuesday – Back to school and continuing my ~2.5 years and counting “Tuesdays with Morrie”-like Chinese calligraphy class.  One of our classmates invited us to her home afterwards to celebrate my eldest classmate’s (belated) 90th bday.  My classmate’s husband cooked and served many delicious dishes, another classmate brought loads of fruits (which I had to carry since I’m the youngest), my teacher brought 2 cakes made by his son who is a chef, and I brought the ginseng tea and ice wine from my trip.  It was a very joyful meal to say the least!

Friday – Back to fellowship.

Saturday – Played some pickup badminton.  Haven’t played for months and my shoes and racquet grip are disintegrating.

Slowly I’m acclimatising back to the familiar HK lifestyle just as I remembered before my (unplanned) long vacation…

I also tried asking the girl-I-like out to hopefully pick up where we left off before my trip, but she seemed busy with deadlines to meet, and so my wait continues.

Sketch… Sunday Service

September 2, 2018

Back to HK

September 1, 2018

Arrived home yesterday afternoon on a rainy day.  Tired from the long haul flight, I napped immediately after showering.  Mom woke me up for an early dinner, I was still tired and having a little headache, didn’t have the appetite to eat much.  Slept early at around 9pm.

Woke up at around 4am this morning after a very restful sleep.  While trying to restart my morning routine again, I had to start unpacking my luggage to take out my newly acquired apparatus to make my morning coffee.

Went back to my studio at around 11am.  Everything seemed just the way I left it in mid-July before the long vacation, and my colleague seemed to have taken good care of my many succulents upon my absence.  I skimmed through some of my vacation photos, archived some travelling paper items, and reminisced my (unplanned) long vacation in Canada for another day.  Very thankful for the long vacation and being able to meet and catch up with family and friends in TO.

It has been a rather productive day so far thanks to an early morning start.  Today, being the first day of the last quarter of 2018, is a good day to pick up where I left off before the long vacation started!

Week of Friends’ Meetups (again)

August 27, 2018

Managed to meet and catch up with friends every day except Tue. in the past week. Including a couple more meetups planned for my last few days here, I’ll have seen and catch-up with almost everyone I intended to see during this long vacation. On top of that, a couple of my UW friends just happened to be visiting town from US and HK, and I had a chance to meet up with them yesterday!

At times when I wasn’t meeting up friends, I continued drawing cartoons in the basement. Managed to finish a very short 4-panel story of a (starving) artist, I believe it’s my most spontaneous, creative, and satisfied brush-and-ink work thus far.

Thankful 🙏🏻.

Week of Art

August 19, 2018

Started off the past week with volunteering at a Senior centre on Monday morning, the elderly seemed happy seeing me again and I’m happy that they still remember me and welcomed me to do Chinese calligraphy with them. Had lunch with my friend before I headed downtown to see the Banksy Exhibition and explored the local street arts in the area.

Didn’t do much during the weekdays other than joining a little reunion of university friends on Wed. night. I spent most of my time drawing cartoons in my sister’s basement. I also started painting acrylics again to entertain my little niece while babysitting her on Friday afternoon.

Saturday was a little more fun, I went to do a trial baking class with a friend in the afternoon and did some art jamming with another couple of friends in the evening. I took inspiration from Banksy when working on my art piece 😬.

Just when I thought I had all the time in the world for this trip, I just realized that there are just about 10 days left, it’s time to be more proactive to reach out and catch-up with friends again before heading back to HK!

Week of Friends’ Meetups

August 12, 2018

Without any plans whatsoever, I managed to meet up with different friends for lunch and/or dinner every single day throughout this week. My somewhat loose strategy was to first meet up friends who I didn’t get to see when I was in town last year. I got to meet and catch up with 2 of them, one I haven’t seen for ~10 years and the other for ~20 years! It’s kinda amazing how the schedule worked out so well without much rescheduling or going back and forth forever trying to agree on a time/venue to meet up, a problem often encountered with my busy HK friends.

Besides lunch/dinner, I also got to see some random art in downtown TO last night and took a day trip to Hamilton today (my first time), both also with the accompany of good friends.

I really do enjoy meeting and catching up with friends, hope they would feel likewise and wouldn’t mind seeing a somewhat lost starving artist barging into their regular busy schedules.

Sketch… BTBC

August 6, 2018