Recovered (~80%)

December 9, 2018

My legs were shaking when I was playing badminton yesterday, don’t remember feeling this way ever before. I’m recovering from a bad flu, was hoping that a little exercise would help the healing.

I’m actually feeling much better this past week. Seeing my slow progress in recovering, I bought some over-the-counter flu pills in the middle of week and that worked magic in my body! It really feels good to be healthy and conscious again, thank God for hearing my prayer.

My 90-yr-old calligraphy classmate also recovered from his sickness and rejoined the class on Tuesday after a few weeks of absence. I was super happy seeing him healthy and well! He actually needed to undergo a small surgery on Monday but negotiated with the physicians to move it to Wednesday instead, he told the hospital that he promised to join the calligraphy class and have dim sum with us after 😁.

Regarding work, I’ve completed one of the two pro-bono design projects and the other one is pending for feedbacks. Plan to get back to designing and making things in the studio this week.

Sketch… Sunday Service

December 9, 2018

Still Sick…

December 2, 2018

Still feeling sick – poor sleep quality, headaches, coughing, and short of breath. But I think it’s improving – less frequent wake ups in the middle of the night and less severe headaches.

A few people had told me in the past few weeks that I looked much thinner. I don’t have the habit of weighting myself, but I do feel considerably weaker after the past few weeks of self-imposing stress with a project I’m very attached to.

Have been giving myself a break from work this past week. But I did work on a couple of design projects for local churches, I promised to help awhile ago but had put them aside to focus on my work project. Sent out some quick preliminary designs and got back some comments. Will make some modifications this week and hopefully complete the two pro-bono design projects.

I also gave myself a break socially this past week, sickness is a good excuse I gave myself. Met up with a couple of friends nonetheless on Friday night after fellowship, one of them was visiting town from Toronto and will be leaving on Sunday. Sickness didn’t deem a valid excuse in this case.

Hope I’ll be able to recover from my sickness this week, hope I’ll have a healthy body to celebrate Christmas and to spend time to meet and catch up with my friends before 2018 ends!! 🙏🏻

Sketch… Sunday Service

December 2, 2018

The CUHK Handicraft Fair

November 28, 2018

It has been 2 years since I participated in a craft fair.  This one on past Sat. seemed less exhausting, perhaps due to it being only one day and with shorter opening hours.

The exhaustion actually came from the preparation work which included designing and launching a website, designing and printing 120 different postcards, and some QA work to make sure the 120 different QR codes on the postcards link correctly to the website.  Everything seemed simple as an idea, but execution was a lot more difficult and time-consuming.

I was rather stressed last week running up to the fair.  Even days after the fair, I’m still having nightmares and waking up in the middle of the night with headaches.

It’s a bit silly how a little craft fair can raise havoc to my body, I had thrived through much more stressful situations!?  Have my body and spirit fallen weak?  I think I’ll take some time off work this week to let my body rest and recover.

Sketch… Sunday Service

November 25, 2018

Another Busy Week

November 18, 2018

This week has been another busy week, here are some highlights:

  • Assembled the Open Press I printed last week and briefly played with it. It’s an interesting project and it sure got me interested in 3D printing again. I printed another one for the friend who first told me about the project
  • Visited my 90-yr-old calligraphy classmate at the hospital after class on Tue. Have been worried and praying for him everyday. Happy to know just now that he was discharged from the hospital and may join class again coming Tue.
  • Did some freelance work at a primary school yesterday. Was assigned to help out on a giant loom to upcycle unwanted clothes into a rug. It was an interesting experience that got me thinking about happy collaborative art
  • Finished the website that will showcase and archive my ink art. Will have it launched some time this week just in time for the CUHK Alumni Fair coming Sat. (24th)
  • Had a constant headache and sleeping poorly throughout the week, seems to be recovering over the weekend though

Looking ahead, it will be an even busier week running up to launching the studio’s first products on Sat. Still need to tackle a few bottleneck issues before actually doing the actual production. Add oil, Tony!!

Sketch… Sunday Service

November 18, 2018

Glimpse of Hope

November 11, 2018

Looking back this past week, seems like I had been pretty productive:

  • made good progress on the ink art website
  • fired up the laser cutter and prototyped some 1/10 models
  • visited my woodworking friend in Tuen Mun to discuss the coming fair on 24th and possibly more future collaborations
  • printed out the parts for the Open Press Project as suggested by a friend, will try to assemble and play with it later
  • went back to my alma mater a couple of times to sit in on the sharing sessions of an outstanding alumni who has been helping Chinese cancer patients in Australia for more than 20 years and counting
  • jogged 3 days, slowly and tiresomely getting to 4K. Thinking back, it must be a miracle that I was able to complete the 42K marathon back in Jan!

While prototyping the 1/10 models, I seemed to have rekindled my love in designing and making things. All the happy memories from shop class in high school, to brain-teasing lab work during university, and experimenting with state-of-the-art lasers during coops are all coming back to me it seems. And I still remember the joy of assembling and putting the digital fabrication machines to work for the first time in the studio. Hope was high when I first started the studio, but the passion seemed to have faded over time. It’s probably not too late to pick that up again, right?

Stumbled upon a book about Thomas Heatherwick today. I skimmed pass his projects, I recalled experiencing his awe inspiring Seed Cathedral during the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. I also recalled seeing an inspiring exhibition of his works in HK a few years back and thinking to myself that it would be a lot of fun to setup my studio to experiment with design like he does.

If God permits, let me restart my career in research, experiment, design, and make functional, sustainable, and delightful objects to serve others! 🙏🏻

Sketch… Sunday Service

November 11, 2018