LNY 2024

Completed my annual fai-chun writing exercise on Wednesday. Wrote more than 100 fai-chuns this year in total, a personal record. Worked till around 10pm on Thursday because I didn’t want to go back to the studio on Friday. Prepared and brought home all the things I needed to work on the annual 100 postcard fai-chun project. Was planning to start the project on Friday, but I was too tired after a long draining week from work.

It wasn’t until yesterday, LNY‘s Day, that I finally started working on the 100 postcard fai-chun project at home. Managed to finish about half of them this holiday weekend. Will try to finish drawing all 100 postcards before returning to the studio on Wednesday.

Desperately needed to rest more at home during this LNY holidays before returning to work.

Sketch… Sunday Service

Another Tiring Week

I was hoping to start the week fresh with the worst of the studio’s sprinkler disaster put behind me, but the incident was actually more difficult to handle than I thought. When I returned to the studio on Monday, my colleague told me that one of the younger neighboring landlord barged in earlier yelling and wanting to see the boss (landlord), my colleague yelled back in response to his rudeness. Later in the afternoon when my brother’s friend (also a tenant) and his colleagues came over to cleanup their previously flooded room, the two landlords of the neighboring units were giving them a hard time when they tried to walk pass them in the corridor to get to the washroom. My brother’s friend tried to reason with them, but that almost turned into a fight, and I had no choice but to call the police.

After the police came to talk to each of the parties separately, I immediately did some research at night and bought a security camera the next morning before returning to the studio. Things turned a lot quieter in the corridor after we reported the conflict to the police and installed (regrettably) the security camera outside the entrance.

More bad news happened, not to me, but to my calligraphy teacher. When I arrived to the classroom on Thursday evening, water was dripping from the ceiling and my classmates were mopping the floors. The water pump above my teacher’s unit was malfunctioning, and this wasn’t the first time it happened. In the middle of the class, my teacher received a call saying that his brother, who is in his nineties and living alone, was found lying on the floor of his apartment. My classmate and I rushed to the hospital with my teacher. His brother was pronounced dead.

Some happier times this week was meeting up with a couple of artist friends on Wednesday and Saturday respectively. Was actually hoping to introduce them to meet each other on Saturday, but one of them cancelled the last minute due to sickness.

I’m now left with less than one week to finish my annual fai-chun writing exercise and the 100 CNY postcards project. 😖

Sketch… Sunday Service

Tiring Week

Missed my weekly journal entry last week because I was super exhausted after a fai-chun writing event in Tai Po last Sunday. Apparently, that was just a prelude to a crazy week filled with meetups and bad news.

It started from Monday early afternoon when I had a meet up with a couple of friends in Tsuen Wan to talk about plastic recycling for 3D printing. Met up with my paper making friend in SPK afterwards to drop off my years of collected red packets for recycling. Went to TST afterwards to have dinner with a couple of old drinking friends.

On Tuesday early afternoon, one of the plastic recycling friend came by the studio to pick up a couple boxes of 3D printing scraps and 20+ empty spools for recycling. After that, I got busy with finishing up my weekly calligraphy homework before class in the afternoon. After class, we received the bad news that one of our long beloved elderly classmate (90+ y/o) just passed away.

On Wednesday, I completed a 3D printing order that I had been working on for a couple of weeks. I left the studio in the early evening on a satisfying state. But the nightmare began not long after I returned home from dinner at round 9:30pm when I received a call from my brother saying my studio may be on fire and firefighters were on their way. When I rushed back to the studio, firefighters were already finishing their work at the scene. It turned out that there was no fire, but an aging sprinkler head in the room that my brother rented to his friend suddenly broke. The whole studio was flooded, so did the couple of units next to us. I vacuumed and mopped as much water out as I could in the dark all night before heading home to take a shower at around 6:30am. Damages on our side was not too bad (luckily) because the sprinkler that broke was in a separate room that doesn’t have live electronics and open documents. However, the damages for our neighboring units seemed more worrying, and my brother (landlord) will unfortunately need to negotiate with them regarding compensations.

Went to the funeral of my friend’s mother on Friday afternoon, that was followed by the cremation ceremony and a meal. Went for a dinner meetup with a couple of old UW friends in CWB afterwards.

Had lunch with parents and sister on Saturday before returning to the studio briefly to do some work. Left the studio at around 4:30pm to pick up the recycled paper made from the red packets I dropped off on Monday.

It was a crazy tiring week filled with meetups and bad news. Hopefully, I will see better days ahead in the weeks to come.

Sketch… Sunday Service

Sketch… Sunday Service

Back to Work

Still haven’t fully unpacked my luggage from the 3-month co-op term. And I caught a flu not long after returning. With a bit of reluctance, I made my way back to the studio on Monday as planned prior to the trip.

Almost every thing at the studio seemed exactly the same as when I left it 3 months ago. I was able to pick up my ongoing 3D design work smoothly without any hiccups and without wasting time looking for things around the studio. Everything was just the way I left it. Felt a little surreal, it was almost as though I had never left the studio for a whole 3 months.

My studio neighbor came looking for me to follow up on a project I helped him with just before I left, looked like more work was ensured. I also met up with a couple of friends outside the studio to discuss upcoming workshops and events. A sister from church also contacted me out of the blue about designing a giant banner even though I haven’t done graphics design work for many years.

I feel a lack of energy and motivation to find work to do in this deteriorating city, but work seems to find its way to me without my request. God seems to be telling me that I’m still “needed” here?

Oh God, pls guide my steps in this somewhat suffocating city, help me shine and spread hope through the work You’re aligning me to do and the people You’re letting me cross paths with. 🙏🏻

Sketch… Sunday Service

Last 2 Weeks

The last two weeks in Toronto was a bit hectic as expected. I rushed to finish up prototyping and delivering them to friends for testing. There were also some last minute meetups to see friends before I go. On top of all that, I needed to allocate time to cleanup the basement I rented back to the original state when I moved in 3 months ago.

In midst of the chaotic scheduling, I kinda given up planning altogether. I only had a rough plan of things to do the night before, and many spontaneous change of plans occurred during the day. There were a couple of gatherings that were changed. The Boxing Day gathering of uni classmates was cancelled the day before because the host family was sick. I ended up seeing the friends separately on different meetups. Another gathering of past fellowship was postponed for one week and that actually accommodated more b&s to join. And on the night before my flight, when I was still procrastinating about cleaning up and packing and returning stuff to my sister, I joined a last minute meetup of friends I had yet to see during the trip.

The last day was super chaotic. I was still printing prototypes during the day while cleaning up the rented basement. After loading my last batch of laundry into the dryer, I drove out for a quick bite and passed a few bags of stuff to my friend to help me take care of. Before I drove back home, I spontaneously decided to buy a bday cake for my sister and grabbing a quick dinner on the way. Drove home to pick up the stuff to return to my sister together with the bday cake. After dropping them off to my sister, I returned home again to pack the 3D printer and accessories to bring it to my friend’s place. Helped him setup the printer and made a successful print before returning home to finally begin my packing. It was already around 9pm and a friend was coming to drive me to the airport at around midnight. I was cleaning and packing till the very last minute before saying goodbye to my landlord friend and leaving for the airport. Took my time to check-in at the airport as my flight wasn’t departing until 6:30am.

I’ve learnt that sometimes having no solid plans can be a good plan, it allows room for spontaneity and God‘s plan to reveal. I don’t think I would be able to see as many friends and finish off all the errands in the last two weeks even if I had tried my hardest to plan it all through!

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