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What To Do?
Spent a couple of days this past week to finish up a 3D-printed robot arm toy for my good friend’s dad. It can now be controlled by my iPad via Bluetooth, pretty cool! My uncle’s plan to lure me back into doing more engineering work seemed to have worked and I’m now a bit hooked to electronics and robotics once again!
Learning how to make the robot arm brought back fond memories of my undergraduate days as an EE student. Life was young and full of dreams of changing the world back then. 20+ years later here I’m writing this blog post questioning my future endeavors in this dying city, dying world.
Sorry to sound pessimistic, I think my marathon blues may have lingered for another week. But life seems to be picking up again. Through making and playing with the robot arm, a daily devotion of my favorite Ecclesiastes, and today’s sermon of a shepherd turned prophet speaking to a dying city, it seemed like God is telling me that He still has work for me to do in this dying city. What exactly is it that You want me to do O Lord?
Post-Marathon Blues?
After a very happy weekend highlighted by a marathon finish, I seemed to be experiencing a mild depression this past week.
After resting the entire Monday following the marathon, I started clearing up some errands I had pushed aside. Also slowly picking up work at the studio again. Tested a few materials with the laser cutter and experimented with Arduino. Made some good progress with the robot arm project for an uncle. He had been lavishly giving me electronic components and metal parts to play with as a way to lure me into doing more engineering work. His plan seemed to be working and I seemed to be picking up my interest in robotics once again.
Reviewing and bidding farewell to October 2021, I think I did ok amidst the depressing atmosphere of our city. Don’t think the dark suffocating veil covering the city will be lifted anytime soon. I just hope to stand firm under God’s mercy and grace and best live my coming days one day at a time. May God continue to bless me and my family 🙏🏻.
Happy Weekend
Had a very happy weekend! Woke up really early on Friday in order to adjust my sleeping hours to match the early marathon on Sunday. Decided to go and try to find my lost 9x year old Chinese calligraphy classmate for he told me before where he goes to have daily early morning dim sums. We lost contact with him since he left our calligraphy class’ whatsapp group in June/July. He even blocked my personal chat with him. As I walked into the restaurant at around 0830 trying to figure out where to start looking for him, there he was in line to pay the bill. I waved to say hi, he recognized me and took me to the table he just left. I ordered a couple of dim sums and he watched me eat. We chatted and caught up with many things that had happened since he stopped coming to class and the crazy pandemic started. At the end, I unblocked myself from his phone and added him back to our calligraphy class’ group, seemed like it was a misunderstanding.
Sat. was very happy too. Met up with a girl for lunch, saw a small wood craft exhibition, and took a leisurely walk in the parks that both of us had never explored. It was our 3rd date. We parted and she went home to work OT to meet a couple of deadlines while I went back to the studio to finish up a project for my studio neighbor.
Sunday (today) was the highlight. I had been prepping for quite some time to run today’s marathon. The practice time was not enough however as I only started training myself less than 2 months ago, most training programs take around 6 months at least I think. With the lack of practice, I just target to complete the run within the 6 hour limit while trying my best to enjoy the event. Thank God for the cloudy and breezy weather (mostly) and a much less crowded course, my 2nd ever marathon was accomplished beyond my expectations!
Art-cation
Closely following typhoon LIONROCK was another typhoon called KOMPASU. After being criticized for its wavering announcements of the first typhoon, the HK Observatory made an unfaltering announcement of the hoisting of T8 signal well in advance on Tue, and many people were allowed to leave work and go home early. T8 lasted the entire Wed and followed by a public holiday on Thur.
Learning from the LIONROCK experience, I was much better prepared this time around. I brought home from the studio my heavy table easel and other art supplies and turned the unexpected but welcoming holiday into a little art-cation. It proved rather productive as I managed to finish my weekly Chinese calligraphy homework while completing a couple of character sheets for my ongoing IG cartooning series.
I honestly don’t mind the typhoons other than it forcing me to constantly adjust my running practices. Nevertheless, I managed to complete two half marathons this past week, one on Thur and the other one on Sat. Getting quite anxious for the actual marathon next Sun (24th). Seriously could use more time to practice, but I can honestly say that I’ve tried my best to prepare for it in the limited time frame, now just humbly hope that I can survive the entire marathon without needing to be escorted by an ambulance.
T8 Lion Rock
The city hoisted its first Typhoon 8 signal in 2021 this morning. I had been waiting all day for it to be lifted so I can go back to the studio to finish up some work I left unfinished last night. To my disappointment, Typhoon Lion Rock was unexpectedly strong and T8 was hoisted the whole day.
Managed to do some 3D modelling work at home, but couldn’t finish up because the actual physical model was left on my studio’s desk. There’s really not much to do at home as most of my things were left at work. Slightly cleaned up my home office and cleared up more desk space as I prepare myself for a relatively busy Q4 to complete 7 projects I wrote up last week.
It has been a long time since I spent a leisure, quiet, and dreamy Saturday at home. When I let my mind wander off to think of things to do today, tomorrow, and the days, months, and years to come, I seemed to see things at a grander scale and the daily inundating negative news in the city and around the world didn’t seem to bother me as much anymore. Ah, I just remember what this feeling is called – it’s called vacation! =)
Maybe I should make it more of a regular practice to take a break from the studio on top of Sundays.
