yumm

I'm still dreaming of some of the food I tried during my trip. The most adventurous dish I tried was "fresh" foie gras, aka "raw" foie gras but I didn't know it was raw until after the whole dinner. It was delicious and I wish I could have more!

summer cold

Sat down to dinner with a friend on Tues night, then she said, "I'm sick." Thanks, friend. By 4am on Wed, I woke up with a sore throat so I took my vitamins then went back to bed. The day went well but by Wed night, I knew I was in trouble. I spent Thurs afternoon and evening with chills and body aches, and went to bed by 9pm. Feeling better this morning but don't know if I should play badminton tomorrow night...

paris on a cloudy day

View from my favorite church, La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. Photos aren't allowed inside. I feel really calm and peaceful when I go in, and no other building has quite the same effect, I don't know why.

On a totally unrelated note, I'm hungry again. I had some leftover rice, beef, and veggies for breakfast about an hour ago and now I want another breakfast. This happened yesterday too. Really hungry!!

Sang this song in church on Sunday. Awesome.

thankful

I am happy. That is all.

making a difference

Wow. " People came from all around to hear him pray for them." Moving article.

getting back into the rhythm, wait, hold on...

As always, travel is humbling. I feel like Job must have felt when God takes him on a showy tour of His creations, except I don't meet any whales or anything like that. But seeing the many different cultures, languages, and traditions that belong to humankind? Mind blowing. So, this is what God envisioned when he scattered his people! Yes, there are a lot of ills in all our cultures, but the existence of distinct cultures and ways of being in the world is a reason to rejoice, and to tremble in awe before a God whose capacity for creativity cannot even be imagined. No one person can claim to understand the world. One day, we will see clearly, and oh, what a day that will be.

I must confess that I did not go on my one-week vacation with any goal other than having fun and trying out new food. But even with all that self-indulgence, God made his presence felt. Not in an encounter with the sublime, mind you. That would have been fun as all emotional highs are always fun. But during this week, I felt that God was bringing back to my attention all the little lessons he's been wanting to me to learn recently.

Learning to be kind rather than right, for one. (I think this will always be my Achilles heel.) To give freedom to others, for another. In every relationship, if I am to love them as God loves them, I need to do good by them, but I also need to give them the freedom to choose how they want to interact with me. This can be especially difficult in academia where backstabbing and betrayals occur almost as frequently as they do in soap operas. And in real-life, they hurt more. The third and last lesson that I remember: getting back into "the rhythm" may not always be a good idea. Daily, I think, I will have to learn and relearn how to listen for God's drumbeat. I need to be disciplined, but the progress I make is also dependent on God's grace.

over rome

Last leg of the trip! Moscow seems safer than KL. Fingers crossed. Moscow is super expensive, by the way.

overeating

This trip has included trying a lot of different kinds of food. It has been fun but as I go into the last leg of my vacation, I hav to start eating more sensibly. I have to say no even if I am tempted to try things I have never had before!

moving on

So glad to be done with the conference! The panel went better than I thought it would and I am glad I did not skip out of it because of my nerves. It is amazing how stressful waiting to present can be and this time my panel was scheduled for almost the end of the conference.

Now I can go on my one week vacation with an easy heart!!! 

before it rains in paris

Took a nap on the grass before heading to the first panel for the morning. Forecast is rain for the rest of my trip. Le sigh.

it is a big conference

1396 participants. Feeling a little overwhelmed.....

above moscow

Leaving London, on to Paris!

Last night in London. It's been nice spending time with my aunt, cousin, and cousin's family. My cousin has three boys and they are all very active but also super sweet. My aunt spent a lot of time cooking and feeding me!! I feel a bit bad because all I do is eat....she won't even let me wash up!

It's also been good to catch up with a couple of old friends, one whom I bumped into at the library. She looked like she was going to fall on the ground when she saw me because she didn't think I'd be in town. I should've guessed that she was here though because her husband lives here! She works in the US and I just assumed that she'd be there. Anyway, we hadn't chatted in a long, long while so it was very good to get caught up. Best quote of the day: "I became an adult after graduate school." We traded gossip, and we both came to the conclusion that we can't trust anyone. I feel extremely strongly about this right now. There are very, very few people in my life whom I can really trust.

On the plane from HK to Moscow, I sat next to a very nice man named Sergei, who was unfortunately a little drunk most of the time. It was a bit difficult when he fell asleep with his mouth open because I was breathing in alcohol fumes. But he was very nice anyway. He liked to talk too, and fortunately for me, he stopped trying to get me to talk after about an hour or so. (It was a 10-hr flight, so you can imagine how thankful I was.)

Sergei used to work in a bank (and he now works for a vehicle production company), and he said that the women would always bring their dead potted plants to him, and they miraculously came back to life after he touched them. So he pinkie-swore with me and said, "Next year! You! Marry! Next year!" The emphasis, of course, was on the magic of the pinkie swear.

I think I need to start making up a nonexistent husband when I chat with strange men and old ladies.

more travel, more excitement!

Alright, I must confess that I'm very excited about leaving tomorrow for my trip, mostly because I will be in two countries I've never been in, and I will be going back to one of my favorite cities--Paris! I'll be seeing a lot of old friends at the conference in Paris, and we have many food outings all planned out. I won't have time to do much sight-seeing this time. I'm a little worried about security in Moscow, especially because I have to take a cab from the airport to my hotel in the middle of the night. I'll be spending a lot of time in the air too but I suppose that's par for the course. I predict I'll be very glad to be back in HK after my trip!!

rainbow

This is the first and only rainbow I've seen in HK. I also happened to catch sight of it when I was grumbling to God about how his daughters have such a hard time in this world.

brief, random conversation

I talked briefly with a good friend here about a strange relationship she currently has with an older guy. Basically, she wants a relationship but he just wants sex, and to me that's strange. Like in the movies. Then we talked a bit about marriage, and she said that people only marry if they want kids, and 8 out of 10 spouses cheat on each other. And she thinks that's a conservative estimate. Couples stay together for their kids, and if you don't want kids, then why marry?

That's a sad view of the world, but I didn't say anything. It did however, remind me of a very recent story I heard about an acquaintance, who is a friend of a friend from church. The woman is gorgeous, the husband is handsome, and they are both so in love even after two kids. The husband becomes involved with a woman at work whom he drops the minute the wife finds out about the affair because he doesn't love this other woman. But it's too late because the wife is so hurt she decides she can't trust him after all. Yes, this is a Christian couple. Why would the husband risk his family--whom he clearly loves and still loves very much--for this dalliance? And the poor, poor wife. She's intelligent, nice, sweet, and beautiful. What did she do wrong? Moral of the story? Don't marry an attractive man even if he is Christian. Hahaha....

The world is a crazy, complicated, very scary place.

tony blair

Went to a lecture and Q+A session with Tony Blair yesterday. Disagree with him and Bush about the war, but it was interesting to listen to Blair speak. My boss was responsible for bringing Blair's faith foundation to HKU (they signed the MoU yesterday). Boss probably made himself incredibly unpopular with the rest of the Faculty of Arts.

half the battle won

Figured out that my new shoes were the problem. I started wearing them the same day I played my first badminton game and I finally figured out a week later that the shoes were responsible for the pain I was feeling in my ankles, knees, and iliotibial band. I don't have arch support in my left shoe and I make sure I have plenty of arch support in my right shoe. My ankle is still tight now but otherwise, my right leg feels pretty great. Played badminton yesterday and I did better than I could imagine. There is no pain anywhere this morning too!

My only trouble now is with my shoulder. My friend says I'm tensing up too much and too early when I lift my arm. I didn't even tell him my shoulder was hurting, but when he hit with me, he noticed the problem with my form. It will be extremely difficult to change this habit though because I have a complex about how hard I can hit. I really hope I make a breakthrough though because now my legs are doing great on court!

busy again

Someone I know from UCLA is in town this week, so I'm hanging out with her and her husband as this is their first time in HK. Next week, another friend-teacher from Cornell will be in town, so I'll be hanging out with her next week. Originally the second friend was supposed to come the week after, and had to change her travel dates at the last minute, so I ended up canceling a dinner with one of my friends here last Sunday, and another dinner with friend N this week (both sets of US friends changed plans around at the last minute, not my fault!). Friend N wrote in her email, "if you're my boyfriend, i think i'd break up with you." I wrote back, "yeah, i'm glad i'm no one's boyfriend!"

breaking news

Before my knee injury, I never would have imagined quitting badminton. When I started my treatment, not being able to play was depressing and I did not know what to do with myself. Now, I am even thinking of quitting altogether. Why put my body through that kind of pain again? Why go through the slow rehabilitation when I don't even know how well I can eventually play? To what end?

Yes, I can't believe these thoughts are even running through my head.

----

Update


But I'm going to try again anyway. Badminton this Sunday evening.

survey

If you have two minutes, please help my friend out in her research project! She will be sending out surveys to companies in China on their hiring practices. This particular survey is on what counts as "attractive." It's a quick survey and you get to rank photos of people based on their attractiveness. Your ethnicity, age, and location won't matter. Thanks!

Take the survey here.

okay, fine

Last night, I tried some of the exercises from this website on sports injury rehabilitation, and my body seems to be responding well. Some of the exercises are boring, but some of them are very, very good. "The Clam" is my favorite.

reflections on the alternative treatment

There are days when I think my alternative doctor is a charlatan, and there are days when I think he is a genius. I usually think he's a charlatan when I start exercising and certain muscles get sore or tight. And I usually think he is a genius when I follow his orders to cease and desist from exercise.

My body feels so much looser, relaxed, and just plain good now. I can't help but want to go out there and swim, run, or play! But my therapists (the doctor and his assistants/students) keep telling me, don't do that or you're going to hurt again! I guess they're right, but didn't I get this treatment so that I can exercise? Isn't exercise the goal?? (Being able to exercise might be my goal, but I don't think it's theirs, haha!)

My experience has been very good, but also frustrating because my Cantonese really isn't that good, and their English isn't very good either. I can't obey orders if I don't know why they're giving them! Okay, fine, I now understand that if I exercise now, I'll start to hurt. But how long do I have to wait? What can I do to speed up the healing process?? Yesterday, after my shoulders and jaw started to get tight again because I went swimming this past weekend, one of the assistants said, "Think about it this way. We're doing our best to help your body regenerate, especially in the area of your neck, but you are using your neck more than it can regenerate itself so that's why it started to hurt again." I don't quite understand what it is exactly that needs regenerating, but I suppose there is some kind of logic there even if I don't understand it. So now I'm not allowed to swim until my neck gets stronger.

Doesn't all this seem counter-intuitive to Western science that says the more you exercise a muscle, the stronger it gets? This alternative center says that because your body is not aligned and not strong enough yet, exercising those muscles will cause your blood circulation to be blocked and that will then lead to pain/injury.

So, yes, I'm frustrated, but I can't deny that I'm feeling a lot better than I've had in years. I no longer need sleeping aids. I'm breathing more deeply than I ever have. The tightness in my right shoulder is gone. And my knees no longer hurt or feel stiff when I go up and down stairs.

But this whole process requires patience that I don't quite have.

Coaster no. 5

My alternative treatment center put me on a very strict, temporary, diet of only grains (I opted for red rice), veggies, lean meat and fish. I no longer need to stay on this diet, but when I broke it by eating a McD's McChicken meal (not the smartest choice) and then a Vietnamese sandwich (made with a baguette), I felt awful. So I've decided to keep a mostly gluten-free diet. I'll break it occasionally but as much as I can, I'll stick to the diet.

I made these gluten-free muffins this afternoon. I haven't tasted them yet, but they do smell good!

childhood favorite

Chrysanthemum, red dates, and goji berry agar-agar.

light at the end of the tunnel

Last Thurs, my alt doc told me I could try light exercise, but there's a chance that I would feel pain again. I had a busy weekend, so I didn't get to go to the gym on Monday, and I guess the doc will tell me this Thurs if I'm good to go, but so far, I'm feeling good! My knees start to feel tight if I stand for a long time, but they seem to have held up after Monday's light work out on the bike and the mat. Today, I'm going to go for an easy swim.

Also glad that I found this website on stretches! My doc told me that I cannot skip out on stretching, and that I should hold each muscle for at least 2 minutes. This means my warm-up and cool down will take about 30 mins each. Yeap, I'm glad I'm single and don't have kids!!

I got back in touch with a friend I met in one of my earlier clubs, and he says he'll take me to one of his clubs where I'll meet a lot of other good players. Very excited and I can't wait, and I hope I can start working out for real again very soon!!

coasters 3 and 4

phew

I've had another slump. Helped organize Bersih 3 HK for Saturday (it went very well), and after that, went squid fishing with home group (no one caught anything). Cleaned on Sunday, and barely got any work done on Monday. Went to see the Avengers on Tuesday morning (very fun!), then joined home group for card games. I planned to stay only about an hour an a half or so, but it was about 11pm by the time we ended the games. I laughed so much I thought I was going to feel sick. All this has been fun but I'm feeling tired now--it's the side effects of my alternative treatment. I'm supposed to take it easy and every time I pack my schedule with activities, I end up feeling fatigued. Feeling better in general but my back and shoulder still need work.