Thursday, July 23, 2009

And an aside, courtesy of Josh Lo...

Haha, ever wonder why uw eng students are so riled up?
http://joshlo.com/index.php?showimage=77

I think kinners are next in line for this pd program. =P pdkin - yikes! I hope Phil doesn't have to do it. AHS work reports are already horrible enough.

Labels: Food, friends, Kingston

posted at 10:05 AM by Jo -

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Poo Paraphernalia

I have collected (and made) a lot of these over the years. The majority were gifts, even the ones I made (I gave away as gifts). My first poo gift was from a highschool friend who gave me a poo air freshener... ... not to worry, it didn't smell like poo! Another couple friends found squishy poos on a chain - I have now collected a silver and a pink one (Ooo silver...). There have been bobbleheads on toilets (solar powered... think green! eheh), poo on a stick (with sound! one of my favourite toys to hit people with :D), and more here and there. Dad even made me a cut out poo for my tv antennae in third year :)

So what's new? The most recent poo gifts have been the above - I promised Lilli I'd take a picture and send it to her ;) It's a big squishy poo from Jonny, the poo cell phone holder from Lilli, and toilet lipgloss from Rika...

...I'm strange, I know. And most people who know me also know that I'm strange. Not everyone has had the priviledge of knowing my "secret" love for poo. Except thanks to Elliot, I may have no idea who knows now, because he has so graciously introduced me to frosh as, "Hi, this is Joanna, she's in kin and she loves poo." What a line! Usually it's mine, and it almost always catches people off guard, but Elliot's been stealing my thunder =P

Mr. Keith Mak has also been the frequent source of much laughter... my favourite of his was a poo game (http://www.mikewang.org/images/chimgam9.swf), emailed to me with the instructions, "You know what to do from here." ...during exams.

Many have asked me why, and were unsatisfied with the answer. There is no other answer! I don't know what else to say.
posted at 3:07 PM by Jo -

Monday, July 20, 2009

Sweet Surprises

On Friday, I went to St. Andrew's to hear their organist play. Apparently he's a world renown organist originally from Britain who has now settled down in Kingston. There were a couple more dissonant pieces, which reminded me a lot of Dad's 'alien tai chi music' phase many years ago. I have not heard a real, full organ since Alice and Benjamin's wedding quite a few years ago, so as you can imagine, I was just mesmerized. My mind was so completely somewhere else in dreamland that when I bumped into a friend while walking home, I was speechless (but at least fumbled a few mumbled phrases.)

I think this will be my secret friday 'me' time for the summer. (Well, I'm pretty sure no one in Kingston has read this yet, otherwise I would have heard the typical poo inquiries.)


Over the weekend at home, we went to Auntie Christine's house for a barbeque dinner to celebrate the engagement of Stephanie and Jeremy. Congrats to you both; Steph, I am sure your father would be happy for you both!

The master at work - Auntie Winnie makes the best mango cake. I need to learn the fruit style... despite my love for piping, I am out of practice! It's been too long. This style would save me from an embarrassing display of unsteady hand piping =P

Of course, what would a weekend with family be without sneaking a photo of these two manly men comparing muscles?! (haha just joking... they were comparing farmer tans!)

Steph and Shannon's older brother will also be getting married soon! Having dinner with the old ETCBCers remind me a lot of our childhood - only here will you hear everyone, including my peers, call me by my chinese nickname.

Labels: home, Kingston, Music, wedding

posted at 2:21 PM by Jo -

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Kingston Fun

So for those of you who thought Kingston would be uneventful, you're wrong! It's no Toronto, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to do! The last month and a half has been quite eventful and I thank God for every memory. My clinical placement was completed as of last friday, so since then I have just been 'going with the flow' aka procrastinating on my research project, which is what's scheduled for the rest of my Kingston summer.

So if you're wondering what the plan is from here after the clinical placement is over, well, I'm staying in Kingston for the rest of the summer. It'll be fun! :) The real catch is to finish (start?!) this research project of mine so that I'm not stuck doing this next summer when we would have the opportunity to have finished all our courses and then write our national exam. Don't worry, I'm just trying to plan ahead ;)

Labels: Birthdays, friends, Kingston, NTCBC, Peterborough

posted at 9:55 AM by Jo -

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Focus!

It's so easy to get distracted... take yesterday for example. On my way to work, I stopped to take some pictures of lovely gardens (I did it on my way back home too!), despite the possibility of me being late. Once at work, Jen and I were left with nothing to do until rounds - so we were recruited to help make sandwiches for High Tea, a surprise retirement party for a lady at work. Then, on my way to the gym after volunteering, I stopped by the soccer field because I recognized the "I <3 style="text-align: center;">Garden hunting :) I thought the two buds looked like twin aliens hiding :D

We have officially switched kccf biblestudies to Tuesday nights instead of Fridays so that Pastor Lo from the local church can attend as well and guide us through some of the tough questions people have been asking. Fridays will then be just a social night - games, movies, food, etc. ...I'm not sure how much of this I can take - if I keep up with this schedule, I will see these people M,T, Th, F, Sat, Sun... Wednesdays will be my only break from them! yikes. But I digress...

Last night's bible study (Luke 9) was quite a reminder of where our focus should be - on Jesus. It's so easy to gloss over the fact that we are saved because Christ died for us to conquer death on our behalf. We confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, but more importantly we are called to declare Jesus as Lord of our lives as well.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?"
Luke 9-23-25

We talked about denying ourselves, our human nature, taking up this cross and taking it up daily. It boiled down to the basis of choice - to wake up in each new day that is given to us and choose to put on Christ, to live life as Christ lived His. In missions, He asks us to put the worries of food, clothing and lodging aside and trust Him to provide (Luke 9:1-6) and exemplefies it with the feeding of the 5,000 (Luke 9:16). Wherever Jesus went, the crowds followed Him and He welcomed them with compassion. It seemed even in this miracle of multiplying 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish for 5000 men and their families, the lesson for the disciples wasn't that they can't - which they did acknowledge twice (Luke 9:12, 13b), but that God can.

Hearing of miracles that Jesus performed and empowered his disciples to also perform in His name, it's natural that people would look him up. It's like us students, right? If there's free stuff that's good, then we flock to it - and tell everyone else about it. "Free" is enough incentive; "food" puts the bounce in our step, and "healthcare" will probably drive us to actually look for Him earnestly in search for preservation of life. Yet again, we find that Jesus rebukes us for the wrong focus (Luke 9:38-41) - Is it not enough that Jesus was declared to be God's Son by the Father Himself, twice?! (Baptism by John the baptist; the transfiguration) In the transfiguration, he uses what I like to think of as "nevin's word" - "listen to him." (Luke 9:35b). So we've worked out that life isn't about what we can or cannot do. This section adds to the picture by saying that life isn't about what our humanity wants, it's not about the goods, but it's about what Jesus has to say to us.

Finally Jesus explains the cost of following Him (Luke 9:57-62) in what seems like very extreme descriptions. First he says that it'll be difficult - pursued by enemies, there may be no place to hide from the challenges (9:58). Second, there is a requirement of immediacy and dedication with no excuses for delay of action (9:60). Third, there is the challenge to look ahead - not in your personal space, look beyond, like you would when you are driving. Don't look behind to see your accomplishments or where you have come from while trying to move forward, because your eyes are to be fixated on Christ, or as Paul puts it, the prize.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 3:12-14

And so the challenge is to know that I can't serve God by my own strength, it is Christ who moves in our ministries. I can't strive for material or selfish gain, I need to listen to Christ who seems to at times be speaking into my seemingly deaf ear with a megaphone... and lastly, I can't be a fence sitter, because Christ calls us to His ministry like an army moving forward with full force [insert: imagine LOTR, Return of the King's last victorious battle scene], fixated on the prize and not looking back, that the paths we choose might be the ones He makes straight rather than the deceivingly crooked detours.

Labels: friends, Kingston, Reflection

posted at 8:40 AM by Jo -