Newman Parishoners

Today Father Benjamin Holdren invited the people who came for Saturday mass, including his parents, for doughnuts and coffee, and I have to write that down as a big plus.

I've had lots of beans to spill these days. It actually seemed less like me spilling beans at people than it is like picking up my friends by the belt and then hurl them bodily into a ten-storey tall grain silo, filled with beans. I am just thankful for all who have sifted through my irrational thoughts, or laughed at my laughable thoughts, or even chastened me for the wrongheaded ones.

Maybe I have not been mindful of the people who have gone through what I am going through now. I pray now that I can recover and then do the due recompense. When the World takes its leave on the Happy Boat, Lord, just let me know I'm not left alone on shore. Send me, wherever you need me to go.

UPDATE: PTL back in commission from this depressive episode and back to petty acts of mischief in this wonderful new place and PTL it's officially summer

Fighting the Bummer Week

Gentle readers, all you need to know is that something happened on 10 May that got me feel a tad down. Here's the story of myself getting back into commission, if anyone who is going through something similar might find it instructive.

Day 0. News received. Override circuits kicked in and I went for Sunday mass, then biked for 30 kilometers around the town. Really, anything but keeping myself idle! This coping mechanism worked insofar as I was churching/biking, not so much while doing the falling asleep stuff.

Day 1 to 2. Unfortunately, Day 1 is Monday.
I called my fairy godsister, who asked, "why didn't you call earlier? I knew something would happen on your side." We talked for 3 hours till my lunchtime and way past her bedtime. For (the rest of) Monday and Tuesday I worked as hard as I could.

Day 3. I had completed everything on Tuesday and had nothing left to do. I sat in my chair and felt sorry for myself for the entire day, then went to Walmart in the evening with Shijie.
Friends checked up on me later in the night, and I on them.

Day 4. Still goofing out of work, I went to a mall to check the price of a phone, then detoured to the music store and bought a guitar. The storekeeper was called Rob, and he had been to Singapore for a work trip once upon a distant past, three billion years ago, when World Trade Center still existed (it's VivoCity now). I decided to also buy the mandolin in my second trip.

Day 5. Made new friend in a Vietnamese restaurant who will be out of town in the rest of the summer to make a living selling bible study stuff.

Day 6. By this day, she had known how I was feeling.
Long chat with Jeremy.

Day 7. With Shijie in the zoo at Omaha to watch some freaking animals.
The jellyfish exhibit proved to be extremely therapeutic.
Opened one more can of worms.

Day 8. Monday Confession with Fr. Holdren.
Met a guy outside the house who came from Saigon in 1976 to look for his American father, is down and out and now wants Home. Met 3 other homeless folks. Gave him ten bucks shamelessly.
Professor is back from Beijing, so crashed his office to ask some silly questions.
Ran 3km.