McDonald's

I had McDonald's for dinner tonight.

Sounds bad right? Especially in Hong Kong but not really. I enjoyed it. Yes, I didn't feel good about making more plastic trash but it was good. Food was good. I had a salad with 4 pieces of Chicken McNuggets and a paper cup of water. McDonald's is the best place to get an affordable and reasonably priced salad and American burger (Big n Tasty).

I haven't ate Chicken McNuggets for a long time because it doesn't feel me up anymore and it's a bit costly on the dollar per pound of food. But I opted for it this time around with the salad. The Chicken McNuggets looked smaller than I remember them. Is it because of inflation or the bargain price of McNuggets at HK$8 for 4 pieces (about US$1)? Anyway, the old taste and the sweet n sour sauce was still there and it brought be back to primary 1 when my mom used to take me to the local McDonald's for lunch every now and then after school.

McNugget was the only thing I ate in additional to french fries for a very long time, 3 years. I doesn't sound too long of a period now but when you were a kid, 3 years was a very long time. Unlike now, when you were a kid, every year was a big deal.

You might not realize it, but compare to a lot of little eateries, noodle shops and 'tea restaurants' in Hong Kong, Mc Donald's is a pretty good place to eat at. I am not talking about the taste, I am talking about the environment. Mc Donald's here might be small but they guarantee a clean, brightly lit environment with satisfaction customer service with trained staff who basically get all you want and say 'thank you' when you leave. It's a more relaxing eating environment than a lot of other tiny eateries with hot noodle soups flying around here and there, tea spilling all over the place and Ah Jei and Ah Sok yelling out orders allow.

As I was leaving, a little girl was smiling at her mother who was carrying a tray with two sundaes, a chocolate and a strawberry sundaes. The little girl, who was around 5-7 had a perfectly happy and satisfying look on her face, clapping her hands at her mother.

I put the Marie magazine back in to the magazine stand (I was reading about the new Tony Leung movie with Lam Chiling directed by John Woo).

"Thank you."

I was thinking of my friend who just graduated from medical school from Scotland, and I was like, whoa, it was only like a few days ago that he told me that he was going to become a doctor. He went to university a year before me and that was actually over 6 years ago. He just started shadowing, or what American medical school would call, "residency," today.

When I think of medical school, I think of the 5-7 years of study and residency after undergraduate education. That's up to 11 years of school to become a medical doctor. That's frightening to me. Same with pharmacy, dentistry and some other graduate schools. Of course, the American system is more time consuming and rigorous, but still, over 6 years just went by.

But I think it was a very fulfilling time for him. God blessed him and it seemed that many things went well for him in the past 6 years or so. He finished his degrees, found a girlfriend and will soon marry her in less than a month (I think they dated a for a year and went on honeymoon already) and he kept his spiritual life intact, serving God at church.

I wonder if ever I would be as blessed. Have everything go so well as if the pieces were finally coming together. I am still finding my pieces, trying to put something together. If six years could do that, then it was definitely worth it.

He is considered to be young marrying in this day and age at 25. Another friend of mine is marrying on the same month, and he's 2 years my junior. 23 I guess. Very young. What was I doing when I was 23? I just graduated and was wondering what to do with my life and I ended up here after 2 years.

You can't really make comparison, I could not do what they are doing. But I am somewhat envy about them, at the least, finding that special someone to live their whole live with for the rest of their earthling days. That's pretty incredible to me. That's something to worth celebrating about.

Or you can be this Russian man who call himself Jesus

Benefits of being Socialable

"Social participation and integration have profound effects on health and well being of people during their lifetimes," said Berkman. "We know from previous studies that people with many social ties have lower mortality rates. We now have mounting evidence that strong social networks can help to prevent declines in memory. As our society ages and has more and more older people, it will be important to promote their engagement in social and community life to maintain their well being."

From Medical News Today

Benefits of being Socialable

"Social participation and integration have profound effects on health and well being of people during their lifetimes," said Berkman. "We know from previous studies that people with many social ties have lower mortality rates. We now have mounting evidence that strong social networks can help to prevent declines in memory. As our society ages and has more and more older people, it will be important to promote their engagement in social and community life to maintain their well being."

From Medical News Today

Benefits of being Socialable

"Social participation and integration have profound effects on health and well being of people during their lifetimes," said Berkman. "We know from previous studies that people with many social ties have lower mortality rates. We now have mounting evidence that strong social networks can help to prevent declines in memory. As our society ages and has more and more older people, it will be important to promote their engagement in social and community life to maintain their well being."

From Medical News Today

Peace like a River

Burnside Writers Collective

On Sunday children worship, I taught a new song, an English one at that, to the only kid we had in attendance. The song was Peace like a River, a song that I sang in school when I was a little kid, several years older than the kid I was teaching it to.

It was a fun song when sang with the different actions. I sang the song once and then we sang together. Afterward I suggested we make up actions for "peace" and "river". I remember the actions I did when I was a kid, but I wanted the child to participate and have the opportunity to make up her own action. It would make it more interesting for her.

She liked it and I went ahead and taught the other verses with "joy like the fountain" and "love like the ocean", and we even did the finale with "I've got peace, joy, love like a river, fountain, ocean...". Man, this song is a classic, it is still able to work up children in the digital age. We had a lot of fun doing the actions and singing it. We all enjoyed it.

The night before, I was looking up the lyrics (just to be safe, I know the lyrics by heart. Prove that things learned as a kid are the ones most memorable), and I was wondering why this is Sunday school song. It has no Jesus, God, Lord or cross in it. And for a second I wondered, "Peaceful like a river? Are rivers peaceful? The images of I have of rivers aren't that peaceful, but the City Gate River in Shatin is pretty peaceful."

Today, I went into this blog and the writer asked the same question I had but went further and thought about it. Here's what he wrote:

"I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river
In my soul.

Is that really what we have?...

What is peace really? Is it the absence of war or bullets? Is it the absence of depression or poverty? Some, like that particular minister, would argue it is the assurance we feel over our lives. But if Christ came to give us peace in that sense, why does it seem our world is on fire? Why do we fear for our lives, health, finances and security?

I like that the writer used the word river to describe the peace we have in Christ. I mean, what’s peaceful about rivers? This isn’t a creek trickling through the ravine in our backyard. Imagine rafting through the Colorado as it cuts through the Grand Canyon or remember the Mississippi and all the lives that she’s claimed. These are unpredictable waters that can destroy homes with floods and take lives with their undercurrents; there is nothing peaceful about them.

So why would the writer use such an ironic metaphor? I think this hymn I sang so blissfully in Sunday school is communicating a far more profound truth than we would first notice. Maybe the writer understood that this life and this walk with Christ would be filled with painful, unpredictable and sometimes crushing experiences and maybe it is in this truth that they wrote those words.

I do not think that Jesus came to give us peace in the world’s terms. I don’t think He came so that we could hope in the things of this world, whether it means security, financial stability, or health. No, instead I think Jesus came to give us something totally different; an inward peace - a hope in a promise of restoration. And that is something to sing about."

Ashley, Joshua and David

Back in my first year of high school, there was an incident involving three boys from my class. They were Ashley, Joshua and David H. Ashley and David H (the H because there was another David, David Smith) had been my classmate since year 3. Ashley was a different kind of boy as I recalled from many years ago. He was somewhat arrogant, slightly rebellious but was very charming at the same time. He was good-natured but also had a naughty side to him. He was a troublemaker, but because of his charm, he received less severe punishments for his crimes. He had a prominent forehand, blue eyes and blonde hair that curled slightly at the end. He was also very athletic and one of the oldest boys in class, always finishing around the top 3 spots in sporting events in his age group. However, what really set Ashley apart from most boys was that he comfortably played with girls during recess and lunch, when he wasn’t playing with the boys.

David was the total opposite. David was nice and friendly, yet also shy. He had dreamy green eyes inherited from his mother, with flowing black hair. He had a gentle, soft and long face with pink cheeks. He often wore a concerned and worrying look on his face which would instantly light up with interest when he engaged with others. He was tall yet also a little chubby, but not fat. He had flat foot and was clumsier than other boys in sport. He usually hung with Ashley like a shadow. If Ashley was the main attraction, then David was the sideshow.

Joshua, better known as Josh joined my class only in year 7 so I did not really know too much about him at the time of the incident except that he was an asshole and a cheat in games. I found that out myself during the few times when I played soccer, basketball and handball with him. At a time of innocent, when most of us were still too proud and had not yet grasped the dirty tactics in games, he was already knocking us out and polluting our games with swinging elbows , false calls, cheating antics and other forms of bad sportsmanship. He was a thin, lengthy boy with blond hair and blue eyes. He did not look strong but his bones certainly caused much pain for his playmates. And he had some strong fingers for pulling shirt and pushing. I remembered that quality of his very clearly. Like Ashley, he was also one of the oldest boys in class.

It was on a Wednesday, and Wednesday meant sport in the afternoon. For the past several months we had been playing soccer on a field about a fifteen minutes walk from school. Since we were in high school, we were old enough to walk ourselves there. We would change into our PE clothes after lunch and walk in groups of 3 or more to the soccer field. We walked pass the neighborhood of quiet houses, under the railway bridge, passed the shops and news agency with the lottery poster and ball, t he bakery and the sandwich shop.

As usual, I walked with Kostas and Chris, and red, Ben. We called him Red because of his reddish orange hair.

We were about to turn from the sleepy residential street to where the shops were when we hurt a scream. It was a haunting sound.

We saw a plump lady about forty lying on the floor and David was trying to help her up. Up further on the street, was a man running with a purse. Two blonde boys in light blue uniform were running after him, and they disappeared into the corner.