Ben Tshin

I went to Hanover to visit my dad’s godfather, Rev. Knights for his 80-something birthday. He isn’t really my great godfather but our family is treated like a part of their family; my dad, and the rest of us Tshins, is almost adopted into their family. So we were walking around Grandpa and Grandma Knights’s nursing home and their daughter (our Aunt Pearl) called us “family”. We have a very strange bond between our families, they (our aunts) being British-Canadians born in China, us being Chinese born in Canada.

I’m blessed to have a caucasian extended family. One of our cousins, Kirk Handy, is a hockey coach down in the states and that is an odd thought since all our “real cousins” are in Indonesia which has a total of maybe 3 or 4 ice rinks for a population of 200 million. Our cousin Kim (Kirk’s sister) is the best. She has humour and wit that rivals the best I know (in a league with Gilbert and Theresa). Also, their dad is retired like my dad and its funny to see them now. Uncle Gary looked a bit like U2’s Bono. I found out that my dad is going to be taking culinary and singing classes in his spare time. Odd that I found out from my “white relatives”, though.

Anyway, it’s nice to have a family here in Canada that complements our other family on the other side of the world in Indonesia.

Bah, what a long day today. Long day at work since my manager is down in the States and I have take over what he does. Trying to fight spam spam spam - Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Work is always long and tiring. I’m trying to skip my lunches so that I can log more hours of work. I think this is a bad idea.

Then softball practice: 6:30 till 9:30. I don’t think we really practised per say, but it was fun playing impromptu ball in the fading sun. We have a really solid infield. Just check out Esther Ng robbing 3 Scoops a few weeks back. And I’m finally hitting right. My teammates told me to simply swing SLOWER and my workouts are really building my musskells. Just need to wait for the ‘perfect pitch’.

After practice, we all head out to the McD’s at Creditview & Eglinton. We ended up meeting up with a few other teams so it was a semi-big MCBCSL group there. We chatted for a while and at the end it was only Ollie, Joel, his sister Joyce, and myself just chatting around 10:30. And then this old man came over and started talking to us. And it was really weird because we couldn’t understand what he was mumbling. We initially just listened to his ranting but then we realized he wouldn’t leave. So we got up to leave and he followed us outside. Fortunately we got the idea that we weren’t going to keep listening to him and he left us alone. *whew*

After THAT, Joel and I drag raced red light to red light along Eglinton back to Erin Mills. Unfortunately it wasn’t much of an even match with my 6-banger outgunning his small 4-banger.

To top off the night I got back and found Ani and Gordon just finishing their workout that I had missed. I walked over to talk on Ani’s driveway (the old tradition) and we ended up talking for a good long while. They grilled me on my beliefs and they vented their beefs with the church and its preachiness, and how the Christian church doesn’t accept and respect other beliefs or faiths. What a battle! I was totally outnumbered, 2-to-1. The sad thing was I agreed that the Christian faith is being misrepresented by hypocrites and ‘radicals’ who have some pretty extreme beliefs. If I saw the church as an outsider I would be a bit skeptical like them about joining.
Fortunately, the Christian faith is based on a relationship with God and not a religion based on the “institution of the church”.

Death: I’m dying a slow and tired death.

Yesterday, I had a MCBCSL (softball league) committee meeting in Waterloo. Lack of communication continues to plague. Anyway, 2.5 hours of driving for a 2.5 hour meeting. Seems we were only 50% effective with our time. It’s really sad that the committee for a Mississauga softball league is half in Waterloo. Seems that people can’t make sacrifices (in school, work, even fellowship) to take a part in God’s work.

Well after that meeting, another work-out with Ani and Gord. And that totally killed me. And then my ENGL 306A (Intro to Linguistics) assignment. It’s late as of now. I had a little “work-around” to buy me some more time as I finish it. I basically sent them a ‘dumb’ file so they know that I submitted something. They print it to find garbage and then ask me to send it again, by which time I should be done… HA!

And today I watched “The Bourne Identity”. However, I only watched to get my co-worker off my back.

I have finally started working out with Ani and Gordon. They came by my house at 10:30pm while I was watching Black Hawk Down and they persuaded me to go work out with them. We did presses and flies and oh I was hurting afterward. And we also did a bunch of ab exercises which totally killed me and my family one-pack.

My thinking:
Why get a six-pack when you have a one-pack? And my arms are the same size as their arms when we don’t flex them.

Anyway, I was totally buzzing when we finished. At least the exercise gives a good rush, despite all the hard work.

The second game of the 2002 MCBCSL season and WIRED (that’s Worshipping In Reverence, Eternal Devotion) edges out 3 Scoops 12-11. I must say that the game was a definite nail-biter. Our captains, Peter and Alice, kept telling us that we were “still one down” and we believed them. Luckily we did because we ended up one run down going in the top of the last inning and we scored two runs!! We held out the bottom of the seventh (quite impressively, good job Esther) and won the game by one run! Amazing work by our defense. So I ended up contributing with a 3-for-4 (.750) hitting percentage, 2 singles, 1 double, 2 runs scored. Fielding wise I did okay. Almost had one error but the girl stopped running!!

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