pretty toned down day today.... had lunch with d - he's absolutely amazing! it's not easy organizing such a diverse event like alpha - and i'm so surprised that he's managing with patience while maintaining calm cool and effective thot! it certainly has gotten me excited about the whole program of events for the next 10 weeks... puts into perspective really wats important in life. the devotion the group of leaders has put into this is incredible, and i know god will abundantly bless the event. plus, how can a great buffet dinner at grappa's country go wrong? :)

then in the afternoon, i picked up my friend dwi from the airport train in central. she coming from beijing, so i wasn't too surprised when i see this girl with like 5 masks on that was 2 inches thick! it was a wonder she could even breathe at all! ok... in case she ever sees this - it wasn't quite 5 layers, but it was 2 thick ones!!! and when she sees me, she points to it and says, 'is this all right?' well, being as how i wasn't en masque at that time, it well better have been all right! after getting her stuff all checked in at the hotel, we ended up walking all round town looking for a chinese-english dictionary. fyi.. all of us in beijing were looking for one of those at one point or other, convinced it was the key to unlocking the latent mandarin ability deep within our subconsciousness.

funny thing again at the grand century mall where derek and i had lunch.... at mcd's, this british dude clocked some local dude in the face, leaving a huge gash along the left side of his nose, running up the bridge almost to his eye. i didn't see the punch, but i saw all the cop commotion... the brit dude got all animated when describing how there was NO KETCHUP (or something like that.. screaming as loud as possible).. then this chinese guy dares to come and quiet him down, and then to make things worse, allegedly spits on him, which then precipitated the punch to the face. somehow, i doubt i would believe a man who had been screaming at the top of his lungs for ketchup, and gets all irritated over it! well... i guess u had to be there... it was funny.... yep....

tomorrow is X2! i was all excited until today - when i realized it's just a movie. i have these weird times sometimes, where i watch a movie for the umpteenth time, and i'm actually thinking, hoping that the ending is different. that happened at the end of matrix so many times. it also happened pretty much everytime i watched X1... so here's hoping the 2nd is better than the 1st.

7 more in HK died today... that's 157 overall. sadness.... and 1589 infected. gov't says this is slowing, but who knows lah? look at beijing - they right up there w/just about 150 deaths too! plus, they got 9,650 quarantined, still waiting to see how many of those are infected. beijing is in complete lockdown. near my old wle compound/residency, all the restaurants have been ordered shut. one of the univ's where some of the year long students take classes is under strict quarantine... the only restaurant open was this one japanese restaurant adjacent to the residency. now normally, i think i could prolly stomach a week or so of japanese food - but u haven't really had this one... that's why my friend dwi had to leave and return to indonesia... well - at least we ain't taiwan... but then again, we all part of the motherland anyway....