Faroe Islands

Heading out to my first international trip since the 2020 pandemic. I remember reluctantly cancelling our 7/2020 trip to Greenland on 4/19/2020 due to the global lock-downs...

Finally, after 829 days of long wait, we're going to Faroe Islands. They're sitting in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean between Iceland and Norway. The Greenland trip is in jeopardy because the red Russian sailboats we'd be taking are not allowed to enter into Greenland now -- only wish the world was a peaceful place!  

 

 

Text Messages with Michelle

I still remember vividly of my first text message to Michelle via a cell phone. It was on 8/24/2008, the day after we dropped Michelle off at Tufts for her new college life. It was long before the Smartphone ever existed. I remember being challenged by using the small keypad to send a message. So, I only typed one word: "LOVE."  Within a minute, I got a message back: "Oh, you learned how to text."

Just like that, years have gone by and tens of thousands of messages have been sent and received...

It didn't occur to me to save those messages until one day I realized the text messages wouldn't stay in my phone forever. With the passing time, the old messages would disappear, at least that's how it worked back in 2008.

Not sure why, but I didn't start recording our messages until 6/7/2009. As of yesterday, 7/16/2022, I've recorded 19,690 lines of messages over the past 13 years. Looking back, it's like watching a movie!!

The very first real message from Michelle was on 7/20/2009 at 12:29pm when she was attending summer school: "The test average was 83. I got 118." Prior to that, there were 2 messages when she answered my questions with a simple "Ya."

Over the past 13 years, 3 interruptions occurred simply because my BlackBerry died, for no reason!!  Messages for those days were missing.

11/16/09 to 11/24/09

01/07/10 to 01/16/10

06/10/10 to 06/21/10 

Other than that, history has been and will be recorded completely.

Attached is a screenshot from 2020-11-22, during the darkest times of Covid. Dr. Michelle was worried about us and busy saving lives.

Tennis

Feel the need to record a new life-changing event started on 6/7/2022.

Starting the game at 5:30am to beat the summer heat isn’t easy…

 

It's a nice tennis court though. Surrounded by trees and singing birds, it offers tremendous calmness and serenity, like a sanctuary...

Naperville, IL

July 2, 2022

 

 

《毛主席语录》

It's pretty incredible that I found this link today. They are "Mao's Thoughts" published in 1966, at the beginning of Culture Revolution.

http://share1.chaoxing.com/share/mobile/mooc/tocourse/89795494?appId=

Over the past few years, I've asked my cousins in China to buy a copy of Mao's "Little Red Book" for me. No, I'm not crazy...

I remember studying these to death when I was in grade school. We were forced to memorize many of them. I never had a clue of what they meant, but was able to memorize and recite many of them -- what a twisted world I lived in during my childhood years!!

Then about 2 years ago, I thought I should study them again to understand what the hell Mao was talking about back in 1966. Shockingly, my cousins in China told me that they couldn't find the little red books in regular book stores. You might have to pay a high price for it at the black market.

The attached are the 3 articles (老三篇) that each and every Chinese must study and memorize during the Culture Revolution. I googled them today, and wow -- I found them, in Chinese!!

The 3rd article is called《愚公移山》. It's an ancient Chinese story and happens to be one of the 3 articles we all must study and memorize during the Culture Revolution. Believe it or not, over the past 33 years in the US, this ancient Chinese story has helped me during so many difficult situations in so many ways... 

The circles of life are pretty incredible!