Time flies extremely fast. These are the last two weeks of the Spring semester. Finals are coming up. Worse, projects are wrapping up. Presentations. Reports. I've been having very little sleep since the carnival, up till 5 a.m. almost every night working on this huge distributed systems lab. Yet, on Thursday, I took time off to drive up to Cleveland for Dim Sum. Zane and I rented a Nissan Altima with a 2.5 L engine. The ride was smooth. I was driving on the way back and 100 mph felt like 60 on a Dodge Neon. Anyway, we arrived in this dying city just in time for a heavy Dim Sun lunch. $11 including tips for dim sum that I barely can finish. Pretty cheap, eh? We met up with Brian after he finished work for some beer at this local brewery cum restaurant in the hippest part of town, West 25th St. The joke of the day came when the waitress brought us our finger food, "pub bites", which was a fried fish. $9 for 6 ounces of fish. King, Zane and I had 2 bites each. $3 for 2 bites. $1.50/bite. We might have gotten a bargain for the dim sum during lunch but we couldn't run away from being ripped off. Zane said I should do my Jesus thing - multiply the fish.

Friends have associated me with religion because I do talk a lot about Christianity but not to preach but simply as topics of laid back conversations. I do find interest a little bit of Theology but I don't find myself as that Christian hot shot wearing a Christian T-shirt 24/7 or having crucifixes around my neck. I don't listen only to Hillsong and I definitely don't have Christians as my closest circles of friends. I disagree when Christians (or with any religion as a matter of fact) get too close with each other, starting to form a tight clique or community. Eat, sleep and work with Christians when you should be a silent witness of Christ out there with your Muslim, Buddhist and Atheist brothers. This applies only to the lay people like us as I do agree and even am very well supportive of religious orders like monks and nuns because their sacrifices in giving up their lives to God.

Btw, I was getting a tour of the Penn State campus with Rafiq during Spring break. One building, called the Willard building, has a preacher from the Orthodox church preaching every afternoon. I happened to listen to him preaching about rock music in Christianity that Protestant churches are being said to be "cool" because they have Gospel pop during the service. But Christianity isn't about being a "cool" religion or being modern in accordance of current trends. All these hype and preaching about the Christian faith is able to restore your lives from your troubles is extremely misleading. Being a Christian is not about being protected by Jesus from personal, school, financial problems. It's a religion that promotes selflessness and ascetism.

Also, I have my own not-so-supportive view on the charistmatic movement within the Catholic church but I'll talk about it another day. Interesting to note that the charistmatic movement within the Catholic church originated from Dusquene University, Pittsburgh which is located 2-3 miles from where I am currently sitting right now.