Update: 2021 New Year Resolution - Bible in a Year (and a Half)

Hello Everyone!  Hope you are all enjoying a relatively COVID free summer!  My writing seems to come in waves and the past year definitely has been a trough.  Hopefully, I will make it a priority to do some more blogging this latter part of the year.

As a quick update to my 2021 New Year Resolution of following the Bible in a Year Podcast, I have finished it in pretty much exactly a year and a half (early July)!  I first read through the entire bible when I was in my teenage years.  As you can guess, this second time around was a much different experience.  As a person, I have matured (or at least hopefully), going from a son to a father of six!  I have had much more exposure to the teachings of the Faith and the many challenges our Church is facing today.

Father Mike Schmitz, the host of the podcast, not only reads the Scripture to you, he also spends an equal amount of time commentating on it, which is very valuable, as there is so much richness in Scripture that one often glosses over many important points.  Sometimes, maybe even more importantly, one can hear the passion in his voice (and at times, he even chokes up with emotion), which clearly demonstrates the realness of his relationship with God.  I would definitely recommend any adult Christian (Protestant friends absolutely encouraged) to do this podcast.  It's about 20 to 25 minutes a day and totally do-able if you incorporate it into your daily commute or other routine.  As I had incorrectly assumed initially, the podcast actually does go through the entire Bible!

3 Lessons from Bible in a Year

Of course, I can't really write a blog post without giving my thoughts on listening to the Bible in its entirety.  Here are 3 lessons that I learned.

1. Pre-requisite for All Christians - This isn't really a lesson, but I thought I'd throw it out there.  How many Christians are there who have not read the bible in its entirety?  Can we really be serious in our faith if we haven't read the most important book ever written on the faith?  It's like saying that I really like Malcolm Gladwell but have not read his books (Gladwell is great, by the way.  Would recommend Outliers and David and Goliath).  With this podcast, it has become so accessible that we really don't have a good excuse not to read it.
   
   
2. Humanity is Broken - if you thought reading the bible would give you the warm and fuzzies, then I'm sorry to report that you may get the opposite, especially if you're reading the Old Testament.  Don't believe me?  These are the things you will encounter after reading the first half of Genesis, the first book in the bible: fratricide, countless cases of polygamy, wiping out of the entire human race save one family, sexual abuse, lying to steal another's birthright, incest, and many accounts of deceit and violence.  More surprisingly, a number of these sins were committed by the patriarchs and matriarchs of the faith.
   
   Knowing this perhaps gives us a different perspective into the challenges we see today.  Our faith did not originate from a line of righteous and perfect people.  In fact, most of them were pretty horrible.  Take King David, for example; he is perhaps the greatest figure in Israelite history.  However, what is he best remembered for?  It would be his great sin of killing of Uriah so that he can take his wife, Bathsheba, to be his own.  Sin, therefore, is the rule and not the exception.  However, this just doesn't seem right...how are we to make sense of this?  Read on.
   
   
3. Christ is the Fulfilment - Another thing that I realized after reading the Old Testament is that there is no conclusion in and of itself.  The nation of Israel never really recovers its prior glory after it was invaded by the Babylonians.  There is a great sense that there should be some sequel to the Old Testament, like a movie with a dissatisfying ending.
   
   As with point #2 above, it seems incredibly sad and pointless if our faith doesn't answer these most basic questions in life.  What is the point?  Why do people suffer?  Why is there so much evil in this world?  Why do good things happen to bad people?
   
   Fortunately for us, God does give us an answer.  Although sometimes it is difficult to really understand, especially when the circumstances in our lives give us moments to pause, the answer is plainly there in the Gospels.  John the Evangelist tells us, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).  In Christian theology, we understand God to be love itself.  If God is love, why could he not create a world where there was no pain and suffering?  Why does God permit evil to exist?  He does so such that a greater good can come from it.  He allows evil to exist in the world so that He himself can be betrayed, tried, scourged, and finally crucified and killed, in order to reconcile Himself with us.
   
   Imagine you are an athlete training for the 100m dash and you end up winning the track meet.  Would you rather have won because you were naturally gifted with superior genes and really did not need to train very hard, or because you had given up sleep and woke up everyday at 5am to train for the meet?  Which scenario would be the one that has greater meaning and satisfaction?  I'm sure most of us would say the latter.  And so it is with life itself.  It is not meaningful despite the brokenness and disappointments, but because of them and the redemption Christ offers us.
   
   It is easy for me to say this, but fully comprehending this is not only difficult, but may seem impossible at times.  With this, I leave you with a final quote from the Gospel of Matthew, "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7).  One cannot only use one's mind to understand this great mystery, but must open one's heart.  Will you start by trying the Bible in a Year podcast?
   
   

Now What?

So, just as I was breathing a sigh of relief knowing there's no looming podcast with which I need to keep up, Father Schmitz goes and decides he will do another "in a year" podcast.  Starting January 2023, he will be starting a Catechism in a Year podcast.  Oh boy!  Not many Catholics have read through the entire Bible, but I am sure even less have even picked up and read the Catechism.  What is the Catechism, you may even ask...in short, it's a summary of the teachings of our Faith.  It's a great reference when you have questions, which is what I've used it for mostly.  I definitely see great value in reading through it in its entirety.  In a world where Christian beliefs are at odds with a lot of secular society's beliefs, it is essential to any practicing Catholic to know why we believe what we believe.  Whether it's to ensure you are not shaken in your faith or to help you defend that faith, it will be invaluable.  As you can guess, I will be, maybe a little begrudgingly, following this podcast when it starts next year.  See you there!

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Are Electric Cars Really Better For the Environment?

 

As you know, we bought a Tesla Model 3 back in 2018.  It now has just above 80,000 km on it.  I've driven about half of the mileage while the other half have been driven by my guests on Turo.  Recently, I exchanged a few comments on Facebook with my university buddy, Dennis, regarding how environmentally friendly driving an electric car really is.  I really didn't know at that point, but it just seemed to me that not producing CO2 from burning 6400 L of gasoline (thus far in the car's life) was not a bad idea.

Of course, there are skeptics in this world, perhaps caused by misinformation spread by conspiracy theorists, right leaning media, and the oil giants of the world.  So, I decided to do some quick research just to see on a very general basis, whether driving an EV would benefit the earth.

Carbon Emissions

First, I wanted to look at carbon emissions, namely the amount of carbon dioxide emitted directly or indirectly by driving an EV vs a gas-powered car.  This turned out to be a not-so-tough task.  There is a free app called Tezlab that I use and it provides a charge report.  It basically tells you what the carbon impact is for your charge.  The neat thing is that it actually looks at your location, and by using publicly available data on the electricity grid, determines the equivalent volume of fuel burned.

In the screen capture below, you will see that I recently charged my car from a state of charge of 38% to 90% (i.e. 52% of the battery capacity) which is an approximately equal to 250 km of travel range.  It cost me $3.77 of electricity and had a equivalent carbon impact of burning 0.6 L of gasoline.  0.6 L!!  How far can one drive with 0.6L of gas in a Prius?  I think maybe 15 km under the best conditions, and that's a Prius.  It is an order of magnitude better to drive an EV.  Let's say I put 250,000 km on my Model 3.  It would mean that I would save about 10,000 L of gasoline worth of carbon being put into the atmosphere, when compared to a Prius.

This huge difference in carbon impact is actually due to the fact that Ontario produces 95% of its power using fossil-free resources such as nuclear, hydro and wind.  Only 5% of the power generated comes from natural gas power plants.

I guess the next question is: well, that's Ontario; what about in places where they burn coal to generate power?  It turns out that driving an EV will have a lesser impact, from a carbon perspective, in 95% of the world.  Most countries are de-carbonizing their electricity grid due to the great economics caused by the declining costs of solar and wind power generation.  So, this will only get better in the future.  Eventually, we will get to 100% non-fossil fuel power generation.

What About the Batteries?

Another often cited downside of EVs is the sheer volume of battery cells used in an EV.  Since batteries contain harmful materials like cobalt, lead, copper, etc., that would be a problem in itself.  A quick read of the Wikipedia article on battery recycling informed me that battery recycling technology today can achieve up to 96% of the materials recycled.  With EVs scaling up, I can only believe that battery recycling technology will further improve.  There is no shortage of new battery recycling companies starting up.  Since the battery pack is the most expensive single component in an EV, there are great economic incentives for companies to solve this problem.

Recycling batteries, in my opinion, is also a much easier engineering problem to solve than removing or capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where the concentration is merely 400 parts per million (0.04%).

Often Forgotten Benefits of EVs

As I mentioned above, I've put about 80,000 km on my Model 3.  Thus far, the only maintenance task I've had to do on the car is replacing wiper blades and changing to-from winter/summer tires.  There is no engine oil, transmission oil, and engine coolant to change and dispose of.   In fact, there is no regular maintenance schedule for Teslas.  You bring the car in as you see fit.

There You Have It!

To me, it was quite intuitive that EVs are a great means to reducing my carbon footprint.  However, there's much misinformation out there.  Hope this quick post will help you transition to a cleaner future!  Also, 0 to 60 mph in 5 seconds or less is also pretty darn sweet! 😉

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2021 New Year Resolution: Bible in a Year!

 

When I was in my teenage years, I had read the bible literally from cover to cover (Genesis to Revelation) over the course of a couple of years.  Although it was a good exercise and something that I can brag about (like what I'm doing right now 😉), I don't remember too much of it nor do I think I really benefitted that much.  It was probably because I had read it without much guidance nor did I really do much reflection of the text.

More than 10 years ago, I had enrolled in Regis College's (U of T) Master of Theological Studies and had taken a few courses on Scripture.  They were quite eye opening!  Unfortunately, I only finished about half the program and had to quit due to juggling of work and newborns which seemed to come quite regularly 😂.  After that point, I had rarely picked up the bible, which is always something that made me feel quite sad.

Fast forward to last year, the COVID pandemic has had quite a number of silver linings.  One of them was our discovery of Father Mike Schmitz on YouTube.  We alternated between masses said by Father Francis Ching (in Cantonese) and Father Mike when the churches were/are closed.  Both fathers have amazing homilies and I would recommend tuning in every Sunday.

Since the start of the year, Father Mike had started a Bible in a Year Podcast.  It's a daily podcast with Father Mike reading a few chapters from the bible and then reflecting on it.  Each day's show is about 20 minutes long and so it's not much effort at all to follow along.  The podcast is advertised as reading the entire bible but it's not quite that.  I don't think reading Deuteronomy on a podcast would be a great idea, except if the podcast was designed for insomniacs!  It will read through the most common books like Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Psalms, Luke, Acts, and Revelation.  You can take a look at the reading plan.  Father Mike is super charismatic and passionate and he has (re-)lit a fire in my heart!

So, this is my New Year resolution: to complete this Bible in a Year program and bring Scripture back into my life. If you're Catholic, Christian, or just curious, I'd encourage you to do the same.

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Clearly Loved: A Chronicle of Andrea's Birth

 

1-day Old at the Hospital

When we found out that our 6th child will be a girl, one thing that we knew was going to be difficult was naming her.  When we named Athan (Athanasius is his actual name, which is that of one of the great Doctors of the Church, and means "eternal life"), we weren't purposely planning on naming all our kids with "A" names.  Once we started the trend, it was difficult to stop and so after Adele, Athan, Audrey, Anne, and Amelia, it was starting to be hard to find a name that suits both our liking.  My rule had always been traditional, Christian but yet not too common.  We had a shortlist of names: Andrea, Alicia, Arya, Agatha, amongst others.  Up till the day of Andrea's birth, we had pretty much settled on Alicia.  As you have guessed, that was not to be!  More on that later...

Ill Prepared

If you've known Renee and I for a while, you'll know that we're pretty chillaxed people.  We tend to go with the flow and are easygoing in general.  Sometimes that's good in keeping harmony but we also tend to underestimate the urgency of things...you know, things like giving birth!

About 2 years ago, we had a flood in our basement (a story worthy of another post on its own) due to a burst water line.  Insurance would cover the damage but I procrastinated and procrastinated until this past summer dealing with it.  It wasn't until the claim deadline of 2 years from the date of the flood was approaching that I finally submitted all required documents and had the claim approved.  Our contractor also did not have any opening until late in the year, and in the end, he could not come to complete the repair/reno until after Andrea would be born.

So, we ended cleaning out 7 years' worth of junk out of the basement a month or so ago, with lots of help from my father.  We must have donated about 20 garbage bags full of stuff to Value Village and threw out another 10 bags. We also moved a bunch of stuff from the basement to the main floor and our hallway on the second floor, and also our bedroom.  In short, our house was a mess and was not in the best shape to receive our newborn baby.

We had a false alarm on November 26, when Renee felt some pain in her tummy, thinking that they were contractions.  It turned out that she was just experiencing some pain after having stood up for a prolonged amount of time that day.  Then, early in the morning of the November 30, Renee's mucus plug came out.  She told the kids that the baby might come that day.  I kind of brushed it off, saying to myself that for one of the pregnancies, she gave birth a full week after the mucus plug had come out.

November 30 was a Monday and I recall that I was in the middle of a team meeting at around 11 am when I was rudely interrupted.  Renee came barging into the bedroom and pushed me aside.  I gave her a look and she just said, "I'm going to take a shower."  Usually, when I'm in the middle of a meeting, she would not tell me such inconsequential things and so I paused and said, "Ok.......", waiting for her to give me a reason.  She then said, "I'm having contractions."

"What?" I thought to myself, suddenly snapping out of it.  I soon ended my team meeting and realized the gravity of situation.  Given that Renee was tested GBS positive, she needed to be administered antibiotics 4 hours before giving birth.  For Amelia's birth, we took our sweet time and Renee ended up having to slow down her labour to keep Amelia in for the required 4 hours.  I began sweating because I was 100% not prepared.  I immediately began packing up stuff for the hospital stay including my personal stuff since we were going to be there at least for a couple of days, and also everything that we would need including the car seat, stroller, etc.  By 1:45 pm, we were heading out the door even though Renee's contractions weren't that strong yet nor were they 5 minutes apart, which was the typical frequency at which one would leave for the hospital.

Wide Awake!

Feast of St. Andrew

A few days prior to that day, Adele was protesting that she didn't like the name Alicia.  She just didn't like the sound of the name, but both Renee and I liked the name.  Interestingly enough, Alicia came from the German name, Adelaide, which is related to Adele.  Lol!  Maybe Adele wanted to be the only Adele in the family!

Adele liked the name Andrea, but pronounced on-DREY-a, instead of the more commonly pronounced AN-dree-a.  I preferred the latter because it would be such an annoying thing when people would read your name and be constantly pronouncing it wrong.  Renee told Adele that if the baby was born on November 30, the feast day of St. Andrew, we would name her Andrea instead of Alicia.  I laughed, because this was the exact thing that I was hoping to happen with Adele before she was born.  Adele was born on May 10, but if she had been born on May 13, which was the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, she would have been called Fatima.  Since this didn't happen to Adele, I didn't think it would happen with this birth....I guess I was wrong!

So, Andrea was named Andrea because she was born on November 30, the feast day of St. Andrew.  It is pronounced AN-dree-a as well! 😁 

Her birthday is also quite easy to remember.  It's exactly 2 weeks after Renee's and  (Edit: I was clearly not in the right mind due to lack of sleep, because Nov 30 is 16 days after Nov 14, Renee's birthday) 1 month before mine!

At the Hospital

We arrived at Trillium Health Centre (Mississauga Hospital) at around 2:15 pm. With the current COVID situation, I would only be allowed into the hospital after Renee was admitted to the birthing suite.  So, I dropped her off at the hospital and she proceeded to the birthing unit to be assessed.  Luckily, Renee's OB, Dr. Kim Rogers was also on duty that day and she would be the one to deliver the baby.  Upon assessment, Renee was about 2 to 3 cm dilated (out of 10 cm), which would normally have been early, but since she needed to be on antibiotics for 4 hours, Dr. Rogers commented that it was a good time to be arrive.

I drove to the nearby McDonald's to grab a coffee as I waited.  Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Renee was getting admitted. She first got tested for COVID, followed by some bloodwork. There was a young nurse in training at that time and that nurse attempted to take some blood samples.  Also at the same time were two student doctors who were asking Renee questions about her pregnancy.  As the nurse stabbed Renee in the arm with a needle, she burst Renee's vein and blood quickly splattered down her arm.  As this was happening, the student doctors continued to ask Renee questions as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  The young nurse froze and her accompanying nurse quickly covered Renee's vein with a piece of gauge and stopped the bleeding.  Sadly, I wasn't there to witness this hilarious moment, but Renee said she had a drop of sweat run down her face. LOL!

After some time, Renee messaged me and asked me to come to the birthing unit.  I got to the hospital at around 4 pm and was promptly screened at the entrance.  The hospital staff informed me that my cloth mask was not acceptable inside the hospital and handed me a surgical mask.  They also phoned the birthing unit and asked if I was permitted to go in.  I'm glad they're doing this level of screening to prevent any outbreaks at the hospital.

Big(ger) Baby

When I got into the birthing room, I found Renee with two nurses: Jas and Mei Ling.  She was fairly comfortable and was having a nice chat with the two of them.  The contractions were still not quite 5 minutes apart and not very strong either.  We would normally have been still at home at this stage, but we didn't want to have the same experience as with Amelia's birth where Renee had to really slow herself down to keep Amelia in!  Renee was administered the anti-biotics at 3:15 pm and so, we would want to wait until at least 7:15 pm to give birth.

From, 3:15 pm until around 6:45 pm, the progress was slow and we were ok with it.  At 6:55 pm, Renee was still only about 3 cm dilated.  Dr. Rogers decided to break Renee's water to speed things up.  With our past experience, breaking the water definitely increased the pace of things.  By 8:00 pm, Renee's contractions started to become more painful.  By 8:45 pm, Dr. Rogers was in the room getting ready to deliver the baby.

At one point, the contractions were so painful that Renee squirmed around and almost kicked our nurse!  Bless Dr. Rogers, she calmed Renee down with a pep talk and from that point on, we made really good progress.  With Amelia, Renee pushed a couple of times and Amelia was born, but with Andrea, she was determined to stay inside mommy's warm tummy!  I think it took about 6 or 7 contractions and lots of hard pushing until Andrea was born at 9:10 pm.

When Andrea came out, she looked almost exactly the same as Anne when she was born!  She was 50 cm long, with a head circumference of 33 cm, and weighed in at 6 lb and 11 oz.  She was the heaviest of all of our kids, which probably explained why it took quite a bit of effort to get her out!  Andrea was also the only one who was born within the band of birth weight where we did not have to stay for 36 hours to have bloodwork done.

Almost a Vacation

We had a fairly good first night at the hospital.  Since bloodwork was not required, the nurses came by much less frequently than for our other babies.  We did get some rest at night, although there were a couple of hours where Andrea needed to be held.  So, I held her and walked around the room until she eventually fell asleep in my arms.  Since she wouldn't stay asleep when I put her down, I had to hold her while I sat (and fell asleep) in a chair.

We slept quite a bit the next day as well and only really woke up to feed Andrea or ourselves.  When the lunch delivery lady came by to collect Renee's finished lunch, Renee told her that it was delicious.  Her eyes widened and she was speechless for about a few seconds.  Then, she said to us, "Nobody likes the food here!"  We laughed, but to be honest, the food was very comforting (yes, I had some too LOL)!

We even bought a dessert crepe at the crepe place downstairs in the hospital.  It actually did feel like a vacation.  Since no visitors were allowed, we were there by ourselves with 1 child, as opposed to the normal 5 kids!  Meanwhile, my parents were the ones slaving away at home, keeping the kids focused on online learning and bathing and feeding them!  Thanks to Susanna and Hilton for their constant help!

Clearly Strong!

Andrea's full name is Andrea Claire Hiu Ying Wong 黃曉瀅. Andrea (or Andrew) means "manly" LOL...but also means strong.  Both the names Claire and 瀅 mean "clear", with 瀅 specifically describing the clarity of water.  I'm somehow drawn to French names if you haven't noticed (Renee, Adele, Audrey, Anne) and have always liked the name Claire.  瀅 was Renee's idea but I did secretly like that name as well (at least the sound of the character), but never really suggested it as Chinese is not my strong suit.  On the day Andrea was born, it was raining quite a bit, and it seemed like God gives us his blessing on the name we've chosen, like He had done with Adele and Amelia.

And so, I ask the Lord to bless Andrea with strength and clarity in her days ahead!

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