Yesterday I had dinner with my little cousin.  She is having a job interview in Vancouver, if the interview is successful, she will move here from Toronto starting next month.  Somehow in my mind, I always think she is very young, sort of like still studying in high school or what.  The fact is that she already graduated from university, have been working for a few years.  I have another little cousin who is around the same age as her and I also treat her like a little girl.  Logically, I am aware of their actual age, but subconsciously, I feel weird that they have already grown up.  I won’t have this mis-perception on my other cousins.  For those who are just one or two years younger than me, they seems to age with me at the same pace.  For those who are much younger, they seems growing so fast that they are taller every time I see them.  For the cousins 5 or 6 years younger than me, they seems stuck in their teenage forever.

I wonder is it just a psychological phenomena happens on me or do most people feel the same way.  My theory is that my memory begins solidify after I turn adulthood, like when I enter university.  I treat the not-so-young cousins as another adult, but I treat the younger ones like a teenage.  They already stop growing physically by that time, unlike the very young cousins, so there is no indication to tell me that they grow older.  Since I am a caring elder cousin, I don’t hear complain for treating them like little girls, so my perception is preserved until now.  I guess even when they turn into old ladies, they are still my little cousins in my mind.

Today my church, St. Mary, is having our annual picnic in a park by the Fraser River.  We have an outdoor mass, followed by food prepared by church goers, then a relaxing afternoon to enjoy the nice weather.  The church setup big tent with chairs to host the mass, but many people also bring along their beach chairs.  Since today is also the Canada day, many people dress in red, the color of the Canadian flag and there are lots of flags flying.  The food has lots of varieties, other western style pasta and bread, Chinese style noodle and rice, there are lots of Philippine dishes, since the church has many Filipinos.  The youth band was playing music after lunch.  They did not play those boring old fashion church hymns nor mushy praise and worship songs that call Jesus’ name in every other sentence.  They played some light country and rocks with meaningful lyrics.  While I lay down under the tree shades and enjoying the music, I felt asleep.  I was waked up by the laughters and noise of the games organized by church volunteers.  Little children and adults alike have fun playing tag-o-war and other group games, even the priest enjoy himself in the games.  This picnic in afternoon was a very relaxing way to celebrate the Canada day, a welcome break from my busy overloading life.

Normally, I don’t have luck in lucky draws.  I guess the stars must be right, I am the monthly winner of gift pack from Waterloo Alumni for updating my contact information.  I got an email notified me I had won the winner of June.  I totally forget about it until I recieve a call from the post office to pick up the package.  I won a backpack, a baseball cap, a keychain, a water bottle, note pad and an useless sticker, all of them come with the Waterloo logo.  The backpack is really nice, with comfortable shoulder padding, lots of compartments, clip on cell phone bag and a special pocket to store iPod, which leave an opening for the headphone.  Well, statistically speaking, no winning any prize in lucky draw is the norm, winning is the exception.  The only way to increase of your chance of winning is to enter more lucky draws.  Therefore, I update my contact information in the alumni website again right away, hope to win another gift pack next month.

No wonder I am tried like hell when I got home today. I have a full day of work, plus 2 hours of driving and 4 hours of classes. That is almost like working a double shift. Fortunately, I only have one more class left on Friday.

At first, I just pick up firearm as a hobby. The more I read about firearm, the more I appreciate the reasons behind America’s forth amendment. In Canada, people are only allow to shoot as hobby, but firearms really should be intended for self protection and preservation of liberty. The argument is not intuitive, but elegant when lay out properly. I read two reports from the Fraser Institute, compare the crime rate in gun control countries before and after the regulation. The conclusion is gun control does not lower the crime rate. The criminals still have guns, but the victims now deprived of their means of self defense. If every people is rational and law binding citizen, then gun actually make the society safer. The only problem is there are crazy people shooting others once a while. This problem can be deal with if everyone carry a gun and learn to disarm the crazy guy at any sight of trouble.

Arguing in the scope of political philosophy, gun actually protect the liberty of the citizens. Without any means of self protect, good citizen can only rely on the police to protect themselves from criminals. In order to effectively protect defenseless citizens, the government have to increase the authority of police. Everyone knows increasing the police power will erode the liberty we enjoy in the society. Gun ownership promotes a smaller government, which is good for the economy and liberty. This pro-gun argument is still a very rough idea, I should give it more thought and write an article exploring it with further details.