August 31, 2004(Tuesday)

I worked on the HBO report for the whole day. I also started the application for U of Chicago. Then I went to church at night. I hosted a talk/sharing about dating. I have listened to this kind of talk so many times; but I think that most of the Chinese youth Christian here lacks the teaching about the Christian view to dating. I hoped that my examples would be an encouragement to them. And I feel that I am a great speaker, at least, this is how I feel ;)
My wedding flight schedule. Cost for about US $960

Sept. 11 (Sat)	AA2154 Caracas - Dallas 07:05 - 11:48 AA887 Dallas - Vancouver 16:35 - 18:51
Sept. 26/27 (Sun/Mon)	AA6937 Vancouver - LA 19:37 - 22:21 AA884 LA - Dallas 00:30 - 05:18 AA1972 Dallas - Miami 06:00 - 09:41
Oct. 02 (Sat)	AA2133 Miami - Caracas 19:15 - 22:28


Carmen's flight schedule. Cost for about US $1030

Sept. 26/27 (Sun/Mon)	AA6937 Vancouver - LA 19:37 - 22:21 AA884 LA - Dallas 00:30 - 05:18 AA1972 Dallas - Miami 06:00 - 09:41
Oct. 02 (Sat)	AA2133 Miami - Caracas 19:15 - 22:28
Oct. 10(Sun)	AA2154 Caracas - Dallas 07:05 - 11:48 AA887 Dallas - Vancouver 16:35 - 18:51

August 30, 2004(Monday)

I went to HBO in the afternoon and work on the usual stuff. Tonight I also worked on the wedding preparation. As the wedding date is near, thing is getting a lot more tedious. I can even feel about this from Venezuela. Carmen surely did put in a lot effort and I really appreciate about her. I have to prepare about the Venezuelan dinner as well. It adds some complexity to the whole thing too.

August 29, 2004(Sunday)

I am the song leader in Baptist Church for the last time before my marriage. I led songs "Manos Maravillosas" (from ACM's You are king), "Adora a Dios" (from ACM's come revive me), "Príncipe de Paz" (Prince of Peace, from ACM), "El Poder de tu Amor" (Power of your love), "Canta Al Señor" (Shout to the Lord). Then there is a general assembly in church so there was no Sunday School. I went to Parque del Este for run. At dinner time, 8 Chinese youth from church came to my home for dinner. We had a fun time eating, but I hope that this does not annoy the landlord too much.

August 28, 2004(Saturday)

Today is a quiet day. since I do not need to do any MBA studying, I worked on the HBO traffic report. I went to Parque del Este for running and then went to Baptist church for music practice. I practiced about 45 mins piano at night; usually I am just practicing the finger-practice or other boring stuff. Tonight, I had the mood to play some church song; I am enjoying the piano time!

August 27, 2004(Friday)

I went to Desca in the morning and had a 1.5 hours talk with Omar. We talked about the two HBO, UNE customers. The way to communicate in work is more hostile than the way communicate among friends or at church. I went to HBO in the afternoon. I also finished the MBA C560 Business Planning paper. Basically I am finished with the MBA studying in the short term. I still have several courses to go but I Will not continue (my goal is PhD, bigger than MBA!), at least temporarily. I don't know what I should do after work and I hope that I won't lose focus to life. However, I plan to get some PhD book in Vancouver so that I can study in advanced. I went to Mimia's office to get the air ticket for my parents and Carmen.

August 26, 2004(Thursday)

Got lots of administrative thing done today. I received my US credit card (finally) after my laptop was stolen a month ago. Moreover, I talked to Mimia and Carmen about the honey moon trip and air ticket for that. I also talked to a company named IPExpert because they have a full time trainer position available. I finished with the C541 Advanced Finance course final exam too. I felt really productive and overwhelming. I went to HBO this afternoon.
At night, I called Carmen and my parents to settle down some of the unknown about future life and wedding preparation. There is a lot of thing going on that I need to take care. The wedding day in Vancouver, wedding banquet plus parent's trip in Venezuela, renting house, PhD application, and future life with Carmen. Of course, right now I also have to worry about the HBO traffic report and the MBA courses. One of the best inventions is a "to-do" list. Without it, I would not be able to accomplish so many things

August 25, 2004(Wednesday)

I went back to Desca in the morning so that I can do some administration stuff, such as checking whether there is any package for me or activating my Bank of Montreal Credit card (turns out that I can do that online). I also went home to during lunch for afternoon nap.
I went to HBO in the afternoon. I worked (about 4 hours!) on the C541 Advanced Finance Final Exam which will last for 24 hours. It is not an easy exam!
My parent's Venezuelan visit. Cost for each is US$813

Oct. 07 (Thur)	AA814 Vancouver - Dallas 07:10 - 13:09 AA2155 Dallas - Caracas 15:00 - 21:21
Oct. 10(Sun)	AA2154 Caracas - Dallas 07:05 - 11:48 AA887 Dallas - Vancouver 16:35 - 18:51

August 24, 2004(Tuesday)

This is the third consecutive business day that I work in HBO for the whole day. That means, I have not had afternoon nap since last Friday. I only have 7 to 7.5 hours of sleep a day. Very tired. I don't know how people can survive without afternoon nap. (Just like people wonder how I can survive without drinking coffee) My co-worker Juan and I are both working in HBO. He can help me with something.
There is a Venezuelan church youth group (about 30 people) came to Baptist Church tonight. They had some dancing, singing performance. There are quite a lot of people; this fact alone makes the atmosphere much better. I felt like I am back to Canada with a big youth group. There are talented musicians and dancers. In this situation, I prefer to sit back and relax. Actually, if there are other people doing it, I would rather sit back and not doing to musician role. I am more gifted in organizing and leading. Seeing this group of young people also brings up a trade-off that I have for a long time. If I go to a large church, I know that my kids can have a good peer group. However, my gift can be used more fullest in small group. And at that time my kids' peer group may not be as large. I will see where God will lead me to; I have been in both kind of church and I guess that I can survive with both.

August 23, 2004(Monday)

I went to HBO the whole day. First I had a meeting with Omar and the customer. The meeting is in Spanish but when I talk, I speak in English. I caught what they said pretty good. I have developed a good skill to listen to key word and look at body language and fill in the gap myself. Since I am in HBO, I did not waste the time to go home. I was there the whole day. I went home, cooked dinner and called Carmen and parents about the wedding preparation and discussed about the marriage life. I really appreciate Carmen because she can accommodate my unstable life.

August 22, 2004(Sunday)

I led the Sunday School in IBCC today about Jesus’ parable. I focused on the "Good Samaritan" and "The prodigal Son". I asked them to act the parable out. Then I went to MB Church in the afternoon and led the songs "Hevenu Shalom" (from ACM's "Prince of Peace"), "I love prayer", "high sing to cloud", "Envíame a mi!" (from ACM's Prince of Peace) and "Dios Escucha Mi Oración". I invited both church to my wedding banquet in Oct 9 and they congratulated me. Fellowship at night was game and sharing about politic situation in Venezuela. And then I went to see the house of Mimia's brother-in-law. This was a pretty good house, not as good as the one from Leo/Kit, but good enough for us. I will see how it will go.

August 21, 2004(Saturday)

I had lunch in "Church's Chicken" with Dr. Chu's family. Then I went to Parque del Este for running. A member of the church has his restaurant opening today and several of us went to his restaurant to had dinner. Then I went to MB Church for music practice.

August 20, 2004(Friday)

I was in HBO for the whole day today. I checked their network devices and I worked hard. At night, I went home and watched "The Gladiator" movie's "behind the scene" for 1.5 hours.

August 19, 2004(Thursday)

I talked to Omar briefly this morning about the HBO network. Since there was communication difficulty between me and the customer, he assigned me another network technician Juan Castillo to help me. Basically, I have cooperated with him many times and he is like my personal translator. I went to HBO in the afternoon visiting their Arbano TV station site. There is many TV and TV controller. I have been to TV Cable in Colombia and RCTV in Caracas. This is the third time that I go to a TV station. However, this is the first time that TV station people gave me a tour to their control rooms! They have a lot of network equipment but they do not have a central place to store all their network devices. That is really confusing! I have to go here and there to look for the information. Glad that I have Juan to help me asking the question, or else I would be really frustrated. I quite enjoy gathering all these information and put it in a centralized place. I even worked at night for 40 mins to analysis all the papers after talking to different people and tried to put everything into a diagram.

August 18, 2004(Wednesday)

Today is my parent's 31st anniversary. I asked them to get ready for their 50th anniversary. I discussed with Mario about my contract. At least, this time, I have a small raise in salary; I am glad about that. I went to HBO in the afternoon for the traffic report. I need some translator seriously because the customer does not understand English. I think that he does not even read English well. I wonder how he can read all those technical webpage. So we communicated in "spanglish".

August 17, 2004(Tuesday)

I need to do a traffic analysis for HBO. I was waiting for Omar to give me the contact so that I can go there directly in the afternoon. However, he was late so I need to go back to Desca after lunch to get the address in order to go there. It wasted me some time. I went to HBO in the afternoon to do some inspection for their network. Their network administrator does not speak English. I know that I am heading to some trouble in the short future.
I went to church at night for dinner and fellowship. I led songs, the Bible Study, and also the planning for the Sept 28 mid-autumn festival outreach (but I won't be here at that time). I am trying to pass on some of my responsibilities to other so that when I am not here, the damage won't be as big. I have already passed some to Mrs. Cheng. However, there is still a lot of thing tied in to me. Glad that I won't be going to Mexico soon so there is still some time to help the church.

August 16, 2004(Monday)

This is the benefit to be in a place that has political unrest. I get to enjoy free vacation! I went to work today and found out that most of the people are not here. In fact, people urged me to go home in the afternoon. Therefore, I left work at 4:00pm.
I am lacking the heart to study MBA Advanced Finance course now. The homework is more complicated and vague and the textbook is terrible. I don't know how I can prepare myself for the final exam! Paco came and talked about the church stuff for 1.5 hours. There will be a retreat in Baptist Church because a famous pastor will come. However, we plan to invite people from other churches to join us too. Therefore, that may be a big project. I have organized many retreat/camps in Vancouver so my experience can be helpful here.

August 15, 2004(Sunday)

I was the song leader today in Baptist Church and led "Hevenu Shalom" ("Prince of Peace" from ACM), "I love prayer" (Share Hymn), "high sing to cloud" (Share Hymn), "Dios Escucha Mi Oración" and "Envíame a mi!"(ACM's Please send me). Today is a referendum to recall the president; it may not be safe so Sunday School is canceled, along with the MB Church worship.
Several of the Chinese youth (Men, Kitty, Chung, Chi Kong. Lucy was there already; Yanting and Katty left early to go to work) went to my house to cook lunch. I went out to have a run on the street; it was quite quiet.

August 14, 2004(Saturday)

I called my families and Carmen in the morning because I missed their voice. Then I ran in Parque del Este. I went to Paco's house to check email because I did not go online yesterday. We practiced music at night in Baptist Church and then dinner at "Ho Kow" restaurant. MB Church will cancel tomorrow because of political instability so I don't have to go to MB Church to practice music.

August 13, 2004(Friday)

I checked email in the morning and farewell some of the staff in IU. I am such a "personal" person and I really care about relationship. I treat people nice and they wish me the best!
I took shuttle bus from Bloomington to Indianapolis from 8:50 to 10:30. When I board the bus, I checked the flight schedule. I thought that the flight is 10:33 and I am in a big trouble! I have no visa card (I canceled that because my laptop was stolen last time) and not enough US money to buy another air ticket. What can I do? Gladly, I found out that I misunderstand the flight number (1033) as the boarding time. That was scary!
I took 1.5 hours flight to Atlanta then 4 hours flight to Venezuela. I thought of the wedding ceremony Q&A and also slept a lot. Che So, Mrs. Cheng and four kids went to airport to welcome me. I am rarely greet by so many people in the airport!

August 12, 2004(Thursday)

I talked to Graduate Career Service people in the morning and asked for some consulting. Here is some of our conclusion. I have excellent credential, multi-cultural and working experience. However, I am not a US citizen and I am in a remote place. Therefore, it will be very difficult to network with people. It may take 6 to 12 months to find a job in my situation. I am seriously considering taking PhD next year; I only think that whether this is possible to find another job in the mean time. Probably the chances are slim.
I took my final exam for the in-residence course in the afternoon. I have never ever be so unprepared and disrespect (I skipped a lot of class time because I have to meet with different people, and the class is too boring) to such a final exam. It is a written exam. I have not written for so many things for quite a while. Life is all about computer now. Luckily I do my devotion everyday and I still do some writing at that time. I used my (highly rated) common sense and I will see what would happen. The grade for this course does not matter so much because I plan to use my grade up to last term (GPA=3.89) to apply for PhD anyway.
In order to know more about the financial situation of a PhD student, I talked to one of them. He is from China and he is a computer science PhD student. I guess that business student would be along the same line. I may not end up here and this is a relatively cheap town to be, but at least, this gives me a rough idea. The tuition is usually waived and the university would give me $1200 (everything is in US dollar) stipend each month; in return, I have to work for them 20 hours per week. Wife can work, but need to apply visa. The renting situation is like this. (1) A one-bedroom apartment near IU would cost about $450. The electricity + telephone + internet + miscellaneous cost will be and additional of $150. (2) A one-bedroom apartment for student on campus would cost $550 in total (includes rent, electricity, telephone and so on). (3) A 900 square feet two story townhouse (two bedroom, one of those are small) would cost $470 rent alone. The distance from IU would be about 15mins drive. Other fees would be roughly $150, similar to option 1. The professors mentioned that, with the stipend fee, I would have enough to pay the rent, food and may be own a car. But of course, I cannot have luxury life.
We went to the NCAA Basketball Stadium (of course, not on the court, but on the entrance area) to have dinner. This is my first time seeing such a thing. Cool. At the end, we can even play 15 mins basketball. Originally I am reluctant to play because I have not played for a long time. However, once I touch the ball, I just can't stop. My shooting skill (especially three points) is still very sharp. Probably this is a nice court with good balls. That would certainly help. Hansel would envy about my MBA in-resident experience. Last year, I walked by the NCAA headquarter and checked out a lot of athletics picture. This year, I played basketball in NCAA courts!
There is a unique lesson that I learnt during dinner time. There is one guy from the MBA class that has been in the military for a long time. He said that his online teammates dislike him because he was too dominant. (Probably because he has a military background). For some reason, he came out to be the speaker or the coordinator (I don't use the word "leader") during this dinner. People from my table called him asshole. They spoke a lot of bad thing about him behind the scene; one of these people mentioned that they hate him so much because there are other people that want to be on that spot as well. Jealousy. I said that I have no problem with him, because as long as the job gets done and I got paid, I don't care who did the job. (At least, this is true in the non-church environment). During the trip home, he asked everyone on the bus that whether they want to go out. Of course, no one responded to him because some of these people dissatisfied about him. And then, he mumbled that they are "weak". I learnt a lot about the lesson of leadership. I have long realized that I do not have the talent (for earthly thing) of leadership, but I do have the gift (for spiritual domain) of leadership. As far as I know, I am a leader that everyone (or at least, most of the people) love and support. I love my people and they respect me. Of course, this is just for the church setting because I have never lead in a non-church (i.e. hostile) environment. If I have to choose, I would enjoy what I am doing. The military guy does lead a lot but (most of?) people hate him. I would rather not lead in his situation. And this group of people is MBA, those that are on the top of the IQ/status food chain. Everyone wants to be the leader!
This is one of the underlying philosophies of why I want to go to PhD. In a church environment, I am a team player (and also leader). However, when it comes to the work/school environment, I like to be alone and working by myself. People with my personality would not devote any time socializing (wasting time?) with other people. I don't see any eternal reason of doing that (yet). In addition to the flexible working time, I find that I would prefer to be a professor/researcher much more than a manager.
I will be taking flight tomorrow. I have to do a lot of online thing tonight. Checking emails, updating diary/photo homepage, packing luggage and so on.

August 11, 2004(Wednesday)

I talked to Prof Magjuka for 30 mins today. He is a busy man! He mentioned that there will be an online PhD program coming soon. This sounds really interesting, but he said that the graduate can only go to second or third tier school to teach. This is not what I aim at. I want to be a researcher/professor at a top school. So I have written off this idea. I also talked to MBA administrator about MBA program. Continue, defer or quit. These are something I need to think about too. They said that I can complete it in 5 years. If I will continue my MBA after my PhD, that would be more than 5 years. However, would the fact that I am doing PhD in a top school count as a special case? This is hard to tell.
I went to have a run and then had a team meeting about course work. Basically one of the members is doing the write up and we don't have to do anything. So I can browse the internet at that time.

August 10, 2004(Tuesday)

Today is a more relaxing day to me, compare to last night. I talked to Prof Hegarty about PhD program from 10:10 to 11:20. He said that he taught at the University of Western Virginia for 18 months and then switched to Indiana University about 20 years ago. It was really rare to switch university in such a short period. However, it shows that the professor job market is an employee job market. Within the first six years, unless I did something stupid, I will not be fired. And if I got the tenure, I will be a life time member of the university. On the other hand, I can go to another university to teach whenever I want. In addition to the flexible working hour, the lifestyle of a professor sounds attracting.
I attended most of the class today except the time I met with prof. Therefore, I am more up to speed in the course work. I also went for a 30 mins run around the university. I always want to run in university for several years, but I never really get a chance to do so. I have never jogged in UBC nor SFU area. I jogged once last year in Indiana University and this is the second time. I love running around in such a nice environment.
I met with the team to discuss about our course work. I always think that I do not have the leadership talent (but I have strong leadership gift that allow me to lead under a church environment). This is especially obvious because this is an English speaking setting. However, I do not really feel bad about this because each person has their own position. Also, I am most effective when I am working individually. Therefore, I don't think that I can survive easily in the corporate domain. I don't think that I would enjoy if I am even given a chance to be a manager in a company.

August 09, 2004(Monday)

Today is an extremely overwhelming day, in the perspective of both physically and mentally. I woke up at 5:30 so that I can go to the business building at 6:30. I am one of the first people to be there. I found computer lab so that I can load up my online diary and photo to the webpage. However, I still cannot print yet. I tried to contact to the wireless network. However, I need to VPN to their network, which takes some time for me to find out how to set up. Also, I originally planned to check email and MSN in the classroom. However, the wireless signal is very small inside the classroom. And the Cisco Wireless card crashed this new laptop at least five times today. I also have to ask the tech people here to print the "personal info for phd" file for me so that I can show that to the professors.
One of the most exciting things today is to meet the team members that I have met online for the last year. It was fun to associate faces to their names.
The main objective of this MBA trip is to discuss with the professors about my PhD plan. It is so important that I skipped about two hours of classes today to talk to professor! I seldom skipped classes previously! At 10-11, I talked to Prof Hustad, my marketing prof. He gave me an excellent tip for application. In the appendix of my application, I can include the emails that I exchanged with their prof and also the feedback of the papers that I read. I have previously spent so much time reading their paper and this is one of the best suggestions! The other thing that I talked to him is about my MBA study. Since I am aiming at PhD, there is not much point to have MBA. It would not hurt, but it would not add much value. My situation is that I am paying for the MBA myself; therefore, it may not justify continuing MBA. He suggested that, rather than quitting MBA, I can defer my study for one year. I would know whether any university will accept me by April 2005. I can make the decision at that time to continue my MBA or not. If a great university accepts me, I will just quit my MBA because there is better thing for me to do. I never quit but this time it makes sense.
During lunch time, I talked to Prof Venkataramanan and Prof Kurt Bretthauer for almost an hour. They are the ODT (Operation, Decision, Technology) department professors and they gave me some good tips about the ODT department in IU. The starting salary of a junior professor is not bad either. I talked to Prof Soni 4:30 to 5:40. This is the most important professor that I need to talk to in this trip because he will be writing my reference letter. He gave me some clue why the acceptance ratio of most university is 3-5%. Last year there were 350 applicant to the IU's business MBA which they will only accept 8 students. However, they will not consider 200 of them because these 200 applicants are all from mainland China and their universities are no-one-know university. And there are 50 South Korean which is in the same case. He assures me that my application is well positioned, even compared to the pass accepted students in IU. In addition, the same 100 students will be competing for 3 slots in each of the top 10 universities. My conclusion is that, the chances that people who are in my level of competitiveness would have over 50% to be accepted to a top-10 university. These are great news and tremendously boost up my confidence to be accepted. At least, from the tone and attitude of the professors that I have been talking to today, I am very confident that I will be accepted by IU.
The class for this in-resident is a lot tougher and less fun than the in-resident of last year. There is lesser group discussion and more lecture time. The professors are more boring. And there is a lot of reading too. I have to do a lot of catch up today, especially because I skipped some class time to talk to professor.
I have so many things to do that I don't even have time to have food. I met with prof during lunch so I was too late for lunch, but I still managed to grab some food. Since the dinners are not free, I reserved some food for dinner too. However, by the time I finished talking to Prof Soni in the afternoon, the class has ended and the door is locked so that I can not get the dishes that I left in the classroom . I found that walking 10 mins round trip to get the food is wasting my time. However, health is important to me so I still walked to get some food. The area is really nice and I hope that I can spend some time jogging later to see the area. However, I doubt that I will have time because of the work that I need to do.
I updated diary, photo homepage and studied at night.

August 08, 2004(Sunday)

Like another other international travel experience I had, I woke up at 4:30 (which is considered to be very late). I went to the airport with the Toronto Short Term Mission. Our flights were 9:30am. Mimia and Mr. Wong drove us to the airport. We had some small breakfast at the airport. The STM are like most of the North American people: they are freak out at the airport and being very cautious. When the military checked and took our passport, they are a bit worried. I am not worried at all because I know that there is nothing I can do. Just leave it to God! Of course, it turns out that everything is ok.
It took almost 4 hours to fly to Atlanta. The flight from Atlanta to Indianapolis is overbooked and I can exchange US$400 (only redeemable in Delta Airline) if my flight schedule is flexible. I have been to so many trips and this is one of the few trips that I have to be there on time. Why? Let me hope that one day I can get this money.
I arrived at Indianapolis airport at 5:30 local time. During the traveling today, I read Advanced Finance textbook. I also played around with my new laptop and tried to get familiar with the setting. I took the US $20 shuttle bus (cheapest already) from Indianapolis to Bloomington from 6:45 to 8:10. I did not print out the email that the staff sent to me so I am just using my luck to find the shuttle bus service that they booked for me and also where I should leave the bus. I am really lucky because I got both right!
The first event is a group dinner. It starts at 6:30. However, because of flight schedule, I arrived at the hotel at 8:10. By the time I checked in and get changed for this semi-formal dinner, the dinner just finished and people are leaving. Oh well. However, I met one or two staff/faculty and they remembered me and greeted me. I felt welcomed. I have emailed to them (a lot) about my interest in pursuing PhD. They remembered this! I will have a meeting with some prof in the coming few days. Both they and I want to make sure that I will not leave without having as much info as I want. The people here think that I am an upbeat and a very enthusiast person, which is true.
The facility here is not good. The hotel room is small and there is no internet connection. In addition, their computer network is too safe. I was told that there is wireless connection, but I cannot find it in the building that I am in. Also, when I took my laptop to the computer lab in the student union building, the switch does not recognize my laptop and does not give me an IP address. When I plug in the USB memory chip to their computer, the computer does not recognize it either. I will be in trouble if there is no other network connection that I can use to upload my info and photo.

August 07, 2004(Saturday)

Since there are 12 of us staying at Che So's house, it is difficult to find a bed for everyone. Therefore, I have to sleep on the sofa. People walked around or sleep later than I did. Therefore, I had a hard time getting good night of sleep. However, I have already prepared for this situation by sleeping 8.5 hours the day before. Four of them left Che So's house at 6:10 because they have to get back to work at 7am. Poor.
I woke up at 7:10 and be one of the first to wake up as usual. I woke people up and asked them to clean up their bed and do their devotion. One of the things that I want to teach them is what they should do when they go to a Christian camp. Afterward, we had an activity-based Bible study. We washed each other's feet afterward. The program ended at 10:10am.
I went home to have two 1-hour afternoon naps afterward. I went to Parque del Este for my weekly run. At night, I went to Dr. Chu's house for MB Church youth fellowship's meeting. It has been over half a year that we have a meeting. The MB fellowship has more people to help than the Baptist Church but there is not enough young people attending though. There are four committees. Two of them (Elisa, Michelle) are pregnant. Ah Chuen has to work almost everyday so he cannot even go to church. There is only Dr. Chu left to do the actual work, but Dr. Chu will go to China and may never return in this September. We invited another person to join the committee (Chu Ha), but she is also pregnant. She is the best candidate of the remaining Chinese youth already. We are surely not in a good shape.

August 06, 2004(Friday)

I tried my best to troubleshoot the UNE PIX firewall problem but the customer is not there. I still discussed with the Cisco TAC engineer and we are trying to find some way to solve the problem. For sure that I am pushing the TAC engineer and trying to squeeze as much as I can. The customer, however, was not there most of the day. Therefore, I did something else during the waiting time. In order to utilize the time better, though, I asked the Cisco TAC engineer to look at the problem and give us suggestion during that period of idleness. I really want to get this done early today because I am taking next week off for the MBA trip and I also will go to Che So's house tonight for the retreat and I don't want to be bothered.
I organized a lot of retreat and camps when I was in Vancouver. However, because of the lack of car, living space, familiarity and most importantly, the availability of my target group (Chinese youth), I have never done so in Venezuela. I finally got the motivation to attempt one. I invited about 13 Chinese youth from the Baptist church (some of them are new believers) and we will have a sleepover at Che So's house from 10pm today to 10am tomorrow. That is the most time that most of them can afford because they have to work (in restaurant) the day after (Saturday). Most of these people have never been to a Christian camp and they do not know what to expect.
We first had some singing and sharing time. Che So's 8 years old son Kin Ping was watching TV nearby and it is very disturbing. He won't listen to me to turn off the TV. Also, people are not attentive and do not want to share deep. I am quite discouraged by that. But this is exactly what I need to do: to help everyone to be familiar with each other. I hope that it would have a positive effect to our sharing in the future. People are bored with the sharing (that has never happening during a "bed side fellowship" in the previous camps) so I let them have free time. Some of us went to sleep, play card or play pool. I went to bed at 2:30.

August 05, 2004(Thursday)

I went to customer UNE for the whole day. Given the not-so-good history of this customer, I did not have a great mood. I asked two Cisco TAC engineer extensively for help and I was troubleshooting myself too. I even skipped lunch for that! I was moving very fast and tried to fix the problme as soon as I can. I am sure that I am insensitive, over-focus, too fast during the whole process. And my mood and my behaviour is like that too, totally not like a Hubert that people used to know. My behaviour is like I am going to kill the customer because I am so mean.
There is still some problem, but the customer said that it is all right to come back tomorrow. Or else, I will stay late because I really don't want to go there again.
Woohoo! I got a new laptop. Compaq, pentium 4, Evo N610c. Therefore, I "personalize" the computer from 6:30 to 8. The first laptop that I used in Desca two years ago was a Toshiba laptop; it was not great because I crashed twice and lost all my data. Then the company gave me a used HP laptop, which I used from Nov 2002 to July 2004. This is a pretty good laptop, but it still has problem and was slow. The church laptop that I used last week was an IBM ThinkPad and the operation system and everything was in Spanish. It really drove me crazy! Therefore, I asked and now this laptop will be all in English! Let's see how long I can live with this laptop. This is running Window XP, Office 2003. The keyboard is a bit too small though.

August 04, 2004(Wednesday)

The customer UNE said that their problems are all ok last Friday. However, they keep on having new requirement. They asked me and I tried my best to help them, yet they are not too responsive to my email. And today they bypassed me and complained to the sales and my boss. It really pisses me off! I have to defense that I have done what I need to do and it is them that do not give me requirement. The finger-pointing game is difficult in Spanish. I tried my best to understand what my boss and the sales communicate in Spanish. I wrote a document that discuss what I did and proof that it is not my fault. It is such a bad time to happen because I hope to discuss with Mario within the next few days about my contract.
My laptop was stolen last Monday and I was using the church laptop since then. The only good thing is that, Desca is getting me a new laptop and it should be here tomorrow. Yeah! Also, I have complained about my cell phone issue for a long time. Menyee from MB church told me that my type of Nokia cell phone has internal software problem and periodically I would have "no service". I have complained about this several months ago and nothing happened. I sent an email again yesterday and finally they asked me to ship them the cell phone for a week! Luckily that I am going to Indiana next week anyway.
I went home and had a long night of studying about Advanced Finance. There are too many case studies and not so much math. I do not enjoy it as much as the Finance course I took last term. I don't think that I will get a good mark either. I better ship out my transcript to different universities before the end of this semester!

August 03, 2004(Tuesday)

I went to customer Manpa in the morning. I went there May 3 already. I have to change some configuration from the router to the PIX firewall. This is a smooth and easy job and I finished that relatively quickly. In the afternoon, I checked different websites about the university again. My second big boss Gerardo told me that the Mexico working plan is postponed indefinitely. And Mario also emailed me about the contract for 2004-2005, which is the same as last year.
This is something big that I need to consider. Previously I thought that I am going to Mexico. But somehow, Cisco did not invest as many money as we like and after the meeting with Cisco by Gerardo last week, he decided that it does not worth to move me there. From a financial perspective, this is not good because my salary will still be the same. However, from a non-monetary's perspective, this is the prefer way. I am more connected to Venezuela's church. There are many new believers here and I know that these people need me to stay here. Also, it is easier to help Carmen settle down in Venezuela than in Mexico. God has His plan and I need to follow His way.
I went to church at night. For some reason, it is too easy to have new comers in fellowship here. When I was in Canada, I don't think that I have witness 5 new believers during the five years in Canaan fellowship. However, the outreach July 27 produced 5 new believers to our fellowship! (Even though 3 of them are Spanish speaking who will likely go to the Spanish group). Today, there are 6 core members, 2 new believers and 5 new comers. It will be rocking news if it happens in my previous Canadian fellowship! But this is what usually happens here. Probably that's why God wants Carmen and I in Venezuela, at least for the short future.
After receiving the news about staying in Venezuela, I am a bit lost. I need to find the anchor. Therefore, I called parents, Hansel and of course Carmen and asked for their opinion.

August 02, 2004(Monday)

I am supposed to go to a customer for configuring their PIX firewall but the customer did not get back to us until late afternoon. Therefore, I will go there tomorrow morning. I spent some time researching on the PhD website and other thing too. The customer UNE also contacted me via MSN today to ask some questions. Having MSN saves a lot of traveling time, yet I am too easily be found by the customer. They can just pop by anytime and ask a question. Also, I don't like customer when they bypass me and ask my boss directly without my knowledge.
There is a farewell dinner for Pastor Leung Win Sin. I didn’t go because I want to spend some time studying. I also called Carmen. She was preparing for the wedding and took a lot of my photo album or "the tape". She was joking around about this

August 01, 2004(Sunday)

Che So gave me the key to go to church early today but then the key does not work. When Mimia and Paco came with their keys, the door still can't be opened. We thought that someone was trying to break in to the church. However, after waiting at the door for 30 mins, we found out that Che So gave me the wrong set of key. Somehow Paco can't open the door with his key and Mimia did not try hard enough.
I was song leader today at both churches and I led the following songs: "I love prayer", "Dios Escucha Mi Oración", "Vengo a ti con mi Oracion", "all because of your name" and "who is like Jesus". Sunday School began a new term today and I led New Testament Overview.
I went to MB church and led the same set of song. Ana told the congregation that I will not come back after my marriage. It is somehow true because I will probably go to Mexico at that time. I also led MB youth fellowship about games and also craft for others.