October 31, 2005(Monday)

I don't have to go to school today, and I spent most of my day to research on the project idea. Last night, I came across a new project idea. Why the two instant messaging giant MSN and AOL decided to merge together just because Goggle is thinking of entering the market? I did badly in my last project because I did not do literature review. So I am trying to work on the literature review today. However, I find it so frustrating. There is not much article about it, and I am not sure whether I am using the right key word for finding the paper. Another frustrating time.
CCF's Chien Yie drove Carmen and I to help Carmen to apply for her Social Security Number. We also went to church to test the laptop with overhead projector for this Friday's Bible Quiz.
Tonight is Halloween and there are only two people knocked on our door. We ignored them.

October 30, 2005(Sunday)

After Sunday Worship in the morning, I went with Andy, Jo and Jimmy for grocery shopping. Since they have a car, we don't need to carry all the heavy stuff home by bus. Joyce came to our house for dinner and also to prepare for this Friday's Bible Quiz. And then we went to prayer meeting at night.
Usually I studied really hard during weekday. However, it is difficult to be over-productive in the weekend. Previously when I was in UBC or SFU, I rarely study in the weekend. Now I study for several hours during weekend but by no means I am using all of my time to study! I need time to relax.

October 29, 2005(Saturday)

I continue to study today. And I went to do the exercise as well.
At night, Carmen and I went with some CCF friends for ice skating. I have not ice skated for several years. Some of us do not know how to skate. I also taught Carmen how to skate too. This is a time that the investment from parents pays off. I learnt ice skate when I was 8 years old. Actually, I know how to "ground skate" when I was 6 years old. Therefore, I have no problem today. However, for those of us that do not know how to skate, it is quite embarrass for them and I feel myself superior. Therefore, in the future, I must let my kids to learn these basic activities thing such as ice skating, ski/snowboard, swimming, music instrument and so on. They would not understand at that time but would appreciate when they are more mature.
Since Halloween is coming up, there is some kind of "scary section" in the skate ring. Some of the workers dressed up and tried to scare us. People are supposed to scream. But I am different. I just shout in the face of the ghost, or when the "ghost" lied in the coffin is yelling, I immediately ran to him and ask him whether he is alright. There is another person that pretends to have hanged himself suddenly jumped. Then I asked him whether he is alright and whether I need to call 911 for him or not. There is some "ghost" saying some meaningless thing (which actually points his finger to the left and asked us to follow the sign). Then I asked what language he is speaking and tried to speak Japanese (or Chinese) to him. With my "mutated" psychic mind, I am sure that these workers would really hate me. But I had fun.
The Halloween incident tonight also reminds me how mean I am sometimes. Every now and then, there is some computerized telemarketer called my home phone number. I had enough several days ago and rather than simply hang up, I pressed "1" and indicated that I would like to talk to the sales representative. Without saying hi to that sales, I simply told her that "take me off your phone list or else I will sue you". The sales, originally thought that she would have a business but just received this mean sentence, said that "you don't have to do this, I will take you off the list". She did not wait for me to say another sentence and then she hanged up on me. For the last few days, I have not had any more computerized telemarketing. I can be mean sometimes.

October 28, 2005(Friday)

I have a long school day, so I decided to try out the cold Starbuck coffee this morning. And this really effective! I am awake the whole day! From morning till night time after fellowship.
I went to class this morning and then went to a presentation in the afternoon. Some professor from out of state came to give out a talk. And not only that I pay attention, I can understand almost all of the talk! My hard work pays off! I don't think that I can understand most of the terminology two months ago, but now I am in a good shape! I am happy about myself. I also asked one or two questions, in front of all the PhD students and professors!
I continue to study and do homework after going home. At night, I went to fellowship for Bible Study. Jo led the Bible study. Afterward, we went out for drink thing time and celebrated the birthday of two of our group members. This is nice to get away from books and enjoy some fellowship time.

October 27, 2005(Thursday)

There is a teaching class this morning. Because of its uselessness (only guest speaker today) and my busyness, I decided to skip this. I stayed home study hard. I rarely skip class but I find that I really want to skip this one. I also went to work out in gym. When I was running on the treadmill, I got a piece of paper with some rough draft of research so that I can meditate on it while I am running. It is not too productive, but better than nothing.

October 26, 2005(Wednesday)

I tried to stay optimistic about my academic life. I guess that part of the PhD process, other than learning to say "no", is to learn how to fail and stand up. I am sure that there will have a lot of frustrating experience before I can write up a paper. This is something that I need to learn now.
At night, Jo and Joyce went to our home for dinner and then we had pre-study for the Bible Study this week. This is a nice and well-deserved break away from the books and paper.

October 25, 2005(Tuesday)

Carmen got her first job in US today! She will work as a teacher's aide in the Child Care department, mainly looking after little kid that is 2 or 3 years old. The pay is not good, but this is a good first step. We are happy about this. In fact, she started work today because they are short of staff.
As for me, academic life is quite miserable today. I did a project last week and then it turned out to be pretty bad. What I did was not good at all, not matching professor's expectation. I did not do the literature review properly and the presentation was not good. That was surely frustrating. At night, I tried to get ahead by starting my second project's literature review. I searched in the Internet for several hours but nothing good come up at all. I feel discouraging. This is one of those days.

October 24, 2005(Monday)

Carmen needs to take a typing test for her job application. Therefore, I went with her to take the test. We also went to do exercise today. I tried to study hard today, but I kept on falling asleep. Therefore, in terms of studying, today is not productive at all

October 23, 2005(Sunday)

After church this morning, I went home to eat some of the hot pot stuff that left behind yesterday. And then, for dinner, some of the CCF people came to my house for hot pot again to finish the remaining stuff. With US $6.5 per person, we really have a lot of food!
At night, we went to prayer meeting for two hours. I need to get back to work again.

October 22, 2005(Saturday)

This is a slow studying day. I only studied for 2 or 3 hours today. Carmen and I went to the gym to do exercise. In addition, we also prepared some songs for tonight's hot pot.
Tonight, 13 of us were hot pot at our house. This is for the gathering of our group. Some of us speak mandarin, some speaks Cantonese and one of us is Caucasian. But then we still had fun. After the hot pot, we sang some Christian songs. I am so glad that we can sing songs together. We had a great time. I hope that we can continue to have a great fellowship in the future too.

October 21, 2005(Friday)

I had a short presentation in the Statistic class this morning. Afterward, the professor has to leave early so I can go home earlier. The CCF person Jo went to our home and talked about the debate at night with Carmen. I also had a relatively long afternoon nap, about 1.5 hours. Probably I am making up something that I missed last night.
At night, it was the first time that I lead Bible study in CCF. I started off with a game, and then we had a debate about the topic "faith is sufficient". The language is a problem because some of us cannot understand mandarin and some of us cannot understand Cantonese. I tried to do the wrap up, but is in Cantonese and Jo helped me to translate. However, I think that this is still a big problem and I need to face this somehow eventually.

October 20, 2005(Thursday)

This is a normal hard working day. But then, at night, I went to play basketball with some CCF friends. This is one of the high light of the day, because it is really boring and not-hubert if I keep on study and study and do not have fun.

October 19, 2005(Wednesday)

I went to the Health Care center in the morning to take the tuberculosis immunization shot. I have not taking a shot for a while and this time is not that bad. I had a meeting with professor and talked about my Research Assistant research topic. This is aside from the project that I am working for the PhD seminar class. There is a lot of good idea, but there are too many things to do. When I am in my undergrad years, I have to learn time and stress management. Now, in the PhD, I have to learn what NOT to do. People gave too many things for us to do. And I have to know which the priority is. I don't think that I can do everything.
Every Wednesday is the busy day. After the PhD seminar, there is lots of reading, as usual. I spent the night working on school work.

October 18, 2005(Tuesday)

School as usual. Without studying much in the past weekend, there is a lot of thing that I need to catch up. Especially the PhD seminar class. The work is never ending. I got some cold Starbucks coffee last week and I drank one today in the afternoon. It kept my whole day energetic. Similar to Hansel (or should I say, Hansel is similar to me?) I do not want to rely on coffee. This will be the last source of error. But I just tried it out for fun and it really works!

October 17, 2005(Monday)

The hotel was very dirty last night. This is the dirtiest hotel that we have ever been to. But since it only costs us $110 for two rooms, what more can we ask for? We left the hotel at 9am and then we arrived to Indianapolis at 10am. We got some free pizza and drink because the Indianapolis football team Colts is playing against some other team tonight and they gave out free food in the town center. We also walked around the mall near by.
Afterward, we wanted to go to the Children's museum, but it was closed. Then we drove parents to the airport early at 2pm. They don't need us to accompany them in the airport. Instead, we went back to Bloomington early so that we can take advantage of the rented car so that we can buy some grocery. We returned to Bloomington at 4 and got some grocery. We returned the rented car at 5:15.
After any trip, I am usually loaded with lots of stuff to do afterward. I spent an hour to upload the photo to the homepage. And then I spent the night doing homework.
This trip was a great one because we got to spend some times with dad and mom. They also got to visit us and see where we live and what area do I usually go to. We all enjoy this trip very much and looking forward to next summer when we will meet again with Hansel and Fiona in HK.

October 16, 2005(Sunday)

The hotel that we stayed yesterday was not a good one. There are some people talking outside in the corridor last night. And there are quite a lot of "face bad" black people. I think that it is not a safe place to stay.
We drove for 30 mins back to the China town and had breakfast and purchased some grocery. And then we went to the Chicago Chinese Union Church for worship. It is always embarrass to introduce ourselves in front of the whole congregation.
After getting some snack/bread, we went to downtown. It is always difficult to find a parking spot in China town and downtown. We had to drive around for about 20 mins. However, the parking cost for this trip is very low. A parking spot in China town's parking lot is $4 per hour. And a parking spot in down town's parking lot is about US $10 per hour! However, we managed to find some parking meter and totally we only paid for $1 for two days! In fact, yesterday's parking cost in downtown is zero because we parked at a broken parking meter. And today we parked at a place that needs to buy the ticket from the parking box and it is free for Sunday!
We took a picture in front of the Sears Tower (tallest building in Chicago). Then we also walked around the Millennium Park. And we also went to Sears and Nordstrom store to walk around. We ate our last meal in Chicago in China town (again). And then we drove for 2 hours and arrived to Lafayette at 9pm.

October 15, 2005(Saturday)

We woke up at 6. After packing up and so on, we left home at 7:30pm. I drove for 2.5 hours and then dad drove for about 1.5 hours. We arrived to Chicago at 11:30. One of the main purposes is to eat some HK style "beef noodle". This is one of my favorite foods. Therefore, we ate lunch at china town. Afterward, we walked around China Town and got some grocery. And then at 3:30, we went to Navy Pier and walked around again. I had been there with Carmen March of this year. Since Halloween is coming up, there are some workers decorated as some scary characters and scare the pedestrian. I enjoyed watching them scare little kid. I think that I will be a very good "this kind of scare people workers".
We went back to China town and ate Vietnamese noodle. And then we drove for 40 mins and got a hotel quite far away from Chicago, which is cheaper (110 for two rooms).
Today is an excellent time to spend with my parents. We talked about different issues, such as political ones. We also talked about going to a trip with my future kids and Hansel's future kids in North America. At that time, we may need to rent a 9-people van or even two cars! But most of the item will be our little kid's diaper or toys. Or, we can wait for 20+ years and wait till our kids grow up and let them drive!

October 14, 2005(Friday)

After the class this morning, I went home to have lunch with parents and Carmen. And then we went out and I toured them the IU campus. We walked to the business building and also to the Student union building. They get to know where I usually hang out (actually, I hang out in home, business building and at most the gym) so in the future they know what to look for when they see the online diary or photo.
We rented car at night. After I left Vancouver, I drove once in Boston and once in Denver. There are several months since I last drive a car. With the car, we went to Wal-Mart and exchanged the air bed that had a hole previously. Even without a receipt, we can still exchange because of the bar code! Thanks dad for the tips. We went to have dinner afterward and then I went home to continue on the homework.
Originally we planned to leave IU for Chicago tonight. However, we changed our plan and we will leave tomorrow early in the morning.

October 13, 2005(Thursday)

I went to class and there are even more works to do. And I will not have a lot of time for school work because I will go with my parents and Carmen to Chicago. Therefore, it will be very challenging this week.
Parents arrived to IU at night. They went to our house and they were happy about the place and also the dinner that Carmen prepared. Everything was great. It was also great that I get to see my parents again because the last time that I saw them was October 10, 2004. Time flies and many things have happened during the last year. I am looking forward to have a safe (and busy studying) weekend.

October 12, 2005(Wednesday)

Carmen received the news that one of our long time friend, Jacky Ho (from Hebron fellowship) passed away yesterday in Calgary because of car accident. I think that this is one of the few times that our friend passes away. It is sudden and it felt sad. It reminds me that we need to cherish every day and the people around us.
And I went to the PhD seminar class. And afterward, there are tones of homework and reading that I need to do. I need to do it especially fast because parents will visit me this weekend so I need to get everything out of the way as fast as I could.

October 11, 2005(Tuesday)

This morning is another hardworking morning, but with afternoon nap. At then at night, fellowship's Joyce came to our house. I will be the group leader and she will be the helper of our group. She had dinner at our house and we talked about the future of our group. In addition, we also prepared for the sharing (pick and tell) this Friday (I will not be here) and also the Bible Quiz on Nov 4.
Today is also the birthday of our group leader Tan Yue. Carmen made her a cheese cake (her first one) at night. We surprised her by showing up at her house. She has not been back from school yet so her husband Shangmin told us when she is back. And then, at night we went out to have some drink time and talked about different issue, such as the engagement process, whether wife should stay home after giving baby and so on. We cherish this kind of fellowship time outside of fellowship.

October 10, 2005(Monday)

Carmen and I went to the motor vehicle branch and planned to take the driving written test. However, after we were there, we found out that it is closed on Monday. It took us 2.5 hours to go back and forth, because the bus ride is quite long.
For the rest of the day, I just studied and also went to the gym to do exercise. In addition, I got another queen size bed. Shangmin and I went to take the bed at night.

October 09, 2005(Sunday)

Happy Birthday! Our wish: continue to be a house hold of faith, Carmen can find job soon, I can have a good project and hopefully I can get something published by next birthday.
I went to church in the morning, and then went back to home and had a well deserved afternoon nap. In additional, I also studied hard. Other than that, this is just another day of my life. As we get older, the birthday concept is diluting. Last year today, we had our wedding banquet in Venezuela.

October 08, 2005(Saturday)

Carmen helped our HK friend Barrick this morning for making cold call to Burger King, which is part of the data collection for his dissertation. She also went to buy grocery with CCF friends. As for me, I was studying hard most of the day. However, I went to play basketball for 90 mins today, which is part of my routine now. (Playing basketball or any kind of sport, other than running or work out, once a week).
At night, we went with CCF's friend Shang Ming, Yue to a Chinese buffet for dinner. Yue's birthday is next Tuesday while ours is tomorrow. Therefore, this is like a birthday celebration. Since they have car, they drove us to a place that is quite far away. It is nice to leave the university once in a while.

October 07, 2005(Friday)

After the class this morning, I went to a second year presentation by a fellow PhD students. Many professors asked tough questions and questioned him about some of the output and he cannot answer everything. Poor fellow. However, the situation is not that bad because all these are constructive input. Comparatively speaking, the politicians are speaking bad thing to each other and that was tough.
In the afternoon, CCF's group leader Shang Ming, Yue and Joyce came to my house to have a short meeting. Our group is too large and we have decided to split to two groups. I will be the group leader to one of the group. And then we went to Shang Ming's house for dinner.
At night we went to CCF. This is Bible Study again. And there was a short drama and I am an exaggerated actor like my dad as usual.

October 06, 2005(Thursday)

There was a "teach you how to teach" class in the morning. This is my turn to give a 10 mins lecture. I gave a lecture on Queueing, a topic that I have taught many times because of the CTT's bootcamp. As usual, it went great and the review was excellent.
I also talked to my PhD professor regarding about my project. I thought that I did a good job last week in the modeling but it turned out that I made a mistake. The problem will be very complicated and no wonder why the Mathematica program takes forever to run!
I also went to check for a bed. I purchased the air bag a month ago but there was a hole. I don't know how to fix it. And then there is a sales of a queen size bed. That was pretty cheap ($100 and I decreased the price to $85) and I will purchase that for sure.
At night, I studied endlessly as usual.

October 05, 2005(Wednesday)

As expected, the first part of today is quite relaxing. I have nothing much to do. And then I went to the PhD seminar. We talked about our project idea. I have worked on that for quite a few days already. However, there is some problem with my assumption or formulation of the formula. Therefore, I have to work all over again. Actually working again is not that bad. However, for some reason the math with the new assumption turned out to be very ugly. The mathematica computer program took more than 30 mins to solve and sometimes requires more time than that. I am frustrated.

October 04, 2005(Tuesday)

Today is a really relaxing day. I did not study too much, and I spent about 2 hours reading comics. I have completed most of my school work in the last few days already. However, I will have the PhD seminar class tomorrow and I will be really busy tomorrow again.

October 03, 2005(Monday)

Carmen and I went to the attroney in the morning in order to settle down the legal issue if I work here. We are glad that there are ways that we can do it legitimately. Then we also went to do some grocery shopping. She also helped me to cut hair.
At night, Carmen and I went to CCF's Jo house. There were seven of us: Joyce, Quan, Andy, Betsy, Jo, Carmen and I were there. This is the first time that we had a "Cantonese" dinner. I hope that in the future we can start a Cantonese cell group. They also celebrated our birthday and it was a present surprise for us! We are so happy that they are very caring.

October 02, 2005(Sunday)

We went to church this morning. Afterward, there was an "international lunch". There is about 100 international students plus American students there eating. Afterward, I went home, read some comic and had an afternoon nap. I also worked on my project.

October 01, 2005(Saturday)

Manufacturer "H" produces product "H" and Manufacturer "K" produces product "K". There are two downstream retailers R1, R2, each selling both products. Each of the retailers invest different amount of resource to the two products. Then, how much should each retailer invest on each products? What is the optimal wholesales price and optimal retail price? At the end, which firm would have more profit and more demand? I spent about 5 hours setting up this questions and solving this question today. I think that this research can become one of the paper, if no one else has done it before.
I also went to play basketball this afternoon for 1.5 hours. I used to have unlimited energy. However, lately after playing for a while, I feel that I am running out of gas really soon. Is it because I am getting old? I have been running non-stop and I can still run at a slow speed. But I guess that to play a violent sport like basketball is a different thing.
Carmen finally returns home tonight. I asked the group leader of the CCF to help driving her home, because her flight is too late (11pm) and there is no shuttle bus. We left Bloomington at 10, arrived airport at 11 and returned home at 12. Afterward, we organized the luggage and read comic.