April 30, 2007(Monday)

The professor from P601 (the class that I rarely mentioned, and the class that I screwed up the presentation last Friday) treated us for lunch. And then, I had the last class in my life (other than the elective classes that I will take in the future). I had presentation and it turned out not as bad. I am happy to have all these over. From now on it will be dissertation/research. Now my urgent task is to find a topic (i.e. find a problem that I can solve). This is not easy and not structure at all. Previously in the course work stage, I know exactly what I am supposed to do. But then, throughout the last few days, I was trying to think about the topic. There is no solid thing that I can do. Therefore, I feel quite empty. I think that I need to get used to this feeling and continue to be discipline (I am very discipline already). I need to keep searching through the literature or from Business Week magazine. The sooner I have the topic, the sooner I can get out from school.

April 29, 2007(Sunday)

Our church would like to have a General Assembly to pass several bills. These are the church vision, budget addendum for last year and budget for next year. Our constitution requires 70% members to be present, which is about 33 people. Last week we were one short, and this week we were 3 shorts. So we cannot have the General Assembly again. For the next few months, people will be in and out until August. Therefore, it is very likely that the next General Assembly will be held during August.
Serving in Venezuela and in Bloomington really give us a larger perspective about church. When I was in VCAC, we never go to the prayer meeting or the church General Assembly. We were not interested to go. However, when I am serving in small church, especially able to serve at the church-wide level, it really gives us a larger perspective! Something that we would never have if we were in Vancouver all the time. We are more mature now.
The weather today is so nice, so I went out to jog for 49 mins again. During that time, I am meditating about the dissertation topic. Course work will be done soon and it is time for me to move on to the dissertation. Running is a great time to meditate. I am happy to have the time to do so.

April 28, 2007(Saturday)

Saturday is a relaxing day as usual. But since I got the take home final exam from the game theory class yesterday, I worked on it today as well. Carmen and I also went to work out. We also went to the library to make the fellowship magazine cover. We also went to Border's bookstore to read comic. Seems like the life in Bloomington is quiet and the weekend will be like this.

April 27, 2007(Friday)

This morning I had the extra class for P601, the one that I rarely mentioned because I am not really interested in the topic of this class. We are supposed to present an algorithm to solve the "Resource constraint project scheduling problem" (I explained the nature of this problem several days ago). However, I (and some other classmates) thought that we only need to find a heuristic (an easy solution, not necessary optimal, but it is fast to get). So when the professor asked me at the end about why I did that, I am quite silenced. Also, he said that what I did is just a procedure discussed by another paper, (I presented that paper). I did not really understand the algorithm at that time, so I am silenced again. I felt quite bad. I am too focusing on research now.
There is a teaching award luncheon and I attended. There is always a saying that, don't ever win any teaching award or else the university thought that you spend too much time teaching and not enough time doing research. Who knows whether this is true or not.
I played badminton with usual friends, and I find that their own racquet is much better than the one that I borrowed from the gym. Probably I will ask some friends to bring a better racquet from China.
We invited Brother Howard (about 50 years old, had dinner with him before, is the vice president of the church) to have dinner. We found out that his family is very strong. His mom, his brother, himself, his wife and his daughter are all PhD. One of his wife's brothers used to be the deputy ambassador from Canada to China a few years ago! And the other brother-in-law is a very famous Tai-chi master! He also shared things about church management. For example, he mentioned that ideally the wife of the pastor should not work full time. It is because when someone is called to be pastor, both husband and wife should be united and serves together. This is an interesting concept.
I led some of the Bible Study at night and then we practiced music afterward. After focusing on the musical technique, I also had a wrap up about the meaning of the song so that we know what we are singing.

April 26, 2007(Thursday)

I worked on the fellowship magazine today, helping out to do some editing. I am not as perfectionist as my professors, but then I realize that working thru my PhD program really raise my expectation. I hope that I am not giving as large stress to others though. And I also went to work out and prayer meeting.
I am approaching to the end of my second PhD project, so this is time for me to think for the new one, and this will be my dissertation. Lately I have been reading different papers to get idea. I have the methodology (game theory's agency theory) to solve the problem. But I don't have the problem yet. Hence, today I started to read Business week so that I can pick up some problem that allow me to fit my methodology. Having a good problem is doing half of the research! To some empirical researchers (those who collect data from the industry), what I am doing is in the reverse order (i.e. first have the methodology and then think about the question). Of course, the idea case is first having the problem and then finds a way to solve it. However, to an analyst (using math formula to solve the problem), this is probably the more common way.

April 25, 2007(Wednesday)

Today lunch I am supposed to go out to have lunch with classmates. But one of the classmates Valya is busy. Therefore, we postponed the lunch to some other time. In the mean time I went to the student union building to walk around.
At night, I went to a clarinet recital of one of our church friends.

April 24, 2007(Tuesday)

The meeting with professors today about my PhD project went pretty rough and tough. I did the literature review, but they pointed saying that I did bad job. And I think that I tried my best but acknowledge that there is some thing that I missed. I felt quite uneasy and want to leave (as usual) because I think that there is thing I need to work on. And then, they commented that my introduction paragraph is not good. There is no flow and feels chunky. Actually I spent so much time working on this and I am really proud about this (but knowing that they will say bad thing about this too). Also, sometimes their requirement changes from time to time, and this is called "Writing" (you won't know it until you see it, and then you prefer what you had before). They kept on drilling on the negative thing on the paper. I got to a point that is so frustrating that I asked them to tell me that what I did that is right. They can sense my frustration. Then I said that I am trying my best to match his (one of the professors) tastes. Then he apologizes for being impatient, because this is the end of the semester and there are so many works so he is frustrated too. Anyway, I almost have enough with this project and really want to move on. I am glad that I did not say a lot of negative thing during the meeting, but I did not do a good job in handling this more positively. May be next time.
I took some times off from the project by going to workout. And I continue to work on the project. At night there was deacon board meeting. This is the last meeting of this term's deacon board (from May 2006 to April 2007). Tonight is mostly sharing.

April 23, 2007(Monday)

I slept one of the last times in my cubicle today. I had a blue workout mattress (for doing sit-up) in my cubicle. I usually slept on it if that is around lunch time. Most of the time I only study at home. But this semester I have 3.75 hours break (10:45 to 2:30) for Monday and Wednesday. Rather than going home, I usually study or relax at the cubicle. And I usually take about 45 mins to sleep on the mattress. I use a book as pillow and I have an eye-goggle so that I won't see the light. However, this is the last week of school, and this Wednesday I will have lunch with classmates. Moreover, after this semester I have completed all the required course work. So unless anything happen, I won't spend as much time at the cubicle as I am doing now. Which means, I won't likely sleep in my cubicle anymore.
Carmen's body is itchy during the last few days. In order to eliminate different reasons, we changed the laundry detergent and changed the bet sheet. Today, I also did a major vacuuming at my house (the size is slightly smaller than Hansel's HK house), which takes 1.3 hours. The last time that I did vacuuming was around Christmas time. So there is lots of dust, especially in the corner, and behind the computer desk or TV. But now it is one (or multiple) step(s) cleaner.

April 22, 2007(Sunday)

Today after Sunday worship, we had the General Assembly of our church to pass the budget for the upcoming year. We need 70% of the member, which are 33 people. For the last couple of General Assembly, we always just barely make it, or only one over. Today, we only have 32 people, so we have to wait until next Sunday. This is the first time that such thing happens to us.
Carmen and I played badminton for about an hour in the late afternoon. I spent the rest of the time working on a class project about resource constrained project scheduling problem. I talked about this class several days ago. I finally have some progress of the project.

April 21, 2007(Saturday)

Our church hosted a BBQ today to farewell the graduate from noon to 3pm. At that time I was playing football and Frisbee. And then I went out for jogging. The weather today is extremely nice. The temperature is about 20 degree. Also, there is a bicycle competition at IU. Since Indianapolis is famous for the "Indy 500" F-1 car race, IU has something called "Little 500", held during this time once a year and use bicycle rather than F-1 race car. This is an extremely big event and people took this opportunity to party. Therefore, when I was jogging today, I saw a lot of people had BBQ or drinking beer or enjoying the sunshine outside. I love this kind of feeling.
At night we went out for dinner. And then, Carmen went to buy grocery while I went to Borders bookstore to read the comic "Prince of tennis" for 1.8 hours. She is so understand and let me enjoy the comic.

April 20, 2007(Friday)

There is outside speaker coming to give seminar and we have to attend. Good to see what research other people are doing. Today I also start marking the homework for I-Core. The end of the semester these undergrad business student that is taking the Integrated Core (I-Core) class (consists of Operation Management, Finance, Strategy, Marketing) has to do a case to analyze different aspect of the company. Then they made a very nice report that counts for quite a large portion of their grade. I mark the Operation Management Section.
At night, we went to church and then went to Jacky's house to practice music.

April 19, 2007(Thursday)

I am taking a class called "Industrial Organization Part 2" from the business economic department. I took the Part 1 last semester, which focus on game theory. That really got me interested so I decided to take the part 2. I took this class hoping that it covers more things about game theory. However, I am actually quite disappointed with this class. It spent too much time on some math concept "lattice algebra", other micro-economic concepts. Only spent about 25% of the class talking about game theory. In addition, the professor is quite new and did not explain thing clearly. And pretty bad at replying email. I am having a hard time to understand the material. I asked a lot of questions (the number of questions that I asked almost equal to the number of questions that other students combined!) during the class. I must say that I am quite disappointed with the class and I may not take the other 75% of the class if I have a choice.
However, in the class evaluation, I will still fill out as good as I can. Since the class has only 12 people (largest class size! For other classes there are only 5 students), it is really easy to know who filled out the evaluation. Also, there is not much point to criticize anything, since I won't benefit from that anyway. Other people may benefit, but not me. One evaluation would not change much. More importantly, I would rather leave a positive image to the professor because who knows what will happen in the future! Tough luck!
The prayer meeting at night, there is a new 50+ years old auntie from China joined us. She helped to take care her 1.5 years old grand daughter. She has never been to church in China and has been to our church several times. Tonight she joined us the first time to prayer meeting. During that time, Tanyue asked whether she wants to be a Christian, and she accepted Christ. Tanyue is very brave to ask this question.

April 18, 2007(Wednesday)

Another studying day. Working on homework and on the paper. These things consumes the most time.
The shooting at the Virginia Tech this Monday is sad. The killer is a depressed person. I am imagining that if I am in one of those situations, what should I do? Should I hide? Or should I try to attack the killer, sacrificing myself so that not more people are hurt?

April 17, 2007(Tuesday)

Today I have meeting with professors. As usual, lots of work to be done, and I spent quite some times today on this.
At night, we invited Jacky (who had the baptismal class with me last few months and got baptized earlier this month) to come to our house for dinner. He is the new group leader of our group. His personality in serving is really similar to mine. He is pushy, determine, like to do the planning and like others to stick to the planning, lack of team work, energetic, dedicated. I shared some lessons that I learn, hopefully can help him to serve God. For example, slow down, if you dedicate something to others, let other to do it. We had a good sharing time and I hope that he can continue to grow in God.

April 16, 2007(Monday)

I am working on a problem for one of the classes (the one that I never mentioned). The class of problem is called "Resource constrained project scheduling problem". I am giving an example to this kind of problem. We need to have a banquet. There are many tasks that we need to do, such as buy fishes, wash dishes, decorate the environment. Each task requires a certain number of people for a certain amount of time (let say, wash dishes takes 30 mins and requires two people). Some tasks must be done before others. For example, cooking must be done before washing dishes, also, buying fishes from Supermarket A (requires 2 people, 60 mins) and buying vegetable from Supermarket B (requires 1 people, 90 mins) must be done before start cooking (requires 2 people, 60 mins). The objective is to minimize the time required subject to the constraint that the crew consists of 5 people.
Of course the problem that I am solving is more complicated then the one stated above (e.g. requires more than one resource). I need to figure out an algorithm to effectively assign different people to different tasks. I visualize the problem as having different style of "Lego". The two dimensions of the legos are the time required and the resource (e.g. the number of people) required. For instance, for a 3-by-2 Lego, it means that it requires 90 mins (let say, I use 30 mins as each interval) and 2 people. My goal is to build a Lego that has width not more than 5 (if there are only 5 people available) with the shortest length (i.e. shortest time). I am meditating on this for the last few days but don't have any idea yet. I need to have some idea by next Friday.

April 15, 2007(Sunday)

After church tonight, Carmen spent several hours preparing for the dinner. She cooked "HK Style baked pork chop rice" and "bake white sauce salmon spinach spaghetti". It takes quite a long time to cook, and I helped out a bit in washing the dishes. We originally only invited Nicky and Joyce to have dinner, since they will move to Chicago during summer to start working. In the middle, Chris and Joe joined because they dropped by our home and so we invited them as well. The food tastes good. I like the "orange-color sauce" of the baked pork chop rice and also the spinach on the other dishes. The several hours’ hard work definitely is worth it! We are also generous enough to share the food to other people as well.

April 14, 2007(Saturday)

Today is another relaxing day. Probably after I am done with my course work (in two weeks), my life would be like this. I spent several hours doing homework, and went to work out with Carmen at gym. At night we went out to have dinner, brought grocery together (Actually I was simply pushing the cart and reading the "SLAMS" NBA magazine) and watched DVD at night.

April 13, 2007(Friday)

Today I played badminton for about 3 hours again. I had some progress on my homework’s during the last 24 hours so I can afford to have some fun time. At night it was Bible study and then we went out to have dinner together.

April 12, 2007(Thursday)

I was told that I need to go to Cayman Island (somewhere in the Caribbean Sea) to teach courses during the summer, probably two or three weeks. On one hand I am excited because I am able to travel again (I was quite sick about travel last summer because I traveled too much. But after 9 months of rest, I am able to travel again). On the other hand, I am quite stressed because I have to teach again. Of course this kind of stress would go away once I stand in front of the students. I will see how it goes. For now, I need to do homework and finish classes.
Our church friends Xinlei gave birth a baby today. We went to hospital to visit them. We are happy for them. At night we went to prayer meeting. I also tried to pray and communicate with Mandarin.

April 11, 2007(Wednesday)

I am trying to work on the presentation of the "Operations Design and Control" class. This class is about designing algorithm to solve integer programming and resource constrained project scheduling (there are several tasks, some of which must complete before the others. Each of them requires certain resource, which is limited). I rarely worked on it this semester and I think that this class is a waste of time because it does not relate to my research at all. Anyway, there is a presentation about our own algorithm 2 weeks from now and I have no idea how to do it. I am a bit worry about this class.
At night, we went out for dinner and also went to the Border bookstores such that I can read comic for 1.3 hours. This semester surely is the easiest so far.

April 10, 2007(Tuesday)

I worked on the PhD project write up today again, as usual. Every time when I submit something to professors, I got a lot of red ink back that I need to change. But I also seriously think that each time I improve the level of my writing. I submitted this to professors again and as usual I feel good about this writing. Let's see what they will say.
At night, I led pre-study. Now our group starts to study the book of Acts. I have studied this book twice. Once during 2002 with FCGC fellowship people and once during Sunday School for Venezuela's Baptist church. But both time just ended at chapter 10. Let's see how far I can go this time.

April 09, 2007(Monday)

Studying, studying and studying. Nothing much is interesting.

April 08, 2007(Sunday)

This morning Carmen and I woke up at 8am (I slept in the female room so Carmen and I can wake up together) but others woke up at 9:45 when we returned to wake them up. Then after 30 mins of clean up, we left the camp site at 10:30. We had breakfast and then went to Sunday Worship. Very tiring and some of us fall asleep. We went home afterward to relax and clean up. It is so nice to get back home, with comfortable sleeping mattress and heat!

April 07, 2007(Saturday)

After breakfast, we had devotional sharing. Then we went out for hiking. The weather is still quite cold (There is some very small snow in these days, consider that this is April now). The hiking is only an hour and then we went back to play the "chase" game and "number ball", all these I used to play more than 10 years ago!
Originally we planned to have hot pot tonight. However we did not buy the food. Moreover, yesterday we did not finish the BBQ meat yesterday, because the weather is too cold so we would rather eat white bread. And we got too much meat anyway. So we ate BBQ and finish the meat today. However, rather than using the HK style BBQ, we used a systematic way to cook. Rather than using coal, the males picked up wood from ground and use this for the whole BBQ. Then the female wrap the meat around a tin foil so that we put everything on top of the fire. This is much more efficient and less suffering. I felt quite weak and almost got sick in the cold weather, because the cold wind keeps on blowing at us. (I am glad that I ended up did not get sick)
The common area that we used for the last day was occupied by some large (about 13 people) American family and they were smoking in door. Therefore we did the sharing at the female's room. We continued to share the life's story and it is a good sharing and we ended at 12:30am.
Nicky and Joyce drove other people home and decided not coming back at night. There are some empty beds at the female's room and I went there to sleep. The other guys played card game until 3am but I slept at 1am.

April 06, 2007(Friday)

Today I played badminton and ping pong with friends. And then at night, we went to a camp with the Cantonese fellowship group. The weather is much colder (about 0 degree) this weekend but it was about 18-22 degrees last weekend. Too bad, we have to suffer the cold.
We went to the Lake Monroe indoor camps site. They were there since 4pm already, but since I am waiting for Carmen to finish work, we left home at 6:10. They were BBQ when we arrived. The weather is very cold and windy. We are using the HK style BBQ so people were trying to gather around, but still it is too cold. Also when Carmen tried to help herself and other to put the meat to the folk, her hand is very cold and can't move. After about an hour or 1.5 hours of BBQ, we just had enough. We would rather eat more bread.
We had singing and sharing about our life story afterward. This is a pretty cozy feeling because we don't have the time pressure. It is also good to sing Cantonese Christian song too. We ended at mid-night and started shower. There were only 4 shower place and there are about 13 of us that needs shower. Therefore, we played some games, even the "chase" game (which you can "hoi" to protect yourself) indoor. I hadn't played this kind of game since HK Tai Koo Shing's wooden block. We slept at 3am.

April 05, 2007(Thursday)

I had meeting with professors about my PhD project, and as expected, I spent lots of time working on it after the meeting. I am still hoping to get good publication afterward. At night, I went to proctor the undergrad business course "I-Core".

April 04, 2007(Wednesday)

I don't have much mental energy to study and absorb any more material. I only spent 2 hours to work on the presentation for one of the classes. Hence, I did some housework and read Times magazine. I am able to all these because the semester is coming to the end and I am still on top of the class work. Therefore I can slack off.

April 03, 2007(Tuesday)

Carmen helped me to do the hair cut today. In order to entertain me (so that I won't be impatient), I put a laptop in front of me and watched movie at that time. I think that time pass much faster, and it is easier for her too since I am not complaining much. I must say thank you to Carmen because she always endures my impatience.

April 02, 2007(Monday)

I would love to devote my time to project. But then I first have to finish the school work. I think that the two of the courses that I am taking this semester is not related to my research interest at all, and I want to minimize my time spent in these two classes so that I can get back to my work. In 1 more months, I will get all the course work done, and in 3 more months, if I pass the qualifying exam, I can officially farewell to these things.

April 01, 2007(Sunday)

Today is mom's 60th birthday. Hansel and I both called home. Happy Birthday. Will celebrate when we return this summer.
This morning we have a prayer meeting during the Sunday School time, because there will have three people in our group getting baptized today. And the Sunday worship there is baptism for Pat (who was from Bloomington but went to Chicago to work and returned here to get baptized), Jacky (group leader) and Desmond. I taught them baptismal class for the last two months. It is good to witness their growth. When we started this group there were not here, or not actively involve. Now they are much more dedicated and I am happy for them.
Carmen and I went to a track to run laps. I used to run about 15 laps in Burnaby Central Secondary School a few years ago and haven’t done so for long time. (Of course I kept running in the mean time). Today I do not have energy and it took about 2 mins and 10 seconds to run a lap and I only ran 11 (3 or 7 laps are too little, 21 laps is too much) laps. I prefer to run on the street much more because there are ups and down. To run around the lap is boring because everything is flat. Also, I have to watch the time it takes for me to run a lap so I can't relax. Carmen on the other hand is very physical capable and can run pretty quick! At least, I am only less than 10% faster than she is, consider that I am male and I have trained continuously for the last many years.
At night we went out for dinner and then I went to the Borders bookstore to read comic for almost 2 hours. I love reading comics.