September 30, 2007(Sunday)

We had Sunday School this morning and then Sunday worship. Afterward we went with people from church to pick up apple. We went there last year Oct 22, 06 and the weather was extremely cold at that time. However, the temperature is much hotter today and we had a good time. In fact, several of the babies (babies of Xiaohu/Xinlei, Daniel/Yangching and Shangmin/Tanyue) also came out home the first time to have this event. We had a good time. I also climbed some trees (I only climbed to a meter high) and picked up some apples too! Probably my daughter will like to climb thing when she is a bit older.

September 29, 2007(Saturday)

This is another relaxing weekend. I played badminton with church friends in the afternoon. Then we practiced for the worship tomorrow, and I displayed some violin and flute skill and they were shocked to know that I know how to play that many instruments. At night, we went to the Border's bookstore to read comic.

September 28, 2007(Friday)

I am teaching I-Core today. The lesson is on learning curve. Basically I am giving them a children puzzle and they have to do it for 8 times and observe the time it takes to do the puzzle. Then they have to plot a curve. That is easy on my part because I am just watching them. At night, the Cantonese Macedonia group had BBQ at Lake Monroe. The sky got dark at around 8pm, but two drivers turned on their engine and use the headlight of the car to shine at us. Therefore, we can go until 10pm. At the end of the day, we are full of smoky smell.

September 27, 2007(Thursday)

At night, Carmen and I went to buy a lot of food for tomorrow's BBQ. There will have 19 people and we are aiming at the budget of US$7 per person. Therefore, we are not able to buy beef, which is more expensive. We are settled with the pork, sausage and chicken wing. At night, we helped out to prepare the food for tomorrow for an hour.

September 26, 2007(Wednesday)

I worked on dissertation for a long time and there is some progress. We also went to fellowship's friend house for dinner.

September 25, 2007(Tuesday)

There is a lot of rain today and so I got wet when biking home.
Today is also the 13th dating anniversary, 6th engagement anniversary and 3rd wedding anniversary. Therefore, I cooked tonight as a special event. I only cook once or twice a year, usually either Valentine's day, anniversary, birthday or Christmas. I am glad that she enjoys my food. I also worked hard on the dissertation paper too.

September 24, 2007(Monday)

I had a discipleship training class with Jacky today and also worked on the dissertation. I also went out to purchase grocery, wash clothes, etc.

September 23, 2007(Sunday)

We attended the Sunday Worship today and the speaker is still Leung Yin Shing. Afterward we had lunch together and left Chicago at 3:30 local time. The traffic was pretty bad in Chicago and it costs us 45mins waiting in the traffic jam. Eventually we arrived home at 9:30pm.

September 22, 2007(Saturday)

After lunch we had free time. Carmen, Chris and I went to downtown Millennium Park and Navy Pier and other places to walk. At night, we listened to the workshop by Dr. Leung Yin Shing. The topic is about "faith, astrology". He previously had experience on this kind of thing when he was young. It was a great talk and people really enjoyed that. Afterward we had a sharing at our friend's house (at downtown) and reflect our life about evangelism. They enjoyed the talk too.
It is hard to find a parking spot at downtown and it took us 20 mins and still can't find a parking meter. At the end, we have to park on the parking garage and is quite expensive.

September 21, 2007(Friday)

I played badminton with friend this afternoon. At night we drove to Chicago. It is because the Chinese speaker Leung Yin Shing will have a talk tomorrow regarding about "star luck" or other type of mystery thing. It sounds quite interesting so we drove for 4 hours to Chicago tonight.
Andy from our church has a high-tech taxi-style walkie-talkie. I was in front of him about two miles, and every now and then he asks where we are and he was trying to chase us. It was quite funny and a bit annoying too, to hear his voice every once in a while about this. However, we also made joke about this.
We arrived Chicago at 10pm and after dinner we slept at 1am

September 20, 2007(Thursday)

The school is normal today and I also tried to work on the dissertation a bit. At night, we went to prayer meeting. This is another peaceful day.

September 19, 2007(Wednesday)

So far, no big health problem is detected! We went to see the pregnancy doctor and we were told that everything is ok so far! That is great! The two things that we are asking for are (1) healthy and (2) good Christian. At least, the first item is not violated yet. And it is a girl!
We also went to play golf for a while and I showed Carmen about what I learnt in the last two golf lesson. At night we invited some church friends to have dinner at home and they talked about the crazy thing they did when they studied at the HK's Chinese University and their times living in dorm. I never lived in dorm so I do not have to go through that crazy fun thing.

September 18, 2007(Tuesday)

As usual I am working hard on my homework. I also had some talk with my first year classmates. Looking at them working hard and suffering through the program, reminds me about what happened two years ago. I am glad that right now I have much more free time and I can do whatever I like. I told him that I have been through that road and he will enjoy my status two years from now!

September 17, 2007(Monday)

Today I worked quite hard on my dissertation, which is also my course paper for the academic writing class. I also worked on a project that I will co-author with classmate Greg. I am glad that I am getting some work done!

September 16, 2007(Sunday)

The Cantonese group starts Sunday school again and we attended that. Then after Sunday worship, I went to home to work on homework and papers. I am getting a bit busy now because I am juggling several papers, but I am glad that things are going ok.

September 15, 2007(Saturday)

This is a relaxing day again. We did some house work such as cleaning the house. Moreover Carmen helped me to cut hair too. We also went out for a light exercise and went to read comic at night too.

September 14, 2007(Friday)

I taught the I-Core class in the morning. I was a bit nervous (again) before I started teaching, but once I am there, I like it. I also played badminton with school friends. At night I led Bible study. We split the Cantonese group into two halves. One composed mostly with Christian and Carmen led that group. The other is composed mostly with non-Christian and I led that group. My purpose is to share the gospel with them and I thank God for letting me to use the gift (of leading group discussion) to serve Him.

September 13, 2007(Thursday)

For some reason, I started to fall asleep seriously during class again. I tried to stay awake but the prof is too boring. I had meeting between classes and had a pretty long nap between class, such that I am able to stay awake for the my second class. At night we went to prayer meeting as usual.

September 12, 2007(Wednesday)

My condition is always bad after donating blood. Therefore when I am working out today, I am going slowly. I also took a golf lesson. Last week when I was practicing myself, I was so frustrating because I can't hit the ball and my finger was bleeding. However, when I take the lesson today, my condition is so much better and I am satisfied with this. At night we invited some new church friends to our home for dinner. We talked a bit about religion and other things. It is good to have a sharing with them and we hope that they can come to Christ earlier.

September 11, 2007(Tuesday)

I donate blood today, the fifth time since I was in US and probably the 12 or 13 times in my life. I think that I am more used to the pain of poking needle into my vein by now. I also had meeting with professors, and whenever I had meeting I would be quite busy for the rest of the day to fix the issues that he suggests.

September 10, 2007(Monday)

I had meeting with professor as usual today. This keeps the work going. And then at night we had a deacon board meeting. We talked about the possibility of having a pastor, at least part time. However, we figured that this is not yet the time. So we put this idea aside. We also tried to sort out some differences between deacons regarding about how the fellowship group should be.

September 09, 2007(Sunday)

After Sunday Worship, I went to read comic. And at night we went out for dinner and buy grocery. I spent several hours on the course paper / dissertation as well. So far, things are ok fine.

September 08, 2007(Saturday)

We went to visit our friend Shangmin and Tanyue. They just gave birth to a twin 10 days ago and we dropped by to say hi to the babies. We also went to do some exercise. In the late afternoon, the business PhD students have a BBQ. However the weather is not that nice, so there is not as many people went there as we thought. Afterward we had a sharing about our Cantonese speaking fellowship group. This is good to have some deeper sharing!

September 07, 2007(Friday)

I continued to work on the revise & resubmit of my first year paper. After working on that several hours a day for the past week, I finally emailed that to professor Seb to proofread. And now I can move on to start to write the paper for my Academic Writing class. I plan to use part of my dissertation for the course paper for this class. I hope that the professor can give me constructive feedback so that I can have a better dissertation, and that is exactly the reason why I take this class. I am quite excited to be able to move on to this topic. I brainstormed this paper and did some work during the past several months. However, I never got the authorization and/or blessing from professors to work on this previously, because I am supposed to work on my qualifying exam, then enjoy my summer break and then work on the revise & resubmit of my first year paper. Finally, I give myself a green light today to work on that! I feel quite good. Actually, before I come to IU, I never expect myself to get really excited about research. I am always having a passion in teaching, but not in research. Therefore what I am experiencing right now is out of my expectation.
At night we went to fellowship. Then we did not go out to have dinner with them. We are not young anymore and do not need the hang-out-with-friend time. We would rather eat at home and enjoy some quiet time. These are the things that what I once think is old people do. So now I am part of them!

September 06, 2007(Thursday)

I reformatted my laptop (again) yesterday. I have two laptops and I just formatted my another one about a month ago. Now I format the one that I purchased last February. I had several big programs that I loaded to laptop (besides standard MS office, I also have Matlab, Mathematica and even .NET program) which eat a lot of memory. And the performance sometimes deteriorates tremendously. I also have a feeling that every now and then, there are some secret software (even though I run spybot software at least once a week) that was download to the laptop, which cause the slow performance. Therefore, I have a habit of reformat my laptop at the end of every semester. That means, this is the fourth or fifth time that I reformat this *new* laptop. It still takes 5 mins or so to boot up, and it is very annoying. I am still waiting for myself to graduate so that I feel comfortable to buy a new laptop.
I also went to school today, but the Academic class is a waste of time (again). The instructor spent the whole 1.5 hour class taught us how to have a good paper topic that is not too board. He gave us some exercises too. However, I already have a well defined topic in my mind (the one that I thought when I was in Cayman Islands in May) so this is useless to me. I just read the Game Theory book during the class.

September 05, 2007(Wednesday)

There is no class for me today, and I played golf. I took a lesson last Wednesday and I had some fun at that time. However, I am really frustrated today. At first I was doing fine. However, I kept on hitting air. Also, the skin on my left thumb and my left middle finger was hit because of constant rubbing. I am really frustrated and did not enjoy the time at all! At first I finished one bucket of balls (about 50 of them). Then I purchased the second bucket, but after 5 or 10 balls I am so frustrated that I just couldn't continue. However I don't want to waste the balls, so I just took the balls home. Next time when I return, I will use these balls again.

September 04, 2007(Tuesday)

When I returned from Vancouver a month ago and talked to the PhD advisor about my qualifying exam, he was quite disappointed at my performance. I did my qualifying exam before I left Bloomington for the vacation. At that time, I was thinking that, since I got almost all "A" in all classes, and I do have pretty good relationship with professors, thing will be fine. Moreover, I figure that the more important thing that I should do is my dissertation and writing paper. Qualifying exam is just a symbol and they are going to pass me. Therefore at that time I spent about half of the time working on my qualifying exam and the other half of the time working on papers. And it turns out to be a mistake. When the PhD advisor talked to me, he said that most of the professors are dissatisfied with my work. They know that I can do much better, and consider my pretty good relationship with *some* (not all) of the professor and they know that I have lots of potential, they decided to give me a "revise and resubmit" (work and elaborate on some part of the questions), rather than fail my qualifying exam. Failing this exam means that I have one more chance to take the exam and if I fail again I may have to leave! That is quite scary and quite stressful.
The moment I left the office, it makes me feel like I just got laid off from a job. And then I was told to go to my professor Seb's office to talk to him. I have worked with him on paper for the last two years and he knows where I am at. He took an hour counseling me, assure that I *should* be fine. My only mistake is that I did not take the exam serious enough so he advises me to focus 100% on the next two weeks on the exam. Normally for other people with this kind of result, I would very likely be failed. However they know my potential so they decided to give me one more time, and hope that I can learn the lesson of "being patience". He told me that there is also slight political situation (within the department) involved, which has something to do with the professor and not with me. Actually, other professors (Kurt, the one that I worked with for the last year, and Ash, the department chair) also took their time and assured that they trust in my potential, and I just need to focus on the exam and get over with this.
In order to really learn this lesson, I really took the next two weeks and focus 100% on the qualifying exam. In fact, I took that chance and learn more to be patient and do thing properly too! Finally, after a few weeks, I know that I pass my qualifying exam today! Even though I know that I *should* pass the exam, it is still a relief! That is good news!
I checked the medical report from the blood test and it turns out that I have no diabetes. My cholesterol level is a bit high. It is because both my good (mainly due to exercise) and bad cholesterol level is a bit high. However, it is not a problem at all and the doctor told me not to worry anything about it for now. May be, 10 years from now, start to have some diet.
At night, we had a gathering for the Macedonia group. There were 18 people went to hotpot. This is meant to welcome the new students and also to celebrate the September birthday. There are lots of new people and I hope that they will one day feel like home at our church

September 03, 2007(Monday)

Today is labor day so Carmen does not have to go to work. Actually school still opens and if I have classes on Monday, I still need to go to school. But I have no class, so we traveled to a city near Indianapolis, called Greenwood.
We went to a place called "Chuck E Cheese" for lunch. This is a place where Hansel and I had birthday party during early 1980s. I used to go there and played a lot of games. I like to play the "bowling-roll-ball" game a lot and I gained a lot of tickets! But I found out that it is quite expensive to play. It costs $0.25 to play each round and I would not want to waste the money on this! However when I was young, I just played a lot. What a waste of money! But all kids are like that! Nevertheless, it brought back a lot of childhood memories.
Afterward, we walked around mall and Babies-R-Us. We also went to shopping too. This is a good way to relax and tour around. Otherwise we would be really bored in Bloomington.

September 02, 2007(Sunday)

I am the worship leader today. In addition, our church has no pastor, usually the chair of the deacon board lead the communion. I did not lead for the last few times because of the language barrier and I asked another brother do it for me. This time, he is out of town and is my first time to lead the communion. Glad that everything turns out to be fine.
At night, we had dinner with some Chinese classmates. It is good to have some outside class social events. Moreover, they are taking a PhD seminar from Seb. I had a hard time and struggle through it when I took it two years ago. Therefore, I felt so glad to see them struggling while I am enjoying my time! They will have their turn 2 years from now!

September 01, 2007(Saturday)

We went to check the baby this morning. The doctor says that, so far, so good. This is a very short visit and not much information is gathered. And I also spent some times to work on my paper.
At night, our church has a welcome-new-student dinner. We asked people to invite as many as they can to come and join us. It turns out that we had 150+ people came for dinner, and 120+ stayed for the big-group meeting, and 75 people stayed for the small-group sharing. This is amazing, because only 60 of us are regular attendant to church! Obviously this is a great way to reach out a lot of people! Let's see how well we can for doing the follow up!