May 31, 2008(Saturday)

There is a worship practise at our home this afternoon because Carmen is going to lead worship tomorrow. At night we went out to have dinner at KFC. This is a terrible restaurant with very slow service, and missing plastic fork/ketchup etc. If we were to pay tips, we would pay nothing. McDonald is the fastest and best service fast food restaurant. I think that KFC and/or Arby is one of the worst.

May 30, 2008(Friday)

I asked a church friend to teach me golf today. He is in the China's national golf team and IU golf team. So obviously he is really good. I learnt for about 2 hours. I am still very bad.
At night we had a meeting for the Pastoral Search committee. We will invite the pastor to come again two weeks later. So let's hope that thing will be smooth at that time.
I think that Cailyn must be having a grow spur again (first time is about a week after she was born). She cried hard for food at night; normally we fed her for 4 oz for the last several month (i.e. ever since she was about two weeks old). Tonight we fed more than 5oz! We were quite surprised!

May 29, 2008(Thursday)

I met with professor today and I finalize that I will stay for 5 years at IU. Even though there is pain, this is relieving to finally make that decision. At night we also went to prayer meeting.

May 28, 2008(Wednesday)

I did not do any work today at all. I just stayed home, relax, played around with Cailyn.

May 27, 2008(Tuesday)

We drove for about an hour to a nearby town called Columbus to eat Japanese food. We were told that the food tastes good, and it indeed tastes not-bad. However, the price is on the expensive side. We ate $35 together but we weren't particularly full. However, that is better than nothing because this is the first time that we tried Japanese food for over a year, since we know we had baby.

May 26, 2008(Monday)

I had a meeting with professor in the morning and I pretty much decide that I should stay for 5 years for the PhD program. I am learning to enjoy life as a student. For the rest of the day, I did not work at all. I am too relax and went to the bookstore to read comic and fooling around at home.

May 25, 2008(Sunday)

I went to play ping pong with church friend Chris for about 45 mins. At night we invited a church friend Felix who is a Catholic and I shared the gospel with him. I tried to be careful and present the true concept without making me sounds too offensive.

May 24, 2008(Saturday)

The weather is nice outside and I went out for a run. And for the rest of the day, I basically am working on school stuff.

May 23, 2008(Friday)

I went out for jogging with church friend Shangmin. It is sometimes good to run with others or else it can be quite boring. I also met with professor and discussed about my dissertation. I may have to take another year to complete the program, and that is disappointing, because I have spent a lot of effort in the last 3 years hoping that I can finish in 4 years. It seems that life is not always going as planned.
At night, the fellowship is about watching and sharing the movie "Left behind". This move is about the second coming of Christ. Carmen also led some discussion and it went pretty good. However we have to manage Cailyn during those 2.5 hours and it is not easy because she sometimes get fuzzy.

May 22, 2008(Thursday)

Cailyn slept for about 8 hours, which is pretty good. Carmen has prayed for quite a while that we want to go back to prayer meeting once Cailyn has a more consistent schedule. Since Cailyn has been sleeping well for the last weeks, we decided to go back to prayer meeting tonight. Hopefully our serving and church life will be return to normal soon.
Steven Curtis Chapman, a famous American gospel singer, wrote a song "Cinderella". The song is about him dancing with her daughter. The idea is to cherish the dancing time with daughter before she grew old. "I'll dance, with Cinderella, I don't ever want to miss one song. All too soon, the clock will strike midnight, then she'll be gone". I have a daughter and I must learn to cherish all the time that I am with her. And the very sad news is that, her 5 years old daughter was killed yesterday in the family driveway by her teenage brother. I felt very sad about this story.

May 21, 2008(Wednesday)

Cailyn slept at 9:30pm last night and woke up at around 7am! So there are about 10 hours of sleep! Unbelievable! If she will be like that from now on, then that would be great!

May 20, 2008(Tuesday)

I met with professor today, and there are still lots of work to be done!

May 19, 2008(Monday)

Cailyn can also sleep for 7 or 8 hours at night. She also slept a lot during the day time too. We went out for dinner at night. This is one of the first times that we are able to go out and enjoy our food.

May 18, 2008(Sunday)

Today is the 6th anniversary for leaving Vancouver.
After church, I played ping pong and basketball with friends again, for almost 3 hours. I haven't played sport for such a long time and that is certainly relaxing. When I was playing ping pong, I was thinking about the frustration in my paper and therefore I smashed the ball really hard! Cailyn slept from 11pm to 7am this morning, a very long time! She also slept a lot during the day, but then now at night she is cranky and fuzzy.

May 17, 2008(Saturday)

I went to play some recreation basketball and ping-pong with church's friend. This is much more fun than running on treadmill or doing workout alone. Moreover, we saw a white dot inside the lower jaw of Cailyn, and we suspect that Cailyn may have her first teeth coming. Today is also Cailyn's 3-months birthday

May 16, 2008(Friday)

As usual, I spent some times studying. I also went out for jogging and at night we went to fellowship. Today is another normal day. Also, starting several weeks ago when Cailyn cries, there is tear. And ever since last week, Cailyn becomes more quiet, but mumbling when chewing her hand and more cranky.

May 15, 2008(Thursday)

Today I spent lots of time working on my paper. After figuring out the life's priority (God, family, etc), there are now some rooms for studying. I also led a church member Kenneth for prestudy for tomorrow's Bible study.

May 14, 2008(Wednesday)

I did not study at all this morning. I spent all the time sleeping and playing with Cailyn. This is much more rewarding, and I won't regret 30 years from now. Then I had meeting with professor about my paper. There are still lots of work. Depending on my previously submitted paper and the progress of this paper, I would know in two to three weeks whether I will be able to graduate in 4 or 5 years. I am learning to trust in God and cast the burden about when I should graduate.

May 13, 2008(Tuesday)

I took 3.5 hours to Atlanta, waited for 4 hours and then took flight an hour to Indianapolis. I slept most of the time. And then I arrived home after noon. That is such a great feeling to see Carmen and Cailyn again.
Afterward we went out to buy grocery. At night we also helped Cailyn to have her first haircut after bathing for her. Carmen only cut four cuts. She was struggling and it is hard to accomplish anything. It reminds me about when I was one, parents brought me to have haircut at some barber shop; I was struggling and cried; afterward mom helped me to cut hair for the next 18 years.

May 12, 2008(Monday)

I had presentation this morning. Since I am the last presenter of the last section, lots of people are gone already. Therefore, today there were only 7 people, including myself, Wenbin and my professors, attended. Two others are the other presenter and its professors. Only two or three "real" audience. Nevertheless I still put in my full effort and tried my best. I am happy about my presentation; I practiced it twice for the last two days already and I think that it turned out to be pretty good. This will also be my job-talk paper. I will first do a 20mins of this paper during the next two conferences (October and November). I will also do a one-hour version of this paper if I got any campus interview early next year. I will also do presentation of this paper when I do my proposal during this summer too. So I got to make it as perfect as I can.
Afterward we left the conference place at noon time. We drove around UC San Diego; we also went to down town La Jolla and had lunch there. The La Jolla Cove is very nice; it is like a beach with excellent nice environment. There are also over 50 Seal lying on the beach, very relax. The shops near by the La Jolla Cove seem very relaxing too. We walked around for about 1.5 hours. Afterward Wenbin was driving while I was sleeping on the car.
We had nothing much to do so we went to had an early Chinese dinner at around 4:30pm. Then we drove around downtown and saw the pier too. There is a huge fleet and we walked around too. At 7pm we absolutely had nothing to do, so we returned the car and went to the airport. At the airport I read some news and use the free internet too.

May 11, 2008(Sunday)

This morning I went to presentation of my classmates Ana, Wenbin and my professor Seb's presentations. Then we left San Diego at 12:15. We drove for about 2.3 hours (including 10-mins breaks) to Hollywood. The building and the surrounding is not as nice as we hope. Then we also drove and walked around Beverly Hill, especially trying to drive uphill along some small streets, because knowing that famous people prefers to stay away from the main street. Most of the cars that we see are either BMW, Benz, Lexus. When we were walking I also tried to pay attention to the driver, but I am not able to recognize any famous people. Nevertheless the surrounding environment is very nice, with lots of trees and grass. On a higher elevation of the Beverly Hill, there is nice view too. We also saw some house has swimming pool and tennis court, basically own that part of the mountain. In other places, they are called farmer and the land is cheap. But in here that is definitely very valuable. The "Greystone Park" located at the heart of the Beverly Hill is also very nice too. There is also an area that is designed for outdoor wedding and I am sure that many famous people were here before. We also drove around Rodeo Drive, a street that has lots of expensive shop.
Afterward we drove around UCLA and USC. These two campuses are located at city so the environment is not as nice, more like University of Toronto than like IU. Chinatown is also another must-go place. This Chinatown is like any other China town (e.g. Vancouver, Chicago, New York) - old, out of style and a bit dirty. I wish that we can find a more upbeat Chinatown (such as Richmond in Vancouver) but I don't know where that is. Most of the shops are closed by the time we were there (6pm). But nevertheless I still found a place to purchase some dry food. We also had dinner there, but not a level of high quality and low price as I would expect at LA.
Finally we left at 8pm and drove for almost 2 hours and arrived to the hotel at 10pm. So we were able to go to as South as border-with-Mexico and as north as Hollywood during the last two days!

May 10, 2008(Saturday)

After breakfast this morning, I attended a Doctoral Consortium about "Transitioning from Doctoral Student to Professor". There is a lot of useful information and I learnt a lot about what to expect being a professor. I also talked to several fellow students (who will be my competitor when applying job) and professors. I am much more active and socialize today than yesterday. One thing I learnt is that I should be totally ready before going to the job market. If I plan to go to the job market next year, that means I have to be ready by this August in order to submit the job application this September. With the problem I experienced in my research a few weeks ago, I am not sure whether I will be ready or not. Now I am much more open to the idea of graduating in 5 years than in 4 years. However, I need to talk to my professor and see what he thinks.
We left the conference at around 5pm, and we found out that the rear windshield of our rented car is broken. There is a small hole, but there are cracks everywhere else. I doubt that this is a break-in because nothing is stolen (we only have some clothes inside) and the hole is too small for people to open the door. I think that a stone hit the window instead. Nevertheless we reported this incident to the police (via phone). We are so grateful that we purchased the insurance, which is only $9 per day. Therefore we don't have to pay a single dollar, and we estimate that the damage would cost about $250. When there is no accident, insurance seems expensive; but when something happens, insurance is extremely valuable and I feel like the $9 is so valuable! We also went to the rental car place and exchange the car, without paying a single dollar!
Wenbin went to some Chinese place to eat dinner and he led me to the area with lots of Chinese food. I found some HK style bread shop, and Carmen would absolutely love about this! Moreover we had dinner at some restaurant and I ordered beef stew noodle. It does not taste very good, but already is good enough if that is located at Bloomington. Moreover we have some free time tomorrow and we plan to drive to LA (which is roughly 2 hours drive). We returned to the hotel at 7:50 to prepare for our presentation and rest early so that we have enough energy to travel tomorrow.

May 09, 2008(Friday)

I am going to San Diego for conference today and return next Tuesday morning. I am going with my classmate Wenbin. I went to bed at 10:00pm last night, and woke up at 1:10am. Then I did some studying and cleaning up the house, and left home at 3:45. We arrived to the airport at 5:00am and took a 1 hour flight to Atlanta, wait for 2 hours, and took another 5 hours flight to San Diego and arrived at local time noon. I did a bit studying but slept through most of the flight time.
This is one of the most relaxing trips (other than going to Vancouver) that I ever had, because I don't have to do any teaching, and we are renting a car with a motivation of visiting different places. Even though we don't know the place well (this is his first time coming here and my second time, but last time it was about 1998 and I forgot everything already), we drove around. We first drove to downtown, but there is not much going on. We just went to the Westfield Horton Plaza to have some lunch. Then we drove to the Naval Air Station, hoping to see some army/navy. However, the place is restricted, so we left. We drove around the shore and arrived to "Imperial Beach". This kind of beach is similar to Miami's beach, but is much worse and low quality. The weather is pretty cold too (may be around 15 degree Celsius when standing on the beach). We just quickly walked around and left again. Then we drove all the way to the border of Mexico. I remembered that I was here 10 years ago. We did not cross the border, but we were able to see Mexico and the houses on the hill. The road names (even though this is in US) are sometimes in Spanish too. The feeling and the scene brings back a lot of my Venezuelan memories. I see a lot of Mexican and people are speaking Spanish. Then we drove from the very south side of San Diego, all the way to the very north side of San Diego to the conference location (about 25 miles).
The conference is supposed to start at 8:30am today, but since we don't have to do any presentation, we were just walking around anyway. When we were there at 4:50pm, we just talk to some classmates and friends that we met last October at the conference at Purdue. This is so difficult to pass time at the conference; it is because if I am listening to other people presenting, it is usually boring. And if I am not attending the workshop, I am just a nobody student from some mid-upper tier school (IU) and no one pay attention to me (at least, this is what I think). People are not friendly too, in a sense that they only talk to people that they know. Therefore during the reception, I am usually by myself (when Wenbin left) and pretended to be busy (e.g. lining up to get food, or walking from one place to the other place but actually it is just aimlessly walking). I don't want to look stupid. I bet that other people feel the same thing too because I see people stand alone. I am not a socialize person and this would be very difficult and odd for me to walk up front to a stranger and introduce myself.
Wenbin met his friend from China so he did not join me for dinner. (I found that there is a lot of Mandarin speaking Chinese in my field, but almost no Cantonese speaking HK people from my field; so I always see large group of Chinese people gathering talking in Mandarin, while if I have to talk to them I have to use English.) So instead of having dinner by myself (there was reception with some snack, so I ate lots of them, plus the sandwiches and cookies that Carmen packed for me this morning, in order to save some money). I drove around University of California San Diego (UCSD) campus. This campus is located on the mountain, and it felt like SFU. In terms of the ranking and the brand, I would absolutely be happy to get into any of the UC, but I don't particularly like this campus. However, I like San Diego because it felt like Miami - with palm tree, holiday mood, sunshine, and beach. Then I also drove around La Jolla (the area that we had our conference). There is some beach near by, felt very much like Spanish Bank / Jericho beach in Vancouver. I see some group (Friday night fellowship group?) having BBQ and reminds me about Vancouver. The houses and the scene along the coast are quite upscale, plus the entertainment-industry-gossip radio station I am listening, I felt like I am in Beverly Hill. I enjoyed the car ride. (Even though I don't particular like driving and I am always in a hurry when I need to go from one place to the other, I actually like this kind of adventurous driving when visiting a new place and without time pressure.) I drove to Mission point, drove nearby the famous San Diego Sea World, tried to found some Asian Food in the area that I was told with Asian food (but failed to find any) and returned to the hotel at 8pm. I think that I drove about 80 or 90 miles today.
There is some problem with my camera so I sent that to Canon to fix it yesterday. I regret about this! So I tried to be as detail as possible when writing the online diary. Moreover I miss Carmen and Cailyn very much and hope that they are doing fine in Bloomington. (This is one of the first times that I carry my cell phone with me while traveling, therefore I am able to talk to them any time. Very convenient)

May 08, 2008(Thursday)

Today is another day that I don't want to study. Since I will be going to conference for the next couple of days, I spent most of the time enjoying family time. I played around with Cailyn and did some housework too. I find that I always spend lots of time studying, but at the end the professor would say that there is problem somewhere and ask me to do it again. This is frustrating, so I am learning to do it slow and enjoy life a bit more.

May 07, 2008(Wednesday)

Today is an idle day. After spending times in coordinating the pastoral search, we still don't have a consensus. Some thought that we are moving too fast and some thought that we are ok. Moreover, after doing school work I find that I am not going anywhere. Therefore I took a break today. I spend more time with Cailyn and read some books.

May 06, 2008(Tuesday)

Cailyn needs to have some tummy time so that she can strengthen her neck's muscle. However she doesn't really like it and may cry afterward. Today after letting her doing tummy time for several minutes, she cries quite hard and I can feel that she hates me (because I put her on her tummy). I felt quite sad but I told her that life is never supposed to be easy and if she can't even overcome this third difficulty (the first is learn to breathe, second is learn to eat), then she can't survive her life. She definitely doesn't understand at this point of her life. This also reminds me about we can be like that too. When we go through hard time, we don't know why.

May 05, 2008(Monday)

Lately I spent a lot of time doing research. And I even prepared myself to think about research when I go out to run. Today is no exception. However God inspired and revived me. My mind is too focusing and has no room for other thing. Therefore I am not able to listen to God's word. Originally I plan to use my jogging time thinking about school work and I am glad that God put this thought in my mind. I need to focus on the bigger pictures. For example, even though I spend time with family, however my mind is sometimes thinking school work even when I am playing with Cailyn.

May 04, 2008(Sunday)

After Sunday church, we had meeting with the Cantonese Macedonia group. My role is more like an actively involved counselor. Hopefully I am not providing too much guidance that took over the role of the leader.

May 03, 2008(Saturday)

We had interview with Pastor David Cheng today. We first asked him to share his salvation testimony and his calling, then about his view on some church issue. At night we had pot luck with church members so that other people would get to know him too. It went relatively smooth and we thank God about this.

May 02, 2008(Friday)

Tonight is fellowship's farewell. There are several people, e.g. Shangmin/Tanyue, Daniel/Yangching that we have served together at the deacon board building the church. They are leaving. They have fulfilled their purpose at church and it is sad to say good bye to these people. However, life moves on and next year today it will be my turn.

May 01, 2008(Thursday)

I am still working on my outsourcing paper. This is still my big paper and I don't think that I have nice result yet. However I have to do presentation next week, plus I have to submit abstract around next week as well for going to conference during October. Therefore I am under tremendous stress (given by myself) to finish this paper as soon as possible. However I am also learning to wait for God to lead me.