December 31, 2008(Wednesday)

It is not possible to go out for countdown when Cailyn is sleeping at home. Therefore, for most of the day today, I am working on papers. And at night, we watched "Kung Fu Panda" movie at home to pass the count down hour.

December 30, 2008(Tuesday)

I finally had a full workout today. Ever since I injured my knee Nov 28, I usually worked on my arm when I went for workout. My knee is more or less healed and I went for the usual running. It is good to have some running time, especially after the idle during the last week.

December 29, 2008(Monday)

There is a morning talk today, but I spent the time sleeping with Cailyn. And we left after lunch time and purchased some grocery. After 4.25 hours drive (including 30mins break), we arrived home at 8:20pm. Cailyn slept through the first 2 hours. And then she was awake and became quite fuzzy for the next two hours. She cried a lot and eventually exhausted herself and sleep.

December 28, 2008(Sunday)

I was baby sitting Cailyn this morning and afternoon and missed some talk. However the talk at night is pretty good. The speaker is good and there are many people committed themselves to full time ministry. Pray that these people can keep their faith.
Today Nicky and Joyce also joined us for the conference. We went out for lunch. Then I also went to the gym to do some workout. I haven't exercised for 5 days. It is good to exercise after so many sleeps and so many eating.

December 27, 2008(Saturday)

Having a baby is really tough to attend a conference (or as a matter of fact, travel and visit places in general). We have to wait for Cailyn to wake up before leaving the hotel room. Then, in the middle of the talk, she starts to be fuzzy so I need to take care of her. Then when it is time for her first afternoon nap, we brought her to the hotel room to put her to sleep, and slept with her. Therefore, we have to skip many talks. And when she is fully awake and after eating, this is the long break of the conference; hence we can't do anything.
We tried to take turn taking care the baby for the rest of the day. Since I am good at putting Cailyn to afternoon nap while Carmen is good at every thing else, I took the afternoon shift and went to sleep with her (that makes me sleep for 10 hours today!) and attend the night talk. The talk about being a missionary at your career is pretty good. Then we had group sharing with Cantonese people. It is good to share in Cantonese with others! There are about 10 people and most of them are from Chicago.

December 26, 2008(Friday)

We left home at around 11am and drove with Jacky to Chicago for 4 hours. Cailyn slept some of the trip and we are glad that everything is safe. The weather here is a bit cold, around freezing temperature. We had early dinner/late lunch with Bloomington church friends Nicky/Joyce family and Frank. Then we arrived to the Chicago Chinese Christian Conference hotel at around 6pm local time. After some settling down, we went to the talk. It is not easy to go to conference with baby because she made lots of noise. Also, we are glad that we were in Canada/HK two months ago, because ever since then, I am not able to hold her and put her to sleep. Therefore, it is very difficult to focus on the conference because Cailyn always make noise. There is nursery but since we are new to here and Cailyn is too small, we don't want to put her to nursery.

December 25, 2008(Thursday)

Today is Cailyn's first Christmas. There is nothing going on in this area. We went out for a long walk (around 80mins) and we see less than 20 people on the street and around 20 or 30 cars. Everywhere, even some of the Chinese restaurants, are closed. The weather is not too cold (around freezing temperature) so this is a good time to get some fresh air.

December 24, 2008(Wednesday)

Most of the shops are closing early today. We went to Target and Borders bookstore for some shopping. We are very amazed that, in a holiday season of a college town (i.e. empty town), there are so many people in the shopping malls. There are as many people as the school opening move-in season!
At night we went to Sherwood Oak church for a short Christmas Eve worship.

December 23, 2008(Tuesday)

I am working on my dissertation for several hours today. Then I also went to do some workout. The weather is a bit cold, but the floor is very slippery. Therefore, the gym closed early at 5pm. I won't be able to do workout for the next couple of days because the gym will be closed for the 24th and 25th and then we will go to Chicago from 26th to 29th. So it will be a week break.

December 22, 2008(Monday)

This morning Carmen and Cailyn went to the "sister's fellowship" and I took this opportunity to do some homework and do some housework. Then I went to play basketball. At night, we had a gathering with Macedonia people to celebrate Christmas. It is quite tedious to have baby during winter time to bring food for pot luck. There is lots of thing to bring and it is not easy. Nevertheless, we had a good evening with some exchanging gift too.

December 21, 2008(Sunday)

I gave a sermon today about Mark 2:1-12; the idea is to ask people to bring people to Christ. The sermon was pretty short, but it has covered everything that I want to say. So I think that this is ok. (Being the audience, I would love if the speaker makes it short and not drag; however being the speaker, making it too short may make myself look bad).
Today is also a very cold day, around -12 degree Celsius.

December 20, 2008(Saturday)

This morning I went to church friends Melody and Felix's graduation ceremony. Then at night we went to couple's fellowship. There are 7 couples, and about 9 kids. Lots of kids! They played around themselves but Cailyn can only watch them to play.

December 19, 2008(Friday)

In the morning, I had about 3 hours meeting with professors about the paper's revise and resubmit. This is a long meeting because he will be out of town for the next three weeks. Therefore, after the meeting I have a good holiday mood. The paper is 90% done and I don't need to be as stress. In terms of the number of work, it won't change for the next few weeks (the professor joking think of something to make me busy for the next several weeks; but I told him that I have plan about what to do [in terms of school work] already). However, Christmas is coming and no more meeting. Therefore, I felt pretty relax.

December 18, 2008(Thursday)

This morning we brought Cailyn to do the flu-shot-follow-up. The shot was quick and she only cried a bit. Then for the rest of the day, I did some exercise, doing homework and went to prayer meeting.

December 17, 2008(Wednesday)

Another day; thing as usual. The one special thing is that, I did not leave the apartment building at all.

December 16, 2008(Tuesday)

I am working on the "figures" for my paper today, again. The prof has a really high standard (picky) and wants me to do it over and over again (at least 4 or 5 times already). But I still have a hope that this paper will be done by the end of this year. Moreover, I started to work on my another paper (about outsourcing) and I hope to get the ball rolling again.

December 15, 2008(Monday)

There is another faculty hiring presentation today. This is another candidate coming; he has been working as a professor for 8 years and no wonder why he did a great job. However he also mentioned that to get tenure it is necessary to have at least 5 publications at the "A" journal at his school. This is actually quite difficult and I don't think I am able to do it several years from now.

December 14, 2008(Sunday)

This morning I had the deacon board meeting. During the beginning of the term (May), we usually have a longer (2 to 3 hours) meeting. However, after half a year has passed, the meeting is much shorter (45mins sharing and 50 mins meeting) and not as frequent (rather than once per month, now it is 1.5 months per meeting). However there is other church's meeting (e.g. pastoral search committee meeting) that consumes a lot of my time.

December 13, 2008(Saturday)

I spent more than 8 hours in the last 24 hours working on the paper. Rather than doing anything that is brain-related, I am drawing some figures. I first need to use the Mathematica program to run about 50,000 rows of data. Then using excel's VBA function, I sort the data in a nice way. Next, I use another computer (because my laptop does not have Office 2007) to do "condition formatting" on all these data, using Excel 2007. Then I use MS-Paint to window-capture the output at Excel 2007 (I have a lot of output! Even with Zoom 15%, the figure still takes 25% of the screen). Finally, I use the Word to draw the axis and paste the figure from MS-Paint. This is a very tedious process, and because I am handling some many data, the computer is VERY slow. Not only my laptop, but even the computer at the computer lab is slow too! And what make it really worse is that, I am required to have near-perfect figure. In another words, if the arrow (on the axis) is too large, or the number on the scale is not too align, I am still required to do the whole thing again! I have to do this process for 10+ figures. Once again, I find that a researcher is more like an artistic than a scientist.
Saturday night (or sometimes Sunday night) is usually the housework night; therefore we are working on the laundry, taking care of the baby, cleaning the house, etc.

December 12, 2008(Friday)

I wasn't home most of the day today; therefore, Carmen and Cailyn are left alone by themselves, something that we have to experience later when I found a job.
This morning there is a department faculty presentation. Our department is hiring two new faculties and today is a presentation. Rather than hiring someone fresh grad (because, according to my professor, there is no good one available), they are hiring some experienced professors, ones that have been working for several years. Obviously their presentation and their research are more mature.
Then I went to play badminton and basketball; I haven't played game for quite a while and it is good to do some exercise again. At night the fellowship program is fare welling some students. Being a campus fellowship, it is very frequent to farewell students. We are used to separation already.

December 11, 2008(Thursday)

Nothing really special going on today. We went to prayer meeting at night.

December 10, 2008(Wednesday)

Cailyn is much heals now then before. We are relieve about this! Today I went for some workout and had dinner and discipleship training with Jacky.

December 09, 2008(Tuesday)

I had meeting with professor about my revise-and-resubmit paper. I started this paper first term of my PhD program (2005-10). We are working on the third round of submission and hopefully I can get this in. If so, then this would have a huge impact to my future job search.
At night we went to Border bookstore for the Christmas party celebration. The program is from 6-9; by the time we were there (7:20), it looks like nothing is left, except some little kids playing some games. But anyway my purpose of going there is to read comic; so I spent 1.5 hours reading comic, while Carmen is very nice enough to take care Cailyn!

December 08, 2008(Monday)

Today is a very quiet day; Cailyn is still a bit sick but not getting too fuzzy.

December 07, 2008(Sunday)

I am the worship leader today; I usually do not prefer to lead the traditional hymns. However, I tried today, especially because this is the month of Christmas. It turned out not as bad as I thought! Thanks God. Cailyn is still sick today; she is more fuzzy than usual and I am glad that Carmen took a big part in taking care of her.

December 06, 2008(Saturday)

Cailyn has a cold (first time she really gets sick); the weather is getting cold; therefore she is getting quite fuzzy today.
Cailyn can sleep much better at night; however during the two afternoon naps, she always gets fuzzy and needs pacifier to go to bed.

December 05, 2008(Friday)

Today is the first time that Cailyn went to see dentist. We waited for the dentist for about 30 mins; and then when he came, Cailyn is not willing to open her mouth. And basically the dentist only takes a glimpse and says that she has good teeth. Some 9-month old baby only start to have his first teeth, but Cailyn now has 8!
In the afternoon I attended department's presentation; at night we went to fellowship as usual. I also had the pastoral search committee meeting.

December 04, 2008(Thursday)

We went out for a walk in the afternoon; this is one of our highlight of the week. Even though Bloomington has very few things, it does have an excellent environment. Even though today is very cold, it is great to have a walk outside, for about an hour.

December 03, 2008(Wednesday)

This morning I drove Carmen and Cailyn to the public library for attending the monthly "Bouncing baby", where there are other babies also present and did some group exercises. Then I had meeting with professors in the afternoon and worked on my paper the rest of the day.

December 02, 2008(Tuesday)

Today is another relaxing day, because I have emailed my work to professors last night and is waiting to meet professor tomorrow. Therefore, we went to Wal-Mart to buy some grocery, which is considered to be high light of the day. At night I had discipleship training with Jacky; frequently he gave me lots of advises too, so it is sometimes not clear immediately that who is training who.

December 01, 2008(Monday)

I was resting my left knee from some injury and only did upper body workout today. I don't sweat as much, but it is very tired.
Today is the deadline for the healthcare paper; I previously worried that whether it can be finished on-time. It is finally submitted and I felt good! I can now focus on the Cisco paper (revise and resubmit).
Sleep training starts to take effect. I still remember 15 days ago Cailyn struggled so much (1.5 hours) to go to bed that I am really angry. However, tonight, she went to bed after only 5 to 10 mins of minimal struggling. Carmen and I felt very good about this!