Diary
My Life at June 2004
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June 30, 2004(Wednesday)
Today is a peaceful day at work. Also, after finishing GRE (although I may plan to take it again later), I don't need to push myself as hard as I used to be. I have emailed IU's prof about my chance for PhD. Since I am aiming at the very top school (Stanford, MIT, Columbia, U of Penn, Harvard and so on), there is always chance that I don't get accepted. Therefore, today I researched on the not-so-top (but still top 10 in USA) schools University of Michigan and Duke University.
I went to Che So's house for dinner.
June 29, 2004(Tuesday)
I took the GRE test this morning. I used all the time for the two essay questions; even though it would be ideal if I have 3 more minutes, I still think that I did fine. I think that I did well in the following math section. And then the English section; this is all the reason for the endless hour of studying. I think that the test is a bit easier than I thought and I think that I did ok. For some reason, the first Math section is a "pretest" section and the mark is not for-real. The real math section is this one. This is a bit harder and my brain's cells are all dead at that time. Therefore, I had a hard time concentrating and used all the time to take the test.
The result came out. I got perfect (or at least, I got 800/800) on math. No surprise. But I only get 390/800 in English. VERY DISAPPOINTED. As noted on my diary from yesterday, I expect a much higher score. What happened?
Since the last GMAT test, I thought that God has opened a lot of doors. I had a good GMAT mark and my MBA marks are all good. Therefore, even though I know that GRE test is difficult, I still think that I should be able to clear it. But I can't. However, I am glad that this only affects the application to U of Penn and MIT. Or does this have a broader implication?
The bigger question is, should I take the GRE test again? In terms of the cost, there is not much. The application fee is US$140 and the studying is not too difficult (well, it still hurts!). However, would I get a better score the second time? I need to have a reason or another studying strategy to proof to myself that I can get a better score the second time. Sometimes, I have the "second-time-high-score" luck, e.g. the first CCIE exam and GMAT. However, I have the "first time passing" luck too, e.g. the second CCIE exam and driver license. Anyway, I need to research on this option of taking the test again. But it will probably be at least a month from now. In the mean time, I need to concentrate on the real work. GRE only impacts two universities while Statement of Purpose, reference letter and MBA grades impact all universities.
I went to fellowship at night and led Bible Study Luke 15:1-27 about the "lost sheep", "lost coin" and "lost son". There was a new comer Jhon who was here for several weeks already. He also went to the BBQ last Thursday at Che So's house. I spread the gospel to him and asked him to think about this.
June 28, 2004(Monday)
I am glad that there is nothing much going on at work. I was studying GRE extensively. I am probably at my peak now. I took two practice tests today; one of them has good mark (670/800) and the other was not bad (570/800). This gives me more confident about tomorrow's test. The study was so intense that my brain is almost fired if I study again and so I rest for the night.
June 27, 2004(Sunday)
I led Sunday School today about the theology questions again. Since I have the gift of knowledge and teaching, I need to use it more often. And I went to Parque del Este the third time in these four days for running. I had my last GRE practice test before the real thing coming Tuesday. I have lots of confident when I am taking the test, yet my result is really disappointing. Probably I have no luck to study in neither MIT nor the University of Pennsylvania.
June 26, 2004(Saturday)
I went to Parque del Este for run and I also worked on the MBA's finance course. Then Semson's family and Dr. Chu's family and I went to auntie Patricia's house for lunch. I used to live in the same building when I first came to Venezuela. I ate a lot. At night, I went to Baptist Church to practice music for July 27's outreach.
June 25, 2004(Friday)
This morning is a terrible morning. First, I did not get connected to the internet yesterday (well, I just checked email briefly at Che So's house). Therefore, I need to do a lot of housekeeping administrative job. I also took some photo yesterday so I need to upload them too. And then, I need to host the online section from 9-11 and 3-5. The online connection works Wednesday when I tested it but then when I tried to connect it again, it does not work, similar to what happened last online section. I have to troubleshoot it. And I got a phone call from McDonald saying that they have network problem. Therefore, three things throw at me and I felt that there is a lot of fire that I need to put off. Originally I told McDonald people to call my boss because I have to host the online section and thus I don't have time for them. But Omar called me back and asked me to go there after the online section at 5pm. I have scheduled an online chat with MBA's student so I have to miss it.
Gladly speaking, today turned out to be a "bubble" stressing day. No one showed up at all in the two online sections. Therefore, I was just waiting and also doing my own stuff during that time. Everything was settled and I can go to McDonald at 4:30. And the problem in McDonald turned out to be an easy one and I finished it with ease within an hour. I felt so successful because of that. Originally, I planned to drag the troubleshooting so that I can multi-task: troubleshoot and attending the MBA online section at the same time. However, the troubleshooting was just too easy so I get to leave early. I also sent a very long email with all of my comments regarding about the MBA stuff and said that I can't attend the online section. Therefore, I went home early.
I finished watching the Saint Seiya DVD that Hansel gave me. I love this DVD. Yet, according to the communication method between Hansel and I, I will always said that this DVD is garbage and I don't enjoy it, yet say it in an exciting and "unbelievable" tone. I actually mean that I love it and enjoy it. I asked him whether there is anymore, knowing that he does not have more. Oh well, I will see whether there is more DVD at home so that next time when I go to Vancouver, I can pick up some. My computer can't play VCD and it can only play some of the DVD. I don't know why.
June 24, 2004(Thursday)
Today is some kind of Venezuelan holiday so there is no work. I went for a morning jog in Parque del Este. Afterward, we went to Che So's house with lots of church people for BBQ. We hang around and I took several photos. There was nothing special. I went home at 6:30 and had the late-afternoon nap. And then I went to have grocery shopping and then studied GRE after dinner. It is a pain to study GRE because the English questions are so difficult. After taking the test 6 times, with 67% of new questions each time), my English score pretty much stabilized to 440/800 (42 percentile). The average English GMAT score needed is 650/800. I am very pessimistic about my chance. My only hope is that they will repeat the questions that I have seen in the study software. If all the questions are new, I expect myself getting roughly 450/800. For the Math score, I should have no problem getting a perfect score.
June 23, 2004(Wednesday)
Work is normal as usual, except that the online section from last month's Miami's course is postponed in the last minute to Friday. Omar has expressed dissatisfaction to the CTT because that may interrupt our work schedule.
I saw the family of Dr. Chu in the restaurant downstairs. I went to say hi to them and brought YiSon (3 yrs old) to look at my house. I have to look after him during those brief 10 mins because I don't want him to climb over the fence and fall down to the ground, which is 9 floors high. It is very stressed to look after the kids of other people. And when we went down to meet Dr. Chu, YiSon stood on the chair with his younger brother Paul (1.5 yrs old). I was talking with YiSon and for some reason, Paul just fall down to the ground. That was very horrible to see a little kid fall down from the chair.
June 22, 2004(Tuesday)
My contract expired this May and I have not renewed my contract since then. I have actively seeking the boss for contract. Gerardo mentioned that I will have a separate one because I may be heading to Mexico. However, I have not negotiated with him yet because he is always busy and in Miami. Carmen asked me that whether this may be a trap/excuse of not renewing the contract with me. I told her that I am not worrying about this. I know that God is in control. If He wants me to leave, I have to leave. And if He wants me to stay, I have to stay. She thought that I have so much faith. Actually, this "faith" thing is what I learnt the most in Venezuela. People here do thing slow and very last minute. And thing are not reliable. If I used my Canadian standard, then I would be worry-to-death easily. Starting from day one, when I don't even know whether the company Desca exists or not and whether their offer to me is real or not. There have been too many things that went on for the last two years that is totally out of my control. Therefore, I decided that just leave it to God and try not to think about it. Whenever this thing comes to my mind (like today), I will have a really hard time because I will be really worry.
There is no electricity again in the office when I arrived. Why? Is it because this is Venezuela? And this office building REALLY VERY sucks! There are two elevators but this building has no two-elevator situation for more than 8 months! They tried to replace the elevators one by one and it takes a long time. Therefore, we were stuck with one elevator most of them time. It is slow, especially because people are stopping almost every floor. During the three up-and-down round trips (go to work, go to lunch, go to McDonald) each day, I usually just take the elevator twice, when I arrived work and arrive after lunch. I was really mad when I see that the elevator is stopping many floors!
I also practiced the GRE exam today. My English score have stabilized to around 420 out of 800. I hope to have at least 600 and it looks like that it takes a miracle to achieve that score. Now I hope that they will repeat some of the questions that I see on the practice test.
I went to church for fellowship at night and we shared about each other's good and bad thing. People are not very open so it did not go as well as I hope. However, lately, I learnt how to cast the program to God and not care the outcoming. For example, Mrs. Cheng told me that some people told her that Father Day Sunday's Bicycle song was bad and people complained. Previously I would feel really bad. However, now, I would just say, "oh well, I tried my best" and that's it.
June 21, 2004(Monday)
The road to Monday morning work is always tough. It is has nothing to do with "I hate to work" thing. It has to do with the "reconnect to internet" thing. There are a lot of emails, diary and also MBA stuff that I need to check. Therefore, I have this phobia.
The result for last Friday's MBA Business Planning simulation was out. Our team did not do that great. Although in terms of market share, share price we are second (out of six teams), our performance was a lot worse than the winner and also only slightly better than the third or the fourth. This is only the first round out of 8 rounds. I hope that we will get a better mark later.
I studied GRE at night and I was hoping that I will get a better mark. I will take the test next Tuesday.
June 20, 2004(Sunday)
I was the singspiration leader in both churches again. In the morning, I led "Debes Alabar a Jehová" (Stream of Praises), Bridge (Parent's song from ACM), "all because of you", "people life song" and "who is like Jesus". Since today is Father's Day, the youth and, mainly, I sang the "Bicycle" pop song from Eason Chan. That was a DIASTER. I did not have the music chord with me in the first time. And we sang but the key was high so I have to lower it in the middle of it. I have to fake through the key. It was TERRIBLE, very BAD! The other people who sang with me are very unfamiliar with this song and we (including myself) were all out of tone. The last time that I felt so bad about a performance was about 1995 ago a talent show in Hebron where I played piano at that time. Mrs. Cheng gave me the chord and I forced through myself and everyone to sing the song second time. It was a lot better, but still bad. My foot was shaking, which was the first time that this occurs! It tells how embarrass and how nervous I was! If this is not me and not because I have to lead song afterward, I would probably leave immediately and cry!
There was no Sunday School today because it was a gospel Sunday, although not many people came. There was a luncheon at church. And then I went home to take a break.
I went to MB Church and led "Debes Alabar a Jehová" (Stream of Praises), Bridge (Parent's song from ACM), "Dios Escucha Mi Oración", "This life most beautiful blessing" (SoP) and "who is like Jesus". During Mother Day of this year, there were some games to play the mother. Therefore, there is game to play the fathers today. It was ok but a bit dragging.
After dinner, there was Chinese youth fellowship. We shared about our Father. I was listening to other people most of them time. Almost all of them have traditional father. These fathers never express their love in words and was very "ouck". Whenever they say something, it has to be correct and the kids fear them. And some of the fathers went oversea to work when the child was young and they did not get to see their dad often. Every time when fellowship (from Hebron in 1992, Canaan to now), I felt extremely grateful for my family. I rank raising in my family as a blessing that is as great as the life changing experience because of knowing Jesus. Grandfather, dad, mom and Hansel are all THE BEST! My dad (since today is Father's day) was extremely non-tradition (in a good sense) and we had good and fun time. We were explicit (thanks to mom) expressing our feeling too. My goal is to raise my kids in the EXACT way that how my parents raise us. Which parents would get this high mark from their children? (besides Hansel, of course) This is how good dad and mom are, as my parents.
I called parents at night and greet them (both dad and mom!) Happy Father days and say I love you (in Chinese) to them. I am so sweet :)
June 19, 2004(Saturday)
I helped Semson to move house. He used to live in a house, size of about 5319 Norfolk St. However, his house is quite far from church and since he became a pastor he has very few income, he moved to an apartment close to church. The apartment is considerably smaller but is nice place. We got a large truck from a church member and then moved a lot of the big stuff like bed or drawer. Kum Fung joined us half way. It lasted from 9:30 to 3:00. I am a very discipline person and God taught me not to be rigid and leave room for any special thing. Therefore, I sacrifice and did not have the weekly run, afternoon nap and GRE studying.
I went to Baptist Church for music practice, dinner with Che So and Mrs. Cheng and then went to MB Church for music practice.
June 18, 2004(Friday)
I need to get a high mark for GRE; I am aiming at full mark for the Math part. The problem is the English part. And out of the four sections (Reading comprehension, Sentence completion, Antonym, Analogies), the last two gave me the most headaches. I would only have a third correct, which is killing me. Therefore, I made a spreadsheet with all the vocabulary and hope that by the exam time, I can at least know most of the vocabulary that happens in the practice exam. And I love the dictionary.com website because it is so convenient, a lot better than flipping though pages and pages of real dictionary. Of course, the trade off is that, the meaning would not be on my mind as long.
I also researched on the C560 Business Planning MBA course big time today. I had a simulation last term on the Operation Management. I hate that one because I have to be online in order to run that simulation. There is some luck involved as well. However, the simulation this term, called capsim, is way better. It requires a lot of strategy and that is FUN! Here is what is going on: our team consists of six people and we are competing against five other teams. There are five different market segments and at least five different products, with at least one for each market segment. Moreover, there are several functional roles: R&D (research and development), marketing, finance, HR and production. I assigned myself to be the R&D manager so I need to think of whether having a new product or not, and how to position each product. We had two practice rounds last weeks; we did pretty good the first round but absolutely destroyed the second round because most of us (including myself) missed the deadline to submit the decision.
Anyway, I researched and thought a lot about the R&D strategy and whether to have a new product or not extensively today. At night from 7pm to 8:30 pm there was an online chat meeting about this. I "talked" through most of the meeting with my discovery and my strategy! Also, I LOVE netmeeting. I can type relatively fast and I can think fast. Therefore, I basically dominate whenever I am on a netmeeting!
Since this is a Friday night, I need to enjoy. I watched Saint Seiya disk 3 that Hansel gave me. When I just started to watch, Semson asked me whether I can help him to move house tomorrow. I planned to study GRE tomorrow morning so I said no. However, when I hang up, I felt guilty because he has helped out a lot of people and this is a chance for me to show the love of Christian. In addition, God *may* bless my GRE studying. Therefore, I called him back saying that I can help him tomorrow.
After watching DVD for 30 mins, I did the GRE practice test 2 that I originally planned to do it tomorrow morning. I did perfect again for the math part, as expected. However, I almost got destroyed for the English part again. For the English part, I got 340/800 (13 percentile, 13/30 correct) last Saturday and I got 420/800 (35 percentile, 16/30 correct) this time. They gave me 30 mins to do 30 questions and I rushed through the English part very fast. (On the contrarily, they gave 45 mins to do 30 math questions, but it only takes me 30 mins to finish the math part!) I was lucky to get some of the questions correct. The score that I have now is no way near the requirement of MIT or U Penn (both of which are the TOP of the world!). It will definitely take a miracle for me to get over 60 percentile.
I am glad that only MIT and U of Penn look at my GRE score. Other universities, e.g. Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, UCLA accept my GMAT score. I watched another hour of "Saint Seiya" DVD and went to bed at almost 2am.
June 17, 2004(Thursday)
I guess that there must be an all-manager meeting for this few days. I don't see any managers or directors here. I just worked on MBA, studied GRE and revised the Statement of Purpose. Other than that, this is another normal day.
June 16, 2004(Wednesday)
Since I am sick, I originally planned to have a sick leave today. However, since my computer is in Desca, so I went there, check email and planned to return home. I woke up late already and went to work at almost 10. I still need to install the Call Manager to a server so I want to see how much I can do. Near lunch time, I am still downloading a 134 M files. Also, in the mean time I am just checking the MBA homework. Therefore, I decided to take a longer lunch time so that I can wake up from my afternoon nap. It turned out that, I can only sleep for 1.1 hours. I slept too much last night. So I went back to work. The file download stopped at 17.9M. The connection just lost. So I have to download again, which will take two hours. I have no problem with that because I am doing my work at that time anyway.
I went home and did my usual stuff. Cooking, studying, and resting.
June 15, 2004(Tuesday)
I finally have a flu. I should have it several weeks ago but I managed to slip through it. Anyway, I drank a lot and had 1.5 hours of afternoon nap today. I am taking medicine too! Hopefully that I can get back to health soon.
There is an "everyone meeting" today and it is in Spanish. I am glad that I can slip out half way. I assume that I have an urgent telephone call and then just left. I missed 30 mins of Spanish anyway. I talked to Gerardo about the Mexico plan and my contract. It is delayed because we have to get a new office. But he assures me that the plan is still on.
I went to church for dinner and then hosted the fellowship. I have been this kind of situation before: quite sick but then as the "show time" comes, I can get through that. So today, I taught them the "Bicycle" song (From Eason Chan) that we will sing in the Father's Day. Also, we practiced a little bit the drama for July 27. Lastly, I explained to them about Evolution, Big Bang Theory. I got really "science" mode and they seems to have interest too.
June 14, 2004(Monday)
I need to install Call Manager 3.3(3) on a server. Some version of Call Manager is already installed. I need to check the version but somehow it keeps on giving me error message. I asked Enzo, a Desca engineer that knows a lot of voice stuff and who I have bug him for many times, and find out that I need to program the previous-IP address statically or else it would not work. It is so stupid. In addition, I worked on the MBA C560 (Business Planning) simulation. The Operation Management course from last term also had simulation but this term's simulation was much better. In addition, for the first half of the course, all we have to do is simulation. It feels like that this term will be the lightest, while last term was the busiest. I can spend more time in writing the Statement of Purpose, studying GRE, studying CCIE re-certification and preparing for wedding (and moving to Mexico if I need to). I will see what GPA I can get for this term though. It seems like that I perform best when I have the most to do. For example, my GPA was the highest in my fourth year, when the work load is the heaviest. I also got two A's last term when I was very busy. If this concept holds, I may not get any A this term.
I think that I will have a flu very soon. I did some unusual thing (in my standard) to prevent that. I ate a lot of nutrient (two eggs, 1.5 cup chocolate milk, steak, vegetable, orange, macaroni for dinner), ate a lot of Vitamin C condensed juice (originally this is a tab of orange thing and then when I put it into water, it dissolves) and have a thick blanket (that I got from church).
June 13, 2004(Sunday)
I taught Sunday School again about "Systemic Theology". I was bold enough to go over a lot of challenging topic: "Whether Catholic is saved", "whether the spiritual denomination (ling yan in Chinese) is saved", and creationism, what happen right after death. I covered "trinity", "where Satan came from" and so on last week. People are involved in the discussion/debate. My job is to teach them how to think (which I learnt from UBC) and to give them the Biblical principle and guideline. Their job is to evaluate our discussion.
Since there was some Brazil Missionaries came, almost the whole church went to eat lunch with them. I went to Parque del Este for running and then spent the night alone again. I am imagining that, when I go to Mexico, a place without Chinese church, and before my marriage, how am I supposed to survive the lonely weekend.
June 12, 2004(Saturday)
I did the first GRE practice exam. The exam was shorter than I think. I can almost answer half of the verbal questions (13/30) and I was pretty satisfied with that. Yet, my verbal score was only in the 13 percentile, which is really bad. Therefore, I must find some magic so that I can at least increase my verbal score to the 50 percentile. I went to Parque del Este for run. Usually my run is not only a physical exercise but also a bump-up to my mind. Most of my plan, e.g. studying M.Eng, working in Venezuela, study PhD are drafted during the run. And I use my running time to think what I should do next and to focus my mental power again when I want to give up. Practicing piano has a similar effect too, but just no so much.
I also studied Finance. I think that I may be able to get a high mark (I got an A last term in Finance) but my passion is not there. Therefore, I need to think twice when I am applying PhD because two of the universities (Berkeley and Yale) have no decision science department so I am stuck with Finance.
A world-wide Chinese Evangelical Mission conference will be held next year in Brazil and two of them went to different countries for promotion. I led the songs "whole world praise" (from ACM's "come revive me"), "people life song", "action faith hope love" and "Envíame a mi!" (from ACM's "Prince of Peace"). I basically led and play guitar all by myself. Also, I mentioned to Mrs. Cheng a week ago that my tentative Mexico working plan. Probably she shared with other people so there is quite a number of people asked me whether my contract is renewed or not.
June 11, 2004(Friday)
Since there was nothing happening at work, I can study GRE extensively today. I went home and found out that the kitchen sink's sewage was broken. This afternoon there was someone doing some building work outside of our kitchen. He spoke to me and asked me something; since I don't understand what he said, I ignored him. Apparently, I *guess* that he has to go inside our kitchen and do something and since I ignored him, he has to do it outside and probably he broke something. Anyway, water was leaking from the bottom of the kitchen sink's sewage and dirty water was all over the kitchen. Shortly after I went home, one of the landlords went home as well. She saw this and then did the clean up. I enjoyed the privilege of being a tenant - I don't have to do anything. The water smell so bad and it looks so bad. I am glad that I can be a bystander and don't have to touch it. I know that if this is my house, I definitely have to do it so that my family members don't have to touch this ugly thing. The last time I saw someone did any work to the kitchen housework was in HK's Tai Koo Shing when dad clears the sewage. The smell this time was not as bad as the time that dad did it though.
June 10, 2004(Thursday)
We seem to have problem with internet. There is only "partial" internet this morning again. There is ICQ, but no AOL nor MSN nor web. This is another problem again. It is fixed within an hour, just like yesterday.
There are two people from Desca that graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's MBA. I know one of them (Jose, the CFO of Desca) quite well. When I told him that I am interested in studying PhD there, he told me that there is another person from Desca that is also graduated there and is the Alumni contact in this region. Therefore, he introduced me to him and spent about 20 mins talking. I hope that he can establish a contact for me so that I can discuss with the prof. For now, I need to concentrate on GRE. It is hard but I can accept the fact that I can only achieve at most 50% in the English part. Also, the conversation with them happened in an open area in office space so probably other people knows that I am interested in PhD and will leave Desca at that time. But I guess that it should not be a surprise that I will leave Desca next September, consider that I don't plan to stay in Desca for long anyway. I also joked that I would love to work part time (or on-line) when I am studying PhD so that I can earn some money. I will see how that would be. Also, that person got a really high GMAT, 730. I only get 720. He almost perfected the English part! I find that there is one elite group in Venezuela. Their parents sent them to USA to study high school and university and then came back. They will probably make lots of money and then send their kid back to USA later too. It is obvious to me that the rich is getting richer and the poor is getting poorer.
During grocery shopping, Kitty called that she and Yully were eating nearby my house and invited me to join them. The food came out really slow. We chat about the church stuff and explained briefly about the difference between Catholic and Protestant as well.
June 09, 2004(Wednesday)
My computer always had problem. I left the computer in Desca last night because I needed to go to fellowship. Sometimes, my computer internet connection would die because of the idle activity. Therefore, I usually left on a "ping" executive command in DOS so that it would continuously generate traffic. I forgot to do that last night and when I came back this morning, I found that my internet connection is gone. I was quite "mum" because I know that Carmen was waiting for me in Vancouver to MSN. I tried to fix a while and it does not work. Therefore I gave her a telephone call. It ended up that this is not the problem of my computer. Omar told me that CanTV (The ISP) thought that Desca did not pay the monthly bill so they discontinued the account. I can still "ping" the internet but I cannot surf the net or log on to ICQ or MSN. We are the networking company, yet we can't do anything. Also, I find that we are not only heavily depended on computer but also internet too!
Sometimes work is so idle that even I have guilty feeling. However, it is not my problem because my boss is not assigning any job to me. I just sit behind Omar and he can do whatever he wants. Probably that the market is quiet, and since I am going to Mexico soon, he won't bother to ask me to do stuff.
I tutored Kitty English and then studied MBA.
June 08, 2004(Tuesday)
Work, for some unknown reason, is always relaxed. This is good. I can spend some time working on other stuff like MBA or PhD research.
I went to church at night. It was a sharing about our childhood. This was one of the better fellowship and better sharing because most of the people opened their heart and shared. I shared quite a lot about my brotherhood relationship with Hansel.
June 07, 2004(Monday)
Today was quite quiet. However, I received an email from Mario saying that I should avoid asking any stupid questions to Cisco. The case is related to the IPCC installation that I performed during April 28 - May 7. I had a lot of problems with the installation at that time. I had the wrong set of CDs and also there was problem with CDs. And I have no experience with this product at all. That was a painful experience. I asked Omar what was going on with this email and he said that he understand my situation of not being an IPCC expert and the CD problems. However, Mario may not understand it and he may be influenced by Cisco's complain regarding about this issue. He said that I can write an email to explain my perspective. So I wrote an office-politic issue that basically denied all my responsibility and also blame (not obviously) that this is Mario, Cisco's or mis-communication fault.
I went to Che So's house for dinner at night. I used to go there more often, but since the beginning of my MBA journey, I need to spend more time with studying. We talked about some Church stuff and she also said that she can make about 250 key-chains cross for me by July so that I can give those as a wedding banquet gift. That is a really good design and I am happy about this.
June 06, 2004(Sunday)
I taught Sunday School in Baptist Church again. This is the baptismal class. I covered as many Christian concepts as possible that usually would take many hours to cover: trinity, Holy Spirit, origin of Devil, why human sin and creationism. I have a lot more concepts that I will teach them.
I went for run at Parque del Este and also taught Kitty English. I also studied GRE at night and I was absolutely destroyed. Basically, GMAT is more of a management exam and is required by most of the MBA admission committee. However, GRE is designed for graduate school in general. Most of the Business PhD accepted either GRE or GMAT (but strongly encourage GRE). However, for two schools that I really want to apply: MIT and University of Pennsylvania need GRE. I got about 77% for English in GMAT and during practicing tonight; I only got 25% on English of GRE. The English part is very difficult with lots of vocabulary; the reading comprehension is very tough too. So far, God has cleared a lot of road-block in my PhD application journey (e.g. good mark in GMAT and two A's last term) and I will see what He will do for GRE.
June 05, 2004(Saturday)
I studied MBA for a while and then went to have a really short hair cut (almost shaved). I will let my hair grow from now on until my wedding. I also decided to focus on GRE so that I can apply the University of Pennsylvania. I went to Baptist Church for music practice and then I went to Dr. Chu's house for dinner and fellowship gathering. About 20 of us went there for dinner because it was Mrs. Chu and Elisa's birthday. We played some game as well.
June 04, 2004(Friday)
I was calling Cisco several times for the TAC case that Frank asked me to help out this Wednesday. I have to deal with 4 or 5 TAC engineers in the last several days because they just left in the middle of the case without any notice, or they have to work on another case so left us alone. Therefore, Frank and I have to explain the case several times. For the last three TAC engineers, I was smart enough to request a Spanish speaking engineer so that Frank can talk directly to that person and I just let them work.
When I was cooking dinner at night, the electricity stopped for 30 mins. I still cooked at ate dinner in the dark. Without electricity does not affect me as much as it should be during that time.
June 03, 2004(Thursday)
I was supposed to know the MBA's Operation Management result Monday. However, the prof postponed it to Wednesday. And the website was down and probably that's why I finally got my grade today. I got full mark for my paper Crossing Three Traffic Lights in Minimal Time. I got the "Best Theoretical Paper" category under the "Best Paper Award". There are 9 papers recognized as the "Best Paper" out of about 150 to 200 paper. I felt so happy about this. Previously I hate writing paper or doing project. This is the first paper that I can invent something of my own and I actually enjoy this paper a lot because I combined the best of me to write this paper: to be efficient (always think about crossing traffic light in the smallest time when I drove), quantitative/logic potential and Excel skill. The word limit was 2400 and I only wrote 2100, included all the mathematical symbol and so on. However, I don't know what more to add to this so I just leave it like that. This is a confirmation for future PhD research because I enjoy and good at this. Hansel and Carmen helped me to edit this paper, but since there is so many mathematical formula in this paper, there is nothing much to be edited (except the intro and the application part). Hansel told me that this traffic light concept is actually covered in the Civil Engineering classes and I worried that whether the prof would think that I copy concept or not, even though this is an idea of myself. Next time when I do my PhD research, I really need to make sure that what I am doing is brand new and no one else has done it.
I got an A in this course. This is not an easy A. 40% of the course is class participation. There was a lot of case to be read and then post to the forum. Basically I checked the forum several times a day and bombarded the forum with numerous posts. The average number of post was about 40 and I have about 100, about 30 more than the first-runner-up. They need to check the quality of my post too; mine is not the best, but good enough to be among the top one. 10% of the points are from team-work assignment. I worked really hard for the assignment but still our team can only get 8.8/10. There is 40% from the team-work computer simulation. This is the really tough one! Since we need to connect to the internet in order to run this simulation, I have a really hard time doing the simulation. My computer is slow too. Therefore, I more-or-less give up on this 40%. One or two people from my five-people-team did most of the work and I just have a free-ride and save a lot of my time. (Hey but I did most of the work during the assignment). The last 10% is the paper and I got 100%. Therefore, I add up to have 924/1000 and for this particular course, mark about 920 is A. Therefore, I barely get an A! (For other MBA course, most of them have 95% - 100% for A)
I was enjoying this feeling today and was not too productive. However, I need to move on to the next quarter, which will start next Monday.
The Venezuelan election council announced about the signature (against President) result in the afternoon. During those 5 mins, many people gathered around the computer screen (that can perform TV function) and when they knew that there is enough signature against the president, people are so happy and hug each other. And cars are honking as well and the overall atmosphere is joyful. People are really politic-sensitive.
I had a meeting with Semson and Paco about the July 25 movie outreach for two hours. I am quite tired afterward but still managed to study MBA's Business Planning course (starting next week) for about an hour.
June 02, 2004(Wednesday)
Life is never supposed to be smooth, especially being a Network engineer. There is an online section, as a follow up to the CTT training two weeks ago. But life is so rough for me that I should buy "Jack pot" and I will win. My cell phone was not working and there is no signal all through the night (It has been like that for a while already and Menyee told me that my type of Nokia telephone has software problem that will show up after using it for a year or so). But then I am glad that it works this morning again. And then I was in the Microsoft Live Meeting this morning at 8:30. But then when it was 8:55, my computer has network problem again and there is no internet. I have to disable/enable my interface at that time. And then the Live-Meeting software is not working! It says that it can't authenticate some of the software. Made me really frustrated because it works fine yesterday and this morning. I tried to restart my computer but it still fails. The interface was different from the one that I used yesterday and I don't really know why. Anyway, there was only one participant so we got an excuse saying that we are waiting for more people coming. I tried my best but I still can't fix it. I have to live with this weird interface with limited functionality. And in the middle of the section, it crashed again so I have to restart again. I am sure that this is as unprofessional as possible in front of the student. BTW, CTT just gave me the material yesterday rather than last week so that they are bad too. The online section was basically just covering the questions that we download and it was a no brainer. Rather than a 2 hours section, we just used one hour.
The afternoon online tutoring section was much smoother. There were four students here and everything just worked out as planned. There was some last minute, end-of-the-day job that Omar asked me to do. He wanted me to research on some PIX product. So I researched for about 20 mins.
June 01, 2004(Tuesday)
I have a hectic morning. I need to help Frank to troubleshoot his PIX problem and then I finally got the info about the online section tomorrow (a continuation for the Miami training two weeks ago. I am supposed to receive the info last week, but the CTT Carlos is just slow and makes promise that he can't do). Moreover, there is another PIX problem that they want me to attend in the afternoon. After talking to boss, Frank will take care the PIX problem that I am supposed to take care and I will work on his PIX problem. Therefore, I can sit back in office today. I also played around with the online tutor tool that I need to use. According to the past experience with CTT, I can imagine that it will be a disaster and it will not be smooth. Let's see tomorrow.
I went to fellowship at night. Yanting led the Bible study and it was quite boring. I felt that if I am not here, the church's standard will be lower. I am not too happy about this but there is nothing that I can do. I have to "release hand" and let others to take over.