My Life at March 2004
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March 31, 2004(Wednesday)
I woke up at 4:30am today. I am so thankful, even though most of my flights are very early in the morning, I have never slept in. I would only slept in when I need to go to work or school. But for this special transit thing, I am always early. I finished my daily routine (shower, violin, sit-up, devotion) by 5:10 and I went to the street to wait for the taxi at 5:20. Desca ordered taxi for me but I can't find it. The taxi driver called and I assume that he is coming. However, he is not here yet and I called him at 5:40. It turned out that he is waiting all the way long in the supermarket near me. When he called earlier, he wanted to tell me that he is waiting for me. However, I misunderstood him and thought that he said that he is coming (he speaks in Spanish!) There is a traffic accident on the way to the airport (and there is only one way to the airport). It wasted me about 20 mins. Plus the 20mins delay from the taxi. When I went to check-in, there is problem (again) with my air-ticket. I don't know what had happened. Probably because of the "no electronic form for discount ticket" problem from yesterday. Anyway, I have to wait for the supervisor to finish all customers, which is another 20 mins. I can finally get to the custom at 7:36 (and the flight departs at 8:09). There are very few people in the custom, so I can make the flight. Originally, I plan to spend that extra hour in a coffee shop eating expensive (since this is company trip) breakfast. But I have to go straight to the flight.
Probably because of the delay of the check-in process, they upgrade me to business class. That is my fourth time sitting in a business class. The first time was when I was about 10 and we went to China for a family trip. They upgraded my seat. The second and the third time were my Beijing trip in summer 1998 when I was working in Glenayre. The food is nice and the seat is big. I tried to study Operation Management course from MBA during the flight, but I slept most of the time, but I woke up for breakfast.
The Panama airport is pretty nice. There is problem (Again) during the custom. The custom official said something about Hong Kong (because I filled my birth-place as HK) and then there is another senior official here, took my passport away. He asked me to follow him. He went inside a room and asked me to stay outside. In the same time, I saw three other Chinese standing around doing nothing too. My gut feeling is that, they thought that I am one of those illegal immigrants trying to smuggling into Panama. Probably they thought that this is a fake passport. I had the same problem last time when I return to Caracas from Colombia. It only wasted me 10 mins this time.
There is quite a lot of problem for the trip to Panama (can't find taxi, car accident, check-in, custom). However, I am not worry at all because this is a business trip. I know that if I am stuck in either way, Desca will support me. On the other hand, I wish that none of this will happen to my Vancouver trip next week!
I arrived to Panama City and the customer, who is supposed to pick me up, has been waiting for 1 hour. He is early and I am late (I am also taking my time and walk slowly in the airport). His wife and he came to pick me up. He is quite an "inch" person but his wife is nicer. They are not surprised to know that I find my Desca job through internet because they met each other through ICQ more than 6 years ago. Wow, that is the first ICQ couple I have ever met. And their marriage lasted for at least 6 years. That is really nice.
I went straight to the office and had a short meeting with the people here. The boss has a weird name. I asked about it and he told me that his name Abdiel is a Hebrew name. He told me that he is not an Israeli. Instead, he is a protestant and the name is from Bible 1Cr 5:15. It only appears once in the Bible. He immediately shows his name from his computer because he has the Bible opened inside his computer. It is nice to meet a good Christian. Anyway, during the meeting, they talked about the technology "Local Director". To be honest, I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this. During the car ride from the airport, he has already asked me whether I have experience in implementing large scale Local Director. I said that I don't have experience in implementing the large scale Local Director (actually, I have no experience at all, but I stress on the "Large scale" to answer the question). I immediately divert the attention to something else. Now, during the meeting, I will try my best to take the driver seat so that I can control what we should talk. I said about my game plan and what I am going to do, in a general sense, i.e. BS. Whenever they talk about the technology, I will remain silence so that I look polite and let people to finish their sentence (but my underlying reason is that, I don't know how to response). And then I will get back to MY agenda. So far, I can still get through it.
I talk to the Cisco TAC engineer and make the game plan. We discuss everything through (my favorite) MSN with several customers. First I talked to TAC engineer and have some idea about what we are going to talk. And then I talked to the customer and it sounds like that I am knowledgeable.
The taxi here is strange. They charge pretty cheap (about US $1.5 to most places, especially since this is a small city). However, the taxi driver would likely take two or three (until the car is filling up) when he sees passengers along the road. I have never seen that before in the other places I have been. It is glad that the taxi driver will only pick up passenger that will go along the way that the first passenger wants.
There is problem with spending for this trip. Previously Desca people said that this customer (Copa Airline) will give me money for my expense when I arrived. However, the Copa people told me that Desca is supposed to do that, and they will just cover the hotel and the food from the specific hotel restaurant. Not even laundry or other things are included. This is so cheap and I don't like it. Therefore, I can't spend like my Colombia trip previously. So far, I have only spent US $0.33 for a bottle of water (the smallest one available) and also money for taxi.
I went back to hotel (Hotel El Panama). It looks like a five star hotel. After a nap, I went for dinner at the "destined" hotel. I ate a very expensive dinner, costing US $29.5. This is a buffet type dinner, but the food is not good. I drank two fruit bunch and one cocktail (without alcohol). Afterward, I went out for a walk in the city. This is like a mini-Las Vegas. There is a lot of bright light at night. The area is high-class too. I went to the big casino located in my hotel and also the other nice big casino near my hotel. Of course, I did not gamble at all. I watched soccer for a while in the large TV screen instead. They have ATM machine located inside the Casino, very convenient for the gambler to lost money. I also went to a 24-hrs supermarket. This is a high class supermarket, like the one I saw in Colombia. In my opinion, it is cleaner and nicer than Superstore and T&T in Vancouver.
March 30, 2004(Tuesday)
I discussed the PIX Firewall and Checkpoint firewall issue with Omar today. He is a very detail guy. Also, I established connection with the Cisco TAC engineer for the Panama Copa Airline case. I will go there tomorrow. I don't know what hotel I will be staying yet. Originally I thought that I will go in tomorrow's morning. However, when I receive the news, it is already 5:30. Although the company that I need to troubleshoot is an airline company, we still need to get the discount ticket (no electronic form for discount ticket) from the office. It is too late so the trip will be postponed to tomorrow' afternoon. But at the end, for some reason, I got to go in the morning again. Sigh, there is always last minute change. The schedule is below:
Mar. 31 (Wed)
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220 Caracas - Panama
08:05 - 09:21
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Apr. 02 (Fri)
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221 Panama - Caracas
19:25 - 22:42
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I went to church at night for dinner and fellowship. There are several new comers that came here. Therefore, I led some games and sing some songs. Also, we discussed about watching the "Passion of Christ" movie together. At night, I prepared a Bible Study on the last few days of Jesus because I will be leading Sunday School this Sunday.
March 29, 2004(Monday)
There is nothing much happening at church today. Omar asked me to compare the PIX Firewall and Checkpoint firewall configuration and it took me about 20 mins. Other than that, I have a relax day. In addition, I *may* be traveling to Panama from Wednesday to Friday for job purpose. However, I don't put 100% faith in it yet because the work thing always changes. If I really have to go, here is where I am going: J. Arosemena y Calle 39 Edificio Copa Airlines Piso 1
I went for short grocery shopping and prepared dinner. Afterward, I studied MBA; lately I have enough of studying and I don't have much mood to do so.
March 28, 2004(Sunday)
I went to Baptist Church in the morning then I ran at Parque del Este for 46.5 mins. I am in a much better shape today. Afterward, I went to MB Church at 5:30. I don't have to lead music today. However, we need to practice the music performance for the Asamblea in Apr 8. I will be on the plane at that time, but I am helping them to practice the songs. I am the conductor today. In Venezuela, I learnt how to make thing work even the people are not knowledgeable. As long as there is a good leader that knows what he is doing (i.e. that's me), then everything would work out. It may sound a bit "self big"; however, this is exactly the way how everything work as they should be for all the programs and song performances. The quality of the leader is very important here. Comparatively, the quality of the leader does not produce as much impact during the time I led in Vancouver.
March 27, 2004(Saturday)
I went to Parque del Este for 52 mins jogging. I am lacking exercise (even though I do pushup/sit-up daily and walk about 1 hour for two round trips between work and home). I used to run three times a week in Vancouver but now I just run for once or twice a week. I feel that I am not as in shape as before. I also find that my violin or piano skill is not improving at all, even though I practice every day. In addition, I discovered yesterday that I am older than the traditional PhD applicant's age. Therefore, I have a taste of mid-life crisis. I told Carmen about this; she thought that I am a bit exaggerated. However, for some reason, every little bit just hit at me today and it hurts.
I am about a week ahead in MBA. I did not have mood to study. Therefore, rather than staying home for the night, I went to MB church to practice music for the Asemblea. I won't be there but Semson has appointed me to be the music advisor for this group. Actually, I did not do anything other than playing base guitar with them today. I taught myself base guitar today. It is not hard if I just need to play one note in every bar. However, I want to try to read the base note in the piano score and then play it. The string is VERY hard and I had a hard time to press it.
I found out that there are some MB Church people visiting Michelle tonight because this is her birthday. Therefore I went there as well, just to be together with other people.
Che So told me that her car was stolen in the morning when she had the council meeting at church. She bought the insurance so it is not too bad. She prays that the car will not be found so that she can have the money back. If the car is found, then probably a lot of equipments are missing and that would be the worse outcome.
March 26, 2004(Friday)
I checked the PhD Forum again. And I found out something weird. I may be too old for the program. The "tradition" applicants are 24 to 26 years old. Hmm, that is weird. I guess that if I don't make it this year or next year, I would never make it. As I mentioned yesterday, there is nothing much I can do, so I should not worry too much about it. The only two things that I can do. The first thing is to aim for GPA 3.85 in MBA. The other thing is to write an excellent "Statement of Purpose". I will state that research is the main reason in my life and I will remain in the Academic for the rest of my life.
I had dinner with Paco's family and Ah Men. We discussed the Evangelical monthly meeting starting the third Sunday of May. We will discuss and investigate on the topic of evolutionism. Paco and I will be the main speaker (actually, probably he will interview me and I will speak a lot). In VCAC, I don't think that I would ever have a chance to talk in this kind of evangelical meeting. However, in the Chinese Venezuelan circle, I don't think that there is any person that has a deeper knowledge than I in this topic. I am very interested in the science versus Christianity.
March 25, 2004(Thursday)
I found out today that there is only three days in a year that I can take the Math GRE Subject test. The next one will be April 3 and I have passed the registration deadline already. I cannot believe this. The one after that will be November, which will be a long way from now. It is more difficult than I thought. Also, the PhD Admission people said that they prefer GRE more than the GMAT. Sigh. I may have to go through the nightmare again. However, my upcoming plan is to apply for those programs within MIT or U of Penn that allow GMAT. While for most school I apply for Operation Technology or Management Science, I will try to apply "System Dynamic" and "Insurance and Risk Management" for these two schools.
I just checked some posting from the Business PhD forum. Someone with similar background as mine got rejected from most of the top school that I am aiming at. Oh no! This is not good. My confident and expectation level fluctuate a lot lately.
When I got home, I remembered a song that I used to learn 13 years ago, from ACM#8: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Php 4:6-7) Therefore, I am trying not to worry. The songs and Christian concepts that I "downloaded" to my "hard drive" (my brain) long time ago are applying now.
March 24, 2004(Wednesday)
We had a meeting during lunch at my home with Ah Men, Siu Ling (Paco's wife) and Yanting for the outreach program in April 27. They will be the host of that night. We have some fresh idea and I hope that it will turn out good. Siu Ling brought Kin Hey (her son) too. He was jumping around and making noise; he is quite annoying. He went to my room and took four coins from me. When I asked him to return, he gave me three. I have to ask him for the fourth one; and he throw it on the ground. I was REALLY angry at that time because he tried to take money from me (it does not matter how much it is) and he threw the money to the ground (i.e. not respective). Therefore, I tried to punish him. I hold him up and really use my full strength to hit his "pat pat" (my hand still feel sore an hour after that incident). At the first one, he thought that I was kidding and playing with him (because I always play with him and he doesn’t "scare" me). However, when I hit the second one, he felt the pain and he knew that it is real. Therefore, he cried (loud) and went to his mom. This is the first time that I "teach" a kid; and it happens to be Paco's 4.5yrs old son. Ah Men and Yanting saw my face and amazed that I am really serious and "ack" at that time. This oppose to my happy and funny face that I used to have. My behavior is very strong at that time too. I don't like him to take money from me and I don't like him throw the money to the ground and let me pick it up. We continued with the meeting and I tried to smile. It is not too awkward. People understand why I hit him. Afterward, I did call back Siu Ling and Paco separately and explained what was going on.
There is a new IPTV server and it works now. However, when I put the IPTV Viewer (my PC) in another vlan/subnet from the IPTV server and Content Manager, it does not work. Therefore, it must be a routing problem. Something wrong with the RSM programming. I was also told that I may need to go to Panama for several days next week to solve Cisco Local Director problem. I (and neither anyone from Desca) know nothing about this type of technology. However, I am not going to take that too seriously because there was a lot of cancellation about my trip previously.
MIT and U of Pennsylvania are the only two universities that need GRE instead of GMAT. Both of them have excellent program that I really want to join. However, the English part of General GRE test is just too difficult. Therefore, I have decided to give up, or at least partially put it down for now. Rather, I will focus on the Math GRE Subject test instead. It is not required by any of the universities. However, in order to show my superiority in math, I want to take this test. It looks like that the math are just first year calculus and linear algebra. I should have no problem getting high 90s in the test.
March 23, 2004(Tuesday)
I am working on the IPTV Server today; it is confirmed that the IPTV server is "dead". Bad. We need to have it Friday for a demo to customer but now we need to ship it back to Cisco so I am not sure what we are going to do. I deposit some salary to bank. There is foreign currency control in Venezuela. So the local bank cannot deposit directly. I have to express mail (luckily, it is free) the cheque to US bank (the one that I have an account). Therefore, I have to walk a long way; it is not convenient at all and has been dragging like that for the last 10 months. I wonder when Venezuela would life the foreign control.
I checked the UC Berkeley website. I also looked at posting from the Business Weeks Forum about PhD in Business. It is confirmed that the competition for admission is VERY tough. I don't have confident to get accepted to the absolute top school (my lists are: Stanford, MIT, U Pennsylvania, Harvard, Columbia, and Northwestern). If I am lucky, I hope that I can get to schools like UCLA, NYU, Cornell and Berkeley. I will see what will happen. It is still more than half a year from the start of application.
I went to church for dinner and fellowship. Yanting was leading the Bible study. For some reasons, people are a bit out of shape so the meeting turned out to be a bit boring than usual. Anyway, we will have a special outreach at April 27. I (purposely) will not help out in this program because I want to let other people to help out and try. This is one of the very few outreach programs that I will not be in-charging. I really think that we need more prayer. Previously when I was responsible, I think that everything will be fine because I have numerous of experience. However, most of these people are new and have no experience, this will need a lot of prayer. If it works out good, then everyone will gain a lot of confident and then they will move a step into the church's core circle. On the other hand, if they screw up, then they will be very discouraged and it will be hard to ask them to be in-charge again.
I find that this is a lot more to be a real Christian here than in North America. In VCAC, I rarely heard anyone say sincerely that we need prayer. Since most of us are quite talented, we don't truly believe that we need God's help to host any program or do anything. The only two persons that emphasize on prayer in Pastor Augustus Chiu and Counselor Helena Wong. Other people (especially me) would say that we need prayer but don't really have the faith. In addition, I don't recall meeting any Christian in Vancouver that has their life change because of Christ (may be they did, but I don't find that convincing). On the other hand, things are very different in Venezuela. Since people here are not as talented, there is nothing that we can do other than prayer. This coming outreach program is a good example. There are more people here that really emphasize on prayer. Moreover, I am more convinced that the reasons people's life changed are because of prayer and the fact that they accepted Christ. Hence, it is easier to be a real Christian in Venezuela and I find that I learn a lot in the past 22 months.
March 22, 2004(Monday)
I need to fix the IPTV problem as soon as possible because there will be a demo in RCTV this Friday. I need to get that fix. Well, I am waiting for the development team of Cisco to fix it. There is nothing much that I can do. I also checked the Columbia, Cornell and Northwestern Universities' PhD program. I am getting more and more confidence and place my high hope to go to top universities. I don't think that I will be happy if I can "only" get to UBC, UT or IU. (Previously, I only think that I have a bare chance to be accepted to these three universities. However, getting high mark in GMAT and doing lots of researches on the top universities really boast my confident and raise my bar)
Anyway, in terms of the PhD application process, I don't think that I can do much. The application starts at October this year. What I need to do now is to get a high mark in MBA courses.
March 21, 2004(Sunday)
I was the song leader in Baptist Church. I have not chosen song and led for a couple of months. Previous time, Che So chose the songs. Anyway, I led "Hevenu Shalom" (ACM's Prince of Peace), "Envíame a mi" (ACM's Prince of Peace, used to call "Please send me"), "All because of your name", "come to you in pray" and "El Poder de tu Amor" (Power of Your Love). I did a pretty good job. I am able to control the atmosphere and I am not afraid to stand in front of public. We had Sunday School afterward. The teacher "Ah Men" was not prepared. I spent some time to explain the concept of sin, from a Christianity context, to them.
I went to MB Church and led song again. The songs are identical to Baptist's song, except the last song is changed to "Seeking" (SoP). There was no fellowship at night because they need to practice a special number for the Asemblea that took place in Apr 8, 9. I helped them to practice the songs. Since this is the tenth year, we will sing the theme songs for the last ten years. I will fly back to Vancouver during that day; there are all sad that I cannot be here. I felt good tonight because we were united to serve. I really enjoy this type of feeling.
March 20, 2004(Saturday)
I worked on MBA's Operation Management homework for 3 hours this morning. There are data which I need to use Excel to analyze. I love what I am doing! Even though I don't enjoy the real computer programming, I love to program with Excel. I had a lot of logical (if, and) and other (vlookup) functions. I tried to make it as scalable and flexible as possible. In addition, I made REALLY NICE graph and half-transparent-textbox too. I am having a good time and I can't stop. I (half) joked with Carmen that I want to study PhD because I love to plot graph and using Excel's function. In fact, the thing that I wish to study is "Quantitative Analysis" or mathematical modeling with business application. I hope that there will have a lot of Excel in this program. If Hansel knows that I love Microsoft's product, he would kill me because he is anti-Microsoft.
I went to Baptist Church and MB Church at night to practice music. Donna and Mrs. Chu from MB Church gave me a lot of food. I am full now.
March 19, 2004(Friday)
Since I received a lot of emails in the last few months about PhD info (from schools like Stanford, MIT, IU, University of Pennsylvania, UBC, UCLA and Other School), I am putting everything down to notepad (my favorite program) file. There were several files. Feel free to take a look in these emails. This really gave me perspective about the business PhD of these universities. If I proceed like this, I will have enough info to be a program-advisor. I still remembered when I was in Vancouver, I gave lots of advises about high school and universities to my uncles and aunties. BTW, I will have more schools in the future. I plan to contact NY University, Harvard, U of Toronto too. If you want to see it, it will be easier to "right click" on the link and "save as" the file. Remove the "word wrap" function from notepad. I don't know why but if I open it directly from browser, then it will be long sentences that needed to scroll all the way to very right side.
I am a 95%-perfectionist. The emails have lots of "> " or spaces. Therefore, I also spent about an hour to get rid of these junks. Also, looking at these email, I found that I learnt a lot and grew a lot about all these process. I also find out that the GMAT requirement for MBA is not very high. The requirement of top schools (e.g. Stanford, Harvard) are about 700, which is lower than my 720 score. However, the PhD score is usually 40 points higher than the MBA score.
I went home and finished the sushi comic that Carmen bought me during Christmas 2003. I am easily excited reading comic. I enjoy this process too. I also worked on MBA's Operation Management homework for 3 hours.
March 18, 2004(Thursday)
I was taking the Finance course. I posted one question in the discussion forum about some specific thing. I said that I did not use that particular formula and I don't have a financial calculator. The prof told me emailed me assume that I don't know any function about excel and I did the calculation by hand and paper. He told me that I better start to learn Excel or else I would have a hard time in the course. Previously, I use the most basic method (plug in the formula) in Excel to calculate the Prevent Value / Future Value and so on. Now I better learn the excel formula. However, in my opinion, what I am doing now gives me an excellent idea about what I am learning.
I emailed the prof about some other questions. And he told me that if I know how to use Excel, I would not ask this question (i.e. my question is stupid). I am quite pissed off with this. He is so inch. I plan to get A (not A-, but A) in this course because there is so many math involve. Now the prof worry that my math sucks or my Excel sucks. I will still try to get an A in this course. However, I will have a hard time to get any answer from this suck prof.
I checked NY University PhD websites and organized a file that consists of all the university's information. I went home to cook dinner and piano. Usually when I learn a new song, I would easily be very "mum". I hate this process. However, this shows the iron-like of my determination and my consistency. I am still practicing violin and piano, both of which I have temptation to break for a long time.
March 17, 2004(Wednesday)
Somehow I got a bit desperate to find a new job. I emailed the Cisco people again because the HR said that there was no suitable position. So I asked for some other contact. I also email one of my MBA peer because he said that there may be job in China (but find out that it won't be available until the end of this year). I also asked Andrew Au, one of the VCAC people that I met long time ago, about some recommendation. I asked Hansel and Carmen to contact some of their friends too. Since I know that I want to go to PhD in Sept 2005, this job will just be short term. Therefore, I don't really mind if I am not sticking to the Cisco Networking field. I will see what I can do.
I also look at the GRE past-exam too. I thought that GMAT is tough; Wow, GRE is tougher. There are three verbal parts in the GMAT: critical reasoning, sentence structure and reading comprehension. I can get through most of that with slightly problem. However, for the GRE, there are four parts: Antonyms (choose a word that has an opposite meaning to the given word), analogies (choose the pair of words that has similar relationship with the given pair of words), sentence completion and reading comprehension. A lot of vocabulary is needed for the antonyms and analogies part. Previously when I see some vocabulary, I can guess the meaning of the word out from the context. However, there is no context here. I will have a tough time. I wonder how I am supposed to get the top 95% percentile if I really want go to MIT or University of Pennsylvania (both are the top rank school). I am glad that I get a good GMAT score which is accepted by most other universities. I will see what I can do. Obviously, I am aiming for perfect, or 99% for the math section.
I went home and studied MBA. I am more adapted to this kind of "boring" study life. I do not have much social contact here besides Church gathering. I am quite used to it now; I wonder what other people would think about my life.
March 16, 2004(Tuesday)
After I aced my GMAT test, I did some research on the top ranked school. Two of the schools that I am interested (business statistic department of University of Pennsylvania and Operations Research Center of MIT) requires GRE (Graduate Record Examination) instead of GMAT. Yike! So I have to take the GRE test! I did some research about the ORC department of MIT and GRE exam today. It sounds like that MIT's ORC department is somewhere I really want to go. I need to work hard on the GRE exam. I will study GRE for the next couple of months and take the exam in the end of May or early June, the time when this MBA term ended. The door has been opened, but I need to work hard to go through this door. The GMAT test is still very useful for me to apply to Stanford, UCLA, IU, UBC, UT.
There was some problem for the McDonald network and I troubleshot it in the afternoon, for just 25 mins. Once I know the network and once my brain is going and if I have luck as well, I can fix the problem pretty quick. (And this is an easy problem) I went to church for dinner and then fellowship afterward.
March 15, 2004(Monday)
I ate Chocolate Sundae today. This is a big event for me. Normally I like to eat Chocolate ice-cream cone. I have desired to eat Chocolate Sundae since November 2003. However, I did not want to eat it yet because I want to reserve this special food until I have something to celebrate, e.g. Cisco hires me. At that time, I thought that it won't take a long time. However, as the day goes by, it is dragging and dragging and I can't eat Chocolate Sundae yet. When I was preparing to take the GMAT exam last week, I thought that if I get a high mark, this is something that worth celebrates. And I did get a high mark. I did not have a chance to go to McDonald for the last few days. Therefore, I really enjoyed the Chocolate Sundae today. It tastes good.
There is nothing much happening at work. I checked the PhD website for Stanford and MIT. I wish I can go there. I went home to study MBA. I need to be at least 2 weeks ahead by April 8 so that I will not be stressed when I go back to Vancouver
March 14, 2004(Sunday)
The Tuesday Chinese youth fellowship had a song offering "same path person" at worship today. There is a luncheon after the Sunday School. And then there was a General Assembly meeting and I went for a jog at Parque del Este afterward. I called Carmen for 1.5 hours and talked about our future. It seems like to me that the long term career path is fixed (study PhD) starting Sept 2005. However, I still need to figure out what we need to do between our wedding and the school started time. I thank God that He gave me Carmen to be my fiancé. There will be a lot of unknown in front of us (e.g. where we will be and what we are going to do) but we are learning to trust in God and let Him lead the way. It will not be easy but we are learning it one bit at a time.
March 13, 2004(Saturday)
I tutored Yanting math today and then I went to Parque del Este for running. My normal heartbeat is roughly 70/min; my minimum is about 68/min. When I finished running, it can go up to almost 200/min. I went to MB Church for music practice. We were practicing for the Asemblea music, which will take place in Apr 8, 9. I will be in Vancouver at that time but I am acting like an advisor and give them some opinion. Afterward, all of us (Chi Kong, Kum Fung, Yoanna, Menyee, Chuito) went out for dinner.
March 12, 2004(Friday)
There is a company meeting in the afternoon. This is differing from the previous meeting. Company rented a meeting place near our office. They provided free lunch (the first time) and the meeting is held in that meeting room from 2 to 4:50. The meeting discuss about the company financial status and also the new organization structure. The financial part is interesting; I knew something about it from the marketing report interview. However, the organization-structure thing is boring. They hired some management consultant firm to evaluate our company structure and gave a presentation today. The material that they presented is similar to the one I learnt from MBA. I can do it too!
Che So invited me to go dinner with her husband and Keiling. Keiling just came back from USA; since I have nothing much to do (don't have the mood to study) so I ate dinner with them.
March 11, 2004(Thursday)
I was over excited and over hyper for the GMAT. I can't really sleep. I went to a long washroom poohing at 3:30-3:50am! I was thinking about the GMAT exam the whole morning. I prayed that either God opens the door widely or closes the door tightly. I day-dreamed that if I get a good score, what should I do. However, I don't want to be too involved in this day-dream because I don't want to feel disappointed if I get a bad score.
After my daily MSN with Carmen, I went to the testing center. I was in a good shape. My mind was sharp and I am not tired. Usually, when I have to do some important exams, some of my hormone would be activated and I suddenly became smart and not tired.
Here is what happened to the exam. There were two 30-mins essays. Since I can type pretty fast, I can finish all those with spare time. However, I did not pay too much attention to this part because this does not count (and I hope not) to the overall score. It has no impact. So I wonder why they put it here. Then the real thing started. There is 75 mins to do the Quantitative sections. There are two different types of questions. I usually get 15/16 for the "Data Sufficiency". For the "Problem Solving", I have to try hard in order not to get perfect. For all the practice test I did, I always missed one question and never get perfect. My aim is to get perfect in this part. I used 65mins to finish the whole thing. On one hand, I want to be careful because a perfect score is really hard to get. On the other hand, I don't want to spend too much brain-power in this section because that is not the fun. Now onto the verbal part. Usually the "Reading Comprehension" part is painful. Sometimes they gave some biological or scientific essay for us to read. I hate this very much because there is a lot of scientific vocabulary and I have no idea what they are trying to say. However, according to the practice test, this is the part that I usually get the most mark. And as for the four essays that I have to read, I can understand most part and I felt sharp. The "Critical Reasoning" is one of the easier part in this section. But the worst part is the "Sentence Correction". The grammar questions are sometimes tricky. Since I did not have enough time, I used my intuition. I read the questions and did not drill to the detail. Overall, I do not have enough time for the verbal test, just like what happened to me during the practice exam. I am detail and careful for the first 20 questions; however, as time goes by, I have to rush the last reading comprehension and used gut feeling.
By the end of the test, there was a survey that we can choose to fill out or not. Since I am too anxious to see the score, I did not read carefully and I choose to answer this survey. There are so many questions (in real life, there is only 15 questions but it seems like eternality to me) At the end, I received my score. Wow, it was high! I was so happy that I quietly yelled out (contradictory word) "yes". I thanked God to let me have a good score so that I know for sure that the door is opened. Here is the breakdown of my scores and also the practice tests. It must be noted that the percentage is not what percentage I got. It is the percentile, i.e. how many people that I am better than.
| Quantitative | Verbal | Overall |
First test (Feb. 8, 02) | 50 (97%) | 25 (36%) | 640 (81%) |
Practise#1, second time | 50 (97%) | 35 (75%) | 710 (95%) |
Practise#2, first time | 49 (93%) | 34 (70%) | 690 (92%) |
Practise#1, third time | 50 (97%) | 38 (84%) | 730 (97%) |
Practise#2, second time | 51 (99%) | 40 (90%) | 750 (99%) |
Second Test (Mar. 11, 04) | 51 (99%) | 35 (77%) | 720 (97%) |
Obviously, when I did it the practice test for the second or the third time, I would get a higher score. Therefore, the most accurate prediction should be the "Practise#2, first time" score. In fact, according to the statistic, people in average improved their score by 50 marks when they take it the second time. Since my first score is not low, I think that the average improved score for people with the same score as mine would be about 30 or 40. Therefore, I was aiming at 690 or 700. In fact, I prayed to God that, if the door is supposed to be wide-opened, please let me have 700 or above. This is not possible, consider my (sucks) English grammar. This "720" score is the uppermost that I can ever imagine of. (There is also a score for the essay writing. Last time I got a 3.5 out of 6, which is 26%. I wonder what I will get this time)
I am so excited and happy. Last time that I felt such an accomplishment was when I passed the CCIE Security test in Nov 4, 2002. Therefore, in order to celebrate the end of GMAT, I went to Sambil mall (a high class mall like Metrotown in Vancouver) to walk around for 15 mins. Sambil is right across the testing center and I have never gone there by myself. I went there once in June 2002 with a non-believer William and once (or twice) to eat with Pastor and Che So's family. As I was walking, I was talking to myself (literally). This test shows several thing. First, I always consider myself to have a gift in taking test. For some people, they would be stressed out and cannot perform well when there is important test. However, I usually out-perform myself (or at least, maintain my highest standard) when I am taking important test. This was true since 1990 when I came to Canada. I never under-perform in my high school math competition, university final exam (that may count 70% of the overall score) or Cisco exam. I may not be able to sleep the night before (this was the case when I took the CCIE test in San Jose and Halifax summer of 2001) but some kind of magic power (which I called "Hormone" above) dominate during the test and I can do well. (That's why I prefer the course would weight more on exam and less on project) Second, this test shows my determination, discipline and endurance. The MBA courses (Finance and Operation Management) are tough this term. Therefore, for the last few days, I studied really hard for two or three hours without watching any comic. I am focused to the GMAT exam (and also the MBA) and I want to aces it! Lastly, it takes a little big of miracle (luck? God's work?) to make this happen. A "640" score is good for most MBA (except the really top one like Stanford, or UCLA) but it is certainly not enough for PhD in business. I have inquired several business schools (UBC, UT, UCLA, and IU) and they all think that my GMAT score is on the low side. UCLA even said that they would be surprised if they accept someone that has GMAT score lower than 700. I was praying to God several months ago about my career future. To be honest, I don't really enjoy being an engineer. It would make a living and opens some door so that I can come to Venezuela. However, my passion is not there. Since 1993, (when I discover that engineer is not my passion), my two passions are teaching and Christian youth worker. Because of some personal pride, I would rather be a university professor. I was thinking that (I know that pride is wrong) I should explore the gift that God gives me (which is teaching, or taking test) and be a university professor. (I did not say that I like to do research) I want to be sure about that so I pray earnestly that this test will be an indicator. It sounds like that God is opening the door.
I was thinking what I should do now. Which university should I apply for? I know that top university like UCLA has an average GMAT score of 735. I guess that the average for Stanford would be even higher. However, now I should be able to be accepted to UBC, UT or IU, given that I have a good reference letter.
I was too tired to work today after the GMAT exam. I did not have afternoon-nap (because I took the exam) and I wrote a detailed diary. In addition, there is problem with the IPTV Server. Not even the Cisco TAC engineer knows how to solve it. He escalated to the Cisco Development team (those that wrote code for IPTV Server) cannot find the solution either so they asked me to rebuild the IPTV Server starting from scratch. I don't know how to do it, but I found out that all I have to do is to press the "f" key (stands for factory default) continuously and the server will rebuild it.
I left work at 6:10 and cooked dinner. I have not read comic for the last 10 days because of studying so I read a bit in order to relief myself. At night, I worked on the Operation Management Course for about two hours. I cannot believe myself doing it. After a day (actually, only 3.5 hours) of killing and fighting (i.e. taking GMAT exam), my motivation is low. However, I still have the determination and focus to stay ahead of the course (the homework that I am doing now due next Friday) Anyway, there is a lot of reading in this course. Now I removed the major obstacle to PhD - the GMAT exam. I also need to have good grades in MBA and also good reference letter. I hope to maintain an "A-" average in MBA. (For the last five courses that I took, 15-20% of people get "A" and another 30-35% get "A-". Therefore, maintaining an "A-" average only means staying on the top half of the class.) (But it should be noted that this is a class of MBA, not a class of normal high school student)
March 10, 2004(Wednesday)
I created formula sheet for MBA's Finance course; I also wrote some Excel functions. I talked to Omar for about 40mins. He asked me what projects I am working on. He asked me to dress business shirt to work previously and I have done that since that time even though it is very hot today; I am sweating when I am speed-walking on the street under the sun. However, several team members are not dressing nice as they should. I raised this point because they (the people that previously jealous at me) are not obeying the rule. In addition, I am supposed to install PIX firewall to Desca network; I have sent several emails to the team member but he is not responding. I want to clarify that I am doing my part but people are not cooperating. Omar agreed that there are some tough members in the team who are resistant to change. I said that I am trying my best to cooperate to make his life easier. It is sort-of a politicking time. My motivation is not to step on other people; I just want to protect myself and let him know that I am doing my part.
I went home to cook dinner and did my last GMAT practice exam. There were two practice exams and I have done each twice. I got good mark the second time, but when there are some new English questions appear, my mark is not so good.
March 09, 2004(Tuesday)
I worked on the IPTV Server today. The TAC engineer asked me for some info and I have to go back and forth because the client (my PC), IPTV Server and also the IPTV Content Manager. I am quite annoyed by that because the Server and the CM is in the server room and one of them has no mouse and keyboard connected. I also worked on my MBA stuff a bit today.
I went to church for dinner at night and then had fellowship. We had Bible Study. I called Carmen at night and slept really late (1:10)
March 08, 2004(Monday)
I tried to troubleshoot for the IPTV server. Normally the Cisco TAC (Technical Assistant Center) department does not support MSN. However, I always request for MSN with the TAC engineer because it is more convenient and there is no free "1-800" toll free number in Venezuela. This TAC engineer, however, said that the firewall in his site denies the MSN. Therefore, I am stuck with email. I hate the short and frequent email. For some reasons, I receive lots of "virus" type email and I actually sent some myself too. I am not confident that the TAC engineer does receive my email. Moreover, I have to email him a file which is 54M. I prefer to do it through MSN. He wants me to put that to the FTP site in Cisco but I still have not found out how it works. The IPTV Server worked for a short while today (without any reason) and failed again. I am really confused with this situation.
Hansel and dad told me that my "yee sum" passed away February 26. She took care of me from my birth to 1983. Hansel had visited her when he was in HK last Christmas and the Christmas before. However, I have not seen her since 1994, my last visit to HK. Besides the pass-away of my grandparents of dad and mom sides, she is the closest one that passed away. She is not a Christian...
March 07, 2004(Sunday)
I led song today. Che So picked the songs for the last few times because I am not sure that whether Chi Kong will come or not. If he is not coming, then I have to play piano. Therefore, I let her be the back-up song-leader so she picked the songs. It ends up that I led songs for the last several times. The songs are: "Brilla Jesús" (Shine Jesus Shine), "Majestad" (Majesty), "Buscad Primero" (Seek Ye First), "Es Señor" (He is Lord) and "Día a Día" (Day by Day). Afterward, Ah Men taught Sunday School. They started late and I tried to ask them to start while they are chit-chatting with each other. However, they ignored me. People side-tracked and the Sunday School was very empty. However, I did not say much because I am not the teacher and I don't want to over-shadow. I only say something when people asked me opinion. I behaved like an advisor.
I went to MB Church and led songs. The songs are: "You must praise Jehovah" (From SoP), "Adora a Dios" (ACM's "Come Revive me"), "Lord bless you" (ACM), "who is like Jesus" and "El Poder de tu Amor" (Power of Your love). There is no fellowship afterward because several of the committee members are not here; however, we used the excuse that it is dangerous at night. I went home without attending (never attended anyway) Sunday School. I studied GMAT again.
March 06, 2004(Saturday)
The opposition party was angry at the result announced from the election council so they organized a huge march today. In order to prevent potential danger, all the church's activities are on-hold. I studied GMAT; I got 690 in this practice test. I had 640 in the real test (previously I thought I got 630 but that was wrong) which I took in February 2002. That was adequate for applying MBA but not good enough for PhD. Therefore, I pray to God that He either opens the door completely or closes the door completely. If I get below 600 in Thursday, then the door is closed. However, if I get over 700, then a lot of doors are opened and I can study Business PhD in different place. However, if my score is 630-680, then it is a gray zone. I pray that it would not happen.
I went out for weekly run at Parque del Este. Everything looks normal and there is no danger at all. Because of this unexpected peaceful situation, I went to MB church at night for music practice.
I read MBA's Operation Management. The business department that I want to study PhD is called ODT (Operation, Decision technology) in IU. I took a decision science course Sept - Nov which focuses on business statistic using Excel. I got a high mark and I really enjoy that course. This term I will take the Operation Management course, which relates to the other half of the ODT department. There is considerably less math and lots more reading in this course. I heard that this will be a tough course with a lot of reading. The outcome of this course will greatly affect which business department I will take. The other course that I am taking this term is Finance. So far, there is lots of statistic about risk, interest rate and time value of money (e.g. Net Present Value). So far (three days into the course), I enjoy this course. However, I never read the finance section in the newspaper. I wonder whether I am suitable for Finance or I should just study Business Math (if there is something like that) instead.
March 05, 2004(Friday)
I did not go to work today. There is some small march happening around and I checked the office and they told me that only 3 people (out of the 40 people) were there. So I stayed at Che So's house studied MBA's finance course. Che So, Mrs. Cheng and I went to church in the afternoon and did a big clean up for 4 hours. There is a music folder contains the transparency of all songs; I wanted to organize that for a long time. Finally, I organized this folder and threw away a lot of overlapping songs. We also cleaned up the storage room and removed the Christmas decoration. We felt so good and proud of ourselves after the clean up. We went to have dinner at Che So's "Ho Kow" restaurant; I was very full. I went home afterward.
March 04, 2004(Thursday)
I arrived to Desca this morning at 8:55 and saw several people sitting on the stair. There is no one in Desca and no one has the key! I am glad that I have the key so I am the first one entered the office. I color-printed photo from my website. I wanted to ask Desca people to help me get the MBA textbook from DHL. However, they are not available. The DHL people are not delivering because they said that the people are not working today. I had enough and I went to DHL in the afternoon to get the textbook. It was frustrating but I finally got the MBA textbook.
I did not go to work this afternoon because there is nothing happening. I stay-overed at Che So's house. Mrs. Cheng and her children Wilson and Cindy were staying overnight too. We asked Ah Men and Chi Kong to come over so that we can practice for music for this Sunday. There is some big demonstration and march happening this Saturday so we will practice the music in advanced.
March 03, 2004(Wednesday)
There are more people came to work. I tried to negotiate with DHL for MBA textbook. The textbooks for my two courses Finance and Operation Management worth Cdn $490. DHL costs Cdn$182. DHL claims that the duty tax is Cdn $139. They thought that the CD has software so the tax is extremely high (but everywhere in Venezuela sells pirated copy!) Last time I paid Cdn$37. The DHL people said that they paid $139 to custom so they wanted me to pay this amount to them. I am very pissed off. The memory of the beginning of Dec2003 all came back to me. I had an extremely tough time to get the textbook. I told them that the CD is textbook; finally I just have to pay $39. I don't know what they will do with the rest, or the payment to custom is just a lie. One of the important reasons I want to get out of Venezuela now is because of this tough mailing situation. I felt like everything is broken. I also registered for GMAT; the big day will be March 11, next Thursday.
I went to Dr. Chu's house for lunch. MB youth fellowship has four committees. Elisa, the president, need to go to another town to live for 3 months because she needs to help out for her parents' restaurant. Chuen, her husband, also the devotion department, need to work everyday at his parent's restaurant so he can not come to church either. Michelle, the secretary, is pregnant and she plans to stay home and not serve for the next long while! That left with Dr. Chu, who may need to take care of Mrs. Chu and his two sons. The political situation is not good so people do not want to stay for fellowship, which takes place after Sunday worship (3pm) and Sunday school (5pm) at 6:30 - 8pm. Even before that time, people lost interest in fellowship. Therefore, I asked them to come out and talk about the strategic direction of fellowship. I treat the fellowship as a business (of course, I know about the spiritual dimension too!) and ask them some marketing questions. For example, who are our target, what do they want, how can be provide that, etc. My MBA knowledge is at work here!
The metro station for Altamira is closed. I don't know whether or not there is any march or riot. I went home in the afternoon and studied finance and GMAT. I also booked air ticket for my Vancouver trip in April.
Apr. 08 (Thur)
|
AA2154 Caracas - Dallas
07:00 - 11:43
AA887 Dallas - Vancouver
16:28 - 18:50
|
Apr. 25(Sun)
|
AA814 Vancouver - Dallas
07:03 - 13:09
AA2155 Dallas - Caracas
15:00 - 21:21
|
March 02, 2004(Tuesday)
I had problem again with the MBA textbook thing. I am so angry with that. I hate this. I purchased of about $383 worth of textbook and the DHL costs an additional of $134. Now at the Venezuela custom, they want me to pay an extra US$160 because this is the duty fee. What? 50% of the cost of textbook. I guess that they thought one of the CD is software, but actually it is just a CD book. That's why it cost so much. This makes me hate the tax system and also thing in Venezuela. Reminds me about what happened last time when I get my MBA textbook. But the duty fee last time was only $30US. I called the DHL person who speaks English and he sounds really "inch", may be it is just his accent.
The election council will announce the recall result today. It may be mess in the street so we will not need to work today again. I went to Che So house in the afternoon and had dinner there. The election council said that the signature are not valid. I walked home at night because there is a lot of blockade on the street. People burned garbage and car tires. The smells are bad.
March 01, 2004(Monday)
I woke up a bit late today and went to work at 9:45. There are very few people at work today. I was told that Desca will close in the afternoon because there are many road blockades and we may never get home if we don't leave early. Therefore, I left Desca at 11:45. I went to Paco's house for lunch. I configured the wireless router of Baptist Church at his house; I tried in Feb 14 2004 at Che So's house but it does not work. I can get it work here so I am online at Paco's house for several hours.
I went for grocery shopping. There are a lot of people and they are buying a lot of thing. Each time when there are some instabilities, people buy many food. I can still get what I need. People are burning tires (check my photo page) in many intersection. However, these young people also play soccer or have fun nearby. I really dislike the behavior of these opposition people, even though I hate the government party even more. They are just having fun and making a mess; I don't think that they really care about the political situation. At least, not the teenagers who were also pouring gasoline to the fire or chasing each other.
I did not have the mood to study GMAT. I learnt how to use Microsoft FrontPage for over 6 hours today; I am responsible to make homepage for the Venezuela-Chinese-Church-Association. It is easier than using HTML language alone.