My Life at September 2005
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September 30, 2005(Friday)
The Stat class this morning. I finally fall asleep, hopefully not big time, today. The professor is the PhD program director and it is not exactly the best thing to do. However, there is a mechanism (excuse) in my body that, if I do not have enough sleep, I will just fall asleep in class. I had 7 hours last night and so I am too tired. I ended up sleeping in class. And I also had an afternoon nap today so that I can get back to 8 hours of sleep. Therefore, none of you need to worry about whether I have enough sleep or not. I will have enough sleep.
I went to CCF at night. Even though it is Mandarin fellowship, I still made comments in English. Such as, I disagree that "Christian must go to fellowship" (but "Christian SHOULD go to fellowship") and also the problem of having non believer friend (I can't imagine that Jesus would ask opinion from a non-believer for a very important decision). They thought that I have complicated thought and I think deep.
September 29, 2005(Thursday)
As usual, I am studying hard today. I used a program called Mathematica to study the concept of Supply Chain for over 10 hours in the last 24 hours. There are some examples about what I am studying. 1. I manufactured some kind of product. Should I sell it myself, or should I ask a retailer to sell it for me, or a combination of both? Which one allows me to have the most revenue? 2. For the previous example, let say both myself and the retailer would sell my product. In that case, how much should the retailer differentiate the product such that they can increase their revenue? 3. If the society adds several layer of "wholesalers" (in series, not parallel) between the manufacture and the customer. How much would it impact the market demand?
I know that it is difficult to put this subjective value into a mathematical formula. But that is exactly what I am doing, and I am having fun with this.
September 28, 2005(Wednesday)
I went to the university's international service to see is there any way for me to work legally in US. They gave me a form for academic training and suggested me talking to my professor. If my professor allows, then I can probably go ahead for this route. So far, this is one of the best ways that I am aware of for me to work short term in US.
I went to class and then spent the rest of the evening working on the homework. Rather than reading paper, I need to derive some kind of formula. I much prefer this kind of homework than reading paper, and time flies really fast. I almost forgot my dinner.
September 27, 2005(Tuesday)
Today is another studying day. I wonder, if life continues to be like this, what I should put in my diary. The only special thing is that, I went to gym and do some work out after class.
September 26, 2005(Monday)
I went to check with the legal advisor about my employment and school status in the morning. And then I went out for a run. For the rest of the day, I just stayed home sleeping for 1.5 hours and also studying.
September 25, 2005(Sunday)
Wedding anniversary Year 1. Hopefully that the next time that when I celebrate the anniversary by myself, it will be death that set us apart.
I went to church with some CCF friends. And then there is a missionary came to share about his financial need especially to the six of us. (He will do more fund raising to other group, but the meeting is only for us). He works for the International ministry by the Navigator. Previously I have no special bonding with the missionaries. But Venezuela's experience changed my perspective to missionaries.
I went home to study and sleep. At night I attended the prayer meeting. I gave lots of suggestion to them about the fellowship and also leading group. I do not want to be too dominant or share too much or else people would think that I am too proud and not humble enough. However, I still need to give them suggestion on how to improve the fellowship.
September 24, 2005(Saturday)
I went to the pot luck/hiking with CCF people. This is the first outing for the fellowship, and it is also one of the very few times that I leave the campus. (Normally I just stayed in the campus because it has almost everything that I need). We played Frisbee and some other games. And then we went for the hiking. It was not a challenging walk, but I cherish the time spent with brothers and sisters. My language barrier is hopefully disappearing. It is not that my mandarin improves. It is just that I tried to talk to them in English and whenever they need to talk to me, they will talk in English. Of course it greatly diminishes the quality but I still think that this is not as bad as I originally think.
I went to play basketball and volleyball after some rest at home. And then for the rest of the evening, I studied.
September 23, 2005(Friday)
There is a presentation in the morning for the stat class. My project is "Exploring the Difference in Salary and Compensation between being an assistant professor, an associate professor and a full professor". It sparks some interesting conversation about which professor in which school earns more money. My presentation is pretty good. I am sometimes a bit not fluency, but then my sense of humor helps a lot.
I went to a seminar on how to teach during lunch time. I went there because there is free lunch and it is a requirement of the teaching course that I am attending. I slept through some times though.
I went to CCF at night and it was Bible Study again. Since most of the members are PhD students, I surely have a high expectation to them. However, not many of them are long-time believers or strong believer. I am a bit disappointed with the quality of their Bible Study. However, I tried to raise some questions and I hope that it would help the atmosphere. I surely hope that I do not go overboard though.
At night, Carmen and I talked through the telephone for a long time.
September 22, 2005(Thursday)
What happened to me? This is the second time in this month that I did not update the diary within 24 hours of the day. I thought that I have updated the diary of today already. There are some reasons for why I am like this again. 1. I do not have to go to work, and there is no stable time for me to update diary. 2. School is really busy! Much busier than my time at work. 3. Life is pretty usual. Study, study and study. 4. I have two computers to play with and I may have updated part of the diary of today, but then it was in my another-computer and I am not aware of that.
I am glad that I do maintain two sets of diary. Besides this online diary, I also have a written diary since 1991. And this written diary is really stable and I do update it daily. So I can just check for today's event and write it back. (It turns out that today, I just studied.)
September 21, 2005(Wednesday)
I would like to work to help myself financially. There are companies that willing to pay me. However, I need to check my visa and immigration status to see whether I am allowed to work. The obvious answer is "no". However there are a few tricks that make the situation complicating. First, I am a Canadian citizen, and usually Canadian citizen gets a different treatment from other countries' citizen. Second, if I have to work, it would only be one or two week per semester. Third, I have the freedom to help people for free. Or many people would earn cash by teaching piano or do private tutoring. Lastly, can I have multiple visas?
I want to do everything clean and be blameless. On the other hand, I want to explore all the option and make sure that I would take advantage of every possible opportunity. I pray that I will make the correct choice.
Therefore, I talked to the companies and also did some research in the website about whether I can work or not. I find something quite interesting. I have checked the US government visa webpage. http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1274.html
It says that "Canadian citizens usually do not need a visa as a NAFTA Professional, although a visa can be issued to qualified TN visa applicants upon request." Does this mean that, if I am a NAFTA Professional, I am able to work in US without any problem?
September 20, 2005(Tuesday)
In the morning, I sit-in to an undergrad class. One of the PhD class (teaches-me-how-to-teach class) requires us to sit-in and observe the teaching style. Therefore, I finally went to one this morning. It has been a while since I sit-in to an undergrad course. The classroom is like a high school class room with about 20 students. It certainly feels weird to be in this kind of place again.
I went to school and then went home at night to prepare some food for the pot luck at night. Yesterday there was a HK person Andy coming to live in my house for several days. This is a good reason to invite people to come to have pot luck at my house. This is also one of the very first times that I cook for other people in such kind of environment. Usually it is my dad or Carmen that does the cooking when people come to my house for food. Now I tried to cook some lettuce and chicken myself. I am glad that they appreciate my effort. There were 8 people coming to eat at my house, half of them Cantonese and half of them Mandarin. That is so funny to know that even though we are all Chinese, we have to speak in different languages. I also remember that in Venezuela, when I was talking to some of the local born people, I have to use English to talk to them, and then the local born people using Spanish to talk among themselves and other people uses Mandarin to talk to them (they speak Mandarin rather than Cantonese). Poor Chinese culture. Sounds like the dominant language now is English. We were also talking about different place's living standard. We have to convert the HK$, Chinese $, Canadian $$ to US$. And to convert the different measuring system (e.g. feet, pound) to metric system (e.g. meter, kg). Life is so complicated.
September 19, 2005(Monday)
I went to Student Legal Service to take care of some legal prospect if I am working during my work. Life is surely not easy, especially after we have the face the reality. We are trying to make sure that we can maximize our utility while staying legal.
Other than that, today is a relax day. I ran, slept and did some studying too. At night, there is a 19 years HK boy came to stay in my house. I just knew about it at night. He came here to study music. I am trying to spread the hospitality love that I learnt in Venezuela to people here. I helped him to settle down at my house.
September 18, 2005(Sunday)
I went to church this morning. Afterward, there is some kind of welcoming for the new-comer. Basically I just went to the room and chatted with some elders and that's all. After lunch, I slept for 3.5 hours because I have flu and I need more rest and water.
I also took out my digital piano yesterday and practiced for 30 mins today. I have not played piano since Carmen left Venezuela in May 29. Obviously my skill is rusty but I hope that I can pick it up again.
There is a prayer meeting for the CCF. I went there the first time today. There were four other girls joining (some of the male today went to the family fellowship so they did not come). They mainly communicated in Mandarin. However, I can understand what they say and I responded in English or broken mandarin. When I was speaking mandarin, I got mixed up with Spanish. That sounds really weird.
Yanting and Che So from Venezuela called me tonight and we chatted for a while. Since I have not yet established my social circle here, I surely miss my time in Venezuela. And then I kept on studying and studying.
September 17, 2005(Saturday)
I tried to work on the Cisco lab. They only shipped me one router and one Call Manager and so I think that I would have a hard time to complete the entire lab. I have emailed them and hope that someone can do something about this. Or else, I would go to the course without any preparation.
In the middle of the studying, the emergency alarm in the apartment sounded. Everyone is required to leave the building. This is a good time for break, so I just went to the gym and see whether I can play basketball. There were people playing at that time and as I was walking around and looking at people playing volleyball, they asked me to join. So I played volleyball for 1.8 hours. And then I saw some empty spots in the basketball court so I played 3-on-3 basketball for 1.2 hours. I am completed tired at the end of the day, but I really need this physical exercise because I have been studying too much lately.
Several days ago Jo from IU CCF invited Carmen and I to have dinner with a bunch of friends. Therefore, I went to someone's house (don't really know the name) to have dinner with about 9 other Chinese. 6 of them are from Taiwan and the other three that are from HK knows Mandarin well. Therefore, the conversation is in Mandarin again. They planned to watch the movie afterward but given the amount of workload I have lately, I decided to go home early. At night, I was home alone reading paper for 3. 5 hours. I am very hardworking.
The weather also turned a lot colder since Carmen left. I caught a flu tonight.
September 16, 2005(Friday)
I studied late last night. And then I woke up early for class. Originally I planned to have afternoon nap. However, due to the amount of work, even I skipped another afternoon nap. I just cannot believe I am doing this again. I used to sleep so much in Venezuela and now I am using my quota.
I will go to Miami to teach a Cisco IP Telephony Course (CIPT) in the beginning of October. I just received the equipment that CTT shipped to me today. Therefore, in the afternoon, I spent 1.5 hours just to unpack the bubble wrap. I also need some time to prepare the material or else I will be embarrassed when I teach the class in two weeks. I hope that everything will be ok. This created the most stress lately.
At night, I went to the Chinese fellowship CCF again. They will have Bible Study every Friday night. I am the only person that does not speak Mandarin. I can understand 70% of the Taiwan Mandarin but I can barely understand 30% of the China Mandarin (but still better than my Spanish). Also, I finally answered questions today (in English) because this is just my nature to response in Bible study. They were impressed about my answer, but actually they are not even scratching my surface yet. OK, I will not go deeper or else I will be too proud of myself.
At night, study again. Seems like life is pretty much studying now. I remember people said that when you go to PhD, you have to love what you are doing. I understand this statement a layer deeper now. And so far, I am glad that I am pretty happy about what I am doing (i.e. studying). But this is still the first semester. Let's see what will happen from now on.
September 15, 2005(Thursday)
Today is a boring quiet day. There is lots of thing to study. Therefore, I spent the whole time studying. At night, I am eating and studying too. Life is pretty simple this way. Study and sleep. I should check my online diary last Friday about the optimal hour that I should study! But I also went to the gym to do exercise and running for 35 mins. Otherwise, I would pretty much be a machine.
My classmate told me that the PhD seminar professor is the hardest one in the department. Even the other second or third year students say that the PhD seminar course is the hardest that they have taken. I surely wish that, since he makes the course so hard, we will be a better student. I think that this course really increased my appetite of studying. Hopefully I will work like a dog for the next few years too. Especially the competition for getting a position at top research school is really tough for our department.
September 14, 2005(Wednesday)
I woke up at 5:30 this morning so that I can accompany Carmen to the shuttle bus station. Carmen flied back to Vancouver today to visit her mom. I went home to sleep for another 3 hours after saying farewell to Carmen. And then I went to talked to student legal service regarding about the prospect for Carmen and my employment in USA.
After class, I went home to cook dinner and study. I used to live by myself in Venezuela for several years (even though I shared the house with other people) and I should be ok for the next 2.5 weeks while Carmen is in Vancouver.
September 13, 2005(Tuesday)
I had the online mentoring session for CTT and made some money in the morning. And then I went to school afterward. I also went to the gym to do some exercise. Originally I wanted to play basketball but once I see all the people that are playing are good, I got scared and I do the work out instead.
At night, Carmen was trying to purchase an air ticket so that she can go back to Vancouver to visit her mom.
September 12, 2005(Monday)
In the morning I went to have lunch with my prof about my research idea. They gave me some research topic and asked me to have a paper done by the end of November. In addition, they said that if I aim to graduate in three years, most likely I would graduate in five years. Therefore, I think that I really need to work hard.
Carmen's mom was sick and went to hospital. Therefore today we talked to the phone to her parents and also my parents to check Carmen's mom situation. I also comforted Carmen and hope that she would be ok.
The computer that I brought from Venezuela was not working after I installed the Window XP Service Pack 2. Therefore I purchased another computer. However yesterday my friend Barick helped me to install the Window 2000 and it works. Therefore today I spent some times to synchronize the files to this Venezuela computer too. Currently I have two desktop and also one laptop in my home. I need to find space to put this old desktop to my house.
September 11, 2005(Sunday)
I went to another church this morning, called the "Evangelical Christian Church" (ECC). Last time's Sherwood Oak Church is like Willing church, while this week's ECC is more like Fraserland church, both the size and the interior is like that. Afterward, we went to have lunch with some Chinese Christian that we met through the CCF. And then we went to Border Bookstore to read comic for another 1.5 hours.
Originally I want to go to do exercise and run in the evening. However, as I walked through the gym I saw several people (Chinese or Taiwanese students) playing basketball. Therefore, I played with them. I have not played serious basketball for quite a long time. Several weeks ago I played basketball with the PhD students but I was wearing saddle at that time. This time it is more serious but I still suck. I need to practice more.
September 10, 2005(Saturday)
Today is a relaxing day because there is no school. I don't have to wake up early. However, I still spent 4 hours doing homework today. In the afternoon, Carmen and I went to the gym to play racquet ball. We played squash about a week ago and a squash ball is not bouncy at all. However, the racquet ball is another extreme. It is even bouncer than a tennis ball. We played for 1.2 hours and we did some work out too.
At night, we went out to have a Chinese dinner (soy chicken and roast pork rice noodle). Then we went to Border bookstore so that I can read comic for about 2 hours.
September 09, 2005(Friday)
I have a 9 am class so I have to wake up early. And then I went home for lunch and I also had an afternoon nap. I am also thinking for a research project idea for the PhD seminar class. It is not easy to come up with some unique idea that no one else has came up before. In general, my idea is that I have 24 hours a day and I need to sleep and study. So what is the number of hour that I should spend to each activity such that I can optimize my quality of life? I word it like this:
Company Hubert is producing two things, product "z" (sleep) and product "s" (school). Each product "z" would yield an outcome of fz(z) and each product "s" would yield an outcome of fs(s). Because of the diminished rate of return and the maximum potential , both fz(z) and fs(s) would be mono-increasing with a decreasing rate ceiling with an asymptote. The objective is to maximize the overall outcome (quality of life, aka "QoL"), which is determined by QoL(z, s) = QoL[fz(z), fs(s)], Subject to the constraint "C[gz(z), gs(s)] < R" where R = resource available
For instances,
fz(z) = (az z + bz) / (cz z + dz)
fz(0)= bz / dz Return for zero investment
fz(infinity)= az / cz Maximum potential for product "z"
fs(s) = (as s + bs) / (cs s + ds)
fs(0)= bs / ds Return for zero investment
fs(infinity)= as / cs Maximum potential for product "s"
QoL(z, s) = QoL[fz(z), fs(s)] = fz(z) * fs(s)
= [(az z + bz) (as s + bs)] / [(cz z + dz) (cs s + ds)]
with the contstraint:
gz(z) = kz * z
gs(s) = ks * s
C[gz(z), gs(s)] = gz(z) + gs(s) = kz * z + ks * s < R
I surely tried to make this modeling as complicated as I can, because this is the whole point of studying PhD!
At night, we went to our second CCF (Christian Chinese Fellowship). It is still in Mandarin and I am still trying to understand as much as I can. However, I have been through much worse than that. When I first arrived to Venezuela, I went to the Spanish youth fellowship and I have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Therefore, at least, I have some idea and their background is much closer to us. This is definitely the highest educational background theory I have been to. Most of them are PhD student. They will also do Bible Study every week. But then they would ask people to sign up for leading Bible study and I don't think that it would work in Chinese fellowship. And most of them are new believers (less than 2 years) too. So I think that they need to provide more support to whoever that will lead the Bible study. For the Bible Study, I surely expect much from this fellowship than from Venezuela's Chinese fellowship.
September 08, 2005(Thursday)
Study, study and study. I also went out for a run. I thought that I updated this diary in Sept 08, but apparently I did not. I cannot find it anywhere. Probably I just forgot to update this diary.
September 07, 2005(Wednesday)
I went to gym with Carmen this morning. I tried to run for one mile and it took me 7 minutes 1 second. I hope that I can improve to less than 6.5 mins by the time I leave IU.
I went to the PhD seminar class again. This class consumed me about 70% of the studying time. The professor gave us some more papers to read again.
I also received the two boxes that Che So sent to me from USA. Therefore, I tried to install the webcam to my computer. I also created some back up disk so that next time (who knows when) when my computer crashes, it will not hurt as much. The last month two computers died and thanks to the periodic back up, I can recover most of the data.
September 06, 2005(Tuesday)
I had my first part time assignment today for the online session. I worked for CTT and hosted the online session for the Miami, Denver and Orlando groups. That helps me financially.
I went to school to work on the homework in the afternoon and went home at 5. At night, Barick and his family came over for dinner. This is the first time that we invited people to our house for dinner since we moved to Indiana. They brought their two young energetic kids too. They played around the big fitness ball. We also finished organizing our house and it should be "livable" now.
September 05, 2005(Monday)
I have no class on Monday. In addition, today is Labor Day and is a public holiday. Therefore, I took the privilege and slept for 10 hours. However, after I woke up, it is another busy studying day. I spent the entire afternoon working in the computer lab to learn to use a statistical program called SAS.
We went to pick up our bike afterward. After tuning up and add some accessories (e.g. brake, cover for rear wheel), it averages $78 per bike, which is relatively cheap. I went out for a jog afterward and continue studying at night. I still cannot believe that I studied for 6 hours in a public holiday in the first week of school.
September 04, 2005(Sunday)
I went to Sherwood Oak Christian Church this morning with Carmen. During last week's furniture give-away, we got a queen size bed from this church. In the morning, it was the International coffee hour, and the host shared about what is sin. Afterward, we attended the Sunday Service. This feels really like the Willingdon Church from Vancouver.
We went to the welcoming BBQ lunch from the international service. There is a member from the church that owns a very large farm in the nearby area. The farm has different kind of animal, such as horse, donkey, turkey, peacock, and sheep. This would be an ideal retreat area.
In the evening, I went out for a run for 42 mins around the whole campus. And then we watched the movie "Rush Hour 2" from the TV.
September 03, 2005(Saturday)
We went to the used bike auction this morning. This is the first time that we went to a real auction. (We have played the auction game within a fellowship setting several times). There are about 100+ bikes on sales and there are about 100+ people there. Some of the bikes are for sale for over 100 dollars, which is too expensive. We both got a relatively cheap bike. Mine is $30 and hers is $35. However, both bike's condition is pretty terrible. For my bike, the rear brake is missing; the left pedal is also missing. Her bike's rear brake does not work at all and the tires are flat. In addition, since the bike probably been left outdoor for a long time, the bike frame, especially the chain, is really rusty. Therefore, we need to change the chain as well. We took the bikes to the bicycle shops and asked them to help me to change the chain and fix Carmen bike's brake. I think that we will spend about $70 on both bikes for tune up and parts. That means, our bikes will cost us about $70 each. Comparatively, when I got the used bike from Vancouver in 1998, it was Cdn $250, but the condition was really good.
Afterward, we went to car dealership and check out with cars. After visiting several dealerships, we are thinking of buying a 2006 model new Corolla that will cost us about US$17k.
In the late evening, we went to the Student recreation center to swim. I used to swim at least once a week when I was working in TELUS in 1999-2001. However, I did not try the serious swim afterward. Therefore, my time for swimming 100m is terrible. It is 2 min 12 seconds, compare to the world record of about 50 second. In fact, even for running 1 mile, my time is about 8 min while the world record is less than 4 mins. So I usually double the world's record.
I also fixed the computer microphone at night. Therefore, I should be able to talk to other people through MSN phone.
September 02, 2005(Friday)
I cannot believe what I am doing. This is only the first week of the first year of my PhD program. However, for the last few days, I went to bed after 2am! (Even though I woke up at about 9 or sometimes 10am). I have an average of 7 hours of sleep, compare to 8 hours plus an hour of afternoon nap when I was in Venezuela. This is only first week, so I cannot imagine how much harder it will be in the future.
I went to the statistic class this morning. There is another load of homework that I needed to do. I guess that I will spend the weekend working hard. In addition, for the PhD program, I am assigned to a supervisor. The supervisor for this semester is Prof. Hu. She just graduated from Michigan and I guess that she is about my age and she is from China. I need to study stochastic system from her.
I finally went home for afternoon nap today, because I have no class. In addition, I got my new computer to work. I need to download the Microsoft Office and other software from the school's website. I am trying to copy the files from my laptop to the computer too.
I went to the CCF (Chinese Christian Fellowship) tonight. There are about 34 people and this is a Mandarin speaking fellowship, although there are about 6 or 7 people coming from HK. The members are quite mature. Most of them are either getting the master, PhD or researcher. Most of them are couples from China or Taiwan. They cannot understand Cantonese. Tonight's program is game night. After the singspiration and the sharing, we played the game "big wind blow". That is basically the program. It is quite boring. Afterward, we talked to some people that are coming from HK. I hope that eventually we can form a Cantonese speaking fellowship.
September 01, 2005(Thursday)
One of the classes that I need to teach is a "how to be a teacher" class. This is a fun class and there is nothing much I need to do. And then afternoon I am taking the Operation Research (OR) class.
Since my computer has hardware problem, we are forced to buy a new computer. Carmen checked the best buy and found out a very good deal. A whole computer (e-machine) package (17 inches monitor, printer, mouse, keyboard plus 80G hard drive, CD-RW drive, 256MB DDR RAM) is only $274.97 after rebates! That is a really cheap deal! In addition, we got a 20 inches flat screen TV for $135. We took two carts from our apartment and bused to best buy to buy these two items. We are glad that the bus driver let us took the bus or else it will be a very long walk.
At night we went to play squash. I played squash twice before 1990 and this is the first time that Carmen played squash. We are still learning this game.
I wanted to set up the computer at night. However, I know that if I started to set up the computer, I will spend the whole night to do it. Therefore, I would rather study and do my homework or else this would never get done