My Life at December 2005
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December 31, 2005(Saturday)
I studied from 1 to 3 am for the last few days and woke up at 11am again. Then I went with CCF friends to have New Year Eve dinner. We drove for about 1 hour to Indianapolis to eat some Chinese buffet with lots of seafood. They have raw oyster and other kind of nice seafood. Then after dinner we went to Xiahu and Xinlei house to play UNO, killer game and also count down. I remember when I was in Hebron fellowship, we also count down with the fellowship people too. And in Venezuela, there is usually big feast in Baptist Church and count down together. Everywhere we are blessed to have brothers and sisters to count down together.
December 30, 2005(Friday)
I went with Carmen to Wal-Mart today to check her eyeglass. Then we also went to buy some grocery. At night, the CCF fellowship is held at my house for the movie night. Due to the winter travel plan, only 8 people showed up. We watched the movie "The Terminal" and we had some sharing about the movie at the end too. They shared in Mandarin and I shared in English. This is the way that I communicated with them lately.
December 29, 2005(Thursday)
Even though I am a network engineer and worked with computer network for several years, I have never tried to reformat and reinstalled window. Finally, I successfully installed it today. The computer that I got in Venezuela had given me trouble a month ago. I reformat the computer with Window 2000 (because that computer's hardware does not support Window XP with Service Pack 2). It took about 4 hours to reformat and reinstalled all the files. In addition, I also back up all of my data today. This is the most productive thing that I did.
I did not study nor do anything school related today. I went to play basketball again for 2 hours and I also watched a DVD movie at home with Carmen. I think that I really need to pick up my motivation early or else I will be really busy again when the semester starts.
December 28, 2005(Wednesday)
The fire alarm came on at 8:35 in the morning. We are still sleeping, consider I went to bed at 3am last night working on the PhD paper. (This is Christmas vacation and I still work so hard). As we are about to leave, Carmen checked that this is a false alarm, so we continue to sleep until almost noon.
Carmen helped me to cut hair today. And then I was working on the PhD paper but I lack the motivation and the energy. Then I went to play basketball with CCF friends again. My game fluctuates a lot. When we are playing games (but not counting point), I missed a lot of shot and my confident level is very low. However, for some strange reason, when we play the game that count points, I am quite accurate and I can run fast. Sometimes, when I play the "real game", I miss a lot of shots too. I am too inconsistent. If I can maintain the accuracy and speed as the time I was "on fire", then I can be a very good basketball player. Hansel has not been playing basketball for a while. I think that when I play with him again, I can beat him easily.
At night, I cooked the annual candle-light Christmas dinner to Carmen to appreciate her for the past year. I used to cook quite often in Venezuela but after I am married, I stop cooking. Therefore, this is a good time to cook for her. In addition, when I was young, parents always have the "candle light" dinner once in a while too. Now dad and Hansel cook quite often and I only cook once a year (or more often than this, but not too often). I spent about 45mins to cook, 15 mins for the food and 20 mins for washing and cleaning the kitchen. Preparing food is such a long process. If you do not have a passion in cooking, it would not be fun. I can understand dad and Carmen cooking for me now.
December 27, 2005(Tuesday)
I drove Elaine and her son to the doctor appointment this morning. Her husband originally scheduled to fly here Dec 31. But since she gave birth last week, he tried to come here a week earlier. She contacted Venezuela's travel agent Mimia (also from church) but got no response. Later found out that due to miscommunication his air ticket is actually changed to two days ago so he missed his flight. And his original flight of Dec 31 is canceled too. Therefore, he may have to come the first week of January. We all feel bad for him.
At night we went to HK friend Barrick's house for dinner. And then I start working on the PhD project again.
December 26, 2005(Monday)
I went to snowboard/ski with CCF friends Shangmin, Tan Yue, Zhongren and Chi fu today. In the morning, we purchased snow pants and gloves. I have a good snow gloves in Vancouver but I do not have a good pant. Therefore, this is a good investment. And then we drove for 1 hour and arrived to the "Paoli Peaks" ski resort. This is a small ski place, about half size of Cypress in Vancouver. The slope is not too steep and is only half as long as the slope in Cypress. However, to most of them, it is good enough because they have never ski before. Only Zhongren (he is good), Carmen and I have played this before. We played from about noon to 5:30. As usual, I tried to break my own speed limit and go fast. However, I cannot go really fast today. I also have not skied since I went to Venezuela. Therefore, this is a good warm up exercise for me. However, I know that it would start get boring if I come back the second time. At our last ride, when Tan Yue was lining up for the lift, she just suddenly fell and hit the iron pole on the side. She hit her lips and I hope that it does not break her teeth.
We returned home at 8pm. I have completed my project for IP Expert. Before I start to work on my PhD project, I did some house cleaning stuff, organizing my diary for the night.
December 25, 2005(Sunday)
There is only one ECC Sunday service, rather than the normal 3. I think that it is because most of the students are out of town, and Christmas day fall on Sunday. Then we went to visit Elaine and her baby briefly.
I also worked on the IP Expert project for about 6 hours today. This is a part time job and I want to finish it as soon as I can so that I can get back to my PhD project. I am finally done today and I submitted my draft to the supervisor.
December 24, 2005(Saturday)
We went with Elaine and her baby to the clinic this morning because her son may have some Jaundice disease I mentioned yesterday. We also went to grocery shopping with her and buy many baby things. We really realize that once we have a baby, our life will revolve around the baby; most of our stuff will be related to the baby and most of our time and money will be spent with the baby too!
At night, we went to church for Christmas Eve service. Even though we went to the normal ECC church, tonight's worship is much more traditional, singing songs from the hymns. We are all singing Christmas songs that we have not sung (because of the contemporary worship style that we joined for last several years) since HK! I think that many youth nowadays are enjoying contemporarily service but they lack the knowledge about the traditional hymns. My 15 years of HK church, however, taught me a lot of traditional hymns.
December 23, 2005(Friday)
Elaine's son has the Jaundice ("Yellow courage") disease. Therefore, I drove them to the clinic to take the light for shining to the baby. The borrowed car has some problem because it is making lots of noise. Therefore, I don't want to keep on driving it.
The weather is very nice outside. Even though there is some little snow left on the ground, the temperature is not cold at all. Hence I went out for jogging. Carmen also prepared food for the whole day and I helped her washing dishes towards the end.
At 6:30, several people who did not leave Bloomington went to our house for Christmas dinner. Carmen prepared a lot of nice food for them. Parents used to invite visa student to our house for Christmas dinner. We want to continue this habit and spread the love. We also played the board game "life game" and played UNO too. They left at 12:50.
December 22, 2005(Thursday)
Carmen went out to have some grocery shopping time with Elaine and her sister-in-law. And then in the afternoon I went with Carmen to have eye examination. She has not changed her eye glass for about 4 years and it is a good time to change it. We also went to donate blood because this is something that we always do when we were in Vancouver. As usual, I fear pain a lot. In addition, it takes me a longer time to give a whole bag of blood. In the middle of the process, my speed is too slow that the nurse almost wants to stop and throw away the blood. However, since I want to donate blood so much and I do not want to waste my bag of blood, I asked the nurse to move the needle inside my arm one more time. I am glad that it works, even though it is still painful.
At night, we went to watch the movie "Narnia". This movie is written by C. S. Lewis and it is supposed to be a well known novel. I don't find it that attractive though, compare to Harry Potter or other movie that I have watched. However, since they have the courage to put a really Christian oriented movie to the big screen, we went to watch the movie anyway. We also went to eat Japanese dinner at night. We have not had this kind of dating for a long time. I borrowed a car this week so I can enjoy this luxury. We also dropped by to visit Elaine and her baby shortly.
December 21, 2005(Wednesday)
We went to the hospital at 1pm and Elaine can finally leave the hospital at 6pm. We have to wait for the doctor to give her and the baby a final check. Moreover, the nurse has to explain how to take care the baby step by step. And they required us to purchase a car seat or else the baby cannot leave the hospital. And there is a nurse that pushes the wheel chair and the mother is required to sit on the wheel chair so that they can leave the hospital. There are a lot of steps and procedures because the hospital wants to make sure that they are as problem-free as possible.
Afterward, I went to play for basketball. They were there at 5pm but I can only go at 7pm because of helping Elaine. Carmen and I helped her to settle down in her new house so they the noise of the baby would not affect my studying. And Elaine's sister-in-law arrived tonight from Venezuela to help her looking after the baby.
December 20, 2005(Tuesday)
We went to visit Elaine today. Joe from CCF lends us the car while he is going to Seattle for the next week so it is more convenient. But I don't plan to use the car unless absolute necessary anyway. We went to Shangmin's house at night for dinner and talked about the CCF program for the next several months. It is much relax and easier now, after all the course work and so on. I also found out that I got A's in courses except a "B+" in Statistic class. I am not too happy about my result for Stat class but consider the effort that I put into, a "B+" is pretty reasonable. Class mark does not really matter and what I want is a distinguish paper.
December 19, 2005(Monday)
This morning when Carmen woke up and went to work, Elaine told us that she was having contraction since 1:30am last night. Therefore, she needs to go to see the doctor today. Today is Carmen's last day of work and I have finished all my exam already. Therefore, it is much better than if she has contraction last week. Afterward, Shangmin and Tan Yue drove us to hospital. Carmen only worked for the first 50 mins of today. We arrived to the hospital at 9am. After check in, we are waiting for a long time. Elaine felt a lot of pain at around 11am. It felt so bad that she needs some pain killer.
At 3:50, little Elison finally was born. We were all very excited. This is the first time that I have experienced so close for the birth of a baby. And Carmen was with her the whole time to help her to do the translation. We went home at 5:30 and then went to Joe of CCF house for dinner. After dinner, we all went to hospital again. Originally, we planned to stay over night in the hospital, just in case if she needs any help. However, she was much healthier than we expected. She said that we can go home to take a rest so we returned home at 11:30. What a long day! And what a productive day!
December 18, 2005(Sunday)
We are building a habit of going to the Mandarin speaking church now. The speaker today is terribly boring and the chair person/song leader today is also horrible too. In conclusion, today is not a good worship time. And then at night we went to prayer meeting and we also talked for our Christmas plan too. Not many people will be here so for those of us that left, we must do something fun or else it would be very boring. Moreover, we are inviting those that are still here for our home for Christmas dinner because my parents used to invite the oversea visa student to our house for Christmas dinner when we just went to Canada. They suggested us to continue this legacy. I am sure that we will follow their footstep and continue to spread the love around.
December 17, 2005(Saturday)
I went to play basketball this morning with the CCF friends again. However, I did not get a good aim this morning and I am disappointed to myself. Afterward, we went to CCF's friend Xiahu house for dinner and playing games. They have been to our house many times for the praise and worship practice and so they want to invite the worship team to their house for a gathering. We play UNO, a game which I have not played for a long time. We spent there for quite a while. Now after final exam, everyone have the holiday mood and it feels pretty good. However, I need to work on IPExpert because this is going to be my part time during the Christmas holiday
December 16, 2005(Friday)
I went back to sleep for 6 hours, and then backup my files. I am quite surprised and amazed that my computer did not crash last several weeks! I am thankful for that. I had another 1.5 hours of afternoon nap after a day long of work.
At night, Carmen and I went to Professor's house for the department Christmas gathering. There were about 40 people come and go, including the spouses. It is one of the few times that we went to some non-church related gathering together. We drank wine (again) and it seems like that this is the Westerner's tradition. We also talked about school and project even though we have finished the homework. It is boring sometimes because we have nothing to talk at some point and do not really know many people. We are all glad that the semester is finally over, even though some of us will continue to work on our project.
December 15, 2005(Thursday)
It is about 6:30am Friday morning, as I am writing my online diary for Thursday. Carmen will wake up soon for work, while I worked overnight for my PhD project. I talked to the prof in the afternoon and as usual, he gives a lot of constructing opinion. He said that I need to write something so that even a high school student or manager can understand it. Now my paper is using a lot of assumption and I don't think that I explain it clearly. Therefore, I am busy working with his suggestion for my paper until now. He put a lot of heart and time into my paper because he personally likes my paper and have confident that this will be published somewhere. However, it still needs a lot of work. I hope that I can work on this paper for the next several months and finish it by summer. My ultimate hope is to get something published in a journal called Management Science. None of the professor or students in IU has ever (as far as I know) publish anything in this top journal. The rejection rate is 95%. If I can publish in this journal, I will be king in IU. If not, then journal in the next level would consider to be good too. I think that if I can publish an article by the end of my first year, I am in a really good shape.
Actually, I did not work straight for 12 hours since I talked to the professor. From 6:30 to 10:30, we went to CCF's Chi Fu house. For the last several months, a lot of people have been to our house so they want to invite us back to their house for dinner and Chi Fu is one of them. We had hotpot again and we played some card game again. Other than these 4 hours break, I was working on my paper. I will go to bed now. Even though I have submitted my paper (which is due 8am), I still plan to continue work on this paper after I wake up. My objective is not to get an A in this class. Instead, I want to publish.
December 14, 2005(Wednesday)
I went to the last Statistic class today, which is the presentation of our project. Compared to the PhD project that I worked with almost every day, I put in very little time for this Stat project. It is because I see no hope to publish anything from this paper. However, I still tried my best to do my project and especially the presentation part. I think that I will be fine for this class.
At night, Prof Sebastian, our professor for the PhD seminar class, invited us to his house for dinner. This is one of the very few times that I have a professor or teacher to invite me to his/her home. We spent a lot of time in this class and this hard work gives me very good ethic for the next few years of studies. We had a Swiss style BBQ. Basically, there is a fire pan in the middle of the table and each of us put the vegetable or the meat there. The idea of self-serve is similar to the hot pot idea, except that we are not using water to boil but use a frying pan to fry the food. In addition, we played some German card game (he is from Germany) that is quite similar to Big 2. And we chat about life and where we come from as well. It is very interesting to talk to people that is from Europe or Middle East. We were there from 7 to 11:30.
December 13, 2005(Tuesday)
I went to talk to the prof about my PhD project. Like Hansel's boss in the Baptist hospital, he always has some kind idea how to make the paper as perfect as possible. Therefore, I will spend the next few days editing on the paper again. In fact, he said that even without taking any class, it is very difficult to finish a paper in half a year. Therefore, I think that I would most likely continue to work on this paper until summer. I also went to have worked out and started to read the operation management book that I got for next term.
December 12, 2005(Monday)
I went to school to do the take home exam for the Operation Research class. I have 24 hours to do it, but I am done in about 5.5 hours. This is a quite easy exam. Now I have completed all my exams and I can focus on the PhD project.
December 11, 2005(Sunday)
I went to the 10am ECC because I need to go back to business building at noon to hand in the Statistic take home exam. I went back to hand in exam and it feels so good because there are people who just picked up to do the exam while I have finished it. However, I still have to work on my PhD project for a while.
We went to grocery shopping with Shangmin's couple this afternoon. And then we went to prayer meeting at night. I need to prepare myself for the Operation Research final exam tomorrow.
December 10, 2005(Saturday)
I know that I have final exam going on right now. But I was too focusing yesterday. I need some break, plus I want to have fun and do something I like. I know that if I am concentrated and focus, I can get stuff done in a very short time. Therefore, I played basketball with fellowship friends this morning. I have not played basketball with fellowship friends for many years. More than 11 years ago, I used to organize some basketball time in "Van Tech" and play basketball with fellowship friends. I am so happy that I can play with fellowship friends again today!
After playing basketball for almost 2 hours, I have accumulated enough mental energy and determination. For the next 6.5 hours, I worked non stop (except fall asleep for 10 mins because I am too tired) for the Statistic exam. Including yesterday's work, I finished the 48 hours take home exam in about 11 hours. I know that I would not get perfect in the exam because there are some questions that I cannot answer. But I know that it will take a very long time to find these answers, plus I have confident that the professor will not fail me. I can now get back to the PhD project because this would impact my future life much more.
December 09, 2005(Friday)
I had my in-class Statistic exam this morning. This was a three hours exam. I found my touch in taking exam. After the test, I talked to other people and they all said that they made careless mistakes or don't know how to do this or that. Even though I did not really study, I think that I did a relatively better job, unless they all hide their strength and lied that they don't know this or that. I made several careless mistakes too but at least I found one or two careless mistakes and I think that I would have a good chance to be above class average on the in-class portion of the exam. This only counts 30% of the final exam though. People asked the prof to extend the test for one more hour and I opposed because this would benefit other people more than me. I can work faster and think faster than them.
Afterward, I had the take home exam from noon today to noon on Sunday for the Statistic class. I worked on that for 4.5 hours in the afternoon. I drank a Starbuck ice coffee in the morning. I rarely drink coffee and each time I drink, it is a huge energy boaster. But still, after 7.5 hours of exam, I am pretty exhausted.
We went to fellowship at 6 to prepare for the Praise and Worship night. The fellowship was praise and worship and I think that, given that most of them a new to leading, I think that the quality is ok. However, we overran big time. And since none of us had dinner, we all went out to eat and returned home at 11:30.
December 08, 2005(Thursday)
I had my last teaching class and Operation Research class today. And it snowed heavily today! The whole places are white. I have not seen so much snow for a long time, probably since I went to Venezuela. I am so glad that I don't have to shovel the snow. This is the advantage of living in campus apartment. In fact, whenever there is problem with our house, such as the drainage is slow, I can just call them and they will come to fix for free. Therefore, I think that I will stay there for a longer time and not purchase a house.
After working out in the gym, I continued to work on the PhD project, even though there is Statistic exam tomorrow. I hope that I will be ok for the statistic exam tomorrow and I bet that the professor is not going to fail anyone. And what matter to me the most is not the grade of my statistic exam but whether or not I have any publication. Therefore, I spent so much time for the PhD project, not because I want to get a good grade for that class but because I want this to be a publishable paper.
December 07, 2005(Wednesday)
I had my last PhD Seminar class today. I spent the morning organizing the 20 cm thick pages that I read over the semester. And today we have a presentation about our project. I can listen to what other people are doing too. Everyone of us put in a lot of effort and we hope that we can get the best paper out.
There will have a Praise and Worship this Friday. Carmen had been working hard for the PowerPoint presentation. Tonight, we were told that the overhead projector is broken and we cannot use their sound system either. What a strange timing. I wonder whether this is any attack from the devil or not.
December 06, 2005(Tuesday)
Today is the beginning of the last week of class for the first semester of the PhD. There is nothing usual about it, except that there will have a lot of homework, exams and project. Therefore, I spent the day working hard and did nothing else. I also called parents and checked how they were doing. They are still doing great and I am thankful for that. Carmen also spent the whole night preparing a PowerPoint for the Praise and Worship program this Friday night too.
December 05, 2005(Monday)
I have spent relatively too much time on the PhD seminar project and too little time on the statistic class and teaching class. Therefore, today I spent several hours to work on the homework for these two courses. Exam is coming up soon and I need to finish all the homework and study for the exam.
December 04, 2005(Sunday)
I went to play basketball this morning with two CCF friends. This is the very few time that I play sport in Sunday morning. And then in the afternoon, we went to the Chinese Church again because there is baptism service. There are five people baptizing. Originally the ECC church (the place that the Chinese worship is held) has some warm water in place. But due to miscommunication, they thought that the baptismal ceremony has completed and they drained all the water. Therefore, by the time we went to church at 1, there is no water. Therefore, we need to turn on the tap, which only has cold water. The water temperature is extremely cold! Then before the ceremony, we went to the kitchen and turned on the hot water and put it in several big containers so that we can fill the bath tub with some warmer water. But it is still cold water. I feel bad for them.
After prayer meeting, I went to the committee meeting. Since I am the leader for the Cantonese group, they invited me to join the committee. I have to share my salvation testimony. I have a very short salvation testimony since I was born in a Christian family. Instead, I shared about my fruitful church experience in Vancouver, Venezuela and in Bloomington. We talked for about 2.5 hours and I went home at 11pm.
December 03, 2005(Saturday)
I went to grocery shopping with Carmen, Elaine and some CCF friends because they drove us to the grocery store. And then Carmen and I went to work out in the gym. This afternoon, CCF people coming to our home for worship practice from 1 to 5. During that time, I was working on my PhD project and also wash clothes.
At night, I continue to study the statistic homework.
December 02, 2005(Friday)
Carmen usually woke up at 6:30 and went to work at 7:25. I usually worked late the previously night and wake up at 10-ish. However, since today I have a 9am Statistic class (which I hate), I decided to wake up at the same time with Carmen and leave home with her. The weather outside is COLD. After biking back to school, it surely feels like this is the coldest weather I have ever experienced. Since I went to Venezuela, I don't have to suffer the cold weather last two years. And this makes today even colder. I wore "hat sweater" and gloves already, but I still feel cold. I wore a lot of jackets and sweaters too. It is hard to imagine that three months ago the weather is extremely nice here.
There is problem with my home computer again. I think that last Saturday during the worship team practice, someone downloaded some kind of software to the computer and caused the problem. Or may be the computer just had problem. No matter what, I think that the computer will die any time so I need to back up the file and I plan to reformat the computer totally. However, after deleting some of the unknown program, it looks like that my computer is more stable and work again. I will see how long this computer can last.
After the last Statistic class, my classmates Greg and Valya treated me for lunch. They said that I did not tell them about my birthday so this is my birthday lunch. It is late, but they are very nice. And this is a good break for us to get away from school work.
At night, I led the Bible Study on the book of Galatians 4:11-31. I talked as usual and I think that I did a pretty clear and enthusiast and entertaining job to explain the Bible. May the glory be back to God!
December 01, 2005(Thursday)
I had the teaching class this morning. For the short 10 mins teaching exercise, I did a lot of thing. First, I showed them a picture of Carmen and I in Germany and introduced them with my wife. Then, I had them played the cooperation game. It turned out that the point of the game is for "Finite period" game theory. And also about the idea of break ice game. I found that the idea is awesome in those short 10 mins. I learnt a lot and polished my style a lot through public speaking in fellowship. However, the ending is conclusion is a bit fast without any question. That is the only weakness of the presentation. I have the intense energy and enthusiasm as usual.
At night, Shangmin, Tan Yue, Joyce and Joe came to our house for dinner and also pre-study for tomorrow's Bible Study. We also shared about our group.