My Life at February 2006
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February 28, 2006(Tuesday)
Today is another class now. Nothing else too special. I also spent some times on the PhD project and hope that I can have some result to show to my professor.
February 27, 2006(Monday)
I worked on the PhD project and homework today again as usual. I also went to the gym to do exercise too.
At night, we had a meeting at my house regarding about the outreach next Friday. We are going to play the life game and I have hosted this game at least 2 times, once in FCGC 5 years ago and once in Venezuela about 2.25 years ago. Therefore, I am very prepared and know exactly what the tricks are and what should be done.
February 26, 2006(Sunday)
After Sunday Worship, I had the temporary Church committee meeting in the late afternoon to talk about the church constitution. We got most of the important thing decided already, such as, church membership, deacon board structure, nomination committee. Hopefully we can finish the constitution within a week or two so that we can present it to the coworker.
At night we went to prayer meeting and then return home
February 25, 2006(Saturday)
My classmates usually study 7 days a week (at least, I know that one of the classmates is like that). However, weekend to me is a break and I don't usually get any study done. This is a good break for me though and helps me to refresh my mind. However, I still studied a bit early afternoon.
We went to purchase some craft so that we can make some craft this coming Friday for the fellowship. Afterward, we went to have dinner with Xinlei and Xiaohu because they wanted to appreciate all the wedding helper. We then went to their house to play UNO and sing karaoke until 11pm.
We will also have major traveling this summer. We will visit HK (last time I was there is 1994 summer) and stop by Tokyo for 2 days. Then we will go to Vancouver go to visit our family. Here is the iternary:
May 13-14, 06 (Sat-Sun)
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NW1010 IND - Detroit
13:27 - 14:40
NW11 Detroit - Tokyo
15:30 - 17:30
NW1 Tokyo - HK
18:30 - 22:25
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May 30, 06 (Tue)
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NW2 HK - Tokyo
08:30 - 13:35
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June 1, 06 (Thur)
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NW8 Tokyo - Seattle
15:25 - 08:25
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June 12, 06 (Mon)
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NW300 Seattle - IND
12:30 - 19:31
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February 24, 2006(Friday)
The PhD seminar was hard (again). Stuffed my brain with too much information and I have enough! I nearly wanted to leave the classroom (like my classmate did last time) because of overwhelming! Probably also because I did not drink coffee in the morning so I don't have energy.
Going to gym for workout is a great way to release the mental tense. So I went there. And then at night for fellowship, I led the preaching gospel workshop for my group. I had used this material March 1, 2001 in FCGC already. Therefore, this is not too bad for me. However, I always tend to make thing really exaggerated and I think that this may distract people from the real information. At night, we went for grocery shopping again.
February 23, 2006(Thursday)
There is no statistic class today so I went home a bit earlier. I talked to prof about the PhD paper and that clarify a lot of stuff and hence I spend some time to understand the paper better for next week's presentation. The math is not that bad but the overall concept is quite complicated, or just that the author did a bad job in explaining.
At night I went to practice guitar for tomorrow night's singspiration.
February 22, 2006(Wednesday)
I stayed home today to work on homework, prepare for this Friday's Evangelism talk and just went to work out in the middle of the day. Therefore this is just a typical quiet working day. I am starting to get used of the new laptop.
February 21, 2006(Tuesday)
I went to probability and queuing class this morning and the prof joked that why am I sleeping in the Statistic class. He said that one of the classmates Valya told him about this. I know that this is a joke but I am a bit concern about this. I hope that she is not "backstabbing" at me because I always treat my fellow classmates nice. After class I went to confront with her about this and she told me that this is only a joke and hope that I will not take it the wrong way. I told her that it is not that suitable to joke with the professors because who knows whether it will have a bad image for him about me in the future. She said that she always told the professor how bright I am and the professors all know about this. I believe in what she says, just that I am reacting a bit exaggerating today, probably because I am having some bad day.
I got the new Compaq Presario V2555US laptop today. This worth about $500 US after rebate. I spent some of the evening in downloading the software and configuring the laptop. This is pretty slow laptop and it is not that great. However, given the cheap price, I think that I can survive with it, hopefully for the next several years. I will definitely buy a better laptop once I graduate.
I guess that Satan is attacking me lately, since Sunday night when I talked to fellowship people about the serving in church. I got spiritual attack on my personal life pretty badly and hope that I will be ok. Please pray for my well being and casting my care to God.
February 20, 2006(Monday)
Today is a quiet and busy day. I spent the day to work on different homework. I pray that I can make less stupid mistake and be smoother in doing homework, especially because I am spending a decent amount of time lately in church-related stuff. Let's see how it goes
February 19, 2006(Sunday)
My friend Barick told me that there is discount on Compaq laptop at Staples starting today. So I went with him today to purchase a laptop. This is a Compaq Presario V2555US. The regular price is US$750 and now it costs only $500 after rebates! It is really cheap! Also, I got other accessory (such as USB memory port) for a cheap price too. I don't really know how they can make money since they sell thing so cheap. I also never go to Boxing Day shopping in Canada or Thanksgiving shopping in US. Therefore today is the first time that I really have to compete with someone for some goods. The store opens at 11 and when I arrived there at 10:59 (the staff is in the process of opening the door), there are more than 10 people waiting to go in already. I am quite surprised with that. Eventually, they ran out of laptop but I ordered it from the cashier online and they will deliver to my home in a few days.
I went to church in the afternoon then we had the temporary church committee meeting to talk about church structure. At night, we went to prayer meeting. Then there is still some church administrative stuff that we need to settle down so we spent several hours talking about this. I also shared with Carmen that the purpose of serving in church is to glorify God. And the most important thing in our daily life that can glorify God is through our marriage. Therefore, we will strengthen our relationship even more so that we can be a household of faith.
February 18, 2006(Saturday)
Today is the wedding ceremony of Xinlei and Xiaohu. The ceremony was from 11 to 12:20. This is the first time that we attend other people's wedding after we are married. It brings back a lot of nice memory. And when they read the vow, we feel quite emotion too!
Carmen was a member of the choir and she was also the MC in charge to ask people to take picture. I inherited my grandfather's habit such that I took picture everywhere. Even though I am not the official photographer, I took a lot of picture because I want to upload the picture to the fellowship website. Afterward we also helped out to clean up too. I always want to help brothers and sisters during their wedding because this is especially the time that feels the support from the church and to show the nonbelievers about the supportiveness and the love of the church.
Afterward, we immediately went to Joyce's house. We played card (Big 2, Uno, find turtle) and made clay for each other. We also had dinner there and returned home at 10pm.
February 17, 2006(Friday)
I had a high mental challenge today through the PhD seminar. I am learning the dynamic programming. We have to continuously copy notes for the three hours. And this is definitely one of the most challenging three hours I have ever had. But this is not too new to me because it is like learning the Physics when I was undergrad too. However, it is so challenging that one of the students Valya, who usually works really hard and is the first to come and last to leave, left shortly before the class ended because she said that she ran out of stream. I think that this definitely shows that it is difficult.
I went home to work on the homework at noon. It took almost two hours simply just copying the notes again.
We went to church a bit earlier to have a rehearsal for Xinlei/Xiaohu's wedding. I think that their wedding is not as organized, probably because not many people here have the experience to help them. And then Joe led the Bible study at night. Afterward, we went to have grocery shopping at Kroger.
February 16, 2006(Thursday)
The probability/queuing class was canceled today because the prof has something to do. Therefore, I worked on the PhD project until 2:30 last night again, and worked on it for a while before going to class. For the PhD project, I am trying to proof an equation that is always positive within certain range. When I plot the graph, it is quite clear. However, I have to show this analytically. There are four or five variables with square roots or to the power of 4 or 5. I spent about 7 or 8 hours already to try different method in this equation. Finally I think that I got it proved. I am not using any difficult formula. All I am using is just the quadratic formula that I learnt in high school, second derivative test, find optimal by taking derivative and the logic that if A>B and B>C than A>C. However, I am very happy and proud of what I did. I think that this is one of the most complicated prove that I have done lately! I need to double check it again later.
I went to the Statistic class in the afternoon. I seriously have a problem of staying awake in this class. No matter how many sleep I had before the class, or even with coffee, I just fall asleep, and I think that I am the only person (out of a class of 19 people) that fall asleep. I can stay awake for other classes, just not this one. Basically, I am just not motivated for this class at all. I know that I will not focus too much on statistic in my research. Moreover, I am just not interested in statistic. I am quite a polarized person. With the class that I like or thing that is important (such as the queuing/probability class or PhD project), I can stay awake until 3 am. However, I just do not spend enough time in this class. But this may not be a bad thing because once I get this statistic class out of the way, then I can really shine in whatever that I do.
At night, we went to church to help decoration for Xinlei and Xiaohu's wedding. I hope that whatever we do, it can spread the love and the support to this new couple. I am sure that they have lots of stress and I hope that I can ease some of their stress.
February 15, 2006(Wednesday)
I worked late last night on the PhD project. And then I woke up a bit late today too, as I am more energetic during night time. I spent most of today, about 6 or 7 hours, working on the PhD project. Basically I am just doing some algebra and be as careful as possible. I am frustrated somehow because I just cannot prove the result! The formula is sometimes 3 or 4 lines, even after simplifying. I need to be very careful.
I went to the gym to do workout and run after having no luck on the result or feeling frustrated. Leaving the house helps me to organize my mind. I went back home continue to work on the project. At night, Carmen went to the gym to do a short work out and I went with her to the gym again. This is my second time visiting the gym. Rather than running, I tried out the many different equipments which I rarely tried before because I usually sticked with my routine. I find that doing workout would not make me sweat at all. Only running would. But that is still nice to try out some exercising equipment because I know that Hansel always do workout.
February 14, 2006(Tuesday)
Rather than biking to school, I woke up early and walked Carmen to work and then I went back to cubicle. Everytime I woke up lately, my daily rhythm got messed up and I ended up having a lot of sleep in the cubicle. Today is not an exception. I slept 30 mins before morning class, an hour after the class, and still fall to sleep a bit during the statistic class and fall asleep again when I was reading paper afterward.
Today the probability/queuing class lasted for 2.5 hours rather than the normal 1.5 hours because the prof will not be able to teach this Thursday. So this is a long class. At the evening, I also talked to prof about my PhD project. I am getting some decent results and I hope that by a month or so, I would be able to have all of my result and start to do the write up.
At night, Carmen and I went to have a nice dinner to celebrate the Valentine's Day. We went to IMU and have some decent buffet dinner and I am very full now. The dinner was ok and the food was ok. And it costs about US $21 (with tax and tips) per person. I think that it may be a bit too expensive for a normal student so not many people came.
February 13, 2006(Monday)
I went to the bank this morning to take care of the account fraud issue yesterday. I am glad that nothing is stolen, or else this will be a very expensive lesson to me. Then I went to school to talk to Prof Soni because he wants to check how every PhD students are doing. Talking with him is refreshing and encouraging and helps me to keep my hope of getting to good school high.
At night, Joyce, Jo, Chi Fu, Joe went to our house for hot pot. Then we had a pre-study for this week's Bible Study. We also shared about my experience in Venezuela, and how to find God's will.
February 12, 2006(Sunday)
We received an email this morning from Chase bank, saying that there is some unauthorized ATM transaction occurred in our bank. Then we clicked the link and entered our username/password and credit card info. Nothing happened. Damn! Big mistake. I called the phone number and found out that this is a fraud. Before I entered it, I suspected that this may be a fraud, but then I thought that I am not that unlucky. And I know that I am in deep trouble. Therefore, I changed my username/password and immediately called the bank to freeze my account. They said that today is Sunday so no one is going to process the information until Monday morning. I hope that tomorrow morning everything will be clear.
Carmen was the Sunday worship translation today. The speaker is fellowship president Chien Yie's husband. He wrote down most of the thing that he will talk so that Carmen can look at this and translate. However, it is still not an easy experience, but I think that she did a great job.
Afterward I went home to have the first temporary church committee meeting. Since we are coming from different denomination, and there is currently no pastor or someone with more experience to oversee us (I think that I am the person that has the most church organization experience, especially I once helped IBCC in Venezuela to draft the constitution) we had different opinion. For example, we spent some times to talk about whether one needs to be baptized before serving in the church. Next week we will talk about the council structure, membership qualification and nomination committee. This will be another challenging and different opinion time. I think that since I am doing God's work, Satan attacked me through the bank account. I got to be very careful.
At night we went to prayer meeting as usual.
February 11, 2006(Saturday)
I stayed home and work on the PhD seminar homework today, and I also had some afternoon nap.
At night, Helen and Chuli went to our home for dinner. They will get married the end of this year and asked us to help them to do the pre-marriage counseling. Obviously we are not trained so we just said that we will share our experience and be their prayer partner. We shared about how we get to know each other and had some good sharing time.
Jo came to our home afterward and brought some clay dough for us to mold as for fun. We spent about an hour making this clay. And then we went to Xiahu/Xinlei's house and helped them to prepare some decoration thing for their wedding and returned home at 12:30am.
February 10, 2006(Friday)
Yuling stayed over because she has returned her house. And then she is taking a morning flight this morning and left here at 5:45. I went back to sleep immediately afterward.
I went to the PhD Seminar. This semester talks about the inventory management. It is hard. Last semester there is a lot of reading but each one is not that hard. However, this term there is not many reading (not many reading so far, but will have more later) but the material is quite hard. I think that it is not going to be easy.
After afternoon nap, I went to do some exercise. And then I played guitar at night for the CCF fellowship. Afterward, the fellowship is game about preaching gospel in different setting. Each of us write down "who", "When/where" and "say what" and then mix everything together. My group picked "who" as someone who was from a Christian school and familiar with the religion. "when/where" is early morning in public washroom. "Say what" is believe God would not give me money. I am that non-believer. I made fun at that time as someone who cannot pooh in the public washroom. People found it very funny and elected me to be the best actor. They are too serious and I just like to have fun.
February 09, 2006(Thursday)
Today I went to school as usual and I tried my best to stay awake. However, the stat class is just a bit too boring and I still fall asleep. And then in the evening I went to practice music with the newly formed worship team. Everything is doing ok. There are three guitars and piano and violin. I played guitar.
The CCF friend Yuling will go to Seattle tomorrow for a long time so we hosted a hot pot dinner for her. There are about 16 people came to our house (including us) for dinner. It is definitely a record. I spent most of the time washing dishes because otherwise I would have no space to wash so many dishes. It is our privilege to host dinner for so many people. We are spreading the opening-our-house love that we learnt from our parents and Venezuela to the brothers and sisters here.
February 08, 2006(Wednesday)
I finally gained some momentum on my PhD project today. I have no mood to work on it for the last week or so because of other school work load or because of no progress. I continued to work on some algebra today. It is not difficult, but clumsy.
At night, Carmen has some Excel course in the library so I went to the library with her. I was checking some second hand refurnished IBM laptop, as my old one died. I am still shopping around.
February 07, 2006(Tuesday)
My laptop is completely dead today. I can't start the laptop anymore. However, since I have back up all the files, I don't think that I lost any data. I will try to purchase a hard drive and see whether it will fix the problem. The only problem is the software "Mathematica". I need to obtain the license info from the Mathematica Company and that may take a day or two.
I still feel very tired today. The morning class is early (9:30 - 11) and the afternoon class is boring (2:30 - 4). So I tend to fall asleep in both classes. I already had 7.5 hours slept last night, 1 hour afternoon nap and 45 mins "evening" nap. I think that I am just not too motivated yet. When I really have something that I need to do, I am very energetic. SO I guess that I am storing my energy now.
February 06, 2006(Monday)
Today is a hardworking day. I finally gained back some of the determination and focus for working on my homework. I have a probability/queuing class that needs to think about through the math. I wrote down some simple formula such that when I am running on the treadmill, I look and meditate on the formula and try to do homework while I am running. That works well sometimes.
February 05, 2006(Sunday)
I had the fellowship committee this morning. Since we are going to have a new church, I suggested having the church constitution. And then we decided to have a temporary church council to design the church constitution and handle the church issue. I will be one of the members. This is the first time that I officially listed as a church committee member. Previously in Venezuela even though I helped out a lot, I am never titled as a church committee. I prefer the real work rather than the title. In addition, Chien Yie, the fellowship president, will leave after April. Therefore, we need to find a temporarily fellowship president too.
Today is also the establishment of the Bloomington Chinese Christian Church. I am the usher today. This is a great time to help out the church! There are 81 adults attending the worship today, which break the record of all time. Usually there are only 25 to 30 people.
At night, we had prayer meeting as usual.
February 04, 2006(Saturday)
Shangmin is moving house and I went to help him for clean up for about 2.5 hours. When Hansel was doing clean up at HK, there is his friend Andy to help him too. So this is actually a good practice to spread the help. I am good at cleaning the stove and I taught them how to do it.
Carmen went to the bridal shower of Xinlei in the afternoon. I went to the gym to work out today. And then at night, a group of CCF people went to Elaine and Qiao's house. They will return to Venezuela tomorrow with Elison so we went there for a farewell. We also played some card game (killer game) too.
February 03, 2006(Friday)
Today is dad's 60th birthday. He had his Chinese calendar birthday this Monday, and the western calendar birthday today. And he will have another birthday tomorrow because it will be "people day" according to the Chinese calendar, which means everyone has birthday. So he has 3 birthdays in five days!
Shangmin moved house today. He always helps other people to move house or drive to airport. Therefore, I tried my best to help him today too, for about 2 hours in the morning and 1 hour after the fellowship. I also went to the PhD seminar today and tried to catch up what I missed last week.
CCF had Bible Study at night. Joyce led Bible Study so that I can sit back and relax. I also worked on the queuing and probability class.
February 02, 2006(Thursday)
I drank coffee this morning but then the class is still bored that I nearly fall asleep in one of them. Also, I am quite cranky and whinny today, probably because I spent some times talking last night with the homework and I am losing patient because of the homework.
At night, Joyce went to our house for dinner and also had the pre-study for tomorrow's Bible Study. I also tried to study a bit but still I cannot concentrate well.
February 01, 2006(Wednesday)
I was working on the PhD project and some homework again. I find that whenever I read, I would fall asleep easily, unless I am reading comic. So may be I am not good reader. At night, Carmen has training on how to use Microsoft Excel. Therefore, I went to the library to read (while falling asleep) when she is doing training. And then my classmates installed MSN. Therefore, at night we had an online meeting talking about the homework. I used to do this kind of online meeting all the time when I was in Desca and now I did it again. It is quite convenient because I don't have to be in front of the PC.