The day started at 3am, actually, with two power outages that made the surroundings strangely mute. There were huge winds and heavy rain. I guess I forgot that this is indeed windy season, and the pretty leaves will be blown off before they change colours… After waking up, there’s this mad dash to get the writings done for the supervisor meeting, and indeed I got it done (sort of). I got 22 pages this time, doubling the size of last week’s stack. I got two new papers to look at during the supervisor meeting, and that was good news, I think. I ate something from C&D next, and had some painful feelings from my stomach (or some other body part), so I decided to go home and rest for a while. There was walking around campus in the evening, which isn’t really a shocker anymore, I guess. Tomorrow, lots and lots of things to get done: Laundry, PowerPoint lyrics, buy books, hand in housing contract, making copies of the Trinitarianism book, update website, Bible study, exercise, study directed graph material…and those are just for the morning and afternoon! Yikes…

I meant to comment on this a long time ago, but never remembered to do it. Here are the names of the evening newscasts for three of the big Canadian television networks. CBC: The National. CTV: CTV National News. Global: Global National. Not sure what’s with the obsession with using the word “national”…

There is a sense that I am living in a different world that is changing at a rapid pace, so fast that I can hardly keep up with it.

Yesterday’s Final Jeopardy on the category 15-letter anagrams: Someone chatting about preserving natural resources is these 2 similar words, anagrams of each other.

Finally finished episode 1 of Lost. Boy that was a gruesome ending to a gruesome episode…

I’m starting to think that sometimes, it’s best to slowly return to my own tiny little cocoon.

Next time that you would like to ask for my opinions? Please tell me the whole story. Otherwise it’s useless. I’m having a huge headache right now.

“So let’s agree to use all our energy in getting along with each other. Help others with encouraging words; don’t drag them down by finding fault.” –Romans 14:19-20a (MSG)

Supervisor meeting tomorrow. I’m in absolutely no appetite to do anything. And I certainly haven’t been doing anything so far. Sigh…

4+ hours of television. Yikes. Kind of disappointing, actually. Anyway, Millionaire and Jeopardy are as usual. There’s this very interesting Final Jeopardy clue which I will probably post later. The Biggest Loser was kind of heart-breaking in the beginning, seeing what Suzy did with the milk shakes. Later the men voted off an annoying person, so that’s good, I guess. The Amazing Race was kind of weird, what with traveling for only 200 miles when usually they log about 10000 miles in the first episode. And with 40 people…not good. And one of the more endearing teams got eliminated, so that was a little sad, but not so much.

I went on a shopping spree this morning, buying stuffs like a water boiler, a knife set, a cutting board, some fruits, boxers, eggs, bottled water, chocolaty stuffs, and Lost. So…kind of unusual for me to spend like $170 in one morning, but I guess they’re all useful stuffs, right? Maybe?

For Lost, I managed to watch two-thirds of the first episode so far. It’s pretty, and scary, but I try to make myself not scared by it. Its quality makes it look like it’s been made for a movie. Even the music is composed by the same composer for The Incredibles. So far so good. Let’s see how far I would make it…

I had an office hour today, but I didn’t realize it until I got to the office late in the morning. Not having a good memory these days, apparently… I didn’t receive any solutions for the assignment, so I had to figure it out myself. It wasn’t incredibly hard, but still hard. I got a few more customers this time around. First I had a group of 3 came in, one built guy showing no sign of emotions, and two girls. They were mostly easy to talk to and there’s this semi-comedic moment when they realize that the reason they couldn’t solve a question is because they put down 4 instead of -1 in one instance. Ok, so they were nice and stuff, and left in 30 minutes, so that’s good. Once they have left, another guy came in. This is a pretty animated person, and I enjoyed talking to him, actually. Eventually, he realize that his class is behind on the course material, so I couldn’t help him with half the assignment anyway…that’s too bad. In any case, good office hour. Haven’t had a good one in a while.

I skipped lunch today. I don’t think it’s a good thing, but I just didn’t feel like buying the food presented in C&D and DC.

I’m having trouble dealing with growing up. It is especially painful to think that the relatives who are higher-up in the family tree are growing really old…I don’t think I can handle that kind of a thought…

Boy, the shockers just keep on coming, aren’t they? Yes, indeed, I have done some exercise and walked around the campus once again. This time, shaving 17 seconds off yesterday’s time. It’s pretty windy, but unlike the rest of the day, it was not raining. Not cold, either, so a sort-of-perfect condition for the walk.

I have a new credit card! And this time, my credit limit is 5 times my previous card’s limit! It’s a dividend card, so supposedly I get a tiny little cash back at the end of the year. So…time to spend a lot of money? Maybe not…maybe.

The Amazing Race starts again tomorrow, but I’m not so excited about it this time around. There’s also The Biggest Loser tomorrow, but I’m not so excited about it, either. It has been a mediocre television viewing season so far, I guess.

Yesterday, went out and walked around the campus again. This time, I clocked in at 25 minutes and 43 seconds, which is close to two and a half minutes off the first time. I think that’s a good sign…maybe. Once I clock in at around 20 minutes, maybe I’ll start thinking about walking twice around the campus.

So it appears that tragedy struck my family on Saturday. Not disclosing many details here, but it involves my dad and this tricky thing called gravity. News so far is that my dad is recovering well, so that’s at least some good news. The sad thing is, I wouldn’t want to talk about this to people here in Waterloo, since most people here most likely won’t care.

It seems that I like to torture myself by volunteering to do extra work…not sure if it’s a good thing or not.

I think a couple of days ago I finally realized why the mild increase in the number of visits to this thingie here. Apparently I made a small comment on the episode of Jeopardy where David Madden was knocked off by Victoria. This was (for some mysterious reasons) picked up by Victoria and was put as an obscure link on her blog. So…very interesting. I’m still baffled by how the post got picked up so fast…Google doesn’t index everyday, I think?

I made an elaborate lunch today. It was so tough to cut the meat with my tiny little knife…very frustrating. But the end result was very good, I think, for a first try anyway. Plus the steam egg thing finally worked, sort of. It was ugly, but at least it’s edible…

Yeah, I’m keeping with this weekly scheduling thingie. Here goes week 3…

13 hours, 3 cities, $130 worth of food, 0 traffic jam, 292.9 kilometres. That’s the day of driving to Toronto and back, then to church’s gospel rally and back. Very tiring. There was a point where my body was feeling pretty bad, but I soldiered on anyway. Congratulations to Ray and Howe! You are now in the kingdom of God.

Really, it’s not funny to make fun of overweight people (like myself).

Man, W. Klitchko vs. Peter. Awesome.

I took a day off today. I guess I needed it after the extreme exhaustion yesterday. I didn’t waste the entire day, though. For one, I finally called and activated my ING account…and then finally made a nice attendance sheet (which made me appreciate my laser printer even more)…and as a shocker, I finally did another round of exercises! Half an hour’s worth of intense exercise! Ok, now I’m exhausted again.

I forced myself to watch Survivor and The Apprentice yesterday, just to see what makes these shows so popular. Well, what I found are two shows that are boring and humourless. So I really don’t understand why they are getting so many viewers… Sometimes, the society baffles me. Flocking to these two shows while abandoning the very well-done and now cancelled My Kind of Town. Meanwhile, I’m thinking of getting the Lost DVD set, just because Austin’s watching it and it received several Emmys. Must be something good in there…

It’s kind of sad when the only times that boxing makes the news are when (a) Mike Tyson did something crazy; or (b) someone dies after a fight. The media certainly isn’t trying to shed a positive impression on this sport…

My plan of staying home for the morning derailed when I realize that I really need to put some pictures into my document, and I couldn’t do that at home. So off I went to the office, thinking what a productive morning it’s going to be. Well, got a call in the office soon after I arrived, and it’s from a guy in 350 that wanted help with the assignment due 3pm. He said it would be just 5 minutes, so I thought there’s no harm. It ended up being 45 minutes. Hmm…off to a productive start, isn’t it? Later, another person showed up, said that she had quick questions. Well, I think another 45 minutes went her way…and I decided to close the office door for good. I ended up with 11 typed pages of stuff, still far less than I have planned, though. Ah, the annoying distractions of life…

So for the supervisor meeting, it wasn’t too bad. Went over the things I wrote, and she started talking about the teaching requirements for the PhD. Turns out that there is an opportunity for me to teach at the end of October while she’s away…so…hmm…I think I’m scared when I think about it, but really usually I don’t do too bad with the presentation and stuff, so looks like I’ll be doing that…

Just very exhausted.

Right now I’m typing away in my office. Quite tired, actually, after a cheap dinner from Mikey’s. Also quite frustrated with the really strange wireless connection here. But most of all, I’m just too lazy to type the stuffs that I’m supposed to do. I mean, this is not a difficult job, it’s just tedious. And I don’t know why I couldn’t have started this earlier… By the way, the promised cable repairman didn’t show up today, unfortunately. So I guess the usual cable fuzzyness continues.

I really messed up the frame for my glasses this time. Maybe I’m feeling dizzy from it. Need to get it adjusted this Saturday when I go to Toronto…

Yeah, it is kind of hard to be almost always alone here.

I wasted the entire day, basically. I felt really dizzy and wobbly the whole day. And yes, I’m supposed to be writing stuff, but I didn’t. So…not good.

I did walk around the campus again, this time scoring 27 minutes and 24 seconds. So I shaved off 38 seconds from the last time. Not as good as I wanted to, but still good, I guess. It’s surprisingly exhausting, I have to say.

There was another excellent Final Jeopardy clue today. Too bad it dethroned a very entertaining champion… Category: By the numbers. Clue: The phrase “How I want a drink? Alcoholic of course” is often used as a mnemonic to memorize this.

Just saw one of the better games of Jeopardy! David and his awkward opening-credit smiles are finally let go. The two challengers were quick and both are quite pleasant. Glad that Victoria won. She made a large true Daily Double bet which made me gasp. I was rooting for the sailor, though, but it would have been good either way. The last two categories of Double Jeopardy were just painful to watch, though…Art Techniques? Movie Numbers? Yikes…

It was supposed to be the beginning of my writing madness. That didn’t go so well when I fell asleep after taking the morning shower, and then having to have a last-minute notice on the office hour. The office hour was occupied by one student, and I certainly haven’t had that for a while now.

So someone is supposed to come and fix the cable tomorrow or the day after. Hope it works…and looks like I’ll be staying home for the writing madness…not a good sign.

There was the usual early morning church service. Afterwards, I stayed at the church for far too long, and eventually scored a dumpling lunch at the Yen’s. The afternoon involved watching The Biggest Loser (heh) and then (being motivated) some intense exercise. My whole body is sore right now, but it was good. The evening was spent with people who were doing the Mid-Autumn bbq thingie. I didn’t really like the food, actually, so I didn’t eat much. There’s one shot of the moon which is now my wallpaper. Came back with a mediocre episode of Mythbusters (still good, though, especially the voice breaking glass thingie).

Woke up early this morning, had a healthy breakfast, and then pretty much too exhausted to do anything else. So…not a good start to the grand plan of writing a ton of things this morning… Also, Bertrand emailed this morning saying I have an office hour at 3pm today…and I still haven’t got the textbook yet! Looks like it will be lots of on-the-spot thinking, or more likely nobody will show up.

I found some strange freckles on my shoulder and on my back this morning. I’m not sure if it’s a bad sign or not…certainly got me worried. Then again, maybe they have always been there, and I just didn’t notice it before.