So here I am, typing on Ed's blackberry while listening to a sermon,
after having marked 10 papers prior to that… So this is not good.
More when I get home…

At Mike’s suggestion, I tried the elliptical trainer downstairs in my apartment for the first time yesterday. It was brutal…heh. I almost quit after just 3 minutes, and wanted to quit after every minute, but kept on going for the full 30-minute program. That was not too bad, I think, and I may be having regular visits in the future…

I’m missing a road…not a road to the future (although that is also missing), but a road segment in my Settlers game…oops.

I’m a bit scared of the word “friend”…

I’ve been buried under the sand dune of marking… For one, I don’t have solutions this time, and have to figure out the solution from possibly ambiguous questions. And because of the nature of these questions, the students didn’t do well at all, which adds to the frustration. So far, it’s been 4 days, and I’ve only finished one section, with another section to mark during the long weekend. It’s going to be such a long long weekend… Meanwhile, I haven’t done any research, so I’m sure my supervisor will be so happy about that…

Heading off to Redeemer for discipleship camp today. I don’t know, I’m not sure why I’m going. I’m just in a spiritually depression these days, and I’m losing interest in any of these spiritual things. Maybe that’s why I need to go…but I’ll certainly be distracted by marking, boardgames, and hilarious text messages from mike…actually, that might not be a bad thing.

I shocked myself by organizing a C&O boardgame night on Wednesday. Seriously, I’d never done any social events at all, and I’m surprised that there were people interested in that. So I got Carlos, Karel, Jessica, Tony and Zhentao over to my apartment for games. We ended up playing one game only, and that’s El Grande. Nice. I basically sat out on this one and played the “banker,” but I still enjoyed seeing them play. Karel was the only one who played before, so it took a round or two for the rest to pick up what’s going on (although that doesn’t stop Carlos or Zhentao from taking a long time to decide everything!). Jessica took an early lead, and despite claiming that she has no plan nor strategy, she never lost the lead and won the game! So the guys suck, basically…heh. There was one interesting point near the end of the game when Karel moved the 8/4/0 scoreboard to the corner province of Seville, and that move attracted many many cubes onto that province, including two grandes…heh. At the last scoring round, I think two people put their cubes from the Castillo into Seville, so there must have been close to 30 cubes in that province alone. At the end, only one guy got the points for first place, while two tied at second (with around 8 cubes each!) receiving 0 for their efforts. Interestingly, Jessica was the only person who didn’t have a cube there, and she won…hmm… Anyway, it was a fun night, and we plan to do it again next week. Scores…

After round 3: Karel 33, Jessica 46, Carlos 37, Zhentao 30, Tony 32.
After round 6: Karel 59, Jessica 71, Carlos 59, Zhentao 46, Tony 63.
After round 9: Karel 97, Jessica 110, Carlos 84, Zhentao 87, Tony 87.

Boardgames from way back when… Last Friday: In-depth Bible study was not happening, so we played a game of El Grande. Brian and Francis were the newbies, but they caught on pretty quickly. Harry’s first move gained him 12 points, and that’s pretty much it for the game…heh. I guess when Ed’s not playing, Harry wins. Final score: Harry 98, Francis 67, Brian 83, Me 82.

Last Saturday: John and Tim came to my place, and Tim wanted to play Settlers expansion, so we played that. It was pretty tight initially, I think, with John in a slight lead. But then the barbarian attacked and destroyed a city from Tim and I…boo. I have trouble building up another city again, since I have no ore. Meanwhile, Tim recovered nicely, and was at around 8 points when he made a quick surge and won the game at 13. Oops. And Tim has won after playing only 3 games, even though I have yet to win…I probably won’t play this again… Final score: Tim 13, John 9, Me 6.

Monday: After a super packed prayer meeting, we managed to split into two game groups. I was on the Ticket to Ride group with Francis and Steven, where Steven was playing for the first time. I got pretty good starting destination tickets, LA to Atlanta, Miami and Chicago. I managed to connect LA with Atlanta and Miami, but when I tried Chicago, I was pretty much blocked…so no luck there. Afterwards, I picked up tickets for SF to Washington and LA to New York, both are long routes that were just a couple of steps away from completion, so got those. Not surprisingly, I won the game…heh. Finally. Won a game at something. Scores: Francis 115, Steven 72, Me 147. The other group of 4 players played ordinary settlers, and actually finished within 30 minutes, faster than our train game, which is quite surprising. Apparently they had an overabundance of resources, so that’s why they got thins done quickly. Nor surprisingly, Harry won…boo. Heh…

I was supposed to start marking yesterday, but two obstacles (or rather, excuses) came my way: (1) I don’t know the correct solutions to the problems I’m supposed to mark, and I really don’t want to mark 146 papers based on possibly faulty solutions; and (2) I felt extremely dizzy last night, which I wasn’t able to shake off until some sleep, which went on for a long time. So, I’ll be marking today, in the office, with my laptop here, which means lots of distractions, like writing this thing right now… Hopefully the promised thunderstorm will keep me from heading back home and procrastinate further. Meanwhile, I’ve already set up a boardgame night this evening…oops. Ah, screw those students.

I was playing squash on Monday, and I kept injuring myself. The worst of the injuries was hitting the back of my left hand with my racquet…yikes. Just when the fourth finger of my left hand was just about to be completely healed, I injured the hand again… After the mishap, I kept my left hand in my pocket for most of the remaining playing time… Conclusion: I hate squash.

All the craziness!

The USPC result was out, and as expected, I ranked pretty low on the list of Canadian participants. 25th to be exact. At least they ignored one of my errors and I got over 100 points because of that. Still, for a former participant in the WPC, this is pretty embarrassing. Oh well…it’s ok.

One of the more interesting people I met during the conference is Mahdad from SFU. I recognized him the first time I saw him, but it took a few seconds to remember who he was. He was actually my TA for one of the network flow courses, and for some reason, he actually remembered me…heh. I was a top student in that class, he said. And also, that was his first semester at SFU. So…very interesting how things go around 7 years later.

It was about 2.5 weeks ago when I wasted more than $400 on (essentially) a few pieces of leather and foam. And they have arrived today. That’s awesome. And they’re huge! Man, I’m so screwed…

So the conference was finally and mercifully over. It felt brutal to the body and the mind. First couple of days were the best, meeting friends old and new. After that, it’s pure will power to trudge through it lecture after lecture, attempting to stay awake, maybe solve a puzzle or two, and then try as I might to join one of the pseudo-randomized conversation cliques in the hall. The ending was quite unspectacular as we just left the building, and that was it.

There was a C&O alumni dinner Thursday evening. I didn’t register for it, but then I found out that most people are going…so then I tried my best that day to negatiate my way in, and a couple of emails later, I did, so that was good (or so I thought…heh). Late in the afternoon, I found out that Mike la Croix didn’t register, either, and also found that most people are going…and somehow he got in, too…heh (though he claimed that we guilt him into it…). For the event, the food itself was ok, nothing spectacular. The dean’s speech was (once again) a bore, except for the part where he said he was leaving the next day…oh good, we won’t have to hear him again…heh. But the speech by Pulleyblank was great, full of humour in reminiscing C&O past, so that was worth coming for in itself. More than that, I had a good time in socializing with the people at my “isolated vertex” long table. The event itself ran way too long, but it was sort of enjoyable, so that’s nice.

What I learned during the conference

• I’m getting more comfortable in talking to some people that I used to have trouble talking to, so that’s kind of a surprise to me.
• UW is definitely not a place for me to stay in the long run, with its culture of high demands and brisk pace (or perhaps it’s the culture of academia in general?), which have probably killed any desire in me to do anymore mathematical research.
• Elementary graph theory is definitely more interesting (though sometimes much harder) than using more advanced probabilistic methods…
• I suck. Well, at least that’s what two people independently told me within a 12-hour period. I thought that was funny.
• Maybe I should just move to Regina…heh.

Two more days of conference have passed, and I’m just exhausted. I guess I’m more interested in the social aspects of the conference than the mathematics, which is quite a surprise to me. Which is why I’m regretting not signing up for the alumni dinner or the banquet…oops. Last night, Carlos semi-organized a night out at Huether Hotel, and there was a huge turnout: around 25 people showed up. I had a good time, and accidentally made a friend Eddie from UC Davis by having a disguised photographic competition…heh. I didn’t see formerly spiky Mike again until this afternoon…it appears that we’re both shy, so we had a lot of awkward silences…heh. I have to say, though, that I’m pretty embarrassed by my lack of social skills…I just don’t know how (or don’t have the courage) to talk to people, which is kind of disappointing.

All of a sudden, I’m overwhelmed by this sense of failure in my life. I screwed up on too many things, and I have too many regrets…

I’m even a failure at boardgames now… Two games of Settlers expansion recently. One on Saturday evening where Ed was the runaway leader. As much the rest of us tried to stop him from winning, we failed, but it was funny. Scores: Ed 13, Harry 9, Me 4, Tim 6. Another game after brothers prayer meeting. This time, Harry was sort of a runaway leader, and I never recovered after the first barbarian attack. The ending was funny. Harry was at 12 points, and it was time to distribute the blue progress cards. Harry got the victory point card in the pile, only to be taken away to Brian because Harry took it out of turn…that’s supposed to be Brian’s card. Then come Harry’s turn, and it was time to distribute the green progress card. And Harry go tthe victory point card from that pile, this time legitimately, so he won. Boo. Scores: Harry 13, Me 6, Brian 9. Seems like whenever we play Settlers expansion, I can only act as a spectator. So why do I even bother playing?

Saturday’s USPC: Well, that was extremely disappointing. I knew the high/low point values would create havoc, and it did. I managed to solve all the low ones that I planned to solve, but I couldn’t solve any of the high ones. The one that I spent the most time on was a crisscross variant, which is something I used to be good at, but it didn’t work this time around, and it was incredibly frustrating. Even more frustrating is that I made two mistakes in entering the answers (somehow spelling IPANEMA with IPANIMA, due to my Spanish background; and missing one number in the fence post puzzle, which is actually a good puzzle). Even more frustrating that the frustration is that today, I was trying the ORu Kakuro 30-point puzzle, and it was quite easy to solve…doh! Solved the wrong puzzles. So anyway, I entered 130 points worth of answers, probably will get 90 points, which is way below my usual score. Therefore, definitely not going to Rio. Although…never say never. I keep telling myself that it’s ok I’m doing badly in the test, but in reality, I’m still very disappointed.

C&O@40 conference started today. I woke up extra early thinking that registration might take a long time…nope, it took a short time and I ended up waiting for about 3/4 hour to start. The lectures are ok, I guess, but I was mainly excited about seeing C&O friends that have graduated. There was Francisco, Karel, Aidan, and (formerly spiky) Mike, whom I spent the most time with. I don’t know why meeting the people makes me happy, but it does. Although, I really should be doing more networking outside the Waterloo network… On a sad note, there was a disappointing supervisor meeting in the middle of this, and I basically crashed. Anyway, this conference is a long one…hope to survive.

Brief notes: The Sunday sermon about temptations and deception was both hilarious and somber; I’m still sick, and the symptoms keep coming and going; my cell phone battery is being used up pretty quickly; there are strange bugs at my place; the conference location is closer to St Paul’s than to my office; I think I’m still depressed, but I’m not sure; my mind is screwed up, and I’m feeling stupid.

Something went wrong with my glasses…probably because I accidentally wore it while sleeping, and maybe bent some parts of it a little. Now I have strange distancing problems when seeing things…

Tomorrow’s the big wpc qualifier…strange thing about it is all puzzles are either 10/15 points or 30/35 points. Really makes things a bit tricky to manage… In any case, I doubt that I’ll score high enough to get to Rio. And by the way, maybe we can get RIM to sponsor the Canadian team?

I’m supposed to do work, but I got distracted by our office spelling bee, squash, convocation, mccf, time with James, and breath-withholding dinner. Tomorrow’s not going to be any better, of course…

Yesterday, I was allegedly scheduled to proctor an exam starting at 6:45pm. When I went to the exam room, however, it was filled with people who had laptops on the desks and I didn’t recognize the people standing at the front. I was confused. So then I went to the other exam room, only to find it filled with exams on the table, yet I don’t recognize people at the front. So something was up. I hurried to my office to check, yes, I went to the right room. David was there as well, suggesting that I look at the date, and bingo…it’s supposed to be today, not yesterday. The confusion: In the reminder email that was sent to me, the exam date was written as Tuesday June 13. Well, yesterday was Tuesday, but it wasn’t June 13, it was the 12th… I quadruple checked that email and made sure that I make it on Tuesday…oops. Never seen that coming. Anyway, that was a strange thing to have happened…

Now that I had the evening off, I decided that I would go to Mississauga T&T. I was thinking of going today, but now I have to proctor today, so I might as well go yesterday. I managed to snatch Harry and David away for the trip that turned out to be 3.5 hours and 178.6 kilometres. I bought way too much at T&T…I thought I bought $85 worth of stuffs, but it turned out to cost me over $100. That should last a while, eh? Anyway, this spur-of-the-moment trip turned out not too bad, I guess. And I really need a bit of control on my spending…

Still sick, and I’ve wasted 3 days on that excuse. Sleeping pattern is totally wrecked. At least it’s been improving, there were good times and bad times, and mostly it’s good when I stop drinking cold stuffs…oops. Alright, need to get back to work tomorrow…

More boardgaming reports… Saturday evening, after fellowship and dinner, there were two games of Settlers with John Tim Alice. Tim has never won a game before, and I have not won a game since who knows when. So there we go… First game, John was (not surprisingly) making a good start, building things here and there. But then we all started to block him…heh. I was building slowly but surely, and eventually won the game! Surprise surprise. Second game, now they start to block me…heh. Anyway, the game went on, and Tim kept raking in lots and lots of resources, and eventually he won! So now he’s happy. Scores:

Game 1: Me 10, Tim 5, John 6, Alice 7.
Game 2: Me 8, Tim 10, John 6, Alice 7. (So I was close, but not close enough.)

Monday evening after prayer meeting… Started off with a game of Modern Art. It began badly for Francis, who bid 32 on a painting that is worth a maximum of 30…oops. As the rounds go on, David seemed to be the leader, but then there was that last round… No Yoko has been played so far in the game, but after a few auctions, Francis played 2 Yoko cards which are worthless at that point. Harry bought both for 20. Then Brian played 2 Yoko cards, so at this point they are worth at least 40, but Brian asked a price of 20, so of course Harry bought them. Then Harry ended the game with yet another Yoko, forcing some of the paintings that Francis bought at a high price to worth nothing. And so it ends, with Harry in a huge win. Scores: Francis 309, Brian 420, Harry 628, David 365, Me 447.

Brian went off to study, and the remaining 4 tried a game of Settlers. We all claimed at least a 6 or an 8 hex at the start, except for David, who only got 3s and 9s. David was falling behind while Harry (not surprisingly) was off to a good start. But then we started to block Harry. So much so that Harry became angry and simply stopped playing. That didn’t turn out well, getting games to be personal. Meanwhile, David bought a few development cards, of which 3 of the first ones that he bought were victory points! Totally unheard of… I was at 9 points, thinking that victory was near. I had enough cards to upgrade another city to win the game. But…I had no more cities! Sigh…so then I had no idea how to get that last point. And then, David built more roads to gain the longest road card and won the game! Surprise winner! Man, that was a strange game… Scores: Francis 8, Harry 7, David 10, Me 9.

The marking ended up taking a net time of around 8 hours, this being done within a span of 48 hours. Now a typical work day is 8 hours, so essentially I was at around 50% efficiency as compared to an ordinary working person. That’s not good, right? If I had been working at full efficiency, I could have graduated by now…

I’m still sick. Not taking care of it certainly didn’t help. I was also tired, even though I slept a lot. I got so tired today that I just couldn’t stay awake during the kwcac sermon. Really. Anyway, I was reminded that I was sick around the same time last year as well (around the wpc qualifier), so I’m not sure what’s going on there. Meanwhile, I got itchy eyes…

I’m trying to prepare for supervisor meeting tomorrow, even though I don’t know what I should be doing… I couldn’t read anything since it’s all too complicated. I couldn’t think of anything since my brain’s not working with the virus. So…pray for the best, I guess…

Short-formed boardgaming reports…since it’s been a while… Last Monday, Tim’s birthday, and we played 3 games of Modern Art at Tim’s place. Danny was the newbie, but of course he won the first game…heh. John and Tim subsequently won the remaining games, leaving me winless for yet another while… All games were quite interesting, though, often with at least 4 artists on the line in a season. Scores:

Game 1: Danny 511, Me 424, John 265, Tim 431.
Game 2: Danny 315, Me 445, John 455, Tim 438. (I was surprisingly close to winning, even though I bought very few paintings.)
Game 3: Danny 215, Me 423, John 446, Tim 595.

Later that evening after brothers prayer meeting, two games of Ticket to Ride was played using the 1910 megagame expansion. Harry won both, meaning that we all wasted time…heh. There was one hilarious moment where in the second game, David took a detour to connect Winnipeg and Duluth via Sault Ste Marie, unwittingly blocking routes for both Francis and Harry. Let’s just say the rest of game was pretty ugly…heh. Scores:

Game 1: Harry 135, Me 88, Francis 95, David 91.
Game 2: Harry 195, Me 118, Francis 131, David 90.

Thursday, mccf boardgame night. I was playing Modern Art with newbie Kai and David. For the first time in a long time since the very first couple of games (where Li Zhen helped me), I actually won! That’s like…impossible! Anyway, I find myself buying paintings more often this time around, paying (seemingly) high prices, but ended up profitting much from it all. I think it’s also a record that the final Krypto painting was worth 90 each…heh. Later, there was a game of Settlers that was not finished due to time…and Danny and I were tied for the lead at 6 points when we were finished. Score for Modern Art: Me 449, John 361, David 317, Kai 356, Danny 430. Danny was close to winning…

I’m in the middle of another round of marking madness. Again, it’s not terribly difficult to mark, it’s just very tedious, especially with 160 papers this time around.

Bad news on the research front: the new problem that my supervisor asked me to study has been solved…and it was a simple adaptation of a published result…so yeah, need to try other things now.

Still sick, but I still don’t want to stop eating and drinking cold stuffs…oops. Been sleeping uncontrollably in the afternoons…that’s not good.