For Monday’s lecture, I was fully prepared with 3 pages of detailed notes on recurrence, ready to unleash to the unsuspecting students. Little did I know, the 3 pages were just enough for the lecture, which I thought went great, actually. So that’s the big difference between well-prepared lectures and ill-prepared lectures! During the class, someone corrected a minor notational mistake that I made, and I started rambling about how science students would never find that kind of thing, and eventually (unintentionally) said some bad things about science students! Sure it got a ton of laughs, but that was a bit embarrassing, to say things like that about my beloved Math 114 students! Anyway, after class, somebody asked me “how do you find teaching?” “Nerve-wrecking” I said. I don’t know exactly why he asked this question, but I’m guessing it’s because I do it badly… Anyway, good lecture.

For Wednesday’s lecture, I was not prepared at all. I was also sleepy from having very little sleep the previous night. I quickly hand-written some notes and just went with it. It was about more recurrence and finally get a start on binary strings. I really don’t know how to explain binary strings well. And of course somebody immediately asked (after class) “what is it used for?” I don’t know… Anyway, the class wasn’t too bad, but it could have been much better, I guess. There’s this guy Freeyon(?), Monica, and some other guy (didn’t get the name of) who always stay behind to ask questions, resulting in overtime that lasted half an hour. I guess I do like talking to students, if I know what I’m doing… Oh yeah, that’s pretty much all the names I know. Sad.

I’ve been preparing assignment 3 and half of quiz 2, both on binary strings and recurrence. I still find it fascinating that I could learn this binary string stuff in a week, understand it, deliver lectures on it, and create difficult problems for it. I forced myself to tone down the difficulty a bit, and even that is not enough for the quiz, where the third version makes it. I’m spending a ton of time preparing these things, simply because I like doing it, but also I don’t want to make some lame questions that students will complain about (which they will anyway). So yeah, it’s causing me to lose sleep and miss lecture preparation and stuff. Not a good idea, I guess. Maybe I should have started preparing earlier…hmm…

Finally a decent lecture. Being well prepared certainly helps a lot…heh. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to go through three pages of typed notes, but somehow I got all of them in and did an extra bonus thing in between. So that felt better now, even though I was feeling a bit sick. I get an alarmingly low attendance, though, around 50-60 or so out of 120. Maybe it’s normal? I don’t know…

It’s a good thing that there is no class using the classroom after my lecture ends, so I tend to stay behind for extra time for personal help. Normal profs don’t usually do this…I guess maybe I have too much time on my hand.

I guess my lecturing style has a bit of “can you help me check my work” type of thing, which on one hand may be trickery (because I knew it’s correct), but on the other hand gets the students involved in the course (which is good, for the minority of students that were paying attention).

A couple more funny things about the Executive First experience. I was greeted by name when I board the plane, and was asked about my meal choice later with the same guy, who addressed me by name again. Problem is, he mispronounced my name…I didn’t really bother to correct him. For the dinner, I chose a Japanese meal. I wasn’t hungry after having visited the lounge, and when I received a plate with four dishes of food items, I was barely able to finish some of the dishes and left some untouched. After I stopped eating, the same guy came in and asked, “are you finished with the appetizers?” And I was thinking, “huh? there’s more?” Certainly there is more! Then came rice and fish and miso soup… Wow…that’s a lot of food. Somehow I managed to stuff them down, and it was very nice food. But still, way too full for me.

I stayed at home for the day. I actually woke up pretty early, but eventually took a nap after having taken a shower at around 8. Little did I know that when I wake up, it was 1:30 already. I guess that’s how people wake up so late… Ate some lunch, and after doing some puzzles and filling time with emptiness, I fell asleep again…this time waking up about 3 hours later at around 7:30. So I pretty much wasted the entire day. Meanwhile, my body felt pretty weak, and I was a bit light-headed…I’m not sure if it’s because I’m sick or because I slept too much. Probably a combination of both.

Ed’s parents are here, and I might be going crazy. Specifically with the food… Ed’s mom cooks a lot, and I’m not a big fan of her cooking, especially with the “rough” rice that she uses. I went through the first meal, and a second meal (same thing), and couldn’t get myself to eat a third meal (almost the same thing). And she constantly insists that I eat her food, which I couldn’t bring myself to do. When I tried to find my own “nice” rice, I found that it’s all gone even though it was full before I left. I think the guest speakers used it all last week, so I’m pretty disappointed. Now I’ll just have to eat out a lot to cover their stay here…which is sad.

First lecture back from Taiwan, and of course it’s a disasterous lecture! Well, I guess I didn’t prepare enough for it. I thought I would take a long time to go through the fractional binomial thing, but turns out it went through very quickly, and so did my first example for compositions. So when I started the second example, which I haven’t fully prepared, and I tried to solve the generating function on the board, I was stumped and made many many mistakes. I blame it on jetlag, but seriously, I just wasn’t prepared at all. Not a good idea.

I experimented with the microphone a bit, and found that it made too much noise. So I gave up on it even though I should have used it. That’s because my throat got very dry, and I didn’t have water to solve this problem. So I became quite uncomfortable at the end…that’s not good.

There was a quiz during the tutorial that day, and I offered to stay in my office until the tutorial. Many people came, one student came in twice. Through discussion with the students, I started to figure out how to do all these power series stuffs…heh. At the same time, my sore throat got progressively worse, and my mental focus was deteriorating as well. At some point I fell asleep and a student was afraid to come in seeing that I was sleeping…heh. Anyway, not a good idea to do stuff while jetlagging.

Wow…the Executive First Suite on AC really rocks! I’ve never had a plane journey like this where (a) I was never hungry and (b) I was never tired. I was fed food and drinks from the start, and was just too full most of the time! I never had to ask for anything (except a second customs form), and the food was great. The seat was awesome as well. Being able to be comfortable for the entire flight was really welcoming. Being able to lie flat and sleep was amazing, especially having two deep sleeps during the entire flight totally probably more than 6 hours of sleep without feeling stiff at all. I was fed awesome noodles and deserts in between sleeps. The flight attendant was nice and friendly (Grace was her name). Overall a very impressive experience! Although it’s not something that I would pay for (too expensive), it’s an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now going back to economy would be so brutal…heh. Then again, I probably wouldn’t be this excited if I constantly get these first class suites, so it’s better to keep this a one-time thing to have great memories to fall back on.

I was full and awake after the flight, which is a rarity. I thought this would mean that I wouldn’t have jetlag problems until I woke up at 2am this morning…heh. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try some more sleep and then it’s off to the lecture!

I guess having this extreme high at the end of this difficult trip adds more to my schizophrenic confusion…

Blogging from the ANA lounge at Narita Airport! Pretty modern and slick lounge, nice snacks (melon bun, green tea bagel…what? sushi! ah, that’s normal). Before this, there was a situation at TPE airport where my flight to Tokyo was cancelled… But I got moved to a JAL flight to NRT, and somehow or another, I got a business class seat for the flight! So I wasn’t so crammed in there. Once in Narita, there was a switch in terminal, and I requested an upgrade using my certificate, and got it! So now I’m in the lounge waiting for my first class flight to YYZ! Should be fun…hopefully. Living the high life…for just a day. But to tell the truth, I don’t think I will enjoy all these luxuries if I get to do it every time…so remaining this once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime is good enough for me. Hmm…for once, I might not ever be hungry from TPE to YYZ… That’s just…weird.

Oh yeah, before I entered the lounge, I quickly bought a couple of earphones, a few puzzle books, and a magazine for Roger. I’m rushing through the Narita experience here.

Just being thankful to God for everything. Everything happening right now, everything that happened in the week before, everything that will happen in the future.

The crowds of Taipei are just crazy…and I’m not talking about the massive protest rally that’s been going on… No no, I’m talking about the crowds at a Costco on Sunday. I don’t think that there’s any place in the world where you need to line up just to get in to Costco, except here. Once inside, navigating the bulky cart around swarms of people without bumping into other shoppers is impossible. The overwhelming suffocating-like feeling made me want to get out as quickly as possible, and even after getting out and arriving at home, I was still struggling to get a regular breathing pattern going. Anyway, that’s one reason I can’t live here…couldn’t face the crowds of Taipei.

A lot of down time here was spent on shopping and eating out. But I just wasn’t really interested in these at all…I wasn’t particularly attracted to these things to begin with, but after what happened last week, I don’t care much for them at all. There’s a sense of being “zoned out” when I do these things. I just don’t know what to think, and what I should be doing. It’s like nothing matters anymore. It’s all very trivial.

I will be flying in less than 12 hours, and this concludes my sudden week-long journey here. It certainly felt a lot longer than a week, as so many things have happened. It was filled with sadness and emptiness, with glimmers of hope dusting around. It made me think long and hard about things, without conclusions, of course. On the plus side, I didn’t have much of a jetlag issue, just sleeping at lots of times. Anyway, back to Waterloo I go, going back to normal, or rather, the new normal.

Saturday was a very difficult day. Things started off early in the morning with a service at the first funeral place. A second service followed at a second funeral place where the body was cremated. Then went off to church for a lesson in technological patience. The main service was at church, which is followed by a visit to the cemetary for burial. Finally, it was back to church, then a restaurant for a final meal before it all ended.

I shed many tears during the day, even after I thought I had ran out of them. As much as I don’t want to, it’s just a naturally human response to this kind of situation. Of course, I’m constantly being reminded that she’s in a much better place now, and she has finally escaped the physical pains that bound her here. But the reality here is, she’s gone, and tears involuntarily show up whenever I think of this. So there’s a struggle between the two extremes of emotions that I should be feeling. Another question, of course, is how sure am I about eternity?

I didn’t bring my camera throughout the day, but many of the scenes, visual and audio, were firmly etched in my mind, ready to bring out more tears. The first one was when I saw ever-so-briefly the face of my grandmother’s body, which was accompanied by sights and sounds of so many crying relatives. The second one was just before the cremation, one of the sons cried out a final goodbye to her as her casket was sent into the (unseen) fire. The third one was during the main service where dad had trouble containing himself while he delivered his thank-you speech. It’s difficult to hold back tears even as I think about them now…

There are other things that went on throughout the day, of course. One of which is meeting the relatives from my dad’s family. Now I’m pretty unfamiliar with most of them, since my parents intentionally left me out due to its dysfunctionalness… So I really didn’t have much to say during a conversation. I guess there were childhood memories, but they are fading, of course. A couple of cousins stood out, one of them is now a music teacher and he’s the only one to talk to me voluntarily. The other one is his younger brother, who is now studying in a seminary. He took great pains to share his testimony in changing his life around to go into full time ministry, and it’s very moving. He also speaks like a standard Chinese radio personality…heh. In any case, it’s very nice to hear that a member of the family is going to be in the pastoral field.

Another thing is that there are these two brothers, ages 10 and 12, who are supposedly my nieces! So apparently I’ve been an uncle for 12 years. Yikes. Anyway, the younger one was short, chubby, and hyperactive. The older one was tall, thin, and extremely quiet. Also, he was constantly staring at me or grabbing my hand or trying to hug me. I later learned that he has some kind of unknown problems, so I guess he must have faced a lot of teasing from other people, and somehow he got attached to me within hours of the day. Anyway, these meet-the-relatives moments are, as usual, going to be a one-day-only thing, and then they’re gone.

Conclusion: Going through this funeral was so difficult… Somehow I sickly wish that the next funeral that I attend is the one for myself… I don’t think I can go through another one. At the same time, going through days like this makes a lot of things in life seem…trivial.

Having arrived early Tuesday morning, I’ve done a lot of sleeping and a bit of eating. There was the usual trip to get the passport stamped, and then there was a little trip to an old Japanese mall where I bought nothing of course. Came home to write a quick piece for grandmother’s memory, and passed out.

Wednesday, took an almost-direct high speed train to Kaohsiung where mom and I met Iris and family. Had a nice lunch, and I passed out again at their place. It was a struggle to wake up, being 2am back home and all. Eventually showed them Switzerland photos and took a slow train to Tainan. Met my remaining grandparent, bought some pens, had a small dinner, and that was it for the day.

I’m constantly thinking back to the death, and how I missed it by just a little, and how I don’t know what to think anymore. Which makes the semi-routine stuffs that I’ve been doing pretty saddening.

After YVR lounging, I was calling my parents while I was walking to the gate. That was when I received the bad news that my grandmother did not make it before I arrived… In fact, she passed away just before I boarded the plane to Vancouver. That definitely puts me on even further tilt. At that point, not sure what to think anymore…

In any case, the flight to Taipei was smooth for the first half, and awful for the second half. I think I managed some sleep, but not much. I had a window seat, so that created some obstacles for the washroom trips. The plane landed way early, and getting luggage early was ironic since I had to wait for my parents anyway. There was an unpleasant and bloody washroom visit in between…hmm…

And the jetlag starts NOW!

Blogging from the EVA lounge in YVR!!! Ok, so that was a pretty rough ride from YYZ to YVR… I was repeated in the cycle of falling asleep and waking up by a sudden jolt or noise. I am pretty tired, and hungry…but thankfully, there’s the EVA lounge to the rescue! Had some good noodles and excellent mango pudding! Hmm…now I really need to get Elite again…

Still can’t believe I’m on this trip… I’ve calmed down a bit, but was still a bit tilted from the plane ride. Hopefully the cross-Pacific ride will be nicer.

Hmm…I was “selected” for a “physical search” at the YYZ security… All I can is, it’s not good for the ticklish…

Hmm…I did not know that I would be blogging from the YYZ Maple Leaf Lounge again so soon! Right now I have a great mix of emotions. Certainly it’s also an adventure and a thrill to be booking a flight in the morning and taking it at night. But every time I think of what will happen in Taiwan, I get very sad. I don’t know if I can handle this bizarre combination that much longer.

When difficult things like this happens, the smaller things in life become…well…much much smaller. What can I say…it’s a repeated awakening that does not deserve to go to sleep again.

The juxtaposition is striking… The semi-luxurious setting of the lounge coupled with the harsh reality of impending death…hmm…

Never before has the power of one phone call been this prominent. I woke up early today, watching Timex got horrifyingly eliminated, ate an ordinary breakfast, and read the Bible. Everything seemed just normal. I was about to go to church, I was planning tomorrow’s lecture (at the last minute, of course), and I was checking out the good weather that’s coming for my walks to school. Then, the phone rang (or rather, started to vibrate).

It’s from mom (on mother’s day, no less). Grandmother is seriously ill, and I should go to Taiwan if I can. That just totally turns my life around. Immediately fired off an email to supervisor asking what to do with the teaching. My fingers were trembling while doing it. The hour it took for the supervisor to respond felt like forever. But God did a miracle here, as supervisor pointed out herself, since she normally doesn’t check emails during weekends! Somehow she got back to me within an hour! The process of finding substitutes was interrupted with me dropping $1.8K on plane tickets leaving tonight and the Sunday service. After that’s over, the search continued, and the process was completed. Having 3 more people reply emails on a Sunday was yet another miracle from God.

I guess only during difficult times like these can I clearly see God working in and around my life. The tough journey will begin very soon.

Wow…another tough and disasterous lecture. I wanted to explain generating functions well, but it’s one of those things that are very difficult to explain anyway. And because of the fast pace of the course and I was already behind, I got even less time to do examples and stuff. I blew through a few things about power series and that was it. The class is too short! I guess the good thing about this class is that they are pretty quiet unless I do something weird. Anyway, I really need to improve on a lot of things…

People really take it seriously about my offer to visit me whenever I’m in my office. I got one before class, one just after class, and one in the afternoon while I was sleeping! Oh dear students… I guess the sad thing is I don’t know any of my students’ names…

Gary also paid a visit to my office, discussing the puzzles I gave him last week. That was interesting.

Wow…that was fun AND disasterous! It is extremely difficult to teach intuition, and that is where I have failed. I was teaching by going through the thinking process of how you might come up with a combinatorial proof for an identity. Unfortunately it ended up being too confusing. Also, I’m now falling way behind because some students groaned that I was skipping an example due to time…so I did that example, confused everyone, and the class ended…hehehe. Oh well…at least they are still friendly so far.

I still get the most horrible case of nerves just before the class. But once the class started, it was ok. So…maybe less time between waking up and class start? Impossible. At least the walk today was better, since I was walking on the other side of the traffic jam.

Hmm…clay poker chip fever hits my household…