Just read over the student evaluations from 239 this past term. First of all, it is a vast improvement over my 114 evaluations, so that is a bit of a relief. The most common comment I received is that I need more confidence in my lectures, which I agree. Unfortunately my usual self-deprecating nature does come out more often than not, so this is something that definitely needs to be worked on. Also, I felt really bad that I offended some people with some of my jokes…that also needs to be corrected. I do sometimes speak without thinking much, so that might be a problem. But most of all, I wish I had known these problems during the term, so I could make a change while the course is still going. Next time, I’ll probably set up an anonymous comment box on the web or something…if there’s a next time…which I certainly hope there will be.

Moved my office now. It’s a “longer” room, but it has a window, so it’s nice. No blinds, though, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep here. Even though I don’t teach anymore, I still think it would be a good idea to come to the office everyday. Spending time at home feels like a great waste. But then I really need some serious motivation to come to school…

So…apparently it’s time to buy a house! I’m really not excited, only worried about the prospect of all the work that will go into it. I’ve resisted buying one for a long time, but now that it seems the down payment obstacle is removed, I will have to do it. Hopefully it will be ok.

Ok, so the lounge at YVR is smaller, but that’s kind of expected. It took a while to get online, though, I don’t know why. My day started with the absolute worst news which confirms that the rental car company essentially scammed me for $900. Oops. Guess I won’t be renting anymore. Oh well. Checked in, whereI claimed twice that I’m flying to Vancouver…while I’m in Vancouver! Must be the morning. Met Freeyon next, and he’s very very tired…heh. Also met his parents, who (at least I’m told) have no idea I’m Freeyon’s prof…heh. After he’s gone, I was just walking around thinking what to do next (as I had 6 hours to kill), long and behold I heard somebody calling my name, and it’s Hans coming out of the washroom! Huh? The timing is just so bizarre, it could be Divine. Never ever expected to see him here… He wanted to go to Brentwood Mall, my old frequently-visited mall, and he was going to go by taxi. I suggested going by skytrain instead, and since I needed to kill some time, I led him all the way to his new place! (And saving him a ton of money from the taxi driver!) After reminiscing around the mall and had A&W and Orange Julius (my traditional Brentwood mall meal), I headed back to the airport and here I am in the lounge.

So I suppose I should make a conclusion out of this whole trip here. It’s been a very exhausting trip. Sure, I’ve been to new places and reminisced about old places, but the physical and mental agony of leading four moms through it all almost pushed me to the breaking point. I hope they are only joking when they said that they will come to the east coast to find me next summer… At least I got some new locations on my re-visit list!

Leaving for the gate soon…but before I go, just one more thing that I learned from this trip: GPS navigational systems rock! (sometimes)

Driving in Vancouver traffic is so tilting.

Could I be tired of all the beautiful nature?

The money they collect at Vancouver tourist traps is so tilting.

I hate going through Canadian customs.

Being on a rocking boat does not feel good.

Cheaper hotels are way better than expensive hotels.

I hate shopping.

My patience does run out sometimes.

Gasworks Park rocks.

The final exam proctoring was a bit fun, as Andrew and I were playing this “return as many old assignments and exams as possible” game, and our section won for having the least leftovers among the three sections! Of course searching through 350 students to match names was not easy, but it was slightly fun. Now the marking…I chose the string question again. It’s not hard to mark the question, but it got repetitive very quickly, and I had a tough time to keep up with the marking. It’s like Chinese water torture…a little drop of water is ok, but over a long time it gets horrific. Anyway, got it all done today, and everything’s ok now. Hopefully.

I’m a nit. Really. Example 1: Because of more-than-normal-frequency in walks to school, I broke my left knee again. But I still wanted to go to school on Friday, so I painfully (emotionally) decided to bite hard and pay the $3 for parking at UW. Sure it’s only a small amount of money, but it feels so bad… Example 2: I have a prepaid cellphone, which has a ridiculously high rate for daytime, but a ridiculously low rate for evening and weekends. So even though I have a ton of money in the account, which I can hardly use up, I still get annoyed when I receive phone calls during daytime, and only begrudgingly pick it up when necessary. But it’s only 39 cents! Sigh… Example 3: Well, I play microstakes poker, dealing with essentially free money, but I still get upset over a lost dollar… Meanwhile, I would spend lavishly on a ton of other things…I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Heading off to Vancouver tomorrow. The cruise thing was a bust, which I got pretty annoyed at first, but eventually accepted the consequence of that. At least I got a free upgrade on the flight over, so it should be fun. Going to have 3 hours of sleep now and then start packing and then hopefully get more sleep on the plane. Wooo…Vancouver…

New twists and turns in this Vancouver trip… My mom suddenly decided that they would like to go on an Alaskan cruise, but there are a few obstacles: (a) I just confirmed and paid for the rental car, which she wanted me to rent to begin with; (b) the cruises leave on Sundays, but I arrive on a Tuesday, which is almost like the earliest that I can leave here by since the final exam is on a Thursday; and (c) I hate paying AC more for changes to a flight! I was kind of annoyed by this, but I guess it’s not a surprise, since my mom’s like that anyway. So the story goes, the other instructors and TAs for my course were bothered during this holiday, and I got the green light to go for it. Also, somehow AC had a very cheap early morning Sunday flight, so I changed it (still, I don’t get a refund in the price difference and yet had to pay a change fee…boo. going to try for the upgrade, though). So now that everything’s in place, I couldn’t contact mom to tell her that this is good to go….it’s quite frustrating, actually, this entire process…but if everything goes ahead, it would be a pretty interesting experience. Then again, who in the world wants to say “I’m going on a cruise with mom”?

Fellowship went to Ontario Maze Saturday. The ride over there was interesting, going through country sides with lots of animals around, and the Mennonites were roaming around in horse buggies and bikes. The maze experience, though, ended up being quite torturous. The theme is Ontario, so the maze is shaped like the province with many checkpoints listed as cities in Ontario. The goal was to find 12 of them and stamp our “transit passes.” Well, let’s just say it’s a huge maze. We got the first 6 with relative ease, but then it got difficult. We were running around in circles, kept bumping into the cities that we’ve visited already, and I was just dragging my body around feeling really tired. Eventually we somehow got 11 out of 12, but to find that last one in this huge maze really broke us. We quit after finding the entrance (it’s not even the exit) and joined the rest of the people, who all found everything. Turned out that they all had a map of the maze, and could use it to find everything…boooo. Anyway, everyone (and more) came to my place afterwards, had a BBQ, and I had to endure bad karaoke while playing in the basement and later sleeping upstairs. It’s…a bizarre day.

I spoke too fast about my upswing in triple draw last time…cue the doomswitch! Went on a $18 downswing, which was really frustrating, actually. I knew this kind of thing would happen, but I didn’t know it would be that deep. I guess I played a bit differently, which could have made a difference here and there. Oh well…recovered about 1/6 of that, so it’s still ok. But come to think of it, I really shouldn’t be so affected by such a small thing…