Yesterday (or, this morning), I had a phone conversation with MuTao that lasted 75 minutes and 33 seconds (subject: resume etc.). I think that's a record high for me! Even buying car insurance didn't take that long, I believe... This is quite an incredible feat, as I have a history of avoiding phone calls... There should now be many many people who are jealous of MuTao for being able to make me talk to him for that long on the phone. Hehe! Now just as long as the phone calls don't get too much longer...I mean, I seriously don't want to be involved in a 12-hour phone call...

Back on public property.

It was yet another long and frustrating night, but at least this time, I felt God's power working through me. After a long hard debate, I decided it wasn't worth it to write that complicated thing I mentioned yesterday in one night. So I started going back to work on the Sachs2m3 file. Even though I dreaded working on that file, somehow I found energy and ideas to work on it until 4AM. I was already tired at 10PM, so I did not know where that energy came from. Well, now I know. It came from God. Thank you, Lord, for answering my prayers. The supervisor meeting this morning went short and well. Quite a bit of laughter, so that was fine. I'm now a bit more relaxed and will now try to prepare for today's Bible study. Just found some exciting things to share...

This morning, I handed in the "Intend to Graduate" form to Marg. As well, I tried to confirm with Marg that the presentation is optional in the thesis option. When she said yes, and asked me if I will do the presentation, I said, "probably not." Right then, Bruce turned and said "huuuuuuuuh? We are not terrifying you, are we?" Lots of laughter ensues. Hehe!

Who knew that what I first thought to be a simple proof ended up being an extremely complicated thing? Sigh...

10 hours, 7 cities, 350 kilometres. The great news: I was not driving!

Here is what we did: Started off in Waterloo (obviously), go to a service station, have some jam (of the traffic variety), arrive at Metro Square, write a hefty cheque, eat dinner, go to Pacific Mall, wander around for no reason, get gas, joke about my driving style, find our way to Burlington, joke some more, MuTao gives a comprehensive guided tour of his territory, arrive at Hamilton, stop briefly at some guy's place, MuTao gives yet another tour which includes his high school and Mac, get more gas, stop at three "mountain" spots, take some pictures which will not turn out well, one last stop at Tim's, and finally arrive at home safely at around 1:30AM. Along the way, he tells me pretty much his entire life story, which is amazing. At the end, though, I almost passed out due to fatigue, and he's still full of energy...so yes, I am getting really old. Of course, I get a call at 7AM this morning from him, telling me that he has not slept for the entire night...sigh...if only I have so much energy, I would have finished my PhD by now...

Ok, so I decided not to waste today's time, although I think I am already doing that...

Alex is really emotionally involved when marking the midterm. And he says that he does that for the assignments as well... It's really funny to see him that way.

Going to Toronto! Whee! And I don't even need to drive!

Today's office hour: 4 people came (well, one of them came in late, but that's ok). I got a girl, a guy, Fred, and some other guy whose initial is ZZ... That last guy has some speech impediment, but he is great to work with. From his name, I knew he was one of the brighter students in class, so that's great. The other guy pretty much knows everything (except for the tiny thing he asked me about), and is quite serious about the course. I mean, working all night on a question (which now he found out has been changed)? Wow... Too bad I didn't ask for his name...I could guess, though. The girl pretty much didn't have an idea of how to do the assignment, so I can only help so much. Fred, well, is not buying my jokes. So overall, back to a normal office hour. No more need to stand in front of the blackboard! Yay!

I have a sort-of bad feeling about the trip to Toronto later today. Not sure what purpose it would serve, actually...

Had a surprise birthday party for Thian-Peng, which, for some unknown reason, was actually a surprise! I guess one of the reasons is that Francis is not here...hehe. Hey, I don't think Francis reads this, right?

More bad news: Keane failed his driving test. Roger didn't get my KWCACMYFBBS cancelling email until it's too late. I did nothing but bad things again. Sigh...

A late addition to some anecdotes that happened on Wednesday. Adrian was in the office talking with Alex about 351 things. In the middle somewhere, he said to me "you said the midterm is easy!" And I hang my head in shame...hehe. Ok, lots of background stories that I won't go through, but to me, that was really funny. Funny guy, Adrian. Oh, by the way, he got 20/40...

SNOW!!! YAY!!! Well, just barely visible snowflakes...but SNOW!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, now apparently too many people are discovering this supposedly-secret log... Maybe I'll do something about that...

On a brighter note, I took the time during Alex's office hour today and attempted to solve one of his graph theory assignment questions. It was excruciatingly fun. At the end, I did solve one question. However, he is not allowed to receive outside help, so I have to keep the solution to myself (until tomorrow, that is). In the good old days, our generation of grads always shared answers quite freely... Anyway, this kept me from doing my thesis work, so my plan yesterday did fail, as predicted.

On yet another bright note, I actually solved all the problems in the assignment of the course that I TA for...Wow! That's like, incredible!

Well, yesterday, supervisor complained that I work too slow (or at least implied that). I guess that's sort of expected since I work one day a week (reversing the order established by creation). I have a beautiful work plan for this week, which, like all previous plans, will fail miserably...

Just finished a 47-minute phone call with MuTao. Wheeeeeee!

I thought I would say more about yesterday's bizarre weather. Here is the temperature chart for yesterday. The leftmost entry is 12AM, and the rightmost entry is 11PM. Notice that the high of yesterday appeared at 11PM!... Here is a numerical breakdown of the temperatures:

(12AM) 0, 0, 2, 3, 2, 2, 1, 0, -1 (8AM), 4, 9, 11, 14, 14, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 16, 17, 17, 18 (11PM).

Added to that, high winds up to 50km/h. Now that is interesting weather...blew off yet more leaves, of course, which is kind of sad.

(Yeah, I am a weather freak. Why?)

Today is Jihoon's birthday, and when I handed him a copy of The Purpose-Driven Life (which was planned long ago), he seemed shocked. Why? Because somebody had told him yesterday that this is a great book and he should read it! So he was planning on buying this book soon... Now because of this, I believe that he will treasure this book greatly. This is just an amazing coincidence, which, once again, showed God's incredibleness. His work holds great surprises now and forevermore.

Praise God that MuTao passed his midterm and actually liked his TESL class! That's wonderful. I think he is now in a better mood, and hopefully I'll take less of an abuse (just kidding!).

The weather is weird today...it went from -1 this morning at 8 all the way up to 16 degrees at 2PM. That's a difference of 17 degrees in 6 hours! And what's more surprising is that, as of now (around 8PM), it's still hanging around 16 degrees. It's, well, comfortable, but weird, weather.

Yet another endless night tonight. Praying for a good outcome tomorrow...

Did I mention that I'm a professional time waster? I did? Ok, good.

Here's a diversion: some real thoughts of mine. I really love going to symphony concerts, and this tsoundcheck program from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is really amazing. Also, the fact that I didn't get much of a chance to go to a concert sort of induces this desire to go to as many of these concerts as possible. However, now that I have thought about it, it just seems like mindless entertainment... It's, well, meaningless. And added to that, each concert requires me to drive to Toronto and back, which is really costly (both money and mind). I guess another reason I would like to go to Toronto is that then there is a chance that I can carry Francis back to Waterloo (which is something I've promised but not yet materialized all semester long). So, I'm not sure what's the conclusion here...I guess I'll tinker with it a bit more...

Last night, I was tinkering (yes, this word again) with the PowerPoint file that Thian-Peng sent me for today's service. It was really exciting for me to do this kind of work, and I realized this is perhaps one of the "gifts" that I have from God, which I should use in service to Him. This is great.

8 hours, 2 cities, 1 big concert hall, 3 Hungarian Rhapsodies, 237 kilometres = 1 happy birthday boy + 1 tired driver. I thought the trip was great, but really tiring. Great to hear Midori play. My sister must be really jealous...hehe. Next time: I'll stay overnight...

Just a late post saying: sorry, CO342 students! I really thought it was an easy exam when I saw it... Well, at least I get to suffer a bit when marking, so we're even... Average mark: 22/40...sigh.

Diego visited me during this morning's office hour, and I really have trouble convincing him that a "formal" proof is required to get that extra 3 marks... But at least he's nice, so that's fine. It's interesting to finally put a face to a student's name that is so familiar to me. I mean, I had been his TA for 350, 351, and now 342! Ok, good.

Plan for today (not that it matters): eat, sleep, and mingle with other people. More specifically, sleep now until who knows when, get myself a nice breakfast, do some work (yeah right), and go to Toronto for Midori concert! Wee! Oh, by the way, I did a bit of exercise two days ago, and my muscles are all aching right now...hopefully it will heal itself soon, or the drive to Toronto and back will be horrible. And that's not saying anything about the rush hour...

Woohoo! Back to regularly scheduled blogging...

It's kind of weird to post these messages to blogger without being published on the web. But then again, nobody reads it anyway, right? I should be fine. Anyway, the server is supposed to go back to normal in a day or two, so maybe my posts will get posted, then.

Yesterday was kind of a no-work day. Sort of a "day of rest" after I talked about the Sabbath in the Bible study. So MuTao decided to give me something to do for my day of rest: take him to school in the morning (to study for his midterm), and help him with the computer and spend time with him in the evening. It's great to finally see his living quarter. However, I had this minor dilemma: on one hand, I was really really tired and I wanted to go home; on the other hand, I'm afraid that if I do go home, he might start thinking weird things and start to drink again. Not a good thing, I'd say. So I stayed until 2AM. Watching more Simpsons than I have ever watched...

Yesterday: huge rain in the afternoon. Just before the Bible study. A surprise midterm fire alarm forced us out of MC and into Keane's house...

Today: huge wind. Like, big ones. Up to 76km/h so far. Blew down a tree. Blew away all the pretty leaves...sigh...

My car hit 2000 yesterday when I was picking up Roger. Congratulations on the big 2K, car! That's 19 days for the second K... 9 days faster than the first K...

9 hours, 3 cities, 252 kilometres. That's all I have to say about yesterday's trip to Toronto for Streams of Praise. I have to say, though, I wasn't doing so well with all the loud volume, tiredness, and marking...sigh... I'm just glad that my car can serve as an element in bringing people to Christ. That's wonderful.

Plan for today: mark midterms, go to Toronto, come back from it, sleep.
Plan for tomorrow: hopefully wake up early enough, go to church, come back, more marking, write some thesis.
Not so interesting, apparently.

By the way, thank you Dinah for keeping the hour of waiting at that licensing place yesterday much more interesting than I would have imagined.

The service at the DriveTest centre in Kitchener? Sucks...big time. To Stu: I know my address better than you do!!! Ok, I should forget about this horrible incident and move on...

Just received a letter from the department. It's always scary when a letter from the department includes the word "evaluation" on the first paragraph, but this one's not so bad. It says that "You were one of a few graduate students who were seriously considered for the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award." And I'm thinking, what did I do last semester? Nothing much, apparently... I remembered suffering a bit, but that's all I remembered...and Mark and Mike did so much more, so now I'm curious what exactly went into the "TA evaluation"... Anyway, that's a nice letter, I think.

That was a great night of sleep...finally. 11-8 almost nonstop... Nice!

So some interesting stories out of the office hours. 3 people came (Rita, Steven, and Jordan). The funniest thing came from what Jordan told me. Basically Bruce had already given the exam for me to see, and I responded that it was on the easy side. Then Jordan tells me that in class, Bruce said that he thinks the exam is hard, but one of the TAs says it's easy, so he thinks it's fine. Ha! That's just too funny (for me anyway). Jordan goes on to ask questions, and he glossed over one question saying it's too hard. I inquired further, and he said that at least one direction is easy, and the other is hard. I let out a hidden sigh of relief, as the easy direction is actually on the exam! Man, it is too hard to laugh on the inside and keep a straight face on the outside...

There are many many reasons why I need a tripod. (to be continued...)

I think that was the first time that I received a phone call at 3:30 in the morning...and it's not from a person who dialed the wrong number! I just thank God that I was fully awake and marking while that phone rang...otherwise I don't think I could have handled that situation.

So yesterday's Bible study was one for the wobbly-headed brothers. It was almost cancelled after only 3 of us showed up at around 5:40. Thankfully, Keane eventually showed up right when we almost decided to cancel it. Bad for Roger, as he wanted to eat, but good for all of us, for obvious reasons. So among the four of us, 3 are having headaches, and 3 are having a lot more work to do afterwards. Due to that, we shortened it a bit, so we only covered 2 out of 3 days of creation, leaving the most important day until next week... That's all right, since I really wanted to spend a lot of time on the 6th day. Anyway, I think we had good discussions, getting off-topic surprisingly often (thanks, Keane!), and we showed our lack the elementary scientific knowledge when we couldn't even figure out how eclipses work...hehe. One good thing we found out, though, is that when we were discussing Christians being the light of the world, Keane said that he agrees with this statement, saying he actually experienced this "light" through our fellowship (initially Ingrid). Well, praise the Lord! This fellowship is doing its job! A trip to Wendy's with Roger revealed a huge almost-full moon, which was beautiful, and very good timing! (Just after we were talking about the moon in the Bible study...) Too bad when I got to Wendy's, the moon became a bit small, but I still took pictures...hope they turn out well.

No, it wasn't a joke. I'm now physically tired, emotionally drained, and spiritually uplifted. Perhaps God brought me to Waterloo just for this purpose -- be of help to MuTao. Not sure how traumatized I was by our short conversation early this morning. Still want to cry badly. Now I still have an assignment to mark, and a Bible study to prepare for. Sigh... Praise the Lord, everything is moving His way.

What, is that a joke? The two people mentioned just yesterday both turned out just fine when I met them yesterday and today. What is going on here? Of course, I thank the Lord for this surprising development. Hoping that this is not just a false sense of security...

Twas the night before supervisor meeting, and everything's not quiet at all. I'm supposed to write something that is an added bonus to what I proved. However, this additional thing is so simple yet incredibly hard to incorporate into my existing proofs. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned this bonus proof to the supervisor...this is a bit painful.

After last Monday's experience with typing NSERC application on a laptop at school, I followed this step today. It seems to work for a while, I guess. I get to listen to my own music (annoying Jihoon, hehe). I don't get too distracted by internet. That should mean productivity, right? WRONG! I still felt sick at around 1 or 2 and went home to get some sleep. Now I'm going to be stuck here all night long...sigh...

On a brighter news, I cleaned up my desk at school! Now I have space to put my laptop mentioned above...

Two of the people that I cared the most about these days are both falling into emotional depression. Maybe because I'm doing something wrong? I know for sure I have no idea how to deal with these situations properly. But why they plunge like that at the same time? Beyond my knowledge. I pray dearly to God to help me help them in a good way.

I don't know...for some reason, I feel like crying right now. Not really knowing what I am doing...

According to the weather website, Waterloo hit the minuses yesterday morning at around 7am. Yay! Snow will come very soon, I believe...

Finally caught a break after all this NSERC marking madness (well, actually, madness would be a huge understatement). Now it's time to try and relax for a little while. I guess I'll catch up with the logging some time soon. Hopefully.

I guess one of the reasons why all of my past attempts at journals failed is that once I have a few days' gap to fill in, I would feel this burden to fill them in before continue on. Unfortunately, I never do. So, I'll try to continue on for a while, then come back to fill in the "gap" later... Hopefully.