Now my parents want me to have a cell phone just because I was away every time they called in the last 3 days. Sigh...

Being the only one who has the church's key in the entire fellowship sort of sucks.

I find the following episode summary from a game show website to be pretty funny (then again, it's probably just me):

Valerie Mikita, a one-time human puppet, was arguably the best contestant interrogator yet on Court TV's Fake Out. Unfortunately, she still could not read between the lines of ex-FBI agent Jack Trimarco's story in Friday night's final interrogation and missed a chance at $20,000. Mikita was convinced Trimarco was lying about having to wear goggles because a television set was rigged with explosives in the studio. Her questions were sharp. She went after Trimarco with elaborative inquiries and was convinced he failed to look her in the eye sufficiently to be telling the truth. He was. Trimarco handed Mikita a remote control. When she pushed a button, the set viciously exploded. Mikita, however, still ended up with $1,800 from her three preliminary games.

I just felt miserable all day today.

I have always believed that we should never force someone to serve God, so now I just have to bite my tongue and really hold to my belief.

Nope, still no sign of any research done since Tuesday.

I finally fell into Amazon's trap today. They sent me a coupon a long time ago that expires today. I have really decided not to buy anything, but then I did. Oops...

Speaking of shopping, for some odd reason, I'm thinking of buying a PS2.

Speaking of shopping, my huge VISA credit has now been reduced significantly. Excellent.

If they sell toys at Toys R Us, then what do they sell at Babies R Us?

I'm having the longest "conversation" ever on gmail. And it's with somebody I've never met before...or maybe I have.

Activities for today: something. Maybe bowling. I need to exercise, though.

12 hours, 5 cities, 3 guys, 2 bowls of Vietnamese noodles, 2 usual malls, 65.5 gas (75.5 Waterloo), 14 take home drinks, 14 instant noodles, 1 bag of wafers, 5 phone cards, 2 jumbo bubble green teas, 48 oz for those teas, 1 pair of cracked/scratched sunglasses, too many predictable secrets, 12 Pingus, 2 bowls of congee, 1 pigeonhole, 6 people in an acquaintances and strangers puzzle which Francis didn't solve, 1 pit stop, 5 times (approximately) Rachmaninov's Piano Concertos #2 & 3, 331 kilometres.

Funny how we met MuTao's elementary school friend, and turns out that she's in Peter's church, and I saw her leading the Sunday service worship when I was there on my birthday. Coincidence? Maybe.

Man, I really hate the fact that almost all of my thoughts are so distracting and bad and depressing...

Am I really such a serious person?  I guess so...at least according to what people are saying about what Maggie said.  Oh well.  I guess I still have a mind of an 11-year-old, except on the outside I show a person who is like 70.  I look at Maggie and I thought, "hmm...I wish people would play with me."

Oh yeah, speaking of Maggie, forgot to mention that yesterday's meal was supposed to be at Morty's for chicken wings.  But we couldn't get in because Morty's becomes a real pub at 9pm, and they wouldn't allow anyone younger than 19 to get in.  The funny thing was when the waitress looked at Maggie and said, "how old is she?" as if Maggie could pass for 19 or something.

And speaking of Maggie once again, I watched Super Millionaire last night, and there was a question about her.  The $100,000 question asks for the actress who voice-overed Maggie's first word "daddy" (or, apparently, "dada") on The Simpsons in 1992.  I got it right for some odd reason...and I don't even like The Simpsons.

I think it's time for me to get serious about some things, like exercise, praying, stopping repeated sins, and research.  My life's a mess, basically.

I don't know, I just don't feel like calling my family.  That's sad.

I had some weird dreams.  Well, I guess that's what you get for sleeping too much.

Went to Roger's and then to hot pot thingie.  Well, not my favourite kinds of meal, but it was ok.  The gang's off to bubble tea while I came home alone.  Ah, well, that's ok.  I go to Toronto tomorrow (i.e. today).

I don't know, this is kind of strange, but I fell sleepy all day long for two days already.  Maybe I do have some mysterious illness or something.  Anyway, this is putting my research behind quite a bit, so I guess I'll have to catch up during the weekend.

No, there's no such thing as a long weekend for me.

I didn't do anything today again.  Sigh...this is really bad.

It's quite depressing that I couldn't control my thoughts.

For some reason, nobody wants to talk to me today.  (Update: I was wrong.)

So what did I do on a Wastable Wednesday like this one?  I slept for most of the morning.  I went on an aforementioned shopping trip.  I organized and sorted the photos yet to be scanned.  Now doing laundry.  Hmm...certainly no sign of any productivity.  Anyway, Wednesdays are supposed to be a day of relaxation due to the high stress level of Tuesdays.  Then again, why waste a day when I could have not wasted it?  Oh well.

The aforementioned organization and sortation resulted in 20 stacks of my photos plus 7 stacks of MuTao's photos taken using my camera.  That's close to 1,000 photos ready to be scanned...  Yikes.

A well-known fact: I get tired very easily.

The television was removed from the house.  I think that's a good thing.

Got the pictures from Maggie's birthday and the church picnic.  Boy, I look terribly "large" in those pictures...  Speaking of which, I hit 80kg...scary.

Went for a shopping trip by myself just because I was back into the state of depression...again.

What are the chances of bumping into Samuel for two days in a row considering that I have not seen him for close to a year now? That's amazing... Maybe he's stalking me for some reason, but I highly doubt that.

So there was this bbs scheduled this evening, and only Bobby showed up.  It was kind of disappointing, obviously, but I guess that's ok.  Everyone's busy these days.  Meanwhile, Isaac's been ready to be born for three weeks now...poor Sarah.

Really tired today at Roger's.  The race was so-so...  My body was shaking in the middle of it for some odd reason.  Anyway, I've been up since 5 this morning, had a couple of really short naps, so I guess that's why I'm a bit out of it.  Ok, going to sleep.

In a slightly minor news, I finished playing the 40 puzzles of Rush Hour 2 today. Yay! Puzzle 39 was hard...took, like, about a month. Anyway, I'm sad that now I only have 40 puzzles left for that game...

Finished supervisor meeting. A bit awkward, as apparently we are thinking on the spot, and she mentioned her busy schedule at the end. Yikes.

Nope, no luck in being Francis' TA next term. Too bad. On the bright side, his mom won't be chasing me down to ask for his real marks. Speaking of TA, I finished marking this morning at about 8.5. That's a total of slightly over 5 hours of marking time, not counting the necessary breaks. Glad that it's the last assignment marking for the term. It was too painful...

A lot of times it's painful for me to hear what I say. Yikes.

Awwww...Francis' dad (or mom, but most likely it's dad) is so sweet... Almost right after Francis opened up the computer in Toronto, he wrote "I love you" to him. Of course he also talked about how the dinner made him feel bad and asked Francis to take a shower and sleep early.

This assignment is so brutal to mark...hope to survive the long night ahead.

Forgot to mention about skating yesterday.  Due to CIF's "uncooperativeness," we went to RIM park.  That rink is huge, and really slippery.  MuTao couldn't fit in the skates from the Chens, so he gets a nice air-conditioned sleep.  Meanwhile, I found out that my injured leg was suddenly healed the day before, so that was really good.  I still get some moments of inbalance, but it's getting better, I guess.  1 trip around the rim for me = 2 trips around the rim for Francis.  Next week, I try to beat MuTao.

The coworkers meeting was, in a word, cold.

It's so easy to fall back to the sinful nature, isn't it?

5 hours, 6 cities, 2 bedrooms, 4 buddies, 1 with pajama and sandals, too many secrets, 67.4 gas (77.9 Waterloo), 2 cups of green tea, 295.6 kilometres = a quick trip to send MuTao and Francis back, and take Roger for a ride.  Still need to check the records, but I think this is probably the quickest trip to Toronto and back, not counting sending people to the airport.  50 minutes from Roger's to MuTao's, 50 minutes from MuTao's to Francis', 60 minutes from Metro Square to home.  Good times, good time.  We opened up the windows to hide the secrets.  We had a few "deep" chats.  And most importantly, we were all dead tired.

Congratulations, car, for hitting the wonderfully quasi-palindromic 22K!  You hit it in Flamborough on the way to Hamilton while Francis was telling you some secrets yesterday.  That's 23 days for these 2K.  Boy, it used to take 23 days to barely hit 1K...done lots of traveling, apparently.  In any case, you hit the magic 22,222 as well, and you hit it somewhere in Cambridge while traveling back to Waterloo today.  Too bad I didn't see it.  I was too interested in the conversation with Roger.  Sorry, car.  Oh, wait, I don't think my car reads this...ah well.

Long day ahead, as always.  A ton of marking and research and stuff.  Good thing no need to prepare bbs...

A picnic, a lake, a short gathering, a forest, a small hill, a beach, a camp site, a tripod, a simple lunch, a pepsi, a boat ride, a temporarily paralyzed right leg, a secret, a couple of buddies, a roll of film, a costco visit, a mall, a bucket of chicken, a visit to Roger's, a part of a soccer game, a non-choreographed sequence of button pushing, a fight or two, a fantasy of the final kind, a ride home.  Total: 13.5 hours, 119.3 kilometres, 1 Saturday.  For the record, Pinehurst Lake is far from Paris.  Good trip.

There is a reason why I shouldn't play games.

One of the more shocking things that I have experienced in the past year is that there are some things which I believe are quite embarrassing to me, and these things are seen or talked about as if they are just normal to many other people.  Which world was I living in anyway?  I guess this did indeed cause a lot of trouble in my mind, and things just didn't make much sense.  I did make a small step forward today at Roger's, so at least it's promising.

8.5 hours, 3 cities, 1 pre-trip haircut, 1 comfy governmental red couch, 4 malls, 67.5 gas (80.9 Waterloo), countably infinite gundams, 5 times Beethoven's Piano Concertos #2 and 4, 12 pieces of bread, 0 fish, 1 natural spring water, 277 kilometres = what else?  Too bad only two people were in this.  It was great, though, as always.  I experienced again something I've known for a while now, and that is driving long distance with a good friend (who is awake) feels a lot quicker than driving alone.  Next stop: Paris!

Doh!  I guess Luke 8:17 is right...

Started reading Job again.  I really hope that I wasn't like Job's friends, and will never be.

So you know that gmail has this thing where they present advertising that is "related" to the email message that you're reading.  Well, Elaine sent an email announcing her new cell phone number.  Right beside the message are ads for Seinfeld DVDs and tickets.  Took me a while to realize the connection, but that is pretty funny.

Speaking of gmail, I still have 4 invites to give away.  Looks like everyone has it already, though...it's very popular these days, apparently.

It was really nice to have Roger's place as my "summer cottage" so-to-speak to avoid the heat.  Air conditioning rocks.  No, I won't turn in to the next MuTao so-to-speak, at least I'll try not to.

Pretty much wasted the whole day yesterday.  Lots of work to do, yet so little desire to do so.  Oh well.  Toronto today.  So, no work again.  But that's ok.  I look very much forward to it.  Woohoo!

I guess many of my regrets come from being shy from participating in activities that (I thought) are silly or childish.  And it's too late to do them now...oh well.

Hmm...too many people are reading this...getting quite scary.

So there's this mysterious Eugene to figure out...no idea who mom and sister were talking about.

Starting to have Amazing Race dreams.  Yikes...

Getting really hot now.  30 degrees for two days already, and looks like it's like that again today.  Looking forward to the cooler weather tomorrow...

I think I wasted the whole day to watching TV and sleeping...but in all the relaxation madness, I did get something useful done, and that is updating the news page on the myf site.  This is supposed to make Roger's job easier...we'll see. 

See, I'm extremely passive on the outside.  On the inside, it's a totally different story.

I still couldn't walk properly...especially the stairs...hope to recover by Sunday.  Ah, Sunday.  A full day of activities to make my mind mad (hey, 4-word alliteration!).  Excellent!  I really needed the exercise of the mind.

Ah, back to the bad old days...sigh.

There's this smog warning here.  So that means, in addition to being hot, it's going to be difficult to breathe.  Nice...not.

Patagonia is beautiful!  That race episode was great with scenery, but not too much with the result since it was pretty obvious.  I feel tired after watching race...it's that intense.

I am now very sure that the family is moving out very soon...like, tonight.  Looks like they packed up almost everything.  Well, I guess the bad news is, they'll probably take the TV away as well, but that's ok, I still got the lovely Yen family to rely on...hehe.
 
Man, the three wise men suck.
 
I have lightened up quite a bit...really.  Strange.  Who knew that James 5:16 was actually right?

Boy, I was one capital L away from guessing Roger's password correctly...
 
Well, bbs was cancelled because Michael went for paper while Bobby went for Rock, even after Michael has shown that he will go for paper.  Funny.  Anyway, whole day of preparing, now going down to next week.  Good thing, too, since there's this final assignment marking job to do this week.  Good to see Wesley at Mikey's.
 
Supervisor tells me that it's time to get very creative and get on with research.  Well, with being physically drained, hot weather, and, quite frankly, a lack of creativity, it's not easy, you know.

Supervisor meeting was good, actually.  Lots of studying on caterpillars in the future.
 
Had 6 customers at office hours today, plus 2 repeated customers.  Yikes.  Also, I think I have given away incorrect information...just hope that they found out about it.  As well, Jeff was surprised when I remembered his name, and he thinks that he was in trouble...haha.
 
Finally finished preparing bbs.  Hmm...not going to be an easy lesson.  Then again, has it ever been an easy lesson?

Another problem of mine is that I'm really not praying much.  Even if I pray, it's pretty shallow, with things such as "I have this problem, I need this, please help me, Lord."  Very sad, indeed.
 
See, one reason why I like cold weather instead of hot weather is this: in cold weather, at least you can do something to make yourself warmer, like wearing more clothes; in hot weather, however, you can't do anything to make yourself cooler.  Speaking of which, my room is getting pretty hot already...wish there is an air conditioner...
 
Once again, I haven't much of an idea on the bbs tomorrow.  (Update: While preparing this bbs, I learned about this lesson of letting our "Ishmael" go.  That greatly troubles me, as I simply cannot let go of my dream, even though it is such an unholy dream.  Sigh...)

From the sound of it, I think that the family is here to stay...like, never leave...sigh...
 
I have a ton of things to do today, but I don't feel like doing them at all...
 
Maybe I should spend more time studying caterpillars.

Now that I have entrusted a part of my dark secrets to another man, I do feel a bit better.  Hope for the best.
 
I still don't get basketball.  It's great to see so many people enjoy it, but I still don't get it.
 
Looking ahead at the weather forecast (not brought to you by Francis, fortunately), I see really hot days ahead.  Not good for this little shack of mine here...

Re-injured the knee area in skating today (or rather, intensified the injury).  Now I have trouble walking.  That's ok, I guess.  Who needs to walk anyway?  Watched basketball after that.  Was in a brand new meeting before that.  Signed some cards.  Dead tired.  Had some sleep and food, better now.  Hmm...what am I writing anyway?
 
I guess for now, I need support more than solution.
 
MuTao's in Montreal now.  The adventure begins...

Still thinking.
 
The family's back, unfortunately.
 
There was this episode of M:I at the start of fellowship today.  First, it was the fact that I'm apparently the only one with keys, so that left a lot of people standing outside in the warm.  Then, Roger realized he copied the wrong PowerPoint file to his memory stick.  It was 7 already, and Roger's place is too far.  Solution: Get Roger to phone up Maggie to try to send that file to his email address; and in the meanwhile, Roger and I race back to my house to retrieve the file.  Well, getting Maggie to follow Roger's commands was not an easy task.  It took all the time until we were at my computer and just logging in to gmail before the file was sent.  Very good timing, I'd say, and Roger is a proud brother.  Well, sort of.  Now the episode after fellowship was even more terrifyingly interesting..........

It's so quiet in the house.  The family's (temporarily) gone.  Andrei's out of town (I presume, with the rental car key, it's hard to see why he would stay in town).  Getting creepy.
 
Nice comfy bed, large hugging pillow, cool air conditioner.  Now that's luxury.  Happy birthday, Maggie!
 
Note to self: Don't jump rope while having a knee injury.

12 hours, 4 cities, 3 malls, 2 jumbo bubble tea, 3 huge bowls of congee, 3 "oil sticks", 4 funny stomachs, 1 hitch hiker, 68.5 gas (82.9 in Waterloo), 15 minutes of 30 minutes, 319 kilometres = another fun fun silly willy trip to Toronto.  MuTao, Francis and Hansel were the victims of my horrible jokes this time around.  Sadly, two of them have gotten used to it already.
 
I'm still terribly afraid of reality.
 
I have never weighed so much in my life.  Getting dangerously close to 80kg now (around 175#s).

So I've heard that people are talking about some big problems in the fellowship, and they are not telling me what the problems are.  Ok, fine.  But what's more frustrating is that they are telling non-coworkers about them, and they won't tell me what the problems are, either.  So what can a problem be such that I (the current pseudo-head) shouldn't know, and yet non-coworkers should know?  Ah, I get it, it must be a problem about me.  Ok, great, so I suck, just tell me about it.  I always knew I'm not suited for this kind of job, so maybe I should just quit.  Oh Lord, help us all. 
  
Either my memory has failed me so frequently these days, or other people's are.  First it was the whole proctoring fiasco and to this date, I still have no memory of being told to proctor.  And now Alice told me that she sent an icq message last week asking me to go to Grand China to pick up people on Saturday, and I don't remember ever receiving the message.  Weird.
 
Sometimes I have this feeling that people just hate to talk to me.

So I'm pretty rusty in my detective skills, and this took about 3 months to figure out.  I hope I'm right, even though there's always this possibility that I missed.  So anyway...Hi Jonathan!
 
So there was this dinner with chicken wings and stuff, and my conclusion is, I shouldn't lead this fellowship at all.  I know nothing, I can do nothing, I have a cold personality, and I suck.  I really don't want even more things to depress me, but I guess it never stops.
 
Well, here I am, wasted another day, mostly in sleeping and agonizing over little meaningless stuffs that repeatedly showed up.  Tomorrow, Hamilton and Toronto.  Hope for a better day, but with how things are going these days, it's not likely.

I find it hard to do what I'm supposed to do.

I want to go home.

About sports: I hate most sports. But for those that I like, I can't participate in them. Go figure.

Man, often I wish I could just stop thinking...the more I think, the more depressed I get. Of course I know life isn't fair, but it's really hard to get over it.

I guess I should put more thinking into research, which is going nowhere.

There are signs that point to the family leaving very soon. I have very conflicting feelings about this: one is that the kid is so cute, and he likes me (why else would he say things to me that I don't understand?); on the other hand, this kid is a screamer. So, I don't know. Then again, maybe it's just a false sign.

Talked to Jim Geelen this morning. Mostly he just pointed out things in the exam. It was slightly awkward at the end, but then something funny happened. He mentioned that I must have put in a lot of work into the typed solutions, and I said that people complain that I write too small, so I always LaTeX my work. Then he said "you are the only person in the world that I know of that when you LaTeX it, it becomes longer. Normally when I write, it's seven times longer than LaTeX." This is just too funny...to me, at least.

Took the Yen family on a trip to Costco, then McDonald's, then RIM Park, then home. At Costco, Roger bought this huge thing that might cause more violence in his household, but its main use is for his peaceful sleep. At McD's, the cashier thought it was Thursday, and overcharged Roger by a bundle (it is Wednesday). So he got an extra fries for that. At RIM Park, we find 4 rinks, 3 gymnasiums, and 3 indoor soccer fields, none of which are open to the public, sadly enough. Two of the rinks are just sitting there...so why not open it? I don't know. Anyway, it was a cool trip (in terms of the weather).

Still as depressed as ever, not surprisingly.

My family phoned yesterday. Among the topics: they still insist on me playing golf for some odd reason; and they want me to go to Taiwan at the end of August. Neither ideas sound good to me... (Update: forgot to mention that they want me to have a webcam as well. Doesn't sound good to me, either.)

Story about the worst group of TAs ever: So on Monday, there's a test for the poor little students. Now there are 3 TAs in total, and 2 rooms to proctor. The instructor was obviously there. I didn't go proctor because I don't remember ever being told to proctor. One TA got a flat tire on the way to school, so he was 15 minutes late to the exam. The other TA decided that the other two TAs would be there anyway, so he would be lazy and show up 5 minutes before the exam starts. By then, the instructor was in a panic. This third TA jokingly says that he became some kind of a hero in this situation, and says that we are just the worst group of TAs ever. And I agree. So yeah, it wasn't really pleasant for me when, during yesterday's supervisor meeting, the first thing she asked was "where were you yesterday?"

I have this sense that I'm so far from God that I have trouble praying.

So I received an email yesterday from Jim Geelen saying, "Hi Martin, Bertrand Guenin and I have finished marking your comprehensive exam. We have indicated to Levent (the new Grad Chair) that we are satisfied with your performance. I would like to meet with you
this week to give you some feed back..." Yup, now I can forget the whole thing and move on to less important things. Thanks to everyone who prayed for me. I have to say, though, now I have this sense of loss of focus. I mean, the research is going nowhere, and the markings just keep on coming...

That was an excellent excellent race last night. I was reminded of the heavy-headedness that comes from watching the race. It's still exciting, even though the contestants aren't. In other news, I got the entire Yen family (except maybe Roger) on the bandwagon.

There was a huge thunderstorm this morning. I was sleeping, of course, but I could hear the rain and wind and the constant thunder. In fact, I can see the almost-continuous lightning while sleeping... The good thing about it is that it cools down the temperature considerably.

So that was a pretty painful start to the day...and it has just started. Finally finished marking at around 7AM. Supervisor meeting didn't go well because there was a test yesterday that I was supposed to proctor and didn't show up...of course I didn't show up because I don't know I have to proctor...sigh... The task now is to try to mark the test as quickly as possible, so good thing I cancelled bbs as there would be no time to prepare at all. Hey, sanity, can I have you back soon?

Hopefully the Amazing Race tonight will provide a happy ending to this sad day, which isn't even half over.

Hmm...maybe the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster would help...

Well, it's past midnight. I've only marked 3 out of 5 questions. My room has been hot and noisy. The fan doesn't work well, and I don't have earplugs. I cancelled bbs. Roger's probably not happy about that. Supervisor meeting today. Not going to say much. Just general fatigue. And I kept on sinning. Ah, there it is, my sanity. And it is saying, "Hi there, how are you? Haven't seen you in a while."

Bumped into Jackson and Rebeccah and then Tony at Mikey's today.

Maybe I should go in the Total Perspective Vortex...

Hmm...I do spend too much time thinking about things that will never happen, eh?

Yeah, I'm tired. I'm just tired of a lot of things.

Got a call from Thian-Peng last night. Good to hear from him.

I don't like excuses. Especially when I make them. Usually I start making them up as supervisor meeting is getting close, but I ended up hating myself for wasting the week. Most excuses are just lame. It's like, if you want to do it, then just do it; if you don't want to do it, then don't do it; but don't use these excuses to justify what you do (or not do). If you try to justify it, then you are probably doing something wrong. (Those last sentences can be easily translated to past tense...)

I cleaned up my room this evening, sort of. Doing laundry at the same time. It's hard work, and my room is still sort of messy, but not as bad as before.

My left knee is definitely injured. I have slight trouble walking, and certainly couldn't walk fast. Hope it heals soon...don't want to ruin the scheduled Wednesday morning run.

The return of skating...and falling. I took a not-so-nasty fall, and basically injured my left knee...yikes. It's only a minor injury, of course, nothing serious. I can still walk and stuff. Oh yeah, we got spectators today.

I guess part of my depression is just disappointment.

So what is it with my mom's obsession with trying to get me to play golf? I don't get it...

Just when I thought that I wouldn't get hurt again? I get hurt again... Sigh...why does life have to be that painful?

So I was first at church this evening, surprisingly enough. I get to open the big door. Then I thought I would need to get home last, so I stayed for a long time. By the time almost everybody left, we discovered that Aaron's dad has the keys to the church................

Really, what do people see when they see me?

Well, here I am, coming back from a shopping trip that was not so fruitful. I'm all alone here, getting more and more depressed, unable to work on anything, and stuck with two kids, one of which has no idea that I don't understand what he's saying. Sure, I could call up people and get some conversations, but they would all be pretty shallow, and pretty short as well. It always happen that way, isn't it? Once I'm alone, my mind goes down. Oh well.

Forgot to mention that I did indeed finish typing up the exam yesterday at around 10:30AM. I went to sleep at around 3 before that, leaving only the proof of the Tutte-Berge formula for the morning. It was a struggle to finish it as the proof was just tedious. Anyway, got it done, move on.

I'm not good at taking "active" photos...well, I guess I could blame the film or the camera or the lighting for the sub-par quality of the photos I got today...

13 hours, 4 cities, 4 buddies, 3 hours to PacMall, 1 furry zebra pencil case, 1 new "do", 20 minute parking, 72.5 gas, 1000 people at a claustrophobic early-evening outdoor market, 15 take-home drinks, 100 frames of bowling, 10 bowling balls jammed under the gutter, 1 point of agony for Roger, 8 lamb-on-a-sticks, 3 bowls of noodles, oodles of laughter, 338 kilometres = trip that picks up MuTao and takes Francis (and everyone else on the car) back to Waterloo. I have to say that I really like these Friday trips. It's so hard to get depressed when Francis is around. In a way, this is kind of scary...but may prove helpful in the long run. Good times, good times.

Bowling scores:
Round 1: Francis 98, Roger 97, Me 65, MuTao 84. So Francis won by a hair.
Round 2: Francis 94, Roger 93, Me 71, MuTao 123. So MuTao won convincingly, especially with having two strikes in a row.
Conclusion: MuTao rocks, Roger lives in the pain of always trailing TFC by 1 point (...until the next game), and I suck. Compare to these scores...

Yes, I'm weak, just get over it.

Another exam update: I've typed up 8 parts now, 4 more parts to go. I'm seriously not going to get much sleep tonight...

One sign that I'm not eating well: For lunch, I ate a free Mars bar (gotten from filling in a psychology survey randomly) and drank a glass bottle of grape-apple-pear Fruitopia.

Go 4 posts down and you'll see the post with the most number of comments ever.

Exam update: I "sort of" solved all the questions now. All I need to do is to have some sleep, and write up the 8 parts remaining. I have 23 hours left, but since I really want to leave town by noon, I really have only 19 hours. So...I should get to the sleeping now.

I really don't want to think back to life's disappointments in the past, but I still do. Sigh...

For some reason, I have this weird feeling like a lot of people are just tired of me...

Starting to find the family here to be quite annoying...lots of crying and yelling and occupying space and stuff...still have about 2 or 3 weeks to go, though...

I still have 5 gmail invitations to give away...

I sleep too much, even though I'm always sleepy.

Post-running update: I still have trouble climbing the stairs at my place. Also, to "close" my legs together takes some effort.

As a follow up to this post 3 days ago, indeed gas prices shot up to around 83 yesterday.

I find it really really disturbing when people are forcing other people into some form of serving God. I mean, if a person doesn't want to do it, then don't force him to do it...

So apparently there are more people reading this page than I originally thought...

I slept for about 5 hours this evening. Must be a really tiring day, with all that running and driving. I think a phone call from mom sneaked in there, but I don't have much memory of that.

I'm in a desperate search for solutions for the dreaded exam.

Surprisingly enough, Roger did indeed show up for the morning run. We had about 10 minutes of running, and 40 minutes of walking. We'll try to improve the running/walking ratio in the future... It was slightly horrifying in the fact that there were too many mosquitos running alongside us, and I got at least 7 new bites on me... After the run was over, we got over to Sinnie and TP's to say a short final final goodbye. Then off to Roger's place to finish The Amazing Race. Wouldn't say that I enjoyed it as much as it used to be, but still good. Reading comprehension, people.

3 hours, 2 cities, 1 elevator that simply refuses to open, 137 kilometres = sending MuTao back to Hamilton. I had a really good time when he was here, so I'm sort of sad that he's not here now. Oh yeah, having a companion in the car definitely makes the trip feel a lot shorter. There were lots of traffic on the way back...

I do feel like my behaviour these days are really idiotic and childish.

It scares me that sometimes I start to talk just like Francis...yikes.

Right now, I'm supposed to wait for Roger to come and go for a morning run. Still heard nothing yet...

Oh, yeah, and there's this discrete opt exam thing which I haven't touched in a while now...sigh...

So, the bbs wasn't really that bad, I guess.

Only watched 20 minutes of The Amazing Race last night. I don't really like what I see, though... Hopefully this will change soon. One thing that surprised me is the first destination: Uruguay.

Goodbye, Thian-Peng and Sinnie! We'll miss you.

I had a really really REALLY busy office hour. Went about 15 minutes overtime. I think around 10 patients walked through the doors of my office to receive treatment to their problems. Most are good-natured about the size of the crowd, though, so that's not too bad. I do have a burning headache after that. Maybe it's from the bump on the trunk two days ago...

I have around 3 hours left to prepare for this bbs thing, and I'm just so tired...

Yeah, apparently the exam questions are solvable...I just don't know how.

So the supervisor really didn't expect me to do the research...man, now I feel like I wasted so much time that could have been spent on the exam. Anyhow, this will be another tight week.

I basically don't know what to say about the bbs today...

It's a mess.

I still don't have much of a clue for the supervisor meeting today. That proof just resists understanding. On a related note, I also need to do this bbs thing. I am so unprepared for this one...ah, this is so reminiscent of the good old days.

The Amazing Race starts again today! Well, I'm not really that excited this time around, since it's been so long and I'm just too tired. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

MuTao's back here! Goody! I foresee a trip to Hamilton in the near future...

10 hours, 3 cities, 4 hours of pre-trip TV, 1 hard bump on the head with the trunk, 2 hours of rectangular-table chat, 6 people, 2 more on the phone, 1 horrific thunderstorm, 2 hot dogs, 3 frozen yogurts (both eaten at, surprisingly enough, Ikea), 1 excellent dinner, 1 big house, 1 small house, 1 monthly transit pass, 276.5 kilometres = the trip to bring Thian-Peng and Sinnie to Toronto to say final goodbyes to Peter, and also bringing Francis along back to his comfy job. It was very good, but at the same time extremely tiring. I think I have too many return trips with me almost with my eyes closed. The thunderstorm was really really scary, actually. The pouring rain was incredible. Even the fastest windshield wiper speed doesn't help much. Almost every car has the emergency lights on. The speed on the highway was at around 70 (still a bit too fast). Good thing this only lasts for around half an hour. Anyway, good times were had, and now I return to my difficult life.

A note about gas prices. On Friday, I filled up with 67.5 at Toronto, the lowest I have seen in ages... Yesterday, I saw a 71.5 when I got to Toronto while it was 78.9 in Waterloo. So I thought, sure, I'll fill up in Toronto this time as well, maybe just before I return. Well, long and behold, by the time I want to return, every gas station has prices at around 81. (And by the way, I have never seen gas prices to be that uniform in Toronto...) Well, almost every station, as I did pass one that has 70.5, but it was on the wrong side of the road, and I passed it. So anyway, when I came back to Waterloo to see things are at around 75.9, I filled it up, thinking that prices will go up soon...and it will...I think...

Apparently I am also mysterious...

I need to see the grace of God.

I've typed up 4 of the 12 parts now.

My God is mysterious.

There is an art and science in creating games. Not all games work well (and some are just bad), but in order to create a good game, a lot of serious thoughts and run-throughs are needed. I guess a lot of people really don't appreciate how hard it is to make a good game.

I am just awfully awfully depressed over just stupid stupid things.

Very glad to have MuTao back.

9 hours, 4 cities, 1 new bad boy, 285 kilometres = this trip to Toronto. I like these trips, actually. Trying to get away from life's difficult times, and come back in even more difficult times. On a side note, despite all the fun time we had, I'm even more depressed now. Weird.

Congratulations, car, for hitting the sort-of mega-gigantic monumentally-significant 20K! You hit it on Highway 8 in Kitchener on the way back to Waterloo, just about a couple of kilometres before the Fairway exit. Congratulations, once again, on the success from your hard work. It has been a whirlwind kind of a ride. I know I missed your 16K and 18K celebrations, but we'll work on that later...

Now that the car is maintained, I feel like the car is doing a lot better. Or it's just a psychological boost. I don't know.

Yup, I am also hooked on The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Blame Francis.

6 months left in the year. Trying to resurrect some of the old plans that have been abandoned, like restarting this "reader's digest" thing and the "scheduling" thing. Don't know how long that will last, of course... One thing's a surprise: this blog has lasted close to a year now.

So I was watching Jeopardy with Roger today. This would be the first time that I've watched Jeopardy with someone in a long long time. So anyway, mostly he's amazed at the current 22-day winner. But also, I think he was slightly shocked when I was able to correctly identify the nickname of James "Bonecrusher" Smith...

Happy Canada Day! Well, it's over, but that's ok. I spent most of the day sleeping... The evening was more exciting, though, with the coming of Roger and then his family. The 18-minute fireworks viewed from the "other" side of the lake were fantastic, and I took one too many pictures for that (I think around 60 for the day). Due to traffic, the family stayed at my place until 11.5. Anyway, not too bad of a day, I guess. Now I need to do some more work...

I really don't feel like picking up the phone these days...

Yet another big trip for today. Should be exciting, if we find things to do in Toronto...