A freak-out day as I tried desperately to finish (or start and finish) the NSERC application. After much head scratching, jumping up and down, banging my brains out, and making weird noises, the first draft was finally done at around 1:15PM. Sent it to supervisor, asked for a feedback soon, and got it at around 3. I haven't ate anything since the very light breakfast at 7AM at that point, so I was pretty much out of touch with this world. This is just too brutal. Maybe I'm just making it too difficult for myself, but it is certainly not something that I would like to do again. Anyway, finally got it done now, and I have wasted too much time on it already. Meanwhile, I have a giant headache, my heart is not functioning properly, and I have problems with my back.

In today's convex opt class, I heard this ominous phrase: Taylor expansion. Wow...haven't heard that in 5 years. In other news, I really suck at the first assignment. I don't know how to do the questions at all.

Really worried about the game that I'm supposed to do on Friday. I don't really want to start programming and stuff after class is over at 2:30, but that may be what I end up doing...yikes.

I smell trouble as I decided to sleep instead of work on my nserc application last night. Now I'm still the same as where I started. Really need to get this done soon, like in a few hours. Really should continue working on it instead of, like, writing this post.

Had a dream where I was searching for a job. Hmm...

In terms of sickness, I'm feeling a lot better, though still not fully recovered. In terms of other things, no.

This NSERC application thing is once again, driving me crazy. A few email exchanges with the supervisor don't help, either. I don't know, it's such a trivial thing, and yet my head explodes when I think about it.

Francis is here, watching television. Not sure how Alan feels about that. I certainly feel like I'm wasting time, but at least I got some company.

I had two dreams about the coming leading of the games on Friday. One has caught me totally unprepared and became a disaster, the second one has a huge number of people outdoors, all laughing at my cold jokes. I don't know, neither of them sound good.

I just feel like I don't have the ability to say the right thing, let alone at the right time. Especially with Alan, I mean, there are things that I felt I shouldn't have said after I said them. We're going to be living together for at least a year, hope he doesn't find me to be a weirdo or something.

Looking at the remaining work ahead, I'm just very very afraid. Not to mention being sick and all.

So dad bought the lens. I requested a choice of two possible lenses, and ask him to ask around and decide. The lens he bought costs about $280, which is a pretty good deal considering that I would have bought it here for $400 plus tax. The lens he didn't buy, he said, would cost around $4,400....wow, I didn't know it would be that expensive. Meanwhile, he bought an EOS 300D (although I really couldn't find it on Canon's website) for $1,200. He said he wants one, but would give it to me if I want it. Now I have to wonder if I need two cameras...

There was a bit of a scare today when I discovered that my third choice for the second reference, Bertrand Guenin, is also away. That makes 3 primary candidates all away from school. How coincidental is that? In any case, I emailed Bruce, and he replied saying he can do it, so things are fine now. Just need to concentrate on writing the application.

Joseph called me over while I got out of DWE today. It took a long long long time to realize who he is, and by that time we have already talked about a lot of things. Really strange how he still remembers me, and I still don't. Ingrid came into the conversation for a while, and after we say she was lazy for not taking a simple music course, she left.

Saw Berkant today, and I mentioned that I am sick. He said he thought I was always sick. Well, I was sick for the first two months of last semester, so he saw that. For the rest of the semester, I pretty much stayed out of the office, so he didn't see that. And now he sees that I'm sick. So no wonder I'm always sick.

Decided to call the day off, even though I did almost nothing today. Still feel pretty sleepy, that's for sure. Still sick as well. Looks like the next three days are going to be...well...a huge test for keeping my sanity, even though I'm not sure if it is still with me.

Pastor mentions that our body starts to deteriorate at the age of 25. Yikes. That sounds so scary.

This weekend wasn't too bad, I guess. Not too lonely this time around. Hope it stays that way...although I highly doubt it.

Received a phone call from mom in the answering machine saying that dad bought (in addition to the unknown lense) a digital SLR camera. Hmm...my mind is going, are they crazy? Hmm...

The sickness is a bit better now, but still not too comfortable. Planning to sleep some more, even though I've already slept quite a lot. The effect of drinking much water is that I go to the washroom quite often.

Still a ton of things to do today, just hope that I don't get distracted by the newly acquired puzzle books too much.

The sickness got pretty bad. Now I have runny and stuffy nose (yeah, sort of contradictory), and a giant headache. That is just going to ruin my plans, eh? Not that I had any intention to follow the plans to begin with...

Went skating. Still pretty frustrating, so I don't know why I went there. Got a bonus by not getting a parking ticket, even though cars surrounding me got one of those. Then off to a shopping frenzy which involved 4 stores and 1 bank. Went to Mikey's for an expensive dinner, and then off to fellowship, which was apparently sort of a disaster, but close to 30 people came, so yeah, not too bad. Came home early, again.

I don't think people take me seriously, which is probably because I don't present myself seriously. I do have serious problems, though.

I got sick last night. Really uncomfortable. Had to turn off air conditioning, but turned on the fan to get air circulation. Hope this sickness doesn't last long (hopefully way shorter than last time...which lasted 2 months).

Of course I'm not only physically sick...

Ah, the dreaded weekend is here. I really don't like weekends.

So Bruce Richter is out of the country, and Steve Furino is on sabbatical. And I'm officially screwed for that second reference. I guess I could consider Bertrand Guenin, but I rarely talk to him, and certainly he doesn't know me as well as the other two. So I don't know.

Probably going to avoid noodles for meals in addition to chicken wings.

Oh yeah, I forgot to do the cable thing. Ah well. And Roger's still pushing for a PS2. Sigh...I think I've given up on that one already. But don't say that to Roger. Keep his hopes up, and then crush them in the end. Don't know why I want to do that.

I think I may have screwed up on the NSERC application already...one professor that I'm looking forward to getting a reference from may have been gone already. So, not sure what to do.

We tripled the usual crowd for the wings last night. I don't know, I really feel like I should stop eating them since they just make me sick afterwards. And I don't really like a crowd.

So much work ahead that I'm already feeling scared. NSERC application, convex opt homework, research paper, Oct 1 game night...yikes. I think I'm going to take a quality break after Oct 1.

Definitely felt pretty sick in school today. Just a sense of tiredness and dizzyness while in class. I slept well, so that wasn't a factor. I'm guessing that it's probably fatigue and a lack of water. I did buy 2 cookies and 1 litre of bottled water (which costs twice as much as gas) and finished half of each in 5 minutes in between classes. I don't really know how to describe this sense...it's a bit impatience with the class and just want to get out or something like that. Anyway, that's over with, I guess.

Some minor issue with the parking and stuff. Yesterday afternoon, I got a ticket saying that I should go to the office to get a new parking pass. Ok, fine, I went there and nobody was there. I tried again this morning, and nobody's there, either. So I went to school. When I came back, I got the pass, and went to put it in the car. Long and behold, there's another ticket, this time stating a $15 fine. So I took the parking ticket back to the office, and they decided to void it, end of story. I guess that's just another minor irritation for the day.

Supervisor meeting tomorrow, and I have not much of a clue what to say. There's nserc to deal with as well, which I have not much of a clue what to say. Mom's coming October 12-14, and I have not much of a clue what to say. Alan rearranged his room, and that was good; at least he got the space to do it and I don't. I still can't stop thinking about that excellent Race finale yesterday; it was that good. This paragraph is messed up.

Ok, I think I really need to get seriously serious about school work and stuff.

Ok, I think I really need to get seriously serious about God.

Or maybe I'll just go away.

That was just an excellent excellent Amazing Race finale. Finally, after 5 seasons, there is actually a very satisfying ending. Who knew? As always, I drained whatever's left of my energy and got really tired after it's all done. I even played Scrabble during commercials to keep me occupied (and I got word ideas from the race, like bike and ride, which later turned into stride). In any case, best season ever. And congratulations on the second consecutive year of winning an Emmy! (I did watch quite a bit of the Emmy. The part where they brought "real people" to present the outstanding competition program was just too funny.)

I don't know, back to a state of serious depression. I guess the pressure's on so early in the semester with the course, research, and nserc thingies. The bad old desires came up pretty strongly again. I even brought the gloves to Roger's place, though I don't really know why I did that. Sigh...I feel stupid.

Walked to McD's for dinner tonight. Nothing interesting. Had to haul a 25.5kg box from the ground up to Roger's place. That was really tough. I'm sure MuTao would have been able to do that one-handed, but I was just exhausted after that. I brought Scrabble back to my place, since I don't think Roger's using it. I don't think I could use it here, either, but at least I bought that thing, so it should stay with me, right? I don't know.

A boring post

Potpourri for today: Had internet trouble which began with unstable connection at around 8, and then no connection until about 6PM. According to posters, the reason is due to construction. Hmm...too much digging, I guess. Finally saw Berkant, and he's wondering if he wants to continue on. The comprehensive re-exam looming in November is what concerned him, apparently. The office is now complete, and I TA 4 of them. Aidan came in and had a nice chat. He's teaching this term, so that's why he had this nice wardrobe on him. Then there was class, where Francis' cellphone made a pretty "beautiful" interruption of the class. A bit embarrassed, being sitting beside him. Bobby called, and we went to find him, and found May as a bonus. Then the tight lunch time, I went for a fish burger, and Francis went for a poutine (but if his mom asked, he went for salad). I discovered that supervisor meeting is now moved to Thursday, woohoo! Well, that's good for this week, but not the following weeks, I guess. Lunch time was short as I needed to make it to the next class, and indeed I did, and did not understand the class at all. Worst of all, there's an assignment coming up. Went home directly after class, and went to sleep. The buzzer (and several phone calls to Alan's phone, most likely regarding KW Glass) woke me up. Francis came to watch television. Woop dee do... We watched some junk including MXC, which is becoming his favourite. Meanwhile, I'm still depressed, and MuTao's bike was stolen, and once again I reinforced my belief that I'm just the world's worst comforter. Nothing else happened except...

I HAVE CLEAN CLOTHES!!! I went to the laundry room and discovered that people are using it, so why not I? And there, I finally have clean used clothes!

Alan already has a presentation to do tomorrow, so he's busy preparing that while I go on doing nothing. Yikes.

Finally got the SP2 thingie installed. Needed to reinstall XP with new key in order to do that (thanks Jon!). Good thing I the key worked for Chinese XP, or else I'll be forced to reinstall every program... Took a while, though.

Once again, I'm faced with a paper that is almost unreadable. Supervisor meeting tomorrow. Yikes. And then there's catching up with the convex opt course, and the nserc thing...so stressful...so early in the semester.

Alan was back at around 3AM last night. How did I know? I just happen to be awake then. Who knew? Anyway, I sort of slipped out of the room when he was in the washroom. Sort of bad, I guess, but he was in the washroom for quite a while...

I guess I expected too much when I peeked out of my cocoon...now crawling back in, and planning to stay there.

At least May came to her senses and decided that serving God is more important than Paul. (Boy, I sounded quite harsh there, didn't I?)

Roger forgot to do the powerpoint slides, and he was already on his way to Buffalo. So there was this emergency where I get Mama Yen to read me the lyrics starting at around 8:15. By the end of it, I arrived at church at around 8:40, they already started, we missed all but one of the lyrics typed. And skipped the opening verse. Oh well. Now we try to kill Roger.

What can I say? An evening filled with loneliness, anger, depression, frustration. All during a gospel meeting. Sigh... That's why I came home early, without notice. Of course nobody noticed until I was home. Of course.

Apparently the key that I gave to May (through Francis) back in the days (like, two weeks ago?) wasn't the church key. Instead, it was my room's key...and we found out just today. I guess I don't use my room's key and she doesn't use the church's key until recently. So no wonder I couldn't get the back door of the residence opened..........ah, it's all clear now.

For the rest of the weekend, lock myself in the room as much as possible, and do the following: type up notes, read papers, and do nserc thing.

Here I am, all alone here for a Saturday. Stayed in this suite all day. Nobody to talk to. Doing nothing important. Starting to get used to this, which is pretty sad. Truth is, I could have picked up the phone and started calling people, but I would have nothing to say.

During last night's concert, someone was talking about depression and how she got over it. I think that made me more depressed, and I don't know why exactly. I felt nothing from yesterday's concert. Made me wonder if I'm really that cold-hearted.

Can I complain about having been manipulated to go to the church meeting just so that May can go and see Paul for one extra hour? Sigh...

9 hours, 3 cities (we did not even stop at Toronto proper), 4 people, 15 take-home drinks, 37 dumpling-type things for dinner, 1 loud concert, 1 news of a broken relationship, 1 still-hardened heart, 2 bubble tea, 1 plate of snow, 75.4 gas (76.5 Waterloo, not much difference), ?? kilometres. Well, only Roger and his family came along in my car. It wasn't too dull as Roger now makes remarks that are quite MuTao-esque, i.e. pushing the limits of his life insurance. It's pretty funny that all the places we went were in that little square piece of land around MetroSquare, driving back and forth. As always, I got pretty sleepy on the way back.

It's too bad that my dreams are...well...just dreams.

I ate two bowls of salad for lunch yesterday, and ever since then, my body kept releasing gas into the atmosphere...if you know what I mean. Looks like I haven't had a healthy meal in a while.

Wrote some more "light riddles" yesterday, and got MuTao to try them out. Looks like they're not too bad, and I'll probably delete some of them. Still think that they might be too hard, but then again whatever Biblical things I do, people always complain that they're too hard, so I don't know. Still not sure if Francis will go through with the comedy-duo clue....it would be pretty funny, I think.

Alan went back to Toronto yesterday afternoon for the weekend. Lucky he doesn't have any Friday classes. I'm heading to Toronto today as well, but it's only for half a day, and I still don't know why I'm going. Without Francis, it would be a pretty dull trip, I think. We'll see. This will be the first long trip in a long while (well, 12 days to be exact).

Still not sure if having the internet at home is beneficial or detrimental to my life.

I don't know. Why am I so tormented by something as trivial as cable tv? The story goes, the cable got fuzzy, and I tried to call Roger's to get it fixed somehow. I called their technical support number, and they have this voice-activation thingie which is incredibly annoying. That's in addition to the system not being able to recognize my voice. So then I got Alan to try it, and he got through, but for some reason they kept transfering him to a different system, so then he gave up. The system asks for a phone number, but when I put in my phone number, it says such account doesn't exist. So I went and ask the St. Paul's office to see what should I do there, and they just say that it's none of their business. Ok...you provided the service for us, and now it's our trouble? Anyway, just a frustrating thing. I won't try again until next week.

I finally got proper insurance slip.

Wings last night. I think all three of us are quite tired of it already (or maybe it's just me). I don't know, I don't really want to go again in the near future, but I guess Roger's still interested.

Frustrating morning...

The SP2 for WinXP won't install, for obvious reasons. But I don't really want to risk my harddrive and install an English XP (which is supposed to be a "legitimate copy").

Rogers sucks...man, they have this so-called "speech-enabled" system for their tech support number, and they don't recognize my voice! Sigh...

Trying to type up the notes I took in convex opt, and I don't understand some of it... Meanwhile, mom will be here in October, don't know what the plan will be.

God is pretty funny, isn't he? Just when I said that having internet at home is a bit far fetched, I now got internet at home. Ok, so I guess now I'll say that having the cable fixed is a bit far fetched..........

Now trying to clean up my harddrive for this SP2 thingie. Hmm...20GB sounds so small.............

The elevator here is pretty interesting. According to a construction worker here, if we go to floors 1, 3 and 5, we need to close the door manually for that last 1cm. Enough said.

I guess until I got internet at home (which sounds so far fetched), my icq will be pretty unstable... For some odd reason, Netscape doesn't open on the terminal, so I had to resort to Mozilla, which is quite unstable. Meanwhile, the wallpaper wouldn't open either...

Finished second day of classes today. Polyhedral stuffs are not too exciting. The convex opt had just too many definitions, but still manageable so far. Not bad.

Ok, so I'm afraid to talk to all people. Oh well.

Wow, that was a super intense episode of The Amazing Race. Yikes. And just when I thought I would have the best final 3 teams ever, bam! They throw in this unusual twist... Finale is next week...

I'm really really running out of clothes. Today I had to (well, not really "had to" but I don't want to rip open a new shirt) wear this incredibly ugly golf shirt. Oh well, I guess the purpose of wearing clothes isn't to let other people see what's on them, but still, it's pretty ugly.

Actually, I'm not even sure if I want to go to Toronto on Friday.

Met a few more of the new students today. There are a few Americans,
which is quite unusual, I guess. And there were a few slices of pizza for
the late lunch. Nothing interesting.

I had a headache after the supervisor meeting (which went well, I think).
So I didn't call the cable, I didn't do the shopping, and I did nothing.
Oh well. Still afraid to call cable, though.

According to my supervisor, I have a good eye for these mistakes in
papers... I think I found 3 so far. Yikes.

Here I am, late in the office, just came from a not-too-good dinner from Mikey's, now trying to do things for tomorrow's supervisor meeting. And surprise, surprise, there's another person in the office as well...looks like this isn't going to be such a private office.

I guess now that MuTao's gone, I can't just call up on someone and say, hey, want to go out for dinner? That's too bad. I guess people either have their family here, too cheap to go out for dinner, or just don't want me to pay for their dinner.

Things for tomorrow: supervisor meeting, call cable people, grocery shopping, other shopping, meet the new grad students party, review today's lecture, amazing race.

Left home early this morning to try and accomplish two things: report the cable problem, and get the keys to the new office and move in. Well, neither were successful, unfortunately, leading to a pretty-much-wasted morning. I went to the office to report the cable problem, only to be told that I should call Rogers directly...sigh...I hate calling strangers. As for the keys, well, the secretary wasn't in her office in the morning, so there goes that plan. So, bad start to the day, which went worse as the day rolled along, so much so that I just wanted to quit this whole thing. During the same morning, I realize that the new office will be a 6-person office, not a 3-person one as I have expected, and there are already people in there. And Berkant was nowhere to be found. The first class of the semester wasn't too bad, except for the fact that I probably created some misunderstanding with Francis. The second class was not as bad as I expected, but still pretty bad. I need to check again whether or not that class is required... I have just now moved into this new office, 3 trips in all, with really strained muscles (who knew that books and paper can be that heavy?). I'm all alone in this office, which is pretty nice, actually. I kind of enjoy this right now. Just hope that the new officemates are not that bad.

As an aside, I met the new officemate for the old office, Nick, this morning. He said that he would try to remember my name. And then in the afternoon after I have moved, I have to say goodbye already. That was a pretty short meeting... In any case, after hearing that I have moved to DC with windows and air circulation, I think he said something along the lines of "I hate you"...hehe. He also said that the old office was like a graveyard, even though he's been in there for less than a week, I presume. I've been in this graveyard for 5 semesters, eh? Anyway, that was pretty funny, I think.

Now I'm just too hungry, with the lack of food for 9 hours and that "intense" exercise...

Doing some research today (finally), and found a flaw in yet another paper... Boy, I have to wonder how many of those results out there are actually unproven or incorrect.

The air conditioner worked marvelously. I didn't even know it was that hot outside until I stepped out of the building. Good place, good place.

Hi again, Jonathan!

So there was this going to church thing, which I find myself to be very cold about and just sat by myself. There was this coworkers meeting thing afterwards, which I find myself to be very cold about as well. One funny thing is when they started talking about having 2 groups instead of 3, claiming that with 3 groups, the number of coworkers in each is too many. And I have to correct them in saying that no matter how many groups there are, the ratio between coworkers and non-coworkers are the same! Wow...what a surprise! Anyway, they had beef noodles afterwards, and I just went home without it. I just felt that I was left out, and didn't want to eat green peppers anyway. Loneliness seems to be the theme these days... Oh well.

Start of class tomorrow. Convex optimization is going to be so brutal...

Thanks, MuTao! Happy birthday, mesister!

Yesterday's fellowship was...well...a bit awkward, I guess. Only one new person showed up in this "welcome the new people" event thingie. Anyway, I took photographs in order to be excused out of the silly games. Didn't go to refreshments afterwards to listen to Francis play piano.

I'm lonely. Nobody cares, of course. So what did I do during this night of loneliness? I wrote really cold "light puzzles"...

Drove Alan to the bus station for him to go back to Toronto for the weekend. Now I'm all alone in my suite, with cable gone bad, and still no internet. Oh well. Meanwhile, I'm really running out of clothes.

I had this surge of interest with the puzzle magazines recently. Probably because of lack of internet at home. In any case, I had an idea for a new board game: Scrabble 3D! Just wish that can be done...

I'm supposed to do some more research, but I just couldn't get myself to do it...

Starting to see alarming signs that I'm moving away from God pretty quickly...not good.

Going to move office real soon, apparently. Moving to DC3144. Nice number. Hope for a nice room as well. I've heard there are windows.

Watched Jeopardy with Alan for two days straight. It was great, actually, since nobody else would really watch it with me (except possibly my sister, sometimes). I like this guy, so my worries are off for now.

I have this sprained neck this morning, so it was pretty hard to look toward the right. I don't know, it wasn't too bad of a sleep...

Still pretty depressed, even though I'm not exactly sure why that is. Perhaps a combination of research, friends, play (or lack thereof), and hopelessness. Or maybe it's just because I don't have internet at home. I don't know. Things don't feel right. (Or maybe now that I got this moving thing over with, I have more time to think about stuff, and thinkings like these almost always lead to no resolution, which is pretty depressing.)

Running out of "active" clothes now...wish the laundry room would open soon. Or maybe this is a chance for me to start wearing these "hidden" clothes...

Had chicken wings again last night. I ordered 12 this time. Starting to get a bit tired of the taste, actually. And it wasn't much of a social event as Roger and Francis just stare at the TV for long intervals.

Two straight days of skating. Not sure I would want to skate again, though. Seems pretty frustrating, and pretty boring. Absolutely no improvement. Anyway, got Roger to come by having Francis' mom call him to wake him up. Funny.

There must be something wrong with my computer. There's activity in the internet thing today. I see green lights flashing around the cable connecting the computer, so I turned it on to see what it does. Turns out that the computer detects a network (no longer say it's disconnected), but still no connection. And this looks extremely similar to the problem I faced back in CLT, so looks like it's going to take some communication to fix it...sigh... Meanwhile, the cable TV went fuzzy today, even though we got all the channels that we were supposed to get.

I called mom this morning, and talked very little, as usual. But for some odd reason, she suddenly decided to send me some money. Hmm...strange. Anyway, does that mean that a PS2 is on the way? Or maybe a camera lens? Or maybe neither?

I went nuts yesterday, but I don't know exactly why. I guess I just needed some human contact, and all morning and afternoon, I only talked to Francis' mom, this customer service person at Future Shop, and two people at Tim Horton's. Hmm...

That mailing list thingie is a bit difficult to figure out, and I probably used too many adjectives. Oh well, it's kind of fun anyway.

Watched Jeopardy with Alan last night. Of course both he and Ken Jennings are both software engineers...so...anyway. I don't know, I just wish that he doesn't think I'm this incredibly shy person who don't know how to talk well. He certainly talks a lot, which is good.

Busy day yesterday. Started with an early wake up time. Then supervisor meeting (which I got through with two papers that I read the night before). Then skating, on my own, because I forgot Francis' skates. Oops. 25 laps total. Then Futureshop to buy a VCR. Then pick up a memory stick that includes the orientation posters, and went home to print them out. Then sent Francis home, and I go to McD's for big mac. Then I go home to set up VCR, only to find it not working. Then made another trip to Futureshop to return the VCR and buy a new one. Then set up the VCR, and was happy with it. Met the suitemate at that time. He's pretty good, I think. Then off to Roger's for Amazing Race. Then home. Really exhausting day, overall. Almost fell asleep for many points during the day...too bad nobody cared.

I do selfishly worry too much.

Website still down. Phone still not working. Internet still not working. Francis disappeared. I continued sinning. Sigh...

Well, here I am in the office, early in the rainy morning. The suitemate has moved in last night, but I didn't see him as I put myself in my room because I was afraid of the first meeting. He had a larger room, though. There was this huge dinner at East Side Marios for mama Yen's birthday. I got too full, but their chicken is just excellent. I should drink less pop, though. Had a meltdown yesterday afternoon. Don't know why. Probably because of the overwhelming pressure. And school hasn't even started yet... Got the TV yesterday morning. Too bad channels 29 and up are not there, even though they are supposed to be there. Kind of ruined it a bit.

(Sunday) 14 hours, 4 cities, a bit of pre-trip blood, 2 cars, 15+ boxes/luggages/garbage bags/bicycle, 3 visits to gas stations, 81.4 Waterloo, 77.8 Hamilton, 71.0 London, 1 rest stop, 1 new residence, 5 chicken legs, 354.9 kilometres. So we went to Hamilton to get MuTao's stuffs to the car and then to London and unload the stuffs to his new place which has doors that open with cards. It was tiring, obviously. Still wish Francis would have come so that I wasn't so bored in driving, even though there's no room for him. Anyway. As an aside, the car hit 27K in Cambridge on the way back on 401.

You know, being cut off from the outside world may not be such a bad idea..........

This paper is just utterly ununderstandable. The supervisor meeting is going to be disasterous.

Had my first meal at the new place. Not bad. Played Trivial Pursuit on my own. Pretty bad.

Reasons why I had such good sleep recently: Excellent bed, air conditioning, no phone calls.

Got a parking ticket today. My first ever. Not really exciting. Although considering that I've parked illegally for a few months, this is not too bad of a deal.

Is being out of reach of the world such a big deal? Couldn't I be selfish and bring a friend along so that I don't bore myself to death on a long drive? Does God care if you show up at church in plain clothes? Could beggers really be choosers? Is it possible to be bothered by many stuffs and yet be bored at the same time? How come my emotions dropped so much after a short phone call? Does anyone really care about me?

My tolerance for whining is getting thinner and thinner.

I unpacked pretty much everything now. Next thing is to clean up this place when the construction is done...

Part of Columbia was open, which is nice. Not sure what the point of expanding into two lanes is, though, when there are people who park in one of them.

Ah, eating McD's on my own...so strange. Finally back to office to discover a paper in my mailbox. Guess that's something to read for the weekend... Wish there is an entrance to the residence on the first floor...

Had wings last night, which was a bit torturous for my respiratory system, which was made worse by the long wait for the wings. But other than that, it's fine. Great to have 3 people again. Not sure if Francis' mom will let him out this late in the day again, though...

Speaking of my respiratory system, staying in this new place is a bit of a torture for it as well, with all that new paint and that "new apartment" smell. Still no phone and no internet, and they just posted a sign that says we might not have them until the end of next week...sigh. But the sign does claim that cable TV is on, so we'll be testing that soon. The bed is nice, except that the bed frame has springs joining opposite sides, so when I sleep, it makes some noises, and slumps in the middle. So if I want to turn to the side, I would feel like I was climbing. I unpacked most of the stuffs except for the kitchen stuffs, so that's sort of a relief. Anyway, this place still looks promising, so yeah.

On the next episode of my weekend: More moving! More shopping! More traveling! More researching! More Scrabbling! More fast fooding! More head scratching!

Done moving, though they haven't done constructing... It's barely livable right now, I guess. No phone, no internet, dirty floor, smell of paint. But at least the prospect of it is pretty nice. Got a note from the suitemate. Didn't see him, but he will return later this week, according to the note. In any case, I feel like my arms are going to break off real soon...thanks, Francis, for letting me carry all the heavy stuff.

Went to Toronto yesterday to send off Ginger and get Ed back. Roger's first time driving on the 401, and that went, well, surprisingly fast. He almost ran a red light, though, and that's when I woke up...sort of.

Played the violent edition of Scrabble before we were off to Toronto. We played the real version this time... Scores: Francis 166, Roger 140, Me 143. So Francis won, finally. Highest scoring word: Fight (with double letter score on F, a blank on i, and a double word score). Longest word: Fighter. Word that Francis wish he hadn't rejected: Goly (which isn't a word after all...).