I like this heavy snowfall warning. Looks to be the largest dump of snow this season. Too bad it interferes with the premier of Amazing Race tomorrow...

Sort of started marking. It was really tough to be motivated to start working, with so many distractions around me.

End of February already, eh? It went by so quickly...start of months whose names are really short tomorrow...

I find that I have such a cold heart...

Things that happened yesterday: Skating, Swiss Chalet, MYST, sleepy fellowship, hyperactive post-fellowship, return of Keane, small laix2, and a bit of RIVEN. Things that happened today: Tony's awesome, joint Sunday service where (not one but) two balloons popped, pool where I won 2 out of 6 games, Jimmy Neutron, sleep, and TV. Guess what's missing...academic work, of course.

I think I mentioned about my addiction before...and it's not going away, which scares me.

Finished MYST yesterday. It's such an easy game (when I play with the walkthroughs in my hand). I did try to solve the Channelwood Age on my own, had some progress, but eventually gave up and looked at the walkthrough to see that there's a switch that I missed among all the suspending huts... Really strange ending, though. But anyway, I'm onto RIVEN now. Much better graphics so far, though I still don't know what's going on there. I'm trying not to use walkthroughs for this game...yeah, like that's going to happen...

On Mythbusters today, they tried to solve the myth that you can waterski on an 8-man rowing boat. Now that sounds impossible, but they managed to do it, which is so surprising (and funny). On CNN, there was a documentary on Antarctica, and I still really want to go there. And I think The Amazing Race can totally go there...

Wasted a reading break and a weekend...sigh...need to start marking...

Wow...pretty intense Jeopardy there... Legendary Leszek lost due to a clue about Oklahoma!... Yikes.

Went to the Tutte seminar today, for the first time in ages. And on a reading break! Wheeeeeeeee!

Ok, I should get back to marking before my mind goes insane over things like MYST (which I played about 70% now), the wait for the order to arrive, and the general sense of loneliness.

So now I see that MYST is just a giant puzzle without instructions. I guess I sort of like these kind of things (although I like puzzles with instructions better)...good thing I didn't spend too much time solving it...I just used the walkthroughs.

Sort of picked an approx alg project. Felt like I picked it out randomly from a set of NP-complete problems, though...so not sure what's going to happen there.

Really looking forward to the arrival of my big purchase yesterday, now with a "lower total" as I've just been told...

I'm abandoning a cellphone and a palm in order to get something else that I've always wanted. Still not sure if that justifies the large expenditure, but oh well.

I played a bit more of MYST now. It's really complicated. And I couldn't do anything without the help of a walkthrough... Guess I'm a newbie at this kind of thing. Here's the thing: I would see three buttons and push one of them. It looks like nothing happens, so I push another button. Again, nothing happens, so I push the third button. Well, nothing happens again, so then I'm stuck. After seeing the walkthrough, I found out that I'm supposed to push the button, go somewhere else to see that something does indeed happen, and then do something. So yeah, not good at this stuff.

I simply couldn't figure out a good topic for approx alg project. Meanwhile, I got the assignments for marking, but the stack looks really intimidating...especially when a simple 3-line proof went 3-5 pages...

Last day with the cell phone. Not sure I'm going to miss it, but for sure I use it very little. And actually, I still don't remember its number... I did have a look at some of the plans out there, and find Fido's $20 for 200 minutes is not too bad...then again, I probably won't go for it. I maintain my position that I don't like cellphones.

I'm supposed to do a search for approx alg project today, but..........

Marking starts tomorrow.

Midterm yesterday. There were 6 questions, I was supposed to do 4, and I solved 1. Really, I didn't know it would be worse than convex opt...

Had the first supervisor meeting yesterday in ages. Wasn't too bad.

It's really too bad that Kermin Fleming lost on Jeopardy two days ago...on a final jeopardy that I knew the answer to (It's the more commonly used term for the practice of Chinese geomancy)... But it's good that Michael Dupee won yesterday's game (I also knew the answer to this final jeopardy: "the two island nations that are official members of the G-8 (Group of Eight)"). They are two of my favourites. Contestants, that is, not final jeopardy clues.

It's not advisable to study two months worth of material in one night. Of course it is not advisable to do anything that is not advisable...

I find myself in a discouraging trend of disliking people more and more...

I can't go out for lunch anymore.

Well, what do you know, MYST does indeed work on my computer. Just had to turn off all the programs, like what the instructions said... So far, no idea what's in it. I saw a few books with lots of words, but I don't have time to read it, so maybe next time.

Quite frustrating in reading one of the two papers that I'm supposed to read. Very confusing. Meanwhile, there's a midterm on Tuesday. And I haven't started studying. Of course.

Winter storm warning right now, and it does look pretty harsh outside. Good thing I didn't drive this afternoon and evening...

There was a special episode of Street Smarts last Friday. It was called "50 States Smarts," and for the entire show, the only question they ask to the street sillies is "how many states are in the United States?" Well, most of them got it wrong. And they're Americans...

I was grocery shopping today, and saw a price tag that made me laugh for a bit. It's for a dozen iced tea, and original price is $5.99. They put on a plastic cover that crosses out this price, and the "special" price below it says $5.99. Wow...so special...

I don't like my indecisiveness and supershyness, which I'll have to live with for a lifetime.

Too bad the borrowed MYST didn't work...then again, that CD was designed for Win95...

Trying to answer a phone while driving 120 on 401 isn't easy.

There's this missionary from Thailand tonight. I helped out on the computer and sound stuff...good thing I arrived from Toronto 5 minutes before it's scheduled to start...

33 hours, 3 cities, 4 primary guys, many others, 2 hours of bowling, 2 hours of Settlers, too many hours of walking around the malls, 282.8 kilometres. Overnighting in Toronto isn't too bad, just not something I would do very often. Also, Francis and I would make terrible Amazing Racers, which is why we would definitely be picked for the show... By the way, my entire body hurts...

Looks like spam in my gmail account is going to be a common occurrence now. I have wondered before how much time it would take between publishing my gmail account to getting regular spam. Looks like it took 8 months. Time to get myself a new gmail account, eh?

Bowling scores for me this time: 111 in the first round, and 87 for the second round. Total of 2 strikes and 5 spares. Scores for other people... Francis: 80, 82. Hansel: 73, 59. Eugene 65, 65.

I had an all-nighter this morning. Poset homework. Too much to type. And I still miss one question. 3 hours of sleep before + 6 hours of work (ended at 6AM) + 3 hours of sleep after. I guess that's not too bad...it's just not something I want to go through too many times, that's all.

My eyes are getting bad again. Probably sat in front of the TV and computer too long.

Just when I wanted to spend some money for myself..........

So the snowfall warning didn't really materialize, as there was not a lot of snow. It still made for a very beautiful scene this morning, which, unfortunately, I didn't have the strength to take pictures of...again... It's one of those "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" moments. Maybe next time.

What's with Bob Harris (my favourite contestant ever) being on Jeopardy yesterday and a phone-a-friend on Millionaire today? Still funny as ever.

Trying desperately to read this paper for the poset project check-up thing tomorrow. This paper is wonderfully hard to read, unfortunately.

Lots and lots of rain yesterday and today, which is kind of surprising. Really, rain in February...amazing. The snow is melting fast, and it is also coming very fast, as there is a heavy snowfall warning for tonight! Strange weather.

Still racing to get the poset homework done. One good thing is that there is no distraction from the Race tonight, so I'll have a lot more time to get it done. Then again, I'll probably still work until 4AM.

Well, I used to attach myself to a few people, and that ended up hurting me quite a lot. Now I start to distance myself from (quite frankly) everybody, and that still hurts. So I don't know what to do now. Maybe I think too much, which is most likely true.

Well, happy Valentine's Day, whatever that means.

It was sort of fun to slip and slide to school, this time slipping and sliding on foot. Ah, the good old freezing rain.

Making gradual progress in the poset homework. Still far from being done, though, and I'm threatening to quit again...just like a lot of people on The Amazing Race...

More pool today. 7 games, and I won 1, by accident.

Sorry, Tony!

Finally the Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit are being used again. Unfortunately, I wasn't part of it...

I wasted the day to skating, pool, table soccer, Conestoga, Future Shop, and two visits to McD's. Interesting (or scary) things: Three guys, three hours of shopping, and all we got was a toothpaste. That's just sad. Also, Francis and James played table tennis, and out of 10 rounds, Francis won 1. All three of us played table soccer, and out of 4 rounds, I won 0. With the table soccer, James and I were on one team, Francis the other, and Francis won. Ok, so I suck. Meanwhile, tried the McD's toasted sandwich thingie. I tried the New York Reuben, and it's actually pretty good, surprisingly enough. Francis' buffalo chicken apparently wasn't so good. But still, I think I prefer Quizno's...

My legs are really sore.

So Yiwen asked me why I'm so quiet. Hmm...I don't know.

Alan has his girlfriend here right now. From the little that I saw and heard, they are such a cute couple...hehehe.

Boy, I really suck at the poset homework. Good thing its due date is extended...

And of course the coworkers meeting has to be scheduled when I have something else on the calendar.

It's good to have fresh snow since Wednesday. Sign of normality. Probably won't last long, though.

$1600 Jeopardy clue in the category of American Heritage Dictionary Preferred Plural Form: Vertex. (Sadly, even some of the C&O students don't know the correct answer...)

Aidan (in a high voice and a British accent): "You're doing posets?! It's not even 10:30!" (Funniest thing I've heard in a while...then again, I don't get out much.)

So I was doing research for the poset course project, and I came across a paper which proves something that I was trying to prove for a few months now. That was kind of disappointing to say the least... It's really frustrating, actually.

There's this CNY dinner at mama yen's house. It was ok. I just felt like being cold to other people today, not knowing exactly why.

Today, I finally handed in an assignment that I typed up. I still think typing is better than writing, mostly because I would always want to add new things here and there, which would be impossible for hand-writing unless I do a draft (which I never do...). Then again, my hand sort of hurts when I write a lot, so that's probably a good reason to type.

It's a bit frustrating that I needed to upgrade my gallery for security fixes one day after I upgraded my gallery for security fixes. And I needed to do the upgrade for a second gallery as well...phew...that was tedious.

What is it with the 50 invites that I get to give out for gmail? It's like they're begging me to sell them or get some new accounts for my own...or get some new friends...

It's slightly funny when we briefly flip through the IP assignments that the students handed in, and one has 37 pages. But only slightly funny, if you know what I mean.

It's been pretty warm recently, going up to around 6 degrees. The snow is melting, the rain is falling, and I'm kind of sad about that... The suite's thermometer even went up to 76 degrees F, which in warmer times would have triggered the air conditioner to go off.

This morning I suddenly had this surge of interest in doing more work, but it was lost when I got to school and felt very tired...sigh...that's too bad.

Yesterday (Sunday) evening, I watched television for 6 hours straight. That's because they have Mythbusters marathon on Discovery. That show rocks. They make sure that something blows up in each and every episode, and these guys are just too funny even when they don't blow things up. Some lines from the show...

"I reject the reality and substitute my own."
"Adam, the police officer says you need to drink more."
"You know you've made it when you own a plane. You know you've made it as mythbusters if you get to blow up a plane!"

Two sort-of free meals today. The first is surprisingly enjoyable. Good to talk to these people. The second is just...well...not quite. Very disappointed with the transportation arrangements (or the lack thereof). Otherwise ok.

I must be really bad with the timing these days. First the miscalculation on Wednesday, and today I totally forgot about the fact that the fellowship starts an hour early. I slept until 5:30, thinking that I could wake up, cook, and then go with plenty of time. Well, it's supposed to start at 6, so I abandoned the cooking and brought some frozen chicken wings and stormed out of there. I don't know...maybe I am indeed getting really really old.

Roger: Put God before Daisy please. It's driving me nuts (with emphasis on the word driving for today).

I did a bit of exercise tonight (I know! It's such a surprise!). Really tired, though...

Looks like I'll be abandoned by many friends in tomorrow's fellowship...sigh...

I look at what's coming up ahead in the schedule, and it scares me...a lot...

Wednesday 9th: Approx alg assignment due.
Wednesday 9th: Integer programming assignment marking starts.
Monday 14th: Poset assignment due.
Thursday 17th: Poset project check-up with prof.
Friday 18th: Supervisor returns.
Tuesday 22nd: Poset midterm.
Wednesday 23rd: Approx alg project proposal due.

This morning, there was a big struggle in resisting temptation. And I failed. Sigh...

The search for solutions in approx alg assignment is getting a bit aggravating. And now a new poset assignment has been posted, and that doesn't look good, either.

Two sort-of free meals tomorrow. Wee!

Something I left out of the email I sent out to MYF regarding the Chinese New Year dinner this Saturday: "Now I know you might be thinking (in the voice of King Herald in Shrek 2), 'A dinner for Chinese New Year...how original!'..." I guess that wouldn't go well with the people, so yeah, that was dropped.

The new mat that I bought which I placed just inside the door can serve well for an Amazing Race bathmat...hmm...

A new TV show that I'm hooked on: Mythbusters. These guys are great.

For some odd reason, I thought Chinese New Year is today. That's one wasted trip to the Yen's house...though it would probably give a good laugh to many.

Yesterday, I inadvertantly done some exercise with some activity that I actually enjoy. I now have sore arms and legs and possibly other things. Hmm...too bad that probably won't happen too often.

Yesterday's Costco experience was pretty bad...

I have too many scary action-packed dreams recently...I don't remember most of them, but I just remember that they got my heart rate up quite a bit. Maybe it's because I've been sleeping under The Incredibles soundtrack...

I saw one of the most beautiful yet unusual scenes today. This morning when I went out, I saw that all the trees were silvery and shiny. It's the frost that formed on all the branches of the tree. Under the sunshine, it's so beautiful. It's even more amazing when I drove on Northfield and see this forest of shiny trees. Just too bad I didn't bring my camera with me...

My car hit the significant milestone of 31,415 km this morning at around the residence parking lot.