My Jeopardy Audition Experience

5 hours, 2 cities, 233.9 kilometres. I was spinning around downtown Toronto for a while, and it was difficult to decide where to park, but I ended up finding a nice location close to the Fairmont that costs only $5. Not bad. Now that we have gotten the mundane driving out of the way, let's get to the interesting stuff.

I arrived at around 1:45 to the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Once I went in, I saw no signs, but one of the hotel people approached me asking me if I'm here for Jeopardy, and I said yes. So then he pointed me to the elevators saying it's on the 18th floor. Oh...so that's how they keep away the curious onlookers...no sign, no nothing, just some nice greeter. Once I'm up on the 18th (and that was a pretty shaky elevator ride), I opened up to see 4 people waiting there. They were chatting about where they came from, and turned out one came from Waterloo as well, which is nice. The surprise is there's another fairly animated guy (I think his name is John) who flew all the way from Calgary to take this test. "I had nothing else to do, " he said. He looks to be an interesting character, actually. After a while, people started flowing in, and it got a little bit crowded. The woman from Waterloo came to me and we chatted for brief moments. After a while, another woman started asking John some questions from her book, allegedly bought on the main floor of the hotel. When he couldn't answer a question, she threw the question to all of us, and that led to a lot of questioning from her for the next while. There was this interesting energy and dynamic around this room, where you just know that people here know quite a lot of things (well...except me). Eventually the Jeopardy staffs showed up, and we were let in to the Upper Canada Room.

Once inside, we were all seated, and that loud and energetic staff member started talking to us about how great Toronto is etc. etc. basically trying to woo us, I believe. Then we all played a short practice game where another staff member gave some hints for solving Jeopardy clues. Then a short instructional video, which was pretty funny, actually. In there, they tell you that you don't need to phrase your response in the form of a question, spelling doesn't count unless it's a spelling category, and don't worry if you put the answers in the wrong slot hehehe (I remember doing that in high school...). And there's the test. It wasn't as impossible as I imagined it to be, as I'm confident that I got at least 15 of the 50 questions right, and maybe get a few other guesses. I'm not allowed to discuss anything about those questions, though, so that will have to stay with me for the rest of my life... One thing I should note is that after each clue appears, you hear people start to scribble down an answer, and that sort of made me panic a little and forced me to write something as well! Of course most of what I wrote didn't make sense... After the test is over, Cheryl from the clue crew came in and "entertained" us while we wait for our papers to be graded. That was really cool, actually, to see a person that's on TV! Too bad I didn't get a picture or an autograph or anything... Then the papers were back, and they announced that 4 people passed the test, which...of course didn't include me. Apparently you need at least 35 right answers to pass...so, still a long way to go. The interesting thing is that woman from Waterloo? She passed. I didn't get to congratulate her, unfortunately, as she was surrounded with people...but I hope to see her on the show some day. Then we stormed out of the room, caught an elevator, and went our separate ways. I recognized Andy Saunders from the Jeopardy message board and his website Andy's Thoughts, but I was too shy to talk to him...ah, sucks to be shy like me... Oh well. Overall, a very nice experience. The staffs were wonderful, and I had a great time. Maybe I'll do it again when they come here next time... As for souvenirs, I brought back a couple of Fairmont Royal York Hotel pens, and some candies.

Sigh...it sucks to have no internt at home...at least I got an alternative in the office, but that's not so convenient...

So...I finally got the guts (well, actually, I didn't have it, but Francis does...I'm just a giant skeleton who couldn't cross the road) to buy a heavy bag stand and a heavy bag. The bad news is, the stand has two left legs, and no right leg...sigh...just when I thought everything would be so much better, it comes crashing down like that...oh well, going to see if I can (i.e. Francis can) get that replaced tomorrow... I'm pessimistic, as always.

Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. My 5th movie in a theatre. Not bad. Pretty bizarre jumping storyline, as expected...

Two new albums and a silly list are the latest updates to this inconspicuous site.

It's a good thing to my friends that I'm so shy and agreeable...

I have no clue on how to do research. Well, actually, the more accurate statement would be I have no motivation to do research.

As if yesterday wasn't bad enough, it got worse today. I'm in a kind of super depressing mode here. I start to wonder whether I cared too much, or I just have trouble expressing myself that nobody really cares. Or maybe I have been this jokety type person that people don't take my problems seriously.

So I pretty much wasted the day to sleep and television... And you know what happens when I'm left alone? I start thinking and making up strange things...

You know, friendship is supposedly a good thing, but when it hurts, man it hurts real bad...

I felt like I've been throwing money away like crazy. For this month, I had things like $75 license plate renewal, $120 myf website renewal, $270 car maintenance, and now with the most recent $320 tax...this is crazy. And this isn't counting the $3500 for tuition and residence. Plus many many other things... Man, I really should start saving some money, shouldn't I? That's like the whole life savings...gone. And coming soon: car insurance.

They have these strange yet funny nicknames for the group of contestants in gameshow tournaments. Jeopardy has the "fabulous 56" and the "elite 18" while Street Smarts has the "thunderous 32" and (my favourite) the "silly 16"...

Yes, I cried.

So I'm pretty angry and sad today. Angry because I felt alone and rejected. Sad because I had to pass up on getting that thing that I've always wanted...also sad because really, nothing makes sense to me right now. I'm such a mentally fragile person, it's just unbearable...

This morning, I decided to finally pay the tuition and residence cost. That's about $3400 down the drain right there. Then I though I would walk to the post office to pick up the tax forms, so I did that. That's kind of a rare occasion because I haven't walked that far for a while now (and when I say "that far," it really means about 10 minutes...). On the way back, I bumped into Aaron's dad on the car, and he said Aaron's in St. Paul's Kiwanis Festival thingie, would I like to go see him. I said sure, so I went there. Didn't see Aaron play, though, so that's kind of a let down. After that's done, I came back home, decided to just crunch the numbers and get it over with, so I did that. And the result: I have to pay about $320 of taxes...this would be the first time that I would pay some income tax. This is mainly due to no education amount from previous years, plus that stupid Ontario health premium, the so-called "non-tax"... So anyway, I got that done, and decided to (gasp!) walk back to the post office to send it in. Well, on my way there, it started dripping. When I was on my way back, it was raining hard. So in one of a few times that I decided to do myself a favour and walk, I get soaked... Of course for the rest of the day, it was pretty sunny...oh the humour of the Lord...

How hard is it to keep a freaking secret?!

Feeling a lot better today. It's not completely gone, but at least it's not as painful as before.

Bought a bunch of envelopes and coloured paper from the UWGraphics sale. All in preparation for the Race. Of course I'm a big fan of these paper products, so I was almost salivating at the sale, wanting to take everything home, knowing that I probably won't use much of it...

Had a supervisor meeting. It was ok. I certainly need to do a lot more thinking...

I did indeed finish reading the paper, and it's one of those papers where I just get no sense of what's going on in the proof, and yet it works.

I need to remember to pay for the residence, the tuition, and the taxes...yikes, that's a lot of things...

To be honest, there are some positive things about being sick, one is the reduction in sin, another one is the opportunity to relax and sleep, plus many others. But make no mistake, I don't like being sick...

The sickness had a momentarily scary turn of event as I felt like losing the ability to hear on my right ear. Well, it's better now. But now have to deal with the appearance of sore throat.

I have to decide whether I want to keep the free space in my room the way it is, or fill it up with something I've always wanted to have...

Trying to read a paper today. Don't like it, though...

I need to remember to do the taxes...

Still sick. Not feeling good.

What should I do with supervisor meeting on Tuesday?

Woke up at around 4:30 today, after what I believe to be a pretty painful sleep. I do feel rested, though, and my sickness is slightly better. And now, I'm treated to a show of snow outside! Wow...snow on April 24...

No PowerPoint file for today? Did Roger pull another Dory?

Another day of sleeping for me today, I think. Well, not including the four hours of planned television viewing tonight...

3 cities, 7 hours, 2 cars, 1 bike, 1 giant painful move, 1 cup of environmentally unfriendly coffee, 2 sick kids, 254.9 kilometres. The weather wasn't helping, that's for sure. Huge rain and wind. And me getting sicker and sicker didn't help, either.

Human ingenuity is far inferior than God's humour.

So now I'm left with a sick body, sore muscles, and a fragile mind.

4 cities, 8.5 hours, 6 games of bowling, 3 ink cartridges, 1 small congee, lots of veggie, 1 sick kid, 267.5 kilometres. One of the more enjoyable trips to Toronto, I believe. 3 rounds of terrible bowling to start. Then got to PacMall for ink. Then T&T for the usual. Then the congee restaurant that is extraordinarily good, and quite cheap, too. We had a small bowl of congee, a plate of veggie, and fried oysters. Got lots of veggie into my system, which is good. I was sick, but that didn't ruin much. We got lost trying to make it to the 401, but the maps helped quite a bit. It was raining heavily after the dinner, so that made for some risky driving. But at least we made it through, and I'm home safe and sound. Good trip.

Of course the trip couldn't have been possible without the last minute completion of my project. I think it's a pretty bad project for me, but at least it's done, and now I'm free of course work for the semester! Weeeeeeeee!

The horrific bowling scores:

Game 1: Francis 75 (1 /), me 98 (3 /). So I won.
Game 2: Francis 77 (1 X), me 86 (1 X). So I won again.
Game 3: Francis 88 (1 X 2 /), me 77 (2 /). So Francis got his revenge...

Man, blogger has this weird delays when I'm typing the posts...it's probably for their "recover post" feature, but this just feels strange...

Got back to good temperature today, good being around 7-10 degrees.

I have absolutely no discipline...

Millionaire got pre-empted by Paul Martin's (apparently lame) speech today. I think that's a double whammy for his party...

I decided to do no thinking on the project today and go straight into writing. Well, that didn't accomplish much, either, as I'm still painfully writing this thingie.

Looks like I'll be logging about 1,000km in the coming 9 days.

The temperature got up to 27.5 degrees yesterday. Quite amazing for April, especially when considering that the normal high temperature is just 12 degrees. That must have been some kind of a record... But, snow coming this weekend, so all is fine and dandy.

I figured out part of what's wrong with my body recently. I had trouble breathing, but when I got to the (recently re-opened) fifth floor patio, my breathing was fine. So it must be the case that I spent too much time indoors...

Very frustrated with the project, as if that's something new. It's a project for approximation algorithms, and I couldn't even come up with a single such one...

Apologies to those who got here by searching for Forrest Griffin (oops, there I typed it again) and found absolutely no information on this guy, other than the fact that I like him... Google is too good...(yikes, just found out that it's #12 when I search for his name...)

Car maintenance early this morning. It was about 75 minutes, and cost $270. Yikes. Apparently there's some alignment issues, but I still have no idea what it was... I was working on the project the whole time I'm there, and when I was paying, the guy saw what I wrote on my paper and said, "that looks complicated, sir." That's the major understatement of the day. And later he gave me a rose, saying I can give it to my wife or girlfriend, and I just laughed it off without saying "I had neither!"

Meanwhile, no progress on the project. And the deadline comes too quickly...

I have trouble sleeping again. Breathing problems, I believe. Or maybe I simply sleep too much. Or maybe I'm hungry.

Still not sure what I'm going to do during car maintenance today, whether to head home or stay there. It's supposed to be 2 hours, but if I head home, I'm not sure if I want to take a bus back there. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I can stay for 2 hours...then again, it might be a good opportunity to do more project thinking.

I'm totally confused.

TV's gone. Now we're using Alan's small TV in the living room, which is surprisingly nice, actually.

Tried to do work on the project, and I get the following: two numbers, one negative, one positive, and they are supposed to have the same value. Hmm... So, yeah, not so good.

Tomorrow: car maintenance.

Turned on the air conditioner today. It was 79 degrees F, which is around 26 degrees C. Turned it on to get it down to 77, which is 25. And it was way better. But then I turned it off because it got pretty cold. We did get the first 20 degree weather (outside) this year today, so I guess that's a good time to turn the A/C on.

For some reason, I feel that I should keep my secret identity...well...secret. As much as I want people to know it, I'm just too embarrassed to do that...

I really really suck at communication. Not a surprise, of course. Just very depressing.

Rearranged my room again, and here is the result. Lots of free space which will probably be filled up by next weekend...

Working at home is such a bad idea. At least I got the laundry and the rearranging done... And I think I may have picked a bad project, as the bandwidth problem has been so well-studied that I don't even understand the basics of what the most recent papers are talking about, let alone trying to improve on the results...

It promised to be a weekend of moves coming up...

I have trouble sleeping recently. Last night, woke up at around 3 or 4, and talked to Mo for a bit, watched some Incredibles bonus, and went to sleep at 5:30 or so. Had to wake up at 7. So, very tired, especially considering that I didn't take any nap yesterday. Then today, after I came back from school, I couldn't sleep. Then after I came back from the trip, I couldn't sleep either. Strange. Must be getting old.

So of course now that Bobby has a job, he wouldn't hang with us sucky students...just the usual, I guess.

Thinking back to Brian and Greg, the brothers from the Amazing Race, I wish I had a brother who can be as close to me as they were. Heck, I wish I had any relative who can be even remotely close to me...

When I said last time that I gained weight and is now 190lb, and that was scary? Well, I checked my earlier post, and it turns out that I made an arithmetic mistake there. It's still 86kg, it's just that 86kg translates into 190 pounds, not 180 as I previously thought... So the conclusion is, I didn't gain any weight. Ok, so I'm not good with arithmetic. Maybe that's something I can put on the Jeopardy form.

With the help of Francis, I rearranged my room. I never knew how heavy those drawers are...

I did indeed finish the paper/scribe for the approximation course. After I came back from church, went straight to school to draw the figures, and then I'm done (after some more proofreading). Then went on a shopping trip where I bought...nothing. Just trying to relax for today before the project madness starts tomorrow.

I did some work today, again, surprisingly enough. I actually finished writing the text for the scribe. That was really hard, as the paper had a lot of nuances that I didn't catch in the first place, and had to do some rewriting. But the hard part of that is over, now I just need to travel to my office tomorrow to draw the diagrams, and I'm basically done for the scribe. Then I'll do the project..........

I got depressed a little bit tonight as I realize that I don't have any close friends who take Christian life seriously. I think that sort of partially contributes to my spiritual decline in the past few years.

I weighed myself today, and it's making things even more depressing. I'm now 86kg, 190 pounds. Yikes.....

Got the follow-up email just now, and I'm definitely going to the Jeopardy audition at the end of the month! So I have this form to fill out, and on there, I'm supposed to provide 5 "brief bits" about myself. Hmm...I don't think I'm such an interesting person to get the five... Another thing is I'm supposed to "come dressed as you might for an actual appearance on the show." What do they wear on the show anyway? I guess jeans are no good...

So, do I think it is good to skip the OCW? I guess so...at least I had some progress today, so hopefully that will be an accelerator for the rest of the work...

Bring on the t-shirts and shorts! (At least when I'm at home...)

I did some work today, surprisingly enough. I also found an error in the paper I'm transcribing. It's an "off-by-one" error, and it confused me for a long time... It may turn out that correcting this error would double the constant in the end, so I guess it's not a critical error. Still, it confused me.

I think I'm a vague perfectionist in terms of writing mathematical stuff. I always want to explain it in a way that is understandable upon the first reading. And that's why my progress has been very very slow...

I guess the break that I needed isn't going to come soon.

I saw something on Anderson Cooper yesterday where they had a guy who can look at your room and tell very specific things about you and your personality. I think if he's here, he would probably say that I am a very conflicted person. And that would be true.

Maybe I should have talked to Jochen more often...talking to him today was quite enjoyable, even though it was a short conversation...and he has lots of gadgets...

Forgot to say that there was no hot water yesterday afternoon and this morning. Not really inconvenient, I guess, since I can always go a day without taking a shower...sort of...

Got an extension to next Friday. Big relief for me. Still not going to the OCW, as I really don't want to feel guilty about doing no work for two days while the paper and the project are waiting for me... I did, however, finally take a shopping trip today. I was running out of food there.

I'm just so tired. I felt a bit sick, too.

Will this semester never end?

With the end of the poset exam today, I have finished the course for the semester. The exam was not as impossible as the midterm, so it wasn't too bad. I still missed quite a few parts of the questions, and I get my first taste of using generating functions on my own since long ago. In any case, that's done, and I move on to the other course, plus the marking...it's far from over.

I'm trying hard to exercise and eat healthy food, but neither is easy to come by...especially with me...

Can you imagine doing one semester's work in one day? Yup, that's what I'm going to do tomorrow...

Finished the paper. Got the figures drawn this morning, and got it proofread just now. It was pretty messy, I think. I need colour.

Now desperately trying to study for the exam. It looks impossible, like many other things that I looked recently.

Also desperately hoping for that project delay in approximation...

Bonus proctor this morning. It's for Calculus 3. For the first time, my instruction is that I can roam around the 6 exam rooms every 20-30 minutes, whenever I feel like it. I ended up just went to one room and stayed there for the whole exam. Nice instructor there, too, someone named Francis. The room is a bit too warm, and we see one person who kept on fanning himself. Late in the exam, Francis finally found the thermostat, and it was set to 28 degrees...so yeah, not too cool there. Meanwhile, there is one girl who seemed to be panicking: panting, short breaths, and even a bit of crying. That was probably the most panicky exam writer I have ever seen...her face was all red, except when she put her hand on her forehead, in which case her forehead became white...scary. Anyway, it wasn't too bad an experience, and two more people know my name.

I'm trying to write this poset paper, and it's just so hard to express the things I want to say in detail. I mean, it's easy to do it in presentation, as I can basically show it in the picture, draw things on it on the spot. But I find it incredibly hard to translate it into a paper. I guess my original plan to get this paper done by today was foiled once again...sigh...and there's an exam on Wednesday, too...

Doc, meet Sleepy. Sleepy, meet Doc.

Alright, I've just made the phone call to leave a message to reserve the Jeopardy audition thingie. I don't know why I get all nervous when calling (in general)...but I got through this one, so now I'm just waiting for another email to come in. I hate phone calls, that's for sure, except for calls with close friends.

Just received news this afternoon that I'll be doing games at the church's love feast again, and now I have a good plan for the games that I want to play there. So, pretty quick, I guess. Now I just have make sure that I stick with it so that I don't keep on thinking about it and fidgeting around with the format. Also, I have a date for an amazing race for them to play, and that's going to be a ton of hard work for sure...still need to decide the location for it, though.

Time for a car maintenance?

Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, I salute you guys! That was awesome. And the fact that you are both funny guys is just way too cool.

Long meeting today. Looks like I won't get a break next semester...

I'm hopelessly behind with all my school work. That's...not a surprise, I guess.

Yesterday, I found lots of chips on my car. Hmm...

Wow...Bobby skipping free food...that's like...unheard of.

It's going to be a bit tough to pick up a stranger...

Sad sad day it is today. Here's how it went: Morning. Skating. Body felt weak. Got depressed. Went home early. Don't want to go to the evening's hot pot thingie. Sleep. Went to the evening's hot pot thingie. Home. So I got depressed mainly because of pressure from school work and the lack of human contact (in a vague sense) and a lot of past confusions surging up once again. Hmm...not good.

So the evening's hot pot thingie. I don't like hot pot to begin with, so I didn't eat much. I took quite a few pictures, though. Anyway, there were food, foosball, air hockey, pool table, and even a weight station. My foosball sucks, and so does my pool thingie. It was not too bad an evening, I guess, a bit meaningless, but ok. Feng made a remark that was unintentionally very funny in my mind, so good for him. And once again, proves that people's perceptions of me are quite different from reality.

Of course I didn't do any school work today...I don't think it's easy to break a life long habit.

Exciting news: I got an email from the Jeopardy people saying that I have been selected for the contestant search in Toronto at the end of April. So now I have to decide (pretty quickly) whether I want to go or not. I think I should go, just to see how they do this audition thingie. There's absolutely no chance that I'll pass the test, of course, it's all for fun.

For this weekend: two papers to write. Of course I won't do them...

Honesty is a good thing. Lying (definition: a deliberate attempt to deceive), is not.

This morning, miracles occurred as I actually figured out the supposedly "easy" question on the approx assignment that stumped me the night before. And then Berkant came in at the right moment to tell me the impossible details of the impossible question. So it's all good, and the end result is one hand-written page. As usual, I should have trusted God way more than I do now...

The proctoring was as usual, just sitting there, chatting quietly. This time, I tried to have some fun with updating the time only at perfect squares thing. Of course I'm sure the students didn't appreciate having to do more math to figure out how much time is 81 minutes... The students definitely didn't have good looks on their faces, so I guess they didn't do too good... Oh yeah, and I was super hungry, so that wasn't helping much. I did, however, read some paper and found out about this nice approximation algorithm for the bandwidth problem.

I was really tired when I got home, and nobody wants to come to my place, so I slept at around 8. I had trouble breathing, and that is why I'm still awake right now...

Just very frustrated today, mostly with respect to the approx assignment. It just looks impossible. Finally figured out the supposedly "easy" parts, still more to figure out by tomorrow morning. Feeling pretty dumb right now.

For some odd reason, I get a lot of sleep during the afternoon. Usually those naps aren't that long...and the dreams weren't that exciting...

I need some exercise.

Finally done the assignment marking this morning. Tried to do the approx assignment, but got really tired. So I only did a small part. Meanwhile, things are falling behind very quickly...

My concern about the papacy isn't with the Pope, but rather how a lot of people seem to treat him as some kind of a deity. When was Jesus, the head of the church, ever mentioned in all the mourning of the Pope?

I guess I watch too much TV.

So what's up with the gas prices? 92.5 right now. Haven't seen it this high here...ever.

While taking my afternoon pseudo-nap, I suddenly realized that I didn't renew the license plate sticker. That's probably because I moved, forgot to change address, and I never received the notice. So then I made a short trip out of it, going to Conestoga, and then some grocery shopping. All in an hour. So, not bad. And another evidence that naps help.

Hmm...a full day of homework followed by a full day of marking...it's like I'm actually working or something.

Crazy day today. Basically it's poset homework madness. I ended up having completed 6.5 questions out of 8, not bad for what amounts to be around 12 hours of work. Of course I stole a lot of Graeme's ideas...

Tomorrow: all day marking. Wednesday: all day approx homeworking. Thursday: all day approx homeworking & scribing. At least these are the "ideals" that, if past records show, will never be reached.

Well, Alan's done for his courses, and he's gone for the week. I'll be all alone in my suite here...hmm...

I spent all of Friday and Saturday on the Bible game Saturday night. It was brutally hard to prepare, and to think that it was over in an hour, it leaves a certain feeling of emptiness. But it was fun, and I'm sorry I put Mount Sinai on the game, but oh well.

The obligatory April snow storm came Saturday and Sunday. There were extremely high winds as well. Not too cold, though. And also good that I got a new non-squeaky windshielf wiper Saturday afternoon.

Now I'm stuck with a poset homework with 8 questions, due tomorrow, started tonight, and got 0.5 question done. That's just sad. I'm in a state of extreme frustration, as there is this homework, marking, supervisor meeting, scribing, and another homework due this week. Next week, paper, final exam, and approx project (which I haven't started, and I should have already). Sigh...................I don't know how I can live through these two weeks.

I sat beside Chris Hays during this OrderFest, and only about an hour ago did I realize, I marked his assignment last term for graph theory! No wonder his name sounded so familiar... Hmm...my brain is working very slowly these days.

April Fool's Day today, but no joke for me, I have to complete the Bible games for Saturday. It's still in the question preparation stage, just 21 questions left to be created, so that's coming along well. My worst nightmare may come during the programming stage, but that's for another posting later when this stage arrives...

Apparently I am a source of free money.

OrderFest

Yesterday was presentation day, 13 presentations of 25 minutes each. I was super nervous since I didn't do any runthroughs with it. I ended up having a frozen brain while I kept on talking, and stuttering quite often. But I did see a couple of nodding heads, and Mike liked the slides, so I think it wasn't a disaster. I ended up with 26 minutes and 9 seconds, pretty good considering that I have no idea how long it is beforehand.

We had short breaks during the day, and they started telling really cold jokes. Like, "What did the fish say to the fireman? Nothing, because fish can't talk." And my favourite: "Let epsilon be negative."

For lunch, it was nice of Craig to ask me if I want to go to lunch together with a few of the people there (it took me by surprise, first of all, since I've never talked to Craig before). We went to the Grad House (third time there...), and 8 of us sat in the patio. My chicken burger came in last place (and hence eliminated from the race), and that was 15 minutes before the afternoon presentation starts. So I basically stuffed the burger and salad down in 5-7 minutes, and arrived one slide late. Good times.