Htam::Diary

This Monday, I woke up a bit later (almost 8), since I was really tired from yesterday playing table tennis.  I got ready and then went to school.  I had not realised that today was a holiday, so I did not prepare for tomorrow's teaching last week, and also left my textbook at school.  This is the reason why I had to go in today.  At around noon, I went to Ackerman, but everything was closed, so I came home for lunch.  (I was very wet when I got home.)  I spent the rest of the day at home.  This is the first time in a long time I've had two meals of my own cooking in a day.  I expect that my weight will be heavier tomorrow morning (which is a good thing).  I tried a different mapo tofu sauce today.  I quite like it.  I just finished re-writing my notes for tomorrow.  I found a much better proof for a problem that I was going to present.  I am quite happy with it.

This Sunday, June is having a baby shower in the afternoon, so the girls are all gone.  And the guys are therefore playing football.  This means I have my chance to go play table tennis at Caltech.  After returning the lunch trays I first went to OfficeMax to buy stacks, which I have about 30 of already.  And then I went to Caltech.  Soon after I got there, Isaac Chao showed up, so we played for a while.  Then later I played with Michael Woods and Ran Huo.  I beat Isaac and Michael with not too much trouble.  But by then, I had played 3 hours and was quite tired (since I have not played in many months).  So I lost to Ran.  Oh well.  In any case, I realised I still really like table tennis.  Oh, I wish I had more opportunity and time to play.

This Saturday, I brought my guitar to church to play with Steven.  Today it was my turn to lead songs, so I picked a song I could play to start off of.  Then in the middle, I picked The Road to Zion, expecting no one to know it, so I could teach it (hence the reason for bringing the guitar).  I left the guitar there, since we may use it tomorrow for the high school group.  I also lead Bible study, which just means I started sharing first.  As usual, everyone wants to share and there is little down time (except at the beginning, as is every week).  Afterwards, we went to a dim sum place next to the Monterey Park 99 Ranch Market.  Now in 16 days I've visited 4 different 99 Ranch Markets.  They were respectively on days 1, 5, 9, and 16.  Too bad 5 was not 4 or else we get perfect squares only.  Aiyah.

This Friday, in the morning I did laundry and cleaned my room, as is my new routine for Fridays.  Indeed, the reading group is cancelled this term, so I will have Fridays free for most weeks.  I also cooked lunch for myself, which tasted so good that I ate a lot.  In the afternoon, somehow I started feeling dizzy, so I took my medicine and rested.  But it did not get much better, so I decided to go out for a walk.  I walked to the park on Veteran and Ohio, observed some tennis and basketball, shot some hoops myself, and then kept walking.  I would have came home but I realised I was quite thirsty, so I walked south to Bristol Farms to buy a drink, and then walked home.  On the way back, I randomly called some numbers from advertisements on apartments for rent (that's a lot of prepositions).  I now have a rough sense of how much rooms cost around this area.  I discussed this on the phone at length with my father, and we agreed to keep looking and gathering information for now.  I also helped Joy move a keyboard, talked to some peers about geometry, and ate dinner.  Even till now I am still slightly dizzy, I don't really know why.  It usually goes away much quicker after I take my medicine.  This is very weird.  I hope I'll wake up fine tomorrow.

This Thursday, I got up and went jogging in the morning.  This is the first time I've done this since the summer of 2008.  Hopefully this will become quite a regular thing.  Then I went to school early to prepare for teaching, taught, and then had lunch with all four of us.  Today we tried to come up with the top 15 mathematicians of all time.  Then I talked to Sid for a while about algebraic geometry, held office hours, went to first seminar of the year, and then came home.  I ate some snacks, and then went to tutoring.  Like last time, I chained it with going to Pavilions and dry-cleaning store.  I additionally chained it with going to Trader Joes, and then came home to eat dinner that I cooked late last night.  At night, I called my mother and a friend to talk.  I've made a decision.  I am going to file for advancement to candidacy for my masters degree.

This Wednesday, so I talked about a math problem with my office mate for about an hour at noon.  And then I went to 3 hours of classes.  Upon my return, he asked me to help him with one of his math problems, and so I spent another hour or so talking to him.  Anyway, so when I came home, it was pretty late to start cooking dinner, so I ate some snacks.  I think I ate a bit too much, hence I only ate dinner around 8 PM.  And then since I cooked for myself, which has not happened in a few days, as usual, whenever I cook, I eat too much.  So now I am really full, and am not sure if I can go sleep.  This is very weird.  At least I think I won't be dropping another 5 pounds any time soon.

This Tuesday, I went to teach, and a student came to ask me questions after class, so my lunch was delayed.  I had SMC, so my lunch was very rushed.  Oh well.  Afterwards, I worked at school for a bit, and then came home because I was not feeling too well.  I rested a bit, took a bath, and then had dinner.  At night I went to prayer meeting as usual.  And indeed, this is much later staying up than previous two nights.  How early will I awake tomorrow morning?  Only time will tell.

This Monday, I woke up at a bit before 6, but decided to stay in bed until around 7.  I am pretty sure I did not fall back asleep, or else I would have been miserable when I got up.  I had almost forgotten how good it feels to sleep early and wake up early.  I might go back to this schedule?  The only thing in the way is prayer meeting.  Anyway, I had lunch with my peers again, and went to classes.  After Balmer's algebraic geometry, I went to Benny's topics in combinatorics.  So many people showed up!  This was even more people than Balmer's class, and there were (I think) 27 people or so--in any case, only two empty seats at the end.  I wonder how I will get seats on Wednesdays when I have to come an hour late.  After school, I left my bag at school (since I intend to come early tomorrow) and I jogged back home.  This is part of my efforts in starting to jog again, and this way it does not take up extra time (as much).  I jogged rather slowly today (there were a lot of hills) and I jogged for only about 7:40.  Hopefully tomorrow I will jog for a bit longer.

This Sunday, Chris came to my place in the morning, and we picked up Alex together and went to church.  I translated for breaking of bread today, and I taught the high school group with Lydia.  It went a lot better than what I could have asked for.  The Lord is faithful.  In the afternoon, we went to play volleyball.  Today it was really good, I really enjoyed it.  My bump pass is definitely not as good as it used to be, but it has improved since last week.  My set is slowly coming back, too.  And my hit was actually better than when we left off!  The last three or four months I have not been able to time my approach pretty well, but today, there were two or three that felt very very good.  And Rachel got better too, yay!  At night we had dinner, and then I drove Chris back.  Alex went with Steve and Tammy to play bridge with Jonah.  I'm spending some time by myself.

This Saturday, I picked up Alex for Bible study as usual, but then it diverged from there.  Afterwards, I drove him to lunch with the rest of the people, but then I left.  I went to eat by myself, bought some groceries, and then head home.  I think I might need some alone time.  Then I went to the math department to do some work.  I ended up going out for a jog on campus, it's actually rather pretty.  I might do this more often in the future.  At night, there was a fire alarm, so I talked to Athipat outside for a while.  This was a non-typical Saturday.

This Friday, I had a whole day to my self.  Starting next week I should have reading group with Sudakov.  But today, all free.  So I did laundry and washed my bedsheets (which I do not wash every week).  I spent a lot of time cooking a huge pot of food.  This should last me 6 meals or so.  I put most of it in the freezer, though.  I also installed Windows Vista on my T60 laptop just so I could download Windows 7 from MSDNAA (they require a windows computer... chicken and the egg problem, eh?) and then install it.  Now I have Windows 7 on my secondary laptop.  Why?  Well, this show I am watching streams from the CW website, but it requires a Windows computer... so sad.  Anyway, so I guess I am doing it for the show.  In the evening, I went out to jog.  It is nice to jog again, I hope I can (have time to) keep it up.

This Thursday, I taught my second class.  I think I like them a little bit better, but we will see in a bit.  I then had lunch with Josh and Sid--what a surprise.  I thought no one would show up and I was actually intending to bring food back to math department to eat.  In the afternoon, I had office hours but only the grader came.  And then I came home.  At night, I went out for a walk.  The total time was about 2 hours, spent walking to, spending time at, and walk back from Borders.  I have been meaning to go to Borders for several years now.  There is one near Caltech, and it has been on my TODO list, never to be done.  Today I finally was able to cross this off of the list, albeit a different Borders.  I spent most of the time today looking at SAT test prep books, trying to find one suitable for my tutoring client who wanted me to pick one for her.

This Wednesday, I studied geometry in the morning again.  And then I went to school for lunch with Athipat and Sid.  We are now eating "regularly" at 11:30.  I hope this works out.  I spent the time before my next class (at 1 PM) preparing for teaching tomorrow.  Then I had class with Balmer for two hours.  Afterwards, I went home and got ready to go tutoring!  This is my second client's second session.  Hopefully this will become a long term thing (it seems like it so far).  Afterwards, I figured it was a perfect opportunity to go to Pavilions on the way (never mind that yesterday I went groceries shopping twice) and also to the dry cleaning store near Steve and Tammy's.  I ate dinner (I think I am back to my usual appetite now, praise the Lord), called my mother, and spent the rest of the night reading the Bible.  It's a filled day.

This Tuesday, I went to school and taught my first class this year.  Afterwards, I had lunch by myself, and then came home.  I studied for a while, and then I decided to do something drastic.  So the last two days I have very little appetite.  This may be because of eating too much on the weekend?  I am uncertain.  What I know is, I was unable to finish my normal breakfast yesterday, and ate only one Pop-Tart today.  For lunch, yesterday I had the smallest salad, and today I only ate two tacos from Taco Bell.  I cannot go on like this.  So I want to drink the Yocool drink from 99 Ranch.  So I looked up the Van Nuys store I heard about, and drove there.  The driving was 11.1 mile one way, taking about 15 minutes.  The whole trip took just under an hour.  Not bad.  And then later in the evening, I walked to Whole Foods to buy more groceries (partly for the exercise, too).  Today somehow I spent so much time doing groceries shopping, even though I already went to 99 Ranch last Friday (before I visited the Chius).  I may just be wasting some time.  But all this paid off, I had a much more regularly-sized dinner tonight.  Yay.  Then I picked up Alex and went to prayer meeting.  Back to routine.

This Monday is the start of second quarter this (school) year.  I had lunch in Ackerman with Josh and Athipat--hopefully Sid will join us in the future (like the past).  Then I did some work, and then went to the algebraic geometry lecture featuring Balmer (!!).  So many people showed up, I have not seen a classroom so full of people for a class that I was in (I think I counted 20).  Today I only have one hour of class, since Sudakov's class is cancelled this week.  So I did some more work at school, and then came home early.  At home, I felt on a roll, so I kept working for a while, until around dinner time.  After dinner, I relaxed a bit, played some music, and now I am about to call it a day.

This Sunday, we had a sharing meeting at church.  But since we were only given a two-days notice, I think many people were not prepared to share.  Oh well.  Sometimes this happens.  In the afternoon, we played volleyball once again.  I think we have not played since Thanksgiving, which is about 5 weeks ago.  We were all very rusty.  I could not hit the ball square when I was hitting against the net to warm up.  And that was not because of Galois theory. :-D  Anyway, it's good to be back, but I hope we would also get back to our level.  By the way, when we were waiting, I talked to many people about my notebook paper making endeavour.  I have a few more tasks to do tomorrow, but then I think I may start having good paper to write notes on.  Yay.

This Saturday, I went to Bible study in the morning--back to the usual routine.  Again, I was unable to stay in the room for the entire duration.  Today I over-stayed by a few minutes because I did not want to walk out during someone's sharing (which was longer than expected).  So it took me a bit longer to recover.  Afterwards, I had lunch with the older people--all married people except Steven and myself.  All the young people are gone.  Boo.  Afterwards, I drove back to LA (and talked to my dad for about an hour on the phone while doing so) and went to the math department.  I took a special route (that includes climbing lots of exterior stairs instead of taking the elevator up to the 6th floor) so the phone would not disconnect.  I succeeded, albeit a bit out of breath.  But we had quite good conversation today, yay.

I did some work in the math department.  I left my office and came back a bit later, the door was open, but I did not even realise it.  I sat down and continued working.  Only after a few minutes when I look up did I notice that my officemate was there!  He said he did not want to make a sound in case I would get startled.  So he sat in silent until I noticed him.  Apparently he came in during the short period that I was out of the office.  I should have noticed that the door was open (and I definitely did not leave it open), but I guess I was thinking about things and not paying attention to my surroundings.  Classic mathematician.

Then I came home and had left over food from last night, it was quite good to eat.  At night, I cleaned my room.  I have been doing this for the last few days now.  But perhaps being inspired by Steph last night, when she spent the whole time cleaning her room and not even coming out to greet me, I decided to go all out and make my room very messy, in the hopes of getting it very organised when it gets cleaned.  Well, I think it succeeded.  There is something to say about defragmenting my room small bits at a time without using too much swap space.  But there are certain tasks that really require moving all the boxes out and reorganising everything.  Today I pretty much moved everything besides boxes under my bed (there are a lot... a major project for some other day) and the living room.  Well, basically, I organised my closet and the bookshelf in the bedroom.  Also, in the mean time, I rewatched several episodes of Babylon 5.  Well, "watching" is an euphemism for "listening and occasionally glancing up."  Though I have to say, the season three mid-season three-parter was a gem.  The last episode thereof had me tearing up more than thrice.  And this was induced even with knowing the story already, and not even staring at the screen that much, just listening to the dialogue.  Wow.  Great show (so far).  Hopefully seasons 4 and 5 will do it justice.  No spoilers, please.

This Friday, I went to the math department in the morning to do some work.  Then I came back for lunch, and then went again in the afternoon.  I saw roughly 8 people working there.  It's a quiet department today.  Then I drove to Torrance and bought some groceries at the 99 Ranch there (first visit).  I do not like it as much, and I will go to the Arcadia one or the San Gabriel one whenever I can afford to.  Then I went to the Chius resident for dinner.  I talked to Chris a bit, and then we started going through the chordbook systematically, correcting chords, starting at 212.  We had dinner (it was really good), and then we did more chordbook stuff until 266.  Since we added 105 songs, and we went over more than half of these, we only need one more of something like this to check all the new songs.  That is, all the ones that he knows.  Then I got kind of tired so I was about to leave, and I went to say farewell to Steph.  But then we started talking, and I got more energy.  Talking does that to me.  Anyway, so I stayed about half an hour more talking, but then I figured I really should go, so I came home.  Now I just finished separating my meat.  I really dislike doing that.  Oh well.  Happy year (1+2+3)*(4*(5*6+7*8)-9).

This Thursday, I continued cleaning my apartment both in the morning and in the afternoon.  I intersperse it with studying.  Scott Hsieh, Tim Kwa, Aditya Rajagopal, and Michael Woods came to Westwood today.  While we were waiting for Dity, the four of us sat in my room and we just talked.  When Dity came, we hopped on to his car and went to get lunch.  We drove for quite some distance.  On the car, we talked some more.  This was a thing that started out with an email from Caleb, and then it turned out to be a Rudd 2008 mini-reunion.  Yay.  It's good to see old friends.  Scott is leaving this Saturday, Tim in a week, and Michael in a month.

This Wednesday, I woke up rather late (around 9), and I continued unpacking and cleaning my room.  In the afternoon, I drove to a Sprint store for phone shopping.  So apparently I can upgrade my phone now, and I am considering getting a smart phone.  I am probably choosing between the HTC Hero and the Samsung Moment.  I played around a bit with them.  I'll think about it a bit and go back later.  The current special prices end 1/9.  But who knows, it may be even cheaper after then?