Htam::Diary

This Saturday, I woke up before my alarm (yay!) but stayed in bed until a few minutes before when my alarm would have gone off.  I picked Alex up and went to church.  We had very interesting conversation on the way this time (mostly about scifi shows).  Studying Esther 7 was, as usual, better than I expected.  We then had lunch at Pho 79.  When coming back, it was raining.  Hou-En and I had brought umbrellas.  (How come other people did not think of that?  Perhaps they don't care about getting wet, or perhaps they did not think ahead.)  I shared the umbrella with Doris... and in the effort of keeping her dry, I sort of got wet.  Oh well.  Then I drove Jonah home, which made me decide to go to 99 Ranch.  I bought quite a bit of stuff, even though I went to 99 yesterday in Torrance.  The Chius were right--that 99 is not as good as the ones near church.  On the way home, I talked to Charley for an hour or so (yes, I actually parked my car and continue talking to him even after I got back).  I really like talking.

This Friday, I am feeling a lot better when I woke up.  During the day, my condition fluctuates.  In the afternoon, I drove over to Torrance.  I bought some stuff at 99 Ranch, and then went to Steph's place.  Her day was supposed to be home, so I can go in, but I think he happened to be out.  So I just sat in my car and read Bible for a while.  Eventually Steph came home from school, and we talked for a while and played some games.  We also ate some stuff that Steph's dad cooked.  Then we went over to Esther's place to celebrate Caleb's birthday.  I am feeling a lot better now.  I should sleep, and hope that tomorrow my health is good.

The other thing we did at Steph's place was that we sang some hymns from our hymnary.  We found this wonderful song that Steph and I could sing together: More Love to Thee (224).  Indeed, her part is from E flat to D flat, whereas mine is from G to F.  We transposed this song a whole step lower, and we can both sing it comfortably.  It is quite hard to find songs that work for us, since I have hard time singing low notes, and she has hard time singing high notes.  In fact, there are times we sing in the exact same octave since my range is just that high and hers is just that low.  Anyway, I think we found a song that we are going to sing every time we spend time together... until we find another song like this.

This Thursday, I woke up feeling a lot better.  Good, since I have to go teach anyway.  Today Steve (the instructor for the class) came to sit-in in my section.  The students became a lot quieter and would not ask questions as usual.  At lunch, I watched Professor Kefeng Liu play against Rob.  Then I had office hours where students actually came to seek help, and then a good combinatorics seminar.  I was not feeling overwhelmingly good, though.  I came home around 5 PM and took it easy.  I sang some hymns, read some Bible, and also talked on the phone.  I should mention that next quarter I will move on to teaching multivariable calculus instead of single variable.  Exciting.

This Wednesday, I rested at home.  I woke up feeling a lot better.  As usual, I work at home in the morning.  I realised I am still a bit weak, so I stayed home and cooked lunch.  And I missed my three hours of classes today.  This is the advantage of being a student.  Tomorrow I am a teacher, so I cannot do that.  I expect to make a complete recovery tomorrow.

On an unrelated note, I woke up to a pleasant email from Wiley informing me that my first paper Vertex-pancyclicity of hypertournaments is in its final stage of publishing in the Journal of Graph Theory.  Indeed, the issue it will appear in (April 2010) is now available online.  I know my paper has been accepted and available for some time now as part of a big queue known as EarlyView.  But now it is quite exciting since it has a volume number and page numbers, and people can cite it now.  I wonder how long it will take for me to get an author entry on MathSciNet.  Exciting!

This Tuesday, I had a very good teaching session this morning--I prepared to talk about certain things, and they went quite well.  Then I went to lunch at the medical cafe with my officemate.  Then I did the usual things and then came home.  In the evening I went to tutor and buy groceries afterwards as usual.  The girl I was tutoring was sneezing a lot, and afterwards I felt weak.  I hope I did not catch something from her.  I drove Alex to prayer meeting, but then decided to come home.  I am drinking lots of liquid, hopefully tomorrow when I wake up I will be good as new.

This Monday, Barmore woke up before I did.  I got up when he was taking a shower.  After breakfast, we played Battle Lines together, and then he took FLYAWAY to the airport.  After he left, I started studying, and I kept studying that I forgot about the time again.  When I noticed, I rushed to school, ate lunch, and then went to classes.  Afterwards, I helped Yen warm up for his table tennis matches.  I also did some work in the afternoon.  Rob really wanted to play with me, so I complied.  Afterwards, I played with Adam and Jack as well.  Then I did some more work, and then I left around 8.  Adam was nice enough to give me a ride, so I did not have to walk home in the dark and in the cold.  I only ate dinner at 8:15 and finished by 9.  I called a few people, talked a little bit, and then continued doing work.  I came across this problem that would be perfect to think about while walking that I will try not to think about it right now.  So I'll sleep.

This Sunday, I played Set with Barmore in the morning, and then I went to church with Alex.  Today was sharing meeting, and I appreciated many of the sharing today.  I prayed a lot about sharing, but I was not given any specific word to share.  Afterwards, we had our second WCCC planning meeting.  Then I walked to RadioShack to buy something, only to get a call from Alex that he needs to get things from my car.  Apparently everyone is leaving.  I came back, and most people had left.  I stayed in the church building by myself for a while, and then locked up.  I got a haircut, and then went to Caltech to play table tennis.  Afterwards, I had a quick dinner and then went to 99 Ranch to buy some non-perishables.  Then back to Caltech, talking to a few people in Avery, and then going to see TACIT's production of Pasadena Babalon.  It was really weird, and I don't think I like it.  Oh well, it was good to see 8 people I knew from my past involvement with TACIT, and talk to 6 of them afterwards.  Now I got home really late, so I am not going to do much with Barmore.

This Saturday, I talked with David Barmore in the morning, and then went to pick Alex up for church.  When we were 10 miles in to the 10, we hit heavy traffic.  After calling a few people to warn them, we made our way to the exit and took local.  I was short on gas, so I did not want to get stuck in the stop-and-go traffic.  I found a gas station, and while filling up, called Barmore for some directions.  I got to church in an hour, instead of the usual 35 minutes.  I think it took some people even longer, so I made good route decisions!  Afterwards, we had lunch at Yasmin, and then I came back.  I studied some, took pictures with Barmore in our Star Trek shirts, had dinner, watched Stargate together, post-processed and uploaded our Star Trek pictures, and then sang KR (making a new diamond for Endless Love on medium).  This is a very filled day.

This Friday, I went to school to proctor exam with Tori for Steve.  The exam was pretty hard, and the kids were really disheartened.  Afterwards, Tori and I went to have lunch with Athipat, and then went to grade the exams with Steve and Quinn.  I finished quicker than expected, and then came home.  My ex-roommate David Barmore came to visit, and will be staying here for three nights.  We talked for a bit, and now is time to sleep.

This Thursday, I woke up early to get some studying done before teaching.  I had a light lunch (by myself) since I am going to play table tennis in the afternoon.  During my office hours, some students in Tori's section came to ask me questions... why?  I don't know.  Oh well, I helped them anyway.  Today at seminar, Terry Tao was speaking.  The room was completely packed, with one student standing because there were no more seats.  Afterwards, I played my remaining two matches in my round robin division.  I first played Sam, who uses the same kind of paddle Paul uses.  I played quite well the first game, winning 11-5.  Second game I went soft (big mistake) and was trailing at 5-10.  Then I won 16 straight points, finishing the second game at 12-10, and leading 9-0 in the third.  He won one point, and then I won the next two, finishing the third game at 11-1.  Then there was departmental tea, where I got a scone and kept it to the side.  After the tea ended, I played Sungjin, whom I beat easily, though allowing a few more points than when I played with Kevin.  Then I ate the scone, and then came home.  It was already past 5, I am now defrosting meat.  I cooked dinner (so good!) and ate at around 7.  I continued working at night.  Now I am really tired so I will probably sleep soon.

This Wednesday, after spending the last few months studying for the geometry-topology qualifying exam, by reading books, thinking about some old qual problems, and the like, I finally started typing up qual problems today.  When I studied for algebra, it was around this time (relatively) that I started doing one qual a day and typing the solutions up.  Now is a good time to start doing that with the GT qual.  I did sufficiently good today... thinking really hard to the point that I totally forgot about having lunch with my peers--and was almost late to school for my class at 1 PM.  I stayed at school till around 8 PM (I ate dinner there, since I ate lunch at home) and came back, and continued working.  I am starting to feel a renewed sense of hope... perhaps there is yet a chance that I could pass the qual.  Hopefully I could wake up early tomorrow and continue studying.

This Tuesday, I had a bad teaching day.  I planned to talk about certain things, and I was very excited about it, but I never got to it.  We just finished learning derivatives and are moving to integrals.  Therefore the homework questions are the hardest problems the kids will likely see (when we moved to integrals, it is again straight-forward calculations to start with).  As such, the kids were quite confused and asked a lot of questions.  I did not even have enough time to answer all their questions.  What's worse, some of my students look really bored since they probably have already spent hours trying to finish the homework.  Aiyah, I am not sure what to do.

And in the afternoon, I went tutoring.  Today she asked me about physics instead, which is also quite easy for me.  I actually learned something I did not know before.  After a while, we moved back to geometry.  We did some questions and we came to this ratio question about the relationship between edge ratios and area ratios of squares.  So I generalised it to any figure, and also for volumes.  But she just totally cannot wrap her mind around it, and I don't know how to make her understand.  By the end of the hour, I think her attention is drifting, and she just wants the session to end.

This Monday we have the day off.  I went in to the department in the morning to prep for teaching (since I always do it on Monday and I forgot we have Monday off and my things are there).  I also did some other things, and then came home to cook lunch, since there is no food available on a holiday.  After lunch, I worked some more, and then decided to go to Torrance for a visit.  I got to Steph's house and only her mother is home, so I did some more work at her place.  Then I decided to go buy some groceries from the 99 Ranch very near her place.  When I got back, Steph and Jonah were back.  We harmonised some hymns while Steph's mom played piano.  It was quite fun.  Then we talked for a while and then had dinner at a Hawaiian restaurant, also with John.  There was a lot of food.  I was really full even though I ordered a "mini" plate and gave some of it to the other people.  After dinner, we came back to Steph's house and we played some games while talking.  It was a good afternoon and evening.  I like the Torrance Clan people. :-P

This Sunday, I went over to Joy's place and we picked up Alex (she drove).  We then had our normal meeting schedule.  In the afternoon, Hou-En and June drove me back to their street to pick up my parked car, and then I drove to the park.  We played volleyball.  Today there are many people, including some who are not very good and such.  But it was nice to get them involved and such.  We played some horrible games, but also a few good ones.  We are rusty, but every once in a while we get good plays.  I had a few acceptable hits, actually.  I also went and jogged with Christina for perhaps a mile or two.  In the evening we went back to church for a third message with Jim.  Then we had dinner.  I did not have a good appetite, so I sat outside by myself for a while, and some people came to talk to me.  Eventually I ate a bit, and then left early.

This Saturday, I woke up at 6 something naturally (yay!) and got ready for the retreat.  I picked up Alex and went to get breakfast with 15 other brothers at Diner on Main right next to church.  Then we had some people share their testimonies in the morning.  People had lunch, but I skipped out to meet up with my ex-roommates John Shen and Scott Hsieh at Hop Woo.  Afterwards, I went back, only to find that power is out.  So we sang some songs in the dark.  The power came back right before the message, so we were able to do our normal audio system.  Afterwards, we went to the Deng's home for dinner.  I walked outside for a while after dinner, and then eventually came in and played Rummikub with Steph, Caleb, and Joy.  It was quite fun.  At night, I parked my car at Dave and Chenning's place and Joy drove me back (for carpooling purposes).

[Photo: Blurry picture at Hop Woo with ex-roommates who are not mutual roommates.]

This Friday, I did work at home, do laundry, and read Bible.  I cooked lunch for myself, so delicious!  I went to school in the afternoon, played some table tennis, did some things, and then came home.  I then picked up Alex for Friday Fest.  I have not been to FFest at Steve and Tammy's place since first week of November last year.  It's been a while.  Alex forced me to go by asking me for a ride today despite the fact that I said I was not going to go.  It's probably good that he did that so I would come out a bit.  I ended up having some good talking with Steve and Steph.  And then I left early and came home.  I took care of some things, and now it is time to sleep.  Tomorrow I have to wake up quite early for the retreat.

This Thursday I overslept.  Why?  Well, last night I went to sleep late, so my biological clock is slightly off.  Then there was a power outage in the morning around 6, which knocked out my computer that is supposed to play music in the morning as an alarm in case I sleep later than intended.  So I actually only got up at 8 (instead of 7).  But I only need to be at school by 10 (to teach), so I actually had ample time to get ready and such, so no big deal.

Today I went to Synapse to get lunch again, and came back to eat in the lounge, with Athipat (not planned!) while watching some table tennis matches.  There were many matches today, and I watched about half of them.  In the afternoon, even though I finished at 3 PM, I stayed around until close to 7 PM.  Then I was going to go home, but I remembered there is a sell at the bookstore for certain items due to Valentine's day.  So I went and bought some stuff: an umbrella (one of mine broke due to strong wind last time it rained), a mug (I need more of these since I gave one to John Shen), and a shirt (I don't buy generic shirts usually).  I only got home at around 7:30 PM, ate a quick dinner (was not overly hungry since we had departmental tea today), spent some quiet time, and then talked on the phone for a while.  I also took care of some tasks that need to be dealt with in a timely manner, and now I should go sleep.  Tomorrow hopefully I can spend lots of time studying.

This Wednesday, I woke up really late (after 8).  I did some math in the morning, and then went to school for lunch.  Afterwards, I watched a table tennis match in the lounge, and then went back to work, had classes, and then more work.  I came home around 5:30, and had leftover dinner that I cooked last week (!) which I had not had a chance to eat because of leftovers from Saturday lunch and dinner (which I ate Monday and Tuesday for dinner, respectively).  My cooking tastes so good!!  I like it a lot.  Then at night, I walked out to buy more tofu, so I could cook more later.  This all got done around 8:30, and now I started working on math.  I finished at 11:00, which meant I worked for 1.5 hours.  Wait, you say, that's 2.5 hours?  Haha, Caleb Ng called me and we talked for about an hour regarding life, universe, and everything.  Okay, not quite... just grad school stuff.  It's good to talk to him--and I should say this sine he is going to read my diary.

This Tuesday, I played table tennis in the math department.  The Math Department Table Tennis Tournament Commission is holding a singles tournament this term.  There are 6 round robin groups each of 5 people each.  The matches started yesterday.  Notice that the complete graph of order 5 admits a cycle decomposition into two Hamiltonian cycles.  This week each group plays 5 matches in a cycle (so each player plays two adjacent players), and next week the other ones.  My matches are both today, back to back at 2 and 2:30 against Kevin Xia and Paul Bunn, respectively.  I beat Kevin 3, 1, 0 without too much trouble.  Paul is the one that I almost lost to last year due to the fact that he has a hard bat (illegal), and I don't really know how to deal with that.  This time Hao Huang helped me warm up by using a hard bat.  So I figured out some tricks.  I was able to beat Paul 7, 5, 7.

Besides the table tennis part, let me write some stuff about my day.  I woke up late (8!!) because my alarm failed to go off (it is on one of my computers, and over night the hard disk filled up so it was unable to generate a playlist to play music).  I quickly got ready and went to school to teach.  Then I had a light lunch (since I will be playing table tennis), went to SMC, and then played table tennis.  Then I came home, took a shower, and hurried off to tutoring.  Today tutoring was a bit longer, and then I went to buy groceries and went to dry-cleaning store (as usual).  After dinner at home, I walked over to Joy's apartment for prayer meeting, since it is moved there as Tammy is not feeling well.  Now I am at home and getting ready to sleep.

This Monday, I turned in the first combinatorics assignment from two weeks ago that I spent a lot of time working on.  It was fun, but now it is over.  We got assigned new homework, due in two weeks.  I looked at it briefly at school, came home, had dinner, took a shower, and then sat down to work.  In an hour at most, I finished all of it.  Well, as in, I have ideas on how to do them (which is a very big start).  I still need to flush out the details and write them out, which will take many hours (5~10?) but I am basically "done."  It feels really good (I still really like combinatorics), so I proceeded in spending the rest of the evening with other tasks, including dealing with the HSG teaching stuff at church, and other matters.  It's good for once to reach the "accomplishment" marker before the "time" marker.  Indeed, it was Wilson's philosophy (and I adhere to it mostly) that each day I should either work a certain amount of hours or make a certain level of breakthrough--and stop working whenever one of them comes.  I like his mentoring style.  It fits my personality quite well.  I think I am still thinking about him and the possibility of working with him again.  Incidentally, I spent about 45 minutes in the shower today.  I think showers do indeed help people think.  I have solved so many math problems in the shower throughout the years!  It works.