Htam::Diary

This Thursday, four things of interest happened.  I wrote the diary entry of the last 12 days, my first paper got accepted, I started singing KR, and I met Benny Sudakov.

The diary entry signifies that I have been quite busy in the past 12 days, but I have not only returned to normal, but I have more time now and am caught up.  Similarly, I had been getting a diamond a day in KR for quite some time now.  For the past three weeks, however, I did not sing at all.  Resuming KR marks my return to normalcy.  I once again have free time, and am resuming my leisure activities.

On the academic note, my 2006 SURF paper, titled Vertex-Pancyclicity of Hypertournaments has been accepted for publication.  This confirms my success in the academic world from the past.  While on the other hand, meeting Benny Sudakov, my potential advisor for the future, marks the opening of a door that is to be considered.

This Wednesday, I played table tennis with Yang Luo for the second time outside of club.  We originally wanted to play Fridays, but he cannot play the past Friday and this Friday.  So last week we played on Thursday.  I cannot play this Thursday, so we play on Wednesday.  We first of course just warm up with forehand hits.  After a while, he started his intense looping, so I practiced a lot of blocking.  Every once in a while, I would smash it back, and usually, he will not be able to react fast enough.  After about half an hour, we switched to backhands.  After warming up backhands, I suggested he could try looping with his forehand straight to my backhand.  I gained experience blocking with my backhand now, since forehand loops are usually more powerful than backhand loops.  I also tried sometimes sidestepping and blocking with my forehand, to practice switching.  After another half an hour, I suggested he could practice looping to the two corners alternating.  I had a lot of fun trying to block with both forehand and backhand, when I already needed non-trivial effort to blocking either side.  It was very good practice.  We then played a match, and I took one game off of him.  It was a very good time indeed.

This Tuesday, I attended Avery formal dinner.  Scott Hsieh invited me and Matthew Chan to formal dinner, similar to how Matt invited the two of us when he was living at Avery.  I suppose I will never be able to repay the favour.  Caleb Ng and Ben Yang wanted to eat with us, but because they told us too late, we could not find a five-person table.  So we split up, and we ended up sitting at a four-person table with one empty seat.  Harold Hsu, another Christian senior, came in late and decided to join us.  It was a good time spent catching up.

This Monday, John Liu emailed me saying he cannot come to class in the afternoon because his hand hurts.  Therefore, I decided to go and play with Michael Woods.  (I usually do not go in the afternoon, and Michael and John play with each other; parity is a very real problem in table tennis when there are few good players around.)  I talked to Wei about getting new rubber.  I looked online beforehand and decided I want to try Yasaka Mark V rubber (again).  I had used the rubber long time ago.  She said she can sell me one and glue it for me and bring it back for the evening class.  I then had dinner with Scott Hsieh in Avery.  For the night class, I tried out the rubber.  I realized I like the rubber for my backhand, but I do not like it as my forehand.  Wei suggested I could just use Butterfly Sriver (which is the one I have been using for my forehand) again, and use the Mark V I got as my backhand.  This will require that I use black for forehand (since it is currently my backhand Wakaba—to be replaced) and red for my backhand (which is the new Mark V rubber, replacing my old Sriver).  I am going to try playing with the new rubber for a little more and then decide what to do.

This Sunday, I went to church in the morning, "as usual."  Except, I have not been there for three weeks, so it is not just "as usual."  I really enjoyed the Breaking of Bread meeting.  I did not realize how much I miss being there, until actually being there again after missing it for a while.  I also got to see many more brothers and sisters who were not there yesterday.

In the afternoon, I went to Caltech table tennis club.  I am still running the show there.  Today, we had a lot of players, around 15, so I split people up into three round robin partitions.  The top partition had Yang Luo, Ken Mak, Adri, Yi Liu, and myself.  Yang beat everyone, and Ken only lost to Yang.  I beat Yi, who beat Adri, who beat me.  By tie-breaking, Adri is third, and I am fourth.  It is unusual that I beat Yi, since he is a very good player.  I thought I would lose to him and may be able to beat Adri.  On the other hand, I took one game off of Yang, which is unusually nice, too.  Overall, I was playing very well, and enjoyed playing with all these wonderful players.  All of them are not only good, but are all very, very nice people.

This Saturday, I went to the first Alhambra Christian Fellowship Saturday Bible study in the morning.  We talked about changing time to the morning for a while now.  We finally did it last week, but since I was sick, I did not attend.  It was really nice to see my brothers and sisters again after such a long time.  Since I missed three weeks, it has been a month since I have seen them.

This Friday, I got an email from UW.  Yay, even though UW is at the bottom of my list, being listed as my safety school, I am still really happy.  Indeed, UW is somewhere I want to go to.  For one, there is Yi Yong Fan, the number one rated table tennis player in the US in Seattle.  There is also Seattle Christian Assembly, and all my friends there.  In general, UW draws me a lot because of its location—I would not mind going back to Seattle.  I also had dinner with Caleb Ng, our new ASCIT President.  I mention he is our ASCIT President because it was actually a business dinner.  I would much like to have a "friends" dinner with him at some point, but business comes first!

This Thursday, I played table tennis with Yang Luo outside of club play for the first time.  It was really fun practicing with Yang.  He had powerful loops, so I practiced blocking.  I also tried looping very hard and fast for a while.  He also tried to give me some pointers as to how to improve my game, using the skills that I am strong at.  Basically, I need to be more aggressive, and win more points instead of defending until my opponent messes up.  After table tennis, I had lunch with Po-Ling Loh.  I asked her about her experiences as a TA, as I am considering whether to be a TA next quarter.

This Wednesday, I resumed tutoring.  I have done it for a few weeks now.  Last week, since I had trouble speaking, and was sick, I did not tutor.  But now I am back.  Yay.  I also had lunch with John Shen.

This Tuesday, I did not do anything special.  Well, actually, to be honest, I am writing this entry 9 days later, and I cannot remember anything to write about.

This Monday, I started playing table tennis again, after a one-week hiatus.  I played with Michael Woods today.  I think I get tired more easily now, having not exercised for a while.  I need to get back to my usual fitness, and then go beyond that.

This Sunday, I watched a movie.  In fact, in the past six days, being sick at home, I watched six movies.  One a day.  I watched, in that order, High School Musical 2 (2007), Ocean's Eleven (2001), Stardust (2007), The Sound of Music (1965), Balls of Fury (2007), and My Fair Lady (1964).  That's a lot of movie-watching.  I realized that old movies are long.  New movies are often short.  Old movies have intermissions, too.

This Saturday, I got emails from both Rutgers and UCSD!  Yay, more acceptances.  Rutgers and UCSD both have very many combinatorialists, and were both ranked number 2 in the field.  They are very fine choices.

This Friday, I have no classes, so I did not have to make a decision whether to skip.  I needed groceries, so Timothy Kwa offered to drive me to Pavilions.  I usually would just bike there, and hence cannot carry too many things back.  Today, since there is a car, I bought a lot of stuff, including liquids.  I have not bought so much from Pavilions as far as I can remember.  It is nice to have a car.  Maybe I should get a car.

This Thursday, I attempted to attend class.  I was at German, but then I started feeling quite uncomfortable.  So I came home, skipping my math class that follows German.  After some resting, I felt much better.  At night, David Barmore came over to visit.  I could not talk, so I typed on my computer as he read, and he would speak to me in words.  After awhile, we decided we should play a game.  We played Battle Lines, and I lost.  It was a good experience though.

This Wednesday, I decided to skip classes today.  Well, I skipped all my classes today, but I only had to skip one class.  On Wednesdays, I only have one hour of German.  I worked on the Book, of course.  I suddenly had an insight and solved 1.7.  This problem I remember spending a lot of time on last week.  I think it took me 2 or 3 hours to solve this problem, despite it not being starred.

This Tuesday, I was advised by Scott Hsieh to visit the Health Center, since I have been having a sore throat for a week now.  At the Health Center, it was discovered that I have a fever.  Then I returned to class.  During class, I feel more and more miserable.  So I went home immediately after that, and rested.

Well, by resting, I mean I work on math.  I solved 1.4 from the Book (as now I will call The Probabilistic Method).  It was a star problem, so I am impressed that I am able to solve the problem, and it only took me an hour to do, contrary to how I have spent much more time on some other problems that are not necessarily starred.

This Monday, I did a lot of math.  I worked on the exercises in The Probabilistic Method for about five hours.  This is close to the amount of time I spend doing my math homework each week.  And this was only one day.  I estimate I will be spending more time working on this book than all my work in all my classes combined.  I figured out 1.8, now I am 3/10.  It was surprisingly easy.  However, I still cannot figure out 1.9, which looks very similar to 1.8.

Caleb Ng came over for lunch.  I cooked my usual food, and we had some fellowship.  It was good to get to talk to different people who I don't necessarily know very well.

At night, there is the CCF Praise and Prayer Night.  I went for the first 2/3 and left during the second intermission.  I came home and went to sleep.

This Sunday, since people at my church is on a retreat, I decided to go with my friends to church.  In the morning, I went with Po-Ling Loh to her Catholic Mass.  Cherrie Soetjipto, Jian Yu Fung, and Deborah went as well (none of them are Catholic).  After returning, I went with a bunch of Avery people to their church called Evergreen.

At table tennis club, we had a lot of people so we broke into three round robin groups.  In my group, Yang Luo placed first, Ken Mak second, Yi Liu third, and I was last.  Then we decided to play doubles.  I was with Yang since we were the weakest and the strongest player, respectively.  Today, my crowning achievement was probably bringing Yi Liu to the fifth game, and finally losing 2-3.  Despite the fact that I lost, I did pretty well.

At night, I stopped my my neighbor Sunny Chun's apartment.  They were having a Ma2 party.  Usually my old roommate David Barmore helps them.  But since he is very sick, he could not come.  I offered to help instead.  I helped them for an hour, and then I went to Ruddock and helped there for an hour, and then I came back and helped Sunny and Kathryn Gunn for another hour.  I am tired, so I am going to sleep now.

This Saturday, I went with Ken Mak to the Northridge Open table tennis tournament.  I played in the U-1400 and U-1600, while Ken played in U-1600, U-1800, and O-40.  I first played in U-1600 round robin.  There were three people in my group.  I was the lowest seed.  I lost to the top seed (1500s) 2-3 and beat the middle seed (1300s) 3-1.  However, the middle seed beat the top seed and there was a three-way tie.  By Win/Lost ratio of games, the middle seed actually advanced.  If I had beat him 3-0, I would have advanced.  Every game counts!  Then I played in the U-1400.  I was the middle seed this time.  I beat the unrated player without too much trouble, but lost to the top seed.  He was playing very well, in my opinion, even better than the 1500s top seed in my U-1600 round robin.  Ken advanced in both U-1600 and O-40.  He lost in the O-40 immediately, but got 2nd place in U-1600.  I am very tired now, after being out for 11 hours or so.  I am going to sleep early tonight.