Tonight I came out to have dinner with friends I met in TTF. I have been hanging out in TTF for almost 5 years, from cdrom to part of the moderator group. They have gathering in HK or China once a while, but I couldn’t attend due to the distance. I am the odd one out living far away. There is only one other guy living in Vancouver and we don’t have any event to come out. This week, an active member visiting Vancouver and we decide to come out for the first time. I have known them for many years, but never met each other. It is interesting to finally link a face and real name to an alias on the net. We talked alot in the dinner, topics ranages from gossip inside TTF to school. I think Pat is bored by our conversation tonight. I always joke that we are just a whole bunch of Victoria Park uncle have big talks on virtually any topics.

I have a very very serious problem of procastination. Tomorrow is the deadline for P.Eng application, and I just finished writing the work experience summary at 1:30a.m. the night before. I have over a month to work on this application and I just couldn’t get myself toegether to work until this weekend. Actually, I didn’t work very hard over the weekend, spent most of the time idling in front of the computer. Althought I had been thinking about how to write the application, had all the main points outlined in my brain, it is still a pain to write down everything I have done at work in the past 6 years. Writing this application gives me a chance to examine my way I came from and how I arrive at today’s place. I am glad that I had make some good progress since I graduated, not exactly walking in circle as I would assume. Looking at the past helps me to reflect and plan ahead. I wish I could have make more progress in all these years. I have to make up my mind, be more discinple to accelerate my progress in the coming years.

I borrowed a set of audio book CD from the company library and start listening when I am driving home. In the morning when I go to work, I can listen to news and HK commentary. However, since I go home kinda late, there is nothing interesting on the radio. The Cantonese program is finished, one station plays Mandarin music program, which is ok. The other station plays Christian programs, which makes me want to puke if I have to listen for more than half a minute. I am kinda lazy in downloading songs to my iPod and it seems I had lost interest keeping up with the newsest songs. Listening to audio book is the best use of the 20 minutes travel time from work to home. It will take me about a month to finish all 6 CDs of the audio book I borrowed. Unlike reading books, where I proceed with the highest speed I can absorb the material, listening to audio book is well paced. This give some free brian cycle to process the material rather than just absorbing it. Different experience, but I still prefer reading than listening.

Every four years, soccer fans around the world is crazy for the worldcup games. I am not a hugh fans of soccer, not a sports fans in general. I can’t name the players except the most famous ones. My soccer knowledge is limited to the news covered in the newspaper or radio. Somehow the media streotype a typical male as a soccer fans. In this aspect, I have to say I am abnormal. I only watch the game to act like normal. I don’t repulse from watching the game, but I don’t have any urge to watch it either. I would watch the final game if it is part of a social event. Crazy for a sport team seems so irrational to me. I would not explain the mind of sports fans logically. Anyways, my bet is on Brazil to win this world cup. I didn’t study strength of the teams nor support any favourate team. My bet is based on the odds published by gamble companies. If the market is efficient, all the information should be have already reflected on the odds. I can’t understand why people are so addicted in watching sports, I can surely understand sports as money making bussiness. When I was talking with colleagues about worldcup this afternoon, I brough out my calculator to estimate the revenue from tickets alone, which is over $1 billion. In SFU there is even a course offered title the economy of sports. Sports is not merely games, it is based on economics, involves politics and even replaced religions to some extend. I wonder have anyone wrote something about the philosophy of sports yet?

Today is the convocation of my master degree. The convocation ceremony is as boring as the undergrad ones. This time, I got more stage time as a master student, unlike the undergrads has to pipeline through the stage. The Ph.D. studetns got most stage time, the dean put on hoods for them and they sit on the stage afterward. The honorable doctor even get a chance to make a boring speech. I guess the stage time is revalent to your importance to the university, which is fair. During the ceremony, I read the booklet to kill the boredom. There are much more science or applied sciense Ph.D. graduates. It is relatively easy to invent something new in your research than B.S. a thesis all the way through. However, the thesis of the Arts Ph.D. are more interesting, at least the topic is self-explantory, not in some encryped technical terms. I used to look down on arts degrees from undergrad all the way to grad school. On a second thought, an arts Ph.D. is harder to get than a science Ph.D., and it deserves more respect.