Patrick's Diary - 6/16/2015

It's 2:30 am on Wednesday now. Feeling sleepy, I didn't go to gym last night but forced myself into sleep until 20 minutes ago. I probably will do morning workout as soon as gym opens at 5:00 am.

On my way to work this morning, I followed a XFinity pickup all the way through Bellevue when it was run out of freeway. As usual, I rarely switched lanes before Bellevue but stayed in the middle, it is the safer option and doesn't have my driving speed slowed down much during heavy traffic in rush hours.

Yesterday, I heard a guy mentioning a Chinese curse "May You Live in Interesting Times" but it never rang the bell in my mind. I couldn't think about any Chinese origins close to it. However, I checked on Wikipedia, it sounded that the closest interpretation in Chinese is: You would rather be a dog in peaceful time than a human in turmoil. 

Recently, because someone asked, even yesterday morning, I mentioned to that person that our family isn't 100% traditional Chinese, especially from my mom's side. We know her father was Man ethnicity mixed with Mongolian ancestry, Man ethnicity migrated to Chinese territory to establish Qing Dynasty. It's why my maternal grandfather was a purely Beijinger. My mom's maternal grandfather was non-Asian who either was born or at least grew up in Ye County, Shangdong when it was a colonized territory in 19th century. He fled to a village in Hebei province near Beijing later due to unknown reasons. So, my mom only possibly has 25% of blood of Han Ethnicity, the dominant Chinese blood. When I was young, I tried to find out where my mom's maternal grandfather's origin was because I learned some countries had relevant immigration laws. After traveling internationally became easily, it became irrelevant to me. However, It is definitely an interesting mystery I am interested in finding out. DNA test can tell you the exact compositions of your blood, I may start from it someday after I retire and have free time to do something meaningless. 

Anyway, my dad was born and raised in Shaanxi, Northwest region in China, a 100% Han ethnicity as he knows. 

Leaving work at 6:40 pm, I took the perfect weather in Seattle for granted: Sunny, Windless but cool due to overcast in the morning. 

Missing the exciting match USA playing Nigeria, I caught the highlights on Fox Sports I later. As expected, USA won and advanced. Nigeria head coach seemed very unsatisfied at the end but I think they played very well in this tournament within this group of death in which all the other teams are top 10 ranked. It's not a good day for Swedes, they have to wait to see if they can advance as one of the best 3rd ranked teams. 

Earlier today, my son learned his grade in Macroeconomics: 3.0. which isn't as good as he expected but is acceptable. His expectation was 3.4 or 3.5 because he had maintained 3.2 before the final exam and he thought he did it greatly in final. However, his score for final exam is mediocre, which had his final grade dropped. In general, given the difficulties of the courses he selected in his fresh year, he did a good job and is on the right track to apply the major of BS in Economics in Junior year. I will keep helping him to achieve that goal. As I said, I need to tutor him in Integral Calculus and Intermediate Microeconomics, which is calculus based in next quarter. Many people think only Engineering and Physical Sciences require hardcore mathematics but modern economics is mathematical model based, a real economist is always a great mathematician. So, if my son wants to pursue a career of economist as I recommend, he will have to go through this challenging journey. However, he doesn't need to worry about physics and chemistry. That helps a little bit.  

3:36 am. Do I go back to bed or prepare to go to gym?