Slept an hour on Friday morning to make it to the 5am bus to Logan airport. Yuliia forgot her passport and we were nervous but the passport was mailed and everything is fine now (she needs it for our flight to Mexico City next week). We flew to El Paso and got home.

Once home, I had a meeting with the Olympiad Committee to write the exam. I was just trying out the problems invented, not being a good problem inventor myself. However at the end we had 6 problems one of which I didn't like and we needed 6 problems, so I tried to invent one (also, the last 5 Chihuahua Math Olympiad exams have had a problem by me, so I want to continue the tradition). I came up with one I loved and it made it into the exam. The problem is the following:
Given the numbers 1 to 12 written around a circle the following operation takes place: Each number looks at his adjacent neighbors and if both of them are smaller than him, he kills them. In how many ways can the numbers be arranged in such a way that after one operation only four remain alive.

We finished writing the exam earlier than usual, we even got to sleep a full four hours. The next day, we went to my dad's office to print the exam, then to a pharmacy to get copies. The exam wasn't perfectly written so in the hour where students can ask questions we got many similar questions. I had a lot of answering to do in the question hour.

In the middle of the exam, four of us went to eat gorditas. They were delicious. On our way back, David hit his car. A woman driving in front of us, turn right seemingly to park but it turned out it was a move to make a U-turn which she decided to do regardless of us driving right behind her. So we hit her door. It was a bit funny, things seemed to be okay, the woman will pay for the damages (defense and light).

After the exam, I ate home (chicken with apples), took a one hour nap and then greeted the Committee to grade. We started at around 6pm and ended at 4:45am. Obviously there were many distractions such as the Kim Clijsters-Serena Williams match, many procrastinating conversations, food, etc. My problem turned out to be the hardest, no one got more than 3 points (7 is the score for a correct solution). I think my problem should have been submitted to the Mexican Math Olympiad instead with a few tweaks. I love the problem.

After deciding the winners of the exam (this was a very successful exam, having a good spread on the scores and having enough people scoring highly), because of trash talk four of us decided to compete trying out a math problem and see who would solve it the fastest. We started at 5:15am and finished at 6:30am when I finished my solution and decided to check the others. Hector solved it correctly 10 minutes before me, David had it wrong and Perrito also had it wrong, so Hector won and I had second place. I was very happy because I loved my solution, I thought it was very creative and that the problem was quite hard. Hector's solution was also pretty cool, I liked seeing two different solutions. I was so happy to not give up because of being too late or being too tired. The problem was to find all pairs of integers a,b such that 3^a + 7^b is a perfect square.

I woke up early today to watch NFL games and tennis and hang around with my family. Life is good.

It looks like I am in charge of Thursday Night Salsa from now on, as no one else volunteered this week. That meant that I gave the "lesson". I taught one move that is the pillar of Cuban style and I taught one spin using that move. I don't think I did a good job teaching it. Eventually it was time to open the dance floor and just dance. I had a great time. It is always fun to dance with Yulja and Dafina. I was happy to see Marisa again, since I hadn't seen her in a while (this meant, she made a comment about my amazing hair) and her boyfriend Sean. I got to meet Sean's sister, she's a Spanish teacher, so we talked in Spanish for a while.

The other thing I did on Thursday (besides teaching seminar) was help Yulja practice how to drive. I let her use my car for an hour, while driving around the parking lot at Dartmouth practicing turns, stopping and parking. She'll take her drivers license test soon, so she needs some practice.

All in all a fun day.

The day was packed with activities. Get a cashier's check to put the downpayment on the car. Then I got a temporary parking permit. Then I went to class. Class was fun, I can't believe how fast those five hours pass.
Everything worked out with the car. And right after paying I came back to Hanover to have lunch with Paige and John at the "Jewel of India". We shared three dishes, but each one mosstly ate of his own. We had Saag Paneer (I love this Vegetarian dish), Chicken Tikka Masala (Paige's favorite) and we had Lamb R J (don't remember the name but it was two words starting R and J). It was really good. I didn't eat as much naan as I usually do at Indian restaurants but it was better to not feel super full at class (the meal was in the break in the class).
After class I get a call from the car salesman and it turns out there's two more things I need to sign. So I go back and sign them and he filled my tank of gas for the inconvenience (that was nice).
I bought some cool comics today. I bought HellBoy Vol.1, Books of Magic (I am really looking forward to reading this), Proposition Player (a comic involving poker written by the guy that writes Fables), Marvels (drawn by Alex Ross, the master). Looking forward to reading this. I do have several things to do this week besides reading comics (teaching seminar, organizing Thursday Night Salsa, writing an essay about "Devil Came on Horseback" for the film society, dungeons and dragons on Sunday, etc.).

I saw the African movie The Black Girl today. It is a 1964 movie directed by an African (from Senegal). The movie is only sixty minutes long and it is very interesting, but I didn't like it too much. The main character goes through a transformation that didn't convince me and it seems to be just a poor critique of the middle class. I guess I just don't think having a maid is equivalent to slavery.

The movie was preceded by a short African film made by the same director. I can't comment much on it, since I fell asleep. It seemed to complain about how no one is worth trusting.

I don't like pessismistic movies that in my opinion are pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic.

The day was full of activities. It started with waking up early to get insurance, then I went to school to print the essay. Five hours of class, plus two hours to buy lunch ellapsed and then Paige gave me a ride to the car shop to get my car. I signed about a million things (a little over ten) and then I found out that they didn't accept personal checks for the downpayment, which means I have to go to the bank tomorrow and get it. They let me take the car today, but with dealership plates, i.e I am taking a test drive. Right after that I find out the insurance takes effect until June 28th and hence they can't give me the car until that date, so tomorrow I'll have to call the insurance and fix the date. While I am working all this, I get a call from the bike shop telling me that the bike arrived faulty, so they will have to order another one which will arrive until next Friday (I really really want to bike NOW).
The hour of bad news is not over, I get a call from my dad telling me my sister just came out of surgery. Surgery went well, but my sister will not be able to step normally for a couple of months (she fell down and broker her ankle and had to have surgery, which included putting 7 nails on her). When I get back to Dartmouth to move Giulio's car I find out that I parked it in a part where the permit didn't allow to park, hence I got fined.
All that bad news doesn't even count the money I lost at poker. After a great start this month with a $300 pay out a week ago, I am back to even. This year I haven't won much money at poker, only about $300 or $400.

Despite that, I had a good day. It feels good to have my first car staring at me from outside my house (my house has many windows), it feels good to have a relaxing day at home to do laundry and play dumb poker (although next time I'll play the Wii or read instead, I think it is more fun to do those).

I also went to the basement in my house for the first time and it was nuts. The door is creepy and there are spiderwebs everywhere. It was a little scary and a little movie-like. It was awesome to go down there.

I also found out there's a new Spiderman cartoon. It has shown 13 episodes already. I saw the first two today and I give my seal of approval. It is Spidey enough. I will watch all of those during the next few weeks and try to catch it on Saturday mornings.

In other news, my hair has had excellent reviews. I might have to post a picture, the handsomeness is just emanating, everywhere I get comments of "wow, great haircut".

I was planning on going car shopping on Sunday, but the thunderstorms kept me home and when the thunderstorms were over, it was Euro Cup time. The Spain-Italy match was pretty cool. I am extremely happy Spain passed. Not only do I root for Spain because of family, but Italy plays a very un-entertaining type of futbol. Defense, defense, defense is all that Italy does. I am glad the June 22nd jinx is gone (the last three times Spain had a major match on June 22, they lost in penalties, this time they won in penalties).

Today, I went out to buy a car. The first place I looked in I found what I was looking for. A car with low mileage, room for my bike in the trunk, high miles per gallon and manual transmission. I didn't negotiate too well to get the price down, but I was happy with the price. But now I find out that to finance it, I need to get insurance, I thought this was no big deal, but insurance turns out to be almost $1K per year. That's just crazy, specially since in New Hampshire it is not mandatory to have insurance.

I also went to the bike shop to get a new bike. I will get the exact same one I had before, but I'll get a different lock this time, hopefully it will be better. I will also need to buy new lights and other stuff my bike already had.

Good thing I saved so much money my first year here.

I have to write an essay for my teaching seminar class. So no more time to spend time idly on the internet tonight.