On Sunday Carl, Anne (his wife) and I hiked Mt. Cardigan. Carl told me that he liked hiking so I invited him to go hike the beautiful Cardigan. Yuliia was supposed to join, but she didn't feel well. The hike was fun. It was very windy at the top, so Carl decided to sit down at a nice view while Anne and I did the last part to get to the top. I had a really nice time.

On Monday I did some errands getting ready for my trip to Georgia. Tuesday we got up early to get to Boston. I was shocked to see the trees and the grass being white so soon (October 13) on the ride to Boston. There was a lot of traffic so we barely got to the airport in time. The flight was uneventful. When we got to Atlanta we left our baggage in storage while we went downtown to tour a bit. We walked around Peachtree street and around the Centennial Olympic Park (amazing!) and then we went to eat dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. I loved it. There were all kinds of delicious meats brought to our table. Yuliia ate a lot and enjoyed it too. After the dinner we walked some more and then headed back to the airport where we would meet up with Paul, Mits and Lola. After some confusion with the rental car, we got a nice big car, Grand Marquis, and then drove to Carrollton, the home of the University of West Georgia.

Wednesday was the first day of the conference and there were lots of really cool talks. I enjoyed a talk about 5-regular partitions (partitions without multiples of 5), I was very excited about seeing Hendrik Lenstra giving a talk and I enjoyed the talk by Paul about perfect numbers. He gave a great talk.
At night we went to have dinner to a Hawaian restuarant to celebrate Mel and Carl's birthdays (the conference was in honor of their 65th birthday). I ordered the Mahi-Mahi and it was delicious. I had a great time talking with all of our crew (which in this dinner included also Dominic, Carl and Jean Marc).

On Thursday I had a great time listening to Kevin Ford talk about some really cool results in primality theory among other talks I enjoyed that morning. At lunch break, we went to a Southern sandwich cafe which had very tasty food. Everybody was very nice. After the lunch break I got to see other cool talks, among them Florian's proof that there are no multiply perfect Fibonacci numbers and Mits' talk about finding the fourth digit on the density of abundant numbers (.2476...).
At night, Yuliia and I went to have dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse. It was our anniversary, but we will probably celebrate with a nicer dinner sometime this week in New Hampshire. I am very happy to get to the first anniversary in my marriage. The year has been wonderful.

After dinner, I worked on rewriting my talk. I wanted to make my introduction better and add a slide on giving more steps on the proof. I finished editing my talk at 4am, which was very good.

On Friday, I was very focused on thinking about my talk so it was very hard to follow the talks before my talk. It was unfortunate, because Ron Graham was giving a very cool talk about juggling sequences. I wish I could have been there 100% in the talk to get more out of it. Then I gave my talk, listing my results on Burgess. I finished 5 minutes early, so I could've added stuff, but I think overall the talk went okay. I did a better job at the Number Theory seminar at Dartmouth, but it was better than my talk at Maine/Quebec.

In the afternoon, I was very happy to see András Sárkozy give a talk. Sárkozy is the mathematician with the most Erdos joint papers. He gave a cool talk about the Erdos-Fuchs theorem. Another talk I enjoyed was Dominic's. In fact, I took some mental notes to be sure to incorporate some of his techniques, as I think he is a very good speaker.

At night, we drove to Alabama so we could say we have been in Alabama. Then after standing there for 10 minutes we drove back to stop at a Waffle House. The food was fantastic and very cheap. I enjoyed very tasty hashbrowns. After dinner, we hung out talking. It was a really good time.

Another thing I did a lot while in Georgia was jump in the bed. I jumped from the TV desk, I freefell from the couch, I used the elasticity of the bed to flip, I did all sorts of jumps. It was so much fun. Yuliia took hundreds of pictures and I had hours of fun.

Saturday was another really cool day. There were some cool talks in the morning. Lola gave the last talk of the conference and when she finished, we started our journey. After picking up Yuliia from the hotel, we drove to Atlanta to eat a Rias diner, which had some very tasty vegetarian options (Lola is vegan). After eating, we drove to Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain has a relief of three confederate heroes. Our plan was to see that and then drive back to Atlanta to the Coca Cola museum. When we arrived at the park, we saw some signs and started walking. We figured maybe there was a hike needed to see the monument. Once we were getting close to the top I was skeptical that we would see any monument as I recalled Carl telling me he hiked the mountain with Erdos and that from the top of the mountain you can't see the monument (as it is sculpted on the side of the mountain). The top had really spectacular views of Atlanta but no view of the monument. The views of Atlanta made it worth it even with the cold wind slapping our faces. The hike was a mile, so it took us over an hour to go up and down which ruined our plans for the Coca Cola museum. At the top of the mountain we had figured how we would get to the monument. Once we got there, I was very unimpressed. It was cool, but not super cool.

From there, we were a little nervous about making it to the airport in time, but we did make it in time (barely). The flight back was uneventful. Now I am at home relaxing with Yuliia and Richy (our new dog). Life is good.

After leaving Cd. Juárez, I was one day in New Hampshire, a day I spent with Yuliia. The next day it was time to go to Orono, Maine.

Michael, Mark and I left New Hampshire at about 2pm. During the long drive, we saw the beautiful white mountains and enjoyed the foliage season. Mark and I talked about many things (mostly politics and math) and before we knew it, we were in Orono, Maine. That night we went to have dinner at the only restaurant that looked decent. The food was good.

I was procrastinating at night, not writing my talk, but at some point I checked the schedule and realized my talk wasn't the next day (Saturday) but two days from it (Sunday). I went to bed with great joy.

The next day, I enjoyed the conference. In the breaks I worked out some stuff about my research which made it much easier to plan the talk.
After the talks ended at around 5:30pm, we went to a pizza place for the "banquet". There I mainly spent time talking to Andrew Pollington, a number theorist who worked at BYU many years, but now works for the NSF. It was fun talking to him and his wife. I got to learn about what working at the NSF entails, how they liked Utah and hear fun cricket stories.
I had a really good time at the pizza place (even though the pizza was horrendous).

After I got to the hotel room and procrastinated a bit, I worked on my talk, which I finished at about 6:30am, thereby eliminating my sleep time.
The talk itself didn't go that great, mainly because I was tired and drank coffee (something I never do) which made me talk faster and not be in a good condition to give jokes and other things. I gave this talk again a week later in the Number Theory Seminar and did a much better job.

The ride back with Mark was also very nice. The conference was a very good experience.

This year Mexico got to be the host of the IberoAmerican Mathematical Olympiad which would be held in Querétaro. As a coordinator, I would have to be in San Miguel de Allende the first days of the competition, since I had knowledge of the exam we had to be isolated from Querétaro.

Yuliia and I got to San Miguel de Allende on the 18th. The next day, we walked around. The town is very beautiful. We had a really good time. The hotel ("El Atascadero") was wonderful, a beautiful room, a beautiful building, a nice swimming pool, great service and fantastic food. I enjoyed all the meals there.
After realizing they didn't require me on the 20th, I took Yuliia to Guanajuato, my favorite city. I have always dreamed of taking a girl to Guanajuato with me and now it came true. I had a great time walking in the town, walking up to the Pipila. I also saw something I hadn't seen before, which was the Quijote museum, a really cool museum with art relating to Quijote.
In San Miguel, Yuliia and I had a good time swimming and relaxing in the beautiful town. I had little to do as my only job was to create a grading scheme for the problem I would grade (problem 2), which was a day's worth of work.

Yuliia left on the 22, I went with her to the airport (in Mexico City), then I went to Querétaro. Because of accompanying Yuliia to the airport, I didn't get to sleep (we left at 2am for the airport, got there at 8pm and I got to the hotel in Querétaro at 1pm).

That night in Querétaro I started grading. The next day it was time to coordinate (this is where you discuss the grades with the country leaders). The whole day was full of work. In a span of 24 hours I worked 22. It was very fun. I was happy to see many solutions to the problem. A translation to English of the exam can be found here. A sad thing about the test is that problem 5 had been posted in mathlinks a month before, hence the question wasn't quite original.

The winner of the Olympiad was Perú, beating Brazil by 1 point. Spain was third, followed by Argentina and Mexico. While I am not that happy with Mexico getting fifth place, I am happy that Memo (a student from Chihuahua) got a gold medal. It is the first time that a student I helped prepare gets a gold medal in the Ibero.

In Querétaro I had a very good time talking with David, Joshua, Bernardo and others. I also had a good time beating everybody in Ping Pong.
I walked downtown with David and enjoyed it. Querétaro seems to be a very lively town. There was a plaza with a mini-orchestra playing tango, a plaza with people dancing capoeira and other plazas with other things. Very pleasant night.

The time in San Miguel/Querétaro was wonderful. I had a very relaxing time where I could talk to good friends, share beautiful places with Yuliia, get inspired mathematically and eat magnificently. I am very happy to be a part of the Ibero.

On Sunday Yuliia and I drove to Newport, Rhode Island to relive one of our favorite trips together. We arrived at Newport at 5pm and then drove to Ocean Drive to soak in the beautiful view of the ocean, walk around the rocks next to the ocean and enjoy a sunset. The weather was great and the view was spectacular.

The next day we woke up late and went to Bellevue Avenue to check out the mansions. We went in The Breakers a huge mansion owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt (train company) (not owned by him anymore, but originally). The house was amazing, a lot of open spaces and very nice art everywhere. The house felt like a mini-museum. It is very ostentatious. It also has a magnificent view of the ocean. The reason the house is called "The Breakers" is because the waves from the ocean break at the cliffs in the yard of the house.

After The Breakers we walked around the Cliff walk to the Marble House, bought by another Vanderbilt (brother) as a gift to his wife. The wife, Alva, divorced him the next year, a big scandal as divorces weren't common, and even less common among the mega rich. Alva was a very interesting character, she fought for the women's right to vote and other women's issues. It was interesting to me how she fought for the freedom of women yet she forced her daughter, Consuelo, into an arranged marriage (with the Duke of Marlborough) and was very strict with her. The house felt much smaller than the Breakers, but also was very richly decorated and it had interesting things such as having different rooms in different styles, Italian, Gothic even Chinese (although the Chinese styled one is outside the house, being a Tea House). Very interesting house, very beautiful.

After mansion gazing we went to eat dinner at Yesterday's. We ordered crab cake and then Scallops. Both were incredible, the crab cake is the most delicious thing I've eaten in months and the scallops were also very good. The meal wasn't expensive, so it was perfect. The only thing that couldn't have been better was the dessert. The dessert, a creme brulle cheesecake wasn't that great.

After dinner we drove back to New Hampshire. The trip was very fun. Yuliia and I had a great time. We will go back to check out more mansions as our tickets were for five mansions.

Thursday was traveling day. I woke up at 6:50am to go to the bus station. I didn't make it, the bus leaves at 7:20 and I got there at 7:22. I bought the ticket to try to catch it at New London where it would stop in 30 minutes. I was nervous while driving that I wouldn't make it, but I did make it. I was very happy. The flight from Boston went smoothly. I was at the Houston airport for many hours and then I boarded the plane on route to Mexico. Everything went well. In Mexico City I took the metro (after asking for directions from some helpful women in a booth) to get to the bus stop and then took the bus to Morelia. I got there at about 4am (22 hours later after factoring in the time zone difference). The taxi didn't even know where the hotel was and when I got there it said "Open" but no one would open the door after I rang and knocked for a long time. I called Yuliia and asked her to call the hotel (I didn't have the number), that didn't work either. I then went and knocked on a side glass. This worked, the person told me where to go (which he had left open for me already). I got in the big house (which would house all 12 of us) and picked a bed. It took me a long time to find the lights for the bedroom (they were at the other end of the room in a hidden niche). As soon as I put my head in the pillow, a mosquito started flying around. I turn the light on and kill it. I put my head in the pillow and a mosquito started flying around. After repeating the previous operation several times, I got to the point that when I put my head down at 6:30am, there was no more mosquitoes flying around my head. Time to sleep.

At 8am I got woken up by one of the professors (Toño). He informed me that the plan was to meet in the university at 9am. I showered quickly, which wasn't easy given that there was no warm water (good thing the Vermont swimming tour prepared me). I was in very good shape because I slept for over 5 hours in the bus from Mexico City to Morelia, and the cold water also helped waking me up.

We walked towards the university trying to find a place to have breakfast and the few eating places seemed to be closed, so some people bought snacks from a gas station while David, Efrén and I went to a small town trying to find something to eat. We found a place that sold fruit and we ate fruit.

After breakfast it was time to look at the problems. I worked with David and Florian in the Number Theory problems. Efrén worked on algebra. David and I also tried the algebra ones and I also did one of the combinatorics problems that looked fun. Pablo, Joshua and Carlos worked on the Combinatorics problems (all three of them won Gold medals in IberoAmerican Math Olympiad, Joshua and Carlos have Silver medals in the IMO and Pablo is the sole Gold medalist for Mexico in the IMO). Guevara, Chino and Leonardo worked on Geometry (Chino is a gold medal in the Ibero, Guevara was not only a gold medal but had a perfect exam in the Ibero 2006). Toño and Patricio worked on several problems (Patricio was the first Silver medalist for Mexico in the IMO and he also got a Gold in the Ibero). I was surrounded by Mexican Olympiad stars, however I was able to solve most of the problems I tried solving. It was very fun trying out problems all day.

On Saturday we presented the different solutions and decided on the short list (and the order of difficulty). It was a cool experience. I love seeing solutions to Olympiad problems, most of them are very pretty. At night we went to Sirloin Stockade to have dinner, it is a nice Buffet place. It was interesting seeing the waiters with their mouths covered (people are being very careful in Mexico due to the swine flu). I ate lots of good stuff there, it was a nice meal.
After the meal, we hung out in the hotel talking all night. It was very fun speaking with other Mexican mathematicians (or engineers). Lots of interesting topics came out and it is just refreshing to speak Spanish and be around nice people.

Since we finished everything on Saturday, Sunday became lazy day and most people went back to their homes. David, Chino and me were the only ones that stayed an extra night because our flights were bought for Monday. At night we went out into downtown. I had forgotten how beautiful Morelia is. It felt like I was in a very old town, felt European. Really beautiful. I ate some ice cream, some Mexican candy and then had sopes for supper.

I left the hotel at 2am, took a taxi to the bus station. The conversation with the taxi driver was very interesting. It turns out that he worked 19 years in the Morelia airport and was fired when the airports were privatized. The sindicate told the employees that no one would be fired and need only sign some papers to acknowledge that they were under new bosses now. It turns out that what the employees signed was their resignation. The national sindicate deceived the employees all around the country (this was back in 2000). A terrible story.

I got into the bus at 2:20am, the bus arrived in Mexico City at 5:50 (30 minutes early). I took the metro to the airport and got there at 7am, but then changing terminals and stuff made me get to my gate at 7:40am and there was a long line. If I had taken the 2:30 bus or if the 2:20 bus had arrived at 6:20 as I thought it would, I wouldn't make it to my 9am flight. I got lucky.

After a couple of flights and a bus ride I was back home to see Yuliia at 10pm. I was very happy. We celebrated by watching the latest episode of Project Runway.

A great trip to Morelia. I love to travel and I love the Math Olympiad

The first days of the week were taken over by the class. I had to write the exam, give the exam and then grade the exam. When writing I thought it would be super easy, while grading I thought it was terrible, but then when I finished grading I realized it wasn't so bad. The median was 81, which is pretty good and the mean is 78 which is not bad. However, I got 8 students dropping the class which definitely hurt my ego of being able to teach to everyone.

On Thursday after a day of relaxing at the apartment, Yuliia and I left to go to New York City to visit my mom and sister (they were there for vacations). We left New Hampshire at 11pm and arrived at my mom's hotel in midtown NYC at 4am. I slept for three hours before I had to get up to move the car. I thought I would have to pay $30 a day, but then I realized that I could take it out in the night and save the night fees. Turned out that I parked it in a place where Saturdays were free, so I ended up spending only $19 for the 3 days I was in NY. I was very pleased with this.

The first day we went to the New York Botanical Gardens. We were a little worried because the subway stopped quite far from it (express doesn't stop everywhere) and the region wasn't very nice. After thirty minutes of walking we gave up and took a cab, which only charged $6, not bad for four people. My mom and sister didn't like the botanical gardens, but I liked them, I specially liked walking in the middle of the natural forest. Yuliia had a good time too, although she was also underwhelmed.

At night, my mom and sister went to the Broadway play "Wicked". Yuliia and I didn't go because we didn't get tickets. We went instead to eat at Red Lobster, which is right next to Parson's the school of design (Project Runway season 2 has many jokes about Red Lobster and Yuliia wanted to check it out). In fact Runway was also the reason we went to the Botanical Gardens.

The next day started with us going to the Met. We had a great time. I love the Egyptian displays and the modern art section. We ended up not seeing the European art collection as we ran out of time (five hours wasn't enough). In the Met we ate at their new lunch place, which was overpriced but had really tasty food. Yuliia and I shared a chicken dish. I really liked the painter Chuck Close. I also enjoyed seeing armors from medieval times to imagine the Song of Ice and Fire characters in these armor. Time ran really fast in this wonderful museum.

After the museum we biked in Central Park for a couple of hours. Yuliia and I would have mini races to see who would get to the next street light first. I won most of them, but she won several. It was very fun.

At night we walked around, saw the Plaza, the Rockefeller Center and then got to the hotel. From there we walked to a salsa club called Copacabana that a sales clerk recommended to my mom. After walking for a bit we got to the address and there was nothing there. After asking a taxi driver we found out the place closed at least a year ago. It was pretty funny. At least we tried.

Sunday was a very relaxed day. Yuliia and I went to Jersey City to have lunch with Elliott (formerly known as Forrest), his girlfriend and our friend Johnny. The lunch was pretty tasty, I had chilies quiles while Yuliia had a salmon eggs benedict.
After Jersey we went back to NYC and hung out with my mom and sister. We went to Soho to eat pizza at the first pizzeria of the country "Lombardi's Pizza". The pizza was very tasty. After the pizza we discovered a place that sells different kinds of rice pudding (I had never seen anything like it before). We bought Hazelnut and Mango, I loved the mango flavored one. We then drove back to the hotel to drop my mom and sister off before it was time to drive back to New Hampshire. This drive became memorable when we all started dancing and singing to Michael Jackson.

I had a really good time in New York with my family. Life is good.

Last year, Greg, Giulio and me did a tour around New Hampshire and Vermont finding cool places to jump into water. Hence it was time to do one this year, but this time all Vermont. Sid came up from Boston to join the party. It was Natasha, Asa, Kristen, Greg, Chrisil, Sid, Yuliia and me. We started at Quechee. When Greg arrived he immediately went to the bridge to jump (over 45 feet). That set the tone. Last year, I skipped this jump, but now I had to do it. The water was flowing strong and I've never jumped from so high, but I had to do it. I stood on the edge for about five minutes, my heart racing, having trouble calming down. Every time I would calm down and be ready to jump, I would see the bottom of the jump and step back. Finally, I jumped. I had trouble getting out of the water as the water was rushing and the jump itself wasn't that fun because I was so scared and nervous, but I feel great that I did it (and that next time I'll get to enjoy the freefall). I got some bruises too because of having trouble getting out with the fast moving water.
After Natasha, Sid, Asa and Greg jumped, it was time to move on. We went to a nearby town to swing on a rope towards the river. This was really fun. There were several hilarious moments including seeing Sid swing as it looked as if he smashed into the ground (but being water instead of ground). Chrisil was funny too, because he also seemed to just swing directly to the water. Apparently I was funny too as everyone was laughing. It wasn't till I saw the video that I understood why, as my legs were doing all sorts of crazy things while I was in the air.
After the rope it was time to go to Gaysville (yes, this is the actual name of the town). There we jumped a couple of times from a cool rock. The water was quite cold.

The main highlight of the trip came when we stopped in the middle of the road to consider jumping from a bridge that we have never seen anyone jump before ("we" really means Greg as my only experience is last year and the rest had zero experience). Last year, we considered it but didn't do it. This year after so many rains, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. We considered it for at least 15 minutes and I even said out loud I wouldn't do it several times including "even if you jump Greg, I won't jump". But Greg jumped and as soon as Greg's feet left the bridge, I knew I would jump. My main fear was positioning my body for the jump, as I had to be careful putting my body on the other side of the rail. Greg is very tall, so it is not as hard for him given that if he sits on the rail, his feet touch the ground. But for me, it wasn't like that. Once I was in position, I was good to go and the jump was awesome. The freefall was exhilarating, the water had the perfect temperature and everything went smoothly. Awesome experience. Kristen jumped and then Sid. Sid got a little hurt from the jump as he leaned his body forwards.

After Gaysville, we had lunch in Woodstock. After the delicious wings, Asa and Natasha left the group to go back to New Hampshire. We then headed onto Warren. Warren is quite pretty. Greg and I jumped into a little basin and the water was extremely cold. My reaction to the cold is very funny on video. The cool thing about Yuliia taking video of me shivering is that by luck we caught on film a fish trying to jump a waterfall swimming upstream. In Warren, Greg and I considered riding down a mini waterfall. I did it last year, but this year the water was too high for me to do it again. After that we had a long jump competition which the judges ruled Greg as a winner. But after seeing the tape, I have my doubts.

After Warren we did a mini stop in Montpelier, followed by another swimming stop in Bolton. This place was also amazing. There wasn't any spectacular jump to do, but there was a little waterfall where you could sit down and feel the power of the water. I loved it, specially at its cold temperature. My reaction to this waterfall inspired everyone in the group to try it and to make Yuliia finally go in the water. She had a lot of fun with the waterfall.

It was time now to go to the last stop, a special place in Lake Champlain, the beautiful lake in Burlington. We headed out to a secluded place and swam a bit in the lake. Usually this place is very placid, but this time it was raging, there were lots of waves and given that we were next to big rocks, it was scary to go out into the water and swim, but we found a place where there was more than a meter between rocks and we figured it was enough to go out. Chrisil, Greg and I were the first to go out and then we managed to convince the rest. There was a nice rock about 20 yards from the shore. The rock was a nice place to climb up to jump out of. It was hard to climb the rock as the face that had the "steps" to go up was being hit by waves. Greg managed to climb up and then give us a hand. The second time I tried to do it on my own and I got a lot of scratches from my body trying to stay on a rock while waves tried to push me out of the rock. At first it was fun, but after minutes of struggle it became very annoying. Once I got up in the rock, I took several deep breaths and then enjoyed my last jump of the day.

To end the night, we went to an Irish pub in Montpelier that has half priced burgers on Sunday evenings. The burgers were delicious and cheap (with respect to the deliciousness). A great end to a great day.

Thursday was a relaxing day. At night we went to dance salsa and had a lot of fun.
Friday was another cool day. Class went very well and then at night we went to Asa and Natasha's place to watch Project Runway. We watched the last five episodes. The season was very fun. I am excited that Project Runway was able to fix their legal problems and season 6 will finally be on the air on August 20.

Saturday started very slow with Yuliia and me just chilling out at the house not doing anything of consequence. Then we drove to Burlington with the plan of eating at Leunig's (a restaurant we love) and taking a cruise around Lake Champlain. I had a 20% discount at Leunig's because of my birthday. But when I was about to use the coupon, I realized it was only valid Monday-Thursday, hence my discount was invalid. Too bad because it expires at the end of the month. The food was delicious. I had salmon with balsamic strawberries, garlic mashed potatoes and mint & jalapeño salad. Really tasty.

After dinner, we went to the lake and took the sunset cruise. The cruise was very pleasant and we had a lot of fun. We took lots of funny pictures, enjoyed the breeze, enjoyed the beautiful landscape. The sunset wasn't as beautiful as when we did this last year, but what is amazing is seeing the water and how the look changes with the different light.

After the cruise, we went to a bookstore to check out books. I love bookstores. After 45 minutes of browsing around we left. We went to a nice coffee shop and spent a relaxing time just before the drive back.

I really love Burlington and once again, Yuliia and I had a wonderful time there.

Two action packed weeks have elapsed and I am too lazy to write it all down so I will write a quick summary.
-Have been having fun teaching probability. I think the class has been going well, albeit a little slow. Having 35 students is harder than having 21. I decided not to hire graders because I don't trust them, so I have a lot of grading to do.
-Have been reading lots of books, watching lots of movies, at some point I'll post reviews.
-I went to Montreal for a weekend. Had a lot of fun. Biked around the town, walked around the town and ate good food. I was impressed with the Basilica of Notre Dame, but mainly I was happy to see my mom.
-Rode 50 miles for the Prouty event (3200 bikers) to support cancer research. I did it in a mountain bike because my road bike was out of air and for some reason the pump wasn't working. It wasn't that hard, but I rode very slowly, it took me more than 5 hours.
-Played basketball, it was awesome.
-Had a really nice birthday. The best part was going to dinner with Yuliia and enjoying a nice steak, wine and a nice dessert. I have reached a quarter century.
-Have been teaching salsa and I have been taking swing classes. It is quite fun.
-I moved to a new apartment(beginning of the month). It took a lot of work and then a lot, but fortunately a couple of friends helped me out and we were able to do it in under five hours. However buying stuff for the place and ordering around took a long time (although Yuliia did almost all of the work).
-Life is good

On Monday, I started the day eating Choco Krispis, knowing I wouldn't be able to eat them in a while. After the breakfast we went to my dad's office to get work done on Yuliia's teeth. From there we went to El Paso to do some last day errands. We had lunch with Maribel, my mom and my uncle. We ate at a Lebanese restaurant and the food was great. Yuliia and I shared a huge Chicken Shawarma, it was delicious.
Later we went to watch Year One at the movie theater. The movie was terrible. I laughed a few times but most of the laughs were forced or out of pity for the movie. It was just very bad (although the story was kind of good).
After the movie we went to Juárez to host the Abel project graduation party. I had a good time. It ended early and so my mom, Yuliia, Emmanuel and me played Nerds. Yuliia dominated and the other three of us tied for second place with 112 points (although I could have had 109, there was a controversial decision). Yuliia and I went to the roof to look at the sky and then it was time for bed.

We woke up early on Tuesday to make it to our flight. We got there on time. The flights went without trouble. One of the legs of the flight was long enough that they had one of those things were you can pick which movie you want to see. This meant distraction from "A Song of Ice and Fire", but it was cool. I won a Backgammon game, finished a Sudoku game, watched about 30 minutes of A Beautiful Mind and about 10 minutes of "30 Rock" episode.
We arrived at Manchester a little after midnight (due to a delay in Newark) and got home at 2am. It was good to be home.

On Wednesday we watched Harry Potter: Chamber of Secrets. The movie is pretty good. Not great, but fun. Not much else happened Wednesday.

On Friday the day started by going to Dartmouth to drop off Yuliia in her Spanish class. Later I taught my first lecture for Probability. I think the lecture was okay, but a lot of the interaction planned with the group had to be canceled because the class was so large. There were 38 students in the classroom. I guess homework grading will take a Herculean effort, but the lectures will be very fun to plan. The first lecture was pretty easy stuff, but there will be lots of cool problems to try later on.

At night, Yuliia and I went to watch Taking of Pellham 123 which was pretty good. I liked it and Yuliia liked it very much. The surprising thing was that even though there was a 10 minute line to buy tickets, Yuliia and I ended up being the only two people watching Pellham. I think the movie has some flaws but it is definitely very entertaining.

When we got home after a little card playing, we watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azcaban. Prisoner of Azcaban is where the books start being very good. I have a soft spot for this book and it was great that they had Alfonso Cuarón direct the movie. I think the movie is much better than the previous two (part of it is that the book is also better). I enjoyed it and it got me excited. I am looking forward to the sixth movie, although I think Yuliia and I won't watch the fourth and fifth yet as she's currently reading the books and she hasn't read those two in English yet (she read them in Russian a while ago).

On Saturday we went shopping. While Yuliia looked for clothes, shoes and other Summer items, I read a lot. After that we came home and watched Fanboys which wasn't great. The movie has its funny parts and the story flows smoothly, but there just isn't much there. Not a movie I would recommend.
Haven't done much besides playing a little poker (first time in two months). I played a 5-card draw tournament. I know very little about five card draw but I felt like playing so I played. I played terrible, but I had fun.