Christmas Itinerary

I thank God for his many blessings... Christmas holiday is planned.

28 December depart MSP to ONT via DFW. Then ONT to ORD via DFW on Jan 5 and finally back home ORD to MSP on Jan 9. :)

I pray that it's going to be a fantastic trip with visits to LAS and Grand Canyon most probably. :)

Give us thankful hearts that we may see

All the gifts we share, and every blessing,

All things come of thee!

Congrats for the new family

Congrats to both of you!

I am so happy that you are one now. I pray that your love endures and may you always draw strength and faithfulness from the love of the Lord.

I really wish that I could be there in person to celebrate this very holy and happy day... but I was there in thoughts, in love and in my deepest prayer! :)

When love is found and hope comes home

sing and be glad that two are one

When love explodes and fills the sky

Praise God and share our maker’s joy

When love has flowered in trust and care

build both each day that love may dare

to reach beyond homes’ warmth and light

to serve and strive for truth and light

When love is tried as loved ones change

hold still to hope though all seems strange

till ease returns and love grows wise

through listening ears and opened eyes

When love is torn and trust betrayed

pray strength to love till torments fade

till lovers keep no score of wrong

but hear through pain love’s Easter song

Praise God for love, praise God for life

in age or youth, in husband, wife

Lift up your hearts. Let love be fed

through death and life in broken bread.

Updates...

I have just submitted the previously-intended to be a paper in CEP to Journal of Aerospace Engineering as a case study. It's kind of interesting that they have this type of paper in the journal. I think it's a very suitable type for our paper.

Made some changes here and there on the paper to really emphasize on the contribution of this paper and I think I have written a very good cover letter for it...

• Although the techniques used are well-known, there has been few studies of such framework for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In this paper, we discussed the merit of each scheme chosen in the framework and how they affect the system’s behavior. The proposed scheme is shown to be advantageous because of its capability of providing online collision-free reconfiguration command. We also show how the controller parameters affect the system’s behavior.
• Because of the well-understood techniques used in this framework, this paper is submitted as a case study. However, since the combination of those techniques for UAV application is not well-understood, we believe that the results presented in this paper warrant its publication in the journal.

I hope it will get through this time. :)

Some updates...

I talked to my potential research advisor and found out many things, learned many things, too. Cross fingers that he is going to have an opening for me after this Fall semester.. I think he is gonna be a wonderful advisor: at least you can always meet him whenever you want to. It's very nice to have an advisor that you can count on, somebody that has the same philosophy as you and the most important thing is to have someone who has confidence in you...

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God...

Praise to thee, sister bodily death...

In paradisum deducant te Angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.

For Catholics, November is a month dedicated to all our beloved who have gone to their rests. It's a month to remember that we are still united because death has been conquered, but yet the only way to "move on" is by embracing death itself.

We believe that our life now is not the end of our journey but we believe that our journeys converge to the eternal life in Heaven. Jesus told us not to worry because there are many rooms in His Father's house (cf. Jn 14:2).

I guess, it's normal for us, mankind, to feel the anxiety, to feel the fear of not knowing what's gonna happen after we make this transit. The Mother Church calls us to reflect upon this mystery. The month of November is started by two big solemnities in the Church's calender. November 1, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints and at November 2, we celebrate the Solemnity of All Souls.

I think, it's important though we are celebrating the Solemnity of All Saints and remembering that they now share the glorious victory of Christ in Heaven, they are, too, in a sense "dead". But I guess their victory has come partly because they embrace death with open arms in the faith of the everlasting life of the world to come.

We are called to look at their lives, too. They have lived their life in such a way that they welcome the sister death, as St. Francis of Assisi called her. And when we live our lives in holiness, in love of God and others, our anxiety, too, will cease and we can welcome our sister death.

~Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.~

(Canticle of the Sun - St. Francis of Assisi)

In loving memory of all my beloved and closed-to-heart departed and all the faithful departed, may all of them through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Cinema Paradiso

If I may say, Cinema Paradiso is among the finest song ever written in the world.

- Keep you very close to my heart, dear...

Thanks for the CD, miz you much..