i woke up around 9:30am, before kelvin and sandy, turning on the thermostat to 65°F. i drafted a letter to my neighbors across the alley, asked them if they could turn off their kitchen light late at night when they're not using it, as it's very bright and shines directly into my bedroom to keep me awake at nights. kelvin and sandy woke up soon afterwards, making tea and some avocado and prosciutto on bread for breakfast. sandy seemed like she wanted to go out but kelvin just wanted to stay home. his big plan for the day was to get some bonchon fried chicken in the evening and watch the lakers-warriors game. he seemed surprised when i told him i was going to my parents' place shortly. i ended up squeezing a container of fresh orange juice (5 oranges) before leaving. i also squeezed two extra oranges for kelvin to try. i finally left by 12:45pm.

temperature was in the teens this morning but in the mid-20's by the time i left. it was bright but the sky was mostly milky. i've done enough biking this week that i've regained some of my stamina and i wasn't out of breath. when i arrived my mother said i could heat up a bagel for lunch with some salmon cream cheese.

my suaoki U10 800A 20000mAh portable car jump starter ($45.49) arrived in belmont today. it seemed well made, and even comes with a handy hardshell case for battery pack and cables. i'm trying to figure out how to test if it really works without purposely draining a car or motorcycle battery and seeing if it can jump start the vehicle. it arrived with an 80% charge. later when i tried to recharge it up with the plug, it seemed to be stuck, the capacity readout not increasing. i'll leave it overnight and see if it will recharge, otherwise i'd like to return it for an exchange.

my mother was intermittently coughing throughout the day. she said she had phlegm in her throat but didn't know how to spit it out. i gave her a fisherman's friend lozenge and she also drank some chinese cough syrup mixture.

i played my mother the premiere episode of i am the night with chris pine as well as two recent episodes of true detectuve (S03E04, S03E05). HBO just released episode 5 yesterday so it wouldn't conflict with the super bowl on sunday, and i couldn't find chinese subtitles for it just yet so my mother watched it with only english subtitles.

twice i noticed the temperature on my nest thermostat at home shooting up into the high 70's. first time i thought it was just a glitch, but when it happened again i knew my roommates were playing around with the thermostat. i set it back down to 68°F and kept an eye on it the rest of the day. i tried to see if they were home using the asus router app, but it wasn't showing me connected devices for some reason.

my sister came home briefly, dropping off her dog while she went out to run some errands. hailey seemed to want to go outside but when i opened the door for her she wouldn't go out. i think she wanted me to go as well but it was simply too cold.

my mother asked me to make spaghetti around 5:20pm. i chopped up some vegetables (garlic, onion, bell pepper, tomato), sauteed them in a pan, before adding the ground beef then the tomato sauce. we didn't have normal pasta, just whole wheat thin spaghetti which tasted off. my father came home just in time to eat.

i left belmont at 7:30pm. when i got back, i noticed my next door neighbors weren't home yet, and the kitchen light they left on last night was still on tonight. hopefully they'll come back eventually, read my note, and finally turn off the light. if they don't, my next course of action is to get renee to intervene.

sandy and kelvin were just about ready to go pick up their bon chon fried chicken order in harvard square. kelvin also wanted to get a shake shack shake (strawberry) before they came back. they left at 8pm and didn't get back until 9pm, when the game had already started. i told them before they left that lebron james wasn't playing tonight so they shouldn't have to hurry back. i used the bathroom and took a shower before they got back. they noisily feasted on their korean fried chicken while watching the basketball game. later they shared a slice of petsi's pecan pie with me.

later in the evening sandy videochatted with her family back in guangzhou to wish them a happy chinese new year. i went to go use the bathroom and came back out when they were done 15 minutes later.

i found out that kelvin's flight back to london tomorrow night isn't at 6pm but rather 9pm. as intrusive as his presence has been over the past month, i've sort of gotten used to him being here all the time and i think i'm going to miss him when he finally does leave tomorrow. i just hope he found his stay here okay, and leave here with good memories of boston and new york city.