| 夏天 Tian's profile留个纪念。 一生不能白活了。PhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
July 02 "An inconvenient truth"Tonight, I watched a movie called "An Inconvenient
Truth". The movie is a documentary about the looming climate and
environmental crisis that no one seems to be worried about. It was
passionate, humbling, thoughtful and motivating. And all of this came
from someone who was once billed as unpassionate and prideful. It came
from an unlikely person, the man who introduced himself in the film as
the "would-be 'next' president of the United States of American", Al
Gore. Al Gore? The media of the year 2000 played him off as a smart,
calculating but boring and unpassionate. Sure, he was smarter than
Bush, but pride hurts one's judgement, right? And Bush, that
*%&*$%, with his "approachablity" and "candidness", was the average
American that everyone would identify. And surely Bush would be a
better president, right? Man, sometimes, 我觉得美国人真傻（：D 白人看不懂）。 Nevermind politics. The real issue in the movie was the climate crisis brought about by men. Several misconceptions were exploited. One of them, that the climate change cannot possibly be the result of men. For sometime, I believe that. Surely, the Earth is large and complex, how can we possibly affect it so much in so little time. How can carbon emission alter the climate that much? The truth is, at least, the evidence linking carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and Earth's temperature showed that the two has VERY strong, or statistically SIGNIFICANT correlation. The Earth might be large, but its ecosystem is fragile. Smart changes in parts of the system leads to dramatically changes in other parts. And the effects can often be self-feeding. That is, things that get worse makes things even worse. Evidences are all around us, yet we are perplexed. Many of us failed to make the connections between our detrimental activities and the environment. Global warming is a myth, right? Not all the smart people, aka. the experts, agree, right? Wrong. I, for one, heard this before somewhere. All publications regarding global warming that are published in peer reviewed journals, such as Science and Nature, agree that our human activities contribute to global warming through carbon emission, deforestation and that the effects are already observable. Why do we still view this as a controversy? Why is it that the scientists with hard evidence agree yet the public is as confused as ever. Answer, propaganda. Propaganda is a tool of the political machine. It is as widely used in a democracy as in a dictatorship. The pictures and videos of our beautiful world being destructed was heart-strickening. We cannot destroy what we do not own. We do not own this Earth and do not have the right to do to Earth whatever we please. We confused ownship with stewardship. We are but managers of the Earth. No one owns it, we benefit from this Earth and shall pass it on to our children. They, and their children, deserve this world as we do. Even in our lifetime, the destruction we commit is unbelievable. Because the climate system is so fragile, human activities might affect ocean current patterns. These change in current can actually cause parts of the Earth to freeze (ice-age), while other parts become deserts with no rain, no water and therefore, no life. This is scary. But like Gore said, before you jump from panick to despair. Think for a moment, ask yourself if there is something we can do. He said, we can. I believe him. Gore has presented his ideas and beliefs with passion and more importantly, with evident and logic. I trust him. For a while, it has seemed that Gore fell off the radar. Bush and his Republican machine took the presidency from him. I witnessed this. I thought Gore was finished. I thought despair took the better of him. I was wrong. It seemed that Gore put his focus on something else. He believed in the issue of enviroment protection and the effort to halt of our destruction to the world. This is the kind of Americanism that I love. Believe in something and then believe that you can make a difference! I have been thinking about the issues happening around the world for a while now. Sure, sometimes I have set my eyes and my mind on things that, looking back now, seem quite small. They are important, but only to me, only at certain times in my life. But they are small and as a person with certain aspiration, I cannot afford to see so little ahead and so selfishly. With the environment issue aside, I also thought about Bush's foreign policies and China's rise. Bush's debacle and it truely is, hurts me. China's rise makes grin sometimes. But thinking about how the blistering pace of development and the pains that many Chinese experience as we grow, also hurts. Balanced development is the key. Much to think about lately. Free from most school reponsiblities also freed my mind to think about things. I remember a friend told me before we graduated that he was going to sit by himself in the desert and think about what he wants for himself and then set himself to achieve it. Maybe it is time for me to do the same. Hey.. i happen to live in a desert and the sunset just seem the most perfect time and place to think about these things. Tommorow, sunset, next to the river, in our desert. I will be there. Thinking more about me and the world. It's exciting. June 28 电影 － 幸福时光晚上看了一个电影叫”幸福时光“。 一
个善良但虚荣的大叔和一个不幸但乐观的盲女在意外中成为了彼此相依的朋友。 大叔为了这个盲女的幸福扮演了一场戏。 虽然这个盲女已经察觉到了，
但她理解到了大叔和朋友们的爱，在她幸福的时光了， 她也陪着， 继续演了下去。 真诚的爱和友谊， 是在任何处都可以发生的。
也给了当事人无比的幸福。 June 27 bday 生日I turned 22 today. Not a very eventful day today, but I
have been enjoying it so far. Tonight, I will be helping with mom to
make some Jiaozi. And go bowling with the family. Since I will be
leaving home soon and be indepedent, and also that this is the first
time in three years I am home for my birthday, it would quite
appropriate that I spent the time with my family. Another significiant bit of news. I bought a MacBook with a black IPod Nano. The MacBook is white, and is the base model. But I upgraded to include 1 gigabytes of RAM. I heard that MacOSX is quite the memory hogger and I probably need the extra RAM to make things run smoothly. The iPod nano is the 2 Gigabytes model. Pretty sleek. I had the JHU motto engraved on it, "veritas vos liberabit", or "the truth shall set you free". I like that. May 25 I rode a segwayI rode a Segway today!!!!!!  Fay let us played with her Segway... she worked for dean kamen for a little while and they give her a Segway in return. "on indefinite loan" she says. Segway reads your body motion through some gyroscopes. If you lean forward, the Segway will tilt and move forward. Turning is achieved through a twistable handle. It only took a few minutes to get conformatble with it. I rode down the hallways of the EE building on it. 心情：太爽了！不过，project 有点难。。。  May 21 昨天 － Chicago the Musical昨晚去看了Chicago The Musical with dl, d and sk. Who says
nerds cannot have fun！ i think i am a living proof that a nerd (thank
you for the constant reminder, you know who!) is fully capable of
enjoying life fully .. in the confine of the lab or the "real"
world. haha. oh, i guess EE should be the "Apartment of
Electrical Engineering" since we practically live in it. 呵呵。 Anyways, the show was pretty awesome. Except it was hard to hear what they were singing. We sat quite far away with those value tickets we bought :) I enjoyed the live music, singing, dancing and the dazzling lighting effects. It's the second time i have been to a musical. Last time had been in Lincoln theater on Broadway, NYC. We went to IHOP afterwards, had some late breakfast. hm. fun night. ~ end ~ 前几天第八个星期 5/12 The CSSA dance was about to be a disaster for me, until dl showed up. So few girls and so many single, nerdy and 腼腆 的 male Ph. D students! People stood there, motionless, looking pretty tense. Then dl came, but didnt really want to dance. hmm. Had to convince to loose up and little and enjoy the dance. She did. And things went pretty well after that. Thanks dl, bbc, zh for showing up. Oh... pyy showed up, except she had a date. i could barely get a dance from her. :) 5/18 "the bar" incident me and my lab partners and friends, P & J, were working pretty late, so we decided to go to the bar. logical? we went to Earl's on the ave. It was so crowded that it took up about 1 hour just get a drink. I got a "screwdriver", which is a mix of vodka and orange juice. P got long-island-ice-tea and J got rum and coke. the night was pretty incident free till i got home from the bar and realized i dont have my keys. i left early and did not get my bags from my friend's apartment. I tried to ring the door-bell-buzzer thingy, but my roomates were either passed-out with lights on, or playing videogames with headphone on. I wasn't about to sleep on the street or in the CS building, so i tried and tried. I even throw a rock at their windows. But we lived too high up and i was still kinda drunk, so i missed and hit someone else's window. 呵呵。 long story short. I went back to the bar, but my friends left already. i walked up and down the ave looking for his apartment. found it, rang the doorbell, a half-asleep girl came out. Oh.. she is his gf that i haven't met... i hope she doesn't call the police... but then, i explained to her the situation and got my bag and my keys, cellphones and my ee books. look at the clock when i got home. 2;30 AM. i guess it was a pretty stupid decision to go to the bar on a thursday night. ah. i wish i was a business major for once. or, i wish i had a bar in my room. 5/20 street fair. pretty fun. saw a lot of old friends out on the ave. thinking that i will leave them pretty soon for a new place was bittersweet. must make efforts to keep in touch. ______________ Placeholders for pictures ______________ May 11 mp3 playeri got my mp3 player today in the mail! i am playing it right now, so i need to be brief :) it's a creative nano plus. 1G of memory (about 300 songs). decent capacity. what's remarkable is that it is only about 10 grams without the battery!! woot! it makes me feel good that electrical engineers were behind the creation of this device. EEs are awesome. tommorow is the CSSA spring dance party. i am kinda excited. i went last year and they had a pretty professional instructor to teach us salsa. i am not much of a dancer, but i'd rather enjoy it. 心情： 幸福 May 10 the ramhm.. yes. this is definately in the "health and wellness" category. so, it was pascal's 22nd birthday. pascal, like his namesake, pascal the mathematician, is a huge nerd and a huge binge drinker of alcohol of all kinds. vodka, rum, tequila, whiskey, beer, you name it. it was a pretty late affair though. we went to the Ram in UVillage around 11:00 PM. The Ram is a niiice place. spacious and well equipment. and on tuesday nights, the shots are $1.25. Cheap. All you budding alcoholics (or person who is about to be 21 years old), take notes. hm.. happy hour 4-6 pm on week days! so i got two drinks. rum and coke, and vodka and cranberry. i have to say i enjoyed them quite a bit. especially the vodka and cranberry, not much bitter taste of vokda, but is soothing and chilly. tasty :) oh.. i got a funny picture of pascal drinking the girliest drink of them all... the pink french tickler, not sure what it taste like.. i might never find out. one more thing: i tell the truth and nothing but the truth... after i am drunk. so call me, write me, talk to me, i will tell you about anything. did i mention my face glows like a red tomato after i am drunk too? ah... the asian glow. so another day awaits in a few hours, err. the fun never stops and neither does the work. work! work! (damn nazis...arbeit macht frei? liars! killers!). 今天的心情： 爽！ 酒精指数： 偏高  做梦： at the beach.. with a bottle of margarita and 美 MM ... reading Quantum Electrodynamics May 09 四川MM呵呵. 搞笑。 楠楠： on taiwan MM... Nannan: 台湾还不错，把中国的传统和西方的民主结合的比较好，马英九也蛮帅呀 Nannan: 当然，她们超温柔的！ Nannan: 呵呵……身边没有理想的台湾MM？;) Nannan: 找老婆还是要找温柔的，有好的可别错过！日本女人也很好啦，比台湾MM还要体贴 on sichuan MM 。。。。。。。 Nannan: 四川MM很能干，做饭蛮好的，8过四川男人好象很懒 Nannan: 四川MM太辣，只能当情人，老婆还是要贤惠温柔的 hehe 。。。。。。 not sureah. yumen. i am still wide awake. someone thinks i am studying hard, but i am hardly studying. someone thinks i know what i am doing, i don't. haha. but i am flattered. thanks for the confidence booster. someone else is opening her heart...she is a great girl and you better all stay in line... behind me :) March 09 grad schoo diarygrad school diary day 100 something 0 for 1. cmu robotics institute rejected me with an email message. damn. i spent years of my youth preparing for this. and all i get is this masse-mailed_automated_impersonal email. my childhood aspirations of creating killer robots shattered. the rest of the cruel bunch still have not responded. i resisted all temptations to check websites such as www.gradcafe.com which listed schools which has already made decisions. i didnt want to see the lists of schools and have my confidence shattered. I did, finally, on monday this week. i felt good for few minutes, because the schools that ignored me seem to ignore the other applicants as well. leaving us in eternal agony. this agony of uncertainty, led to not yet ot the verge of insanity, but pretty damn close. i routined check my college email, my gmail few times a hour. hoping for something. i have not yet stalked the mailman. i would, but i heard they email you the decision now.  i thought jhu was a sure thing. i mean, i did an internship there, got an recommendation from the professor that i worked with (and still want to work this). disappointment  . it's ruining my spring break too. i am not sure if i still want to travel. it's almost midnight and i haven't done much reviewing, like i promised myself i would. oh yeah. last tai chi lesson of the quarter tonight. i am planning to take classical tai chi chuan next quarter and actually practice on my own. classes for last quarterI want to take the robotics capstone (cs dept) next quarter. The
trouble is, I am alreadying taking the controls capstone (ee dept). two
capstones, hard to estimate work load, but i am sure it would be a lot.
plus, if i were to take the robotics capstone, i'd need to take the
artificial intelligence class concurrently. that's an another chunk of
hard work. so tempting though, considering this would be my last
quarter at u-dub. say each capstone takes about 15 ~ 20 hours per week. to be conservative, that would be about 40 hours. plus 15 hours of AI hw/project per week. total would be 55 hours. 55 hours spread over 6 days (note: unless absolutely necessary, 1 day per week is dedicated to spiritual/artistic/hobbistic(?) renewal. events like tennis, movie, light reading, trips would be planned for this special day). anyways, 55 hours over 6 days is about 8 hours per day of *solid*, *concentrated*, *focused* work. possible? let's say i have 2 hours of lectures per day. thats 10 hours total per day. definately managable. there is the job search and preparation for interview if grad school falls through. oh boy! so, roughly 10 hours of *solid* works is definitely managable. the key is sustanability. MSN 神经病无聊的我在无意中翻到我看过并收藏的“第一次亲密接触”。 印象不大了， 记得满逗人的。 February 19 看了几本书前几天在网上看了几本书。听说是二十世纪中文的经典小说。 看了什么“骆驼祥子”， “红高梁”， 还有张爱令的“十八春”。 。。。啊， 写中文太慢了， 往往把思路都打断了。不知怎样用五笔字行。 |
|||||||
|
|
