Last blog

This is the last blog required in the class and probably the last one forever. Look back what I wrote here and find most things I talked are stupid and boring. I can't say my writing improved a lot in the past few months. But I am sure that I can express my feelings more fluently now. Maybe the word I chose is not the best in certain cases. Maybe the grammar still has some problems. Maybe not everybody can understand what I rambled here. But I am still proud of what I achieved and accomplished. Time passed so fast that I suddenly realize it's already 4 months since I came to America. I won't say my life here is perfect now. But it's beyond what I imagined I could achieve. New life is tough at the beginning and it takes time to adjust. I almost finished a paper and am about to finish the courses. I meet many new friends and they treat me very nice. I can cook and support my life very decently now. And things are going on better with my roommate. I made 2 close friends now. They care about me a lot and helped me through the difficult. I can tell next year everything will go very well. Life is getting better and better. I am ready to enjoy the best time of my life.

POTLUCK

Yesterday, all the people in our lab, mostly Chinese, went to our boss's place to have an annual potluck party. Most people there, especially our boss's family, come from Hunan Province of China. That province is very famous for spicy food in China. They add a lot of peppers in every single dish. The spicier, the better. Hence, most dishes there are super spicy, spicier than the restaurants. For people who enjoy spicy food a lot, it's a wonderful party with best dinner in a year. But for people like me, who is really not a fan of spicy food and even scare of it, it's a nightmare. All the food look very nice, I tried those dishes. Every bite is like gambling. Gamble whether this dish is superior spicy or normal spicy. Then drink a lot of water to cool down my throat. After that, all I can do is eat more fruit and desert to feed myself. As for my dish, not many people enjoyed it. It is more salty for them. It's totally made in my style. I just like salty a lot and hate spicy's guts.

Ballad of Mullan

The animation movie Mulan is very familiar to most Americans. Disney successfully tells a traditional Chinese story in Hollywood style. Mulan is a strong-minded independent woman. She represents woman power against discrimination. That's what the movie mostly focuses on. Actually, Mulan's story comes from a ballad in ancient China. Now the music of this ballad is lost, but the lyric tells the story generation to generation. It's basically like a long five-word poem in classical Chinese. I read two English translated versions of the Ballad of Mulan. Here's the one I think it's better. It tells how Mulan loves her father and overcomes obstacles. I like the last sentence of this ballad a lot. It's a great metaphor. It can be understood as this: Male and female are born with different talents, but they are identical when they occupy the same activity.

The sound of one sigh after another,

As Mulan weaves at the doorway.

No sound of the loom and shuttle,

Only that of the girl lamenting.

Ask her of whom she thinks,

Ask her for whom she longs.

"There is no one I think of,

There is no one I long for.

Last night I saw the army notice,

The Khan is calling a great draft -

A dozen volumes of battle rolls,

Each one with my father's name.

My father has no grown-up son,

And I have no elder brother.

I'm willing to buy a horse and saddle,

To go to battle in my father's place."

She buys a fine steed at the east market;

A saddle and blanket at the west market;

A bridle at the south market;

And a long whip at the north market.

She takes leave of her parents at dawn,

To camp beside the Yellow River at dusk.

No sound of her parents hailing their girl,

Just the rumbling waters of the Yellow River.

She leaves the Yellow River at dawn,

To reach the Black Mountains by dusk.

No sound of her parents hailing their girl,

Just the cries of barbarian cavalry in the Yan hills.

Ten thousand miles she rode in war,

Crossing passes and mountains as if on a wing.

On the northern air comes the sentry's gong,

Cold light shines on her coat of steel.

The general dead after a hundred battles,

The warriors return after ten years.

They return to see the Son of Heaven,

Who sits in the Hall of Brilliance.

The rolls of merit spin a dozen times,

Rewards in the hundreds and thousands.

The Khan asks her what she desires,

"I've no need for the post of a gentleman official,

I ask to borrow a camel fleet of foot,

To carry me back to my hometown."

Her parents hearing their girl returns,

Out to the suburbs to welcome her back.

Elder sister hearing her sister returns,

Adjusts her rouge by the doorway.

Little brother hearing his sister returns,

Sharpens his knife for pigs and lamb.

"I open my east chamber door,

And sit on my west chamber bed.

I take off my battle cloak,

And put on my old-time clothes.

I adjust my wispy hair at the window sill,

And apply my bisque makeup by the mirror.

I step out to see my comrades-in-arms,

They are all surprised and astounded:

'We travelled twelve years together,

Yet didn't realise Mulan was a lady!'"

The buck bounds here and there,

Whilst the doe has narrow eyes.

But when the two rabbits run side by side,

How can you tell the female from the male?

How will Chinese celebrate Thanksgiving?

Chinese don't celebrate Thanksgiving at all. What will happen if Chinese celebrate it? I made some imagination based on how Chinese celebrated other festivals.
They will probably made a lot of wheaten food with turkey, such as turkey dumplings, turkey rice balls, etc. All families gather together, and have Thanksgiving dinner. Then firecrackers and fireworks. After that, instead of a family traditional football game, all the adults will sit at the table play majiang, probably for the whole night. Kids will have karaoke and seniors will watch crosstalk and sketch in a TV gala. Or just adults, kids and seniors all play majiang at three different table. The only difference will be that Kids gamble fake money, seniors gamble less and adults gamble more.
I wonder if majiang to Chinese is like football to Americans, will Chinese want to watch a long majiang game played by professional players on TV? It would be a great idea: found a National Majiang League, and maybe College Majiang as well.

Where to draw the line

Another comedy night, I, as brilliant as usual, noticed a fun fact. Barney, in the How I Met Your Mother, only dates girls under 30. Charlie, in the Two And A Half Men, only dates girls under 40. And in those comedies, they are always okay with a lot of ridiculous activities and a very silly simple stuff can unexpectedly becomes a deal breaker. It's interesting where characters in comedy shows draw the line. Reflecting to our real life, without all those drama, drawing a line is important in many circumstances. Recently, I am seriously thinking move a line I drew before, which is when to be lazy and when not. Laziness is a bad habit I started at 9th grade. And I kinda got addicted to it and the addiction get worse and worse. Recently, it affects me a little bit and makes me reconsider where to draw the line. So at some aspects, I should stop being lazy and start to deal with problems instead of avoiding all the time. But I don't want to push me too hard, just move it a little bit further.

Weather

Generally, the climate in Oklahoma is basically the same as Beijing, where I grew up. But the weather here changes way much more frequent. The other day it's more than 20 Centigrade, suddenly it's less than 10 degree. (I more prefer Centigrade than Fahrenheit.) Recently, it's getting worse. It's either very cold or very windy. Either makes playing tennis inconvenient. In those days always with perfect weather, once I played 5 days in row. Playing tennis under warm sunshine in softy wind is so much pleasure. But now, it's even hard to find one day comfy to play tennis in a week. Besides, terrible weather brings negative emotions to my mind. In weather like raining and thundering, I feel very tired and don't want to walk, cook or work. Just sit on the couch, have a couple of beer and junk food, and watch funny videos. Overall, weather decides how I spend a day.

Boys' Day

November 12th is Boys' Day in my college, Tsinghua University. We made the day after Single's Day Boys' Day and the day before Women's day Girls' Day. Girls prepare a lot of amazing stuff for boys on Boys' Day and so do the boys on Girls' Day. Four years' college, four Boys' Days and four Girls' Day. All of those days are sweat memories lasting life long time. Now we have graduated and went to different place around China and America. But this still can's stop us to have a Boys' Day. Even just a greeting of "Happy Boys' Day" from classmates will bring up all those time we spend in college and how heartbroken we were in graduate season. Seeing the photo you girls holding words in different places around the world makes me miss you guys so much. I wish we could get together sooner. Can't wait to hear your adventures.

Single's Day

November 11th is the Single's Day. I don't know if it's worldwide or just in China. Because in Chinese bachelor can be called "bare stick" and 11/11 is the day with the most 1s, which looks like sticks. And this year is 2011 so Single's Day, 11/11, became Super Single's Day, 11/11/11. This only happens once a hundred years. Single's Day obviously is a day for single men and women to celebrate that they are not stuck in any relationship and couples should show mercy through not kissing or even cuddling in front of singles. This festival is getting more and more popular among younger generations. And a lot of traditions have been created. Like seeing breakup movies and listening to breakup songs. This year a movie called Breakup for 33 Days gain more than 150 million RMB box office, which is way beyond expert's expectation. In my opinion, Single's Day should also be a day to remind yourself it's time to get a company and wish no need to celebrate this day next year. No one wants to be alone. Right?

I love one extra hour.

I just experienced my first wintertime clock change. It's the only day in a year having 25 hrs. The excitement when I found clock time changing from 1:59 to 1:00 is even beyond experiencing two earthquakes in 24 hours, which is also very cool. With the extra hour, I can have more rest or do more work. I have more space to manage my time. Today is a brand new day. The sunrise is one hour earlier, so is the sunset. Morning get warmer, and afternoon get cooler. I won't feel very chill when I go out of the house in the morning. And I get more comfy time to play tennis in the afternoon, which I am actually gonna do later. I won't need to go to bed very late tonight. I can just follow my regular schedule, and still go to bed one hour earlier. In consequence, I can also easily get up earlier tomorrow. All these magic things can really happen at one time, thanks to the one extra hour. Wintertime changing day is now officially my favorite day, which reminds me that summertime changing day will be my least favorite day next year.

A Dream of Extra 1000+ Bucks

Yesterday I had a dream. I dreamed that I had 1000+ dollar in cash, 1400 or 1600 (I am not good at remember numbers in dream). They were all 100s, and their color was red like Chinese RMB. But I'm sure they were American dollars, not because dollar has more value than RMB. If so, I would have dreamed them Euro. In the dream, I reminded myself to put them in the bank after taking my driver license's writing test in the afternoon. This part is real. I do planed to take the test the next day. That's why the dream is so appealing to reality that I couldn't tell if it's true or not. After I waked up, I kinda remembered the dream. I picked up mt wallet to check how many cash there. Of course, there wasn't any 100 bill. But it really seems there were more money than I thought there should be. There were about 14 or 16 bills, but all 1s not 100s. You can never earn extra 100s money by making a dream. But to have a feeling of getting a few extra 1s is quite a sweet experience.

What is the Chinese God?

Today, one of my friend asked me if I believe in God. Honestly, I don't believe in God. I'm a scientist-to-be person. I think all scientists or people having strong believe in science should honor the power of the universe and leave God alone. But people have emotions and feelings. They need more other than solid truth. Even though I don't believe any God-like stuff, I say "God bless me" a lot. So what is the Chinese God? The Buddha? Or Yuhuangdadi, Chinese version King of the Heaven, like Zeus? In Chinese we say something meaning "God bless me" especially when we get good luck. In this case, "God" is not a person, it's more like the nature or the universe. So the Chinese God seems more scientific. Just kidding. The majority of Chinese don't have an actual belief, and some minorities have their believes. There are Muslims, Buddhists, Daoists, etc. BTW, Buddhists think human is goodness while Christians think human is sin. Why are they so judgmental instead of dialectical? We are who we are no matter what.

I almost forgot what I used to care a lot.

Today I watched a photo album of environmental theme. Those posters all spread one theme: human should hold together fighting against global warming before it becomes too late in 2050. This reminded me what I used to care a lot but didn't pay much attention to recently. I studied environmental science and engineering in college. It's generally to love our environment. Now I majored in microbiology, but it shouldn't stop me caring our environment and making our effort to make it better. What happened in Copenhagen in 2009 really disappointed all environment lovers. Politics doesn't care about our earth. Even though most presidents attended the meeting, they just pretended they care about global warming. When it was time to discuss solutions, which had business involved, they just tried their best to gain more profit from meaningless bargaining. According KP, they needed to figure out a efficient rules to follow after 2020, which is an important time point to repress global warming. But they failed, and we had to seriously think about what our life would be in 2050, which may be the end of our green planet. Tik-tok! It's time for all human beings to take climate change seriously. Do something. Do anything that may save our earth even only a little bit.

First Halloween party

We don't celebrate Halloween in China. Even though China has its own ghost festival, there's no costume involved. As my first Halloween, I don't know what costume I should wear. The first character popped in my head is Dr Horrible. I think he's the most recognizable costume I like to be dressed. I didn't get the white gloves and white boots, let alone the freezer gun. I just wear the half-baked costume and go to the party. There are many cool costumes at the party: Sookie & Bill, Cheshire Cat, The Mormon Kid, etc. After some cool shows, performed by awesome people, they announced the costume contest results. Most prizes went to those great costumes, expect the last one came to me. There are a few categories, and the one I won was not that competitive. I really think Sookie should won that prize, but she's the organizer. It's very nice of her go give it to me, because I'm new to this community. I think I don't deserve it, but it really means a lot to me. Thank you all for give me such a wonderful night.

Here's a picture of me and my favorite costume: Cheshire Cat.

Self-critique for blogging

Today Dr Hoefnagels showed various topics we blogged about. And I see loneliness, which maybe refer to mine, is the only negative topic in the list. Basically, most of the students take blog as a way to share interesting stuff, whereas I take it as a way to express out negative thoughts, which I did a lot in Chinese blog. Maybe it's just the way I am used to manage my emotions, so I won't get so much stress or depression. Or, shall I say, I treated it as a dairy. In the other word, blog probably isn't dairy but media if blog is about sharing things with friends and Dr Hoefnagels - I'm kidding, she can count as friends, if it's not so weird since she is the one grades me. BTW, I'm not that negative and loneliness is definitely not the main point in my blog. Anyway, based on these thought I just rambled, I decide to make an announcement. From now on, fun and happiness are the only things I am gonna post in this blog. Here I present you "FUN" and "HAPPINESS". I hope you will enjoy them.

Amy is so cool.

It's another time to rush a blog post right before the deadline, even though the assignment has been reduced to 2 per week.

Today I met Amy, who I already met at candle night vigil but didn't remember, and Nishan, who I met the other night and introduced Amy to me. It's good to meet friends outside classes or groups. You don't need to start with a name-tag introduce and you can talk about anything coming up to your mind. So let's talk about Amy. She   is an American girl who loves Asian and majors in Asian study. She knows Chinese, learning for two years already, and is good at it. It's hard to find a friend who can be able to talk with both American and Chinese stuff without language problem. She likes Jay Chow, SHE, Sichuan food and Korean movies. Not the same as things I like, but at least we can understand each other. Another great thing to meet her is that whenever I don't know something how to say in English I can just ask Amy in Chinese and she will teach me. I can help her with her Chinese and she can help me with my English. It's a win-win. And sorry for Nishan, we talked too much Chinese stuff, which you don't give a shit about. We will talk other topics next time.

Don't want to hang up.

Every weekend, my roommate goes back home and leaves me an empty apartment. At first I thought it's cool to own the whole apartment. But when the night comes and it getting dark, loneliness will fill up the room. As usual the feeling of loneliness reached the peak at the midnight and I started to call my friends in China, because it's daytime there. Since I got busy recently and I haven't call my friends for like 2 weeks. So when the voice came through the phone, my mind was suddenly full of joy instead of loneliness. I asked how things going on there and joked around. Then I shared some awkward moments about me in the US. I always told them I am fine here. But every time before I spoke that out, I paused a little bit. I'm not sure whether my current situation is good enough to be called OK, but I always comfort myself that things will get better latter. I don't know this is optimist or just fooling myself. All I can do is feel company and joy from my friends, even though it's just through phone and there are thousands of miles between us. The hardest part is to hang up the phone. I hope that moment can last longer, and I know if I hang up the phone I will come back to the real world, which is an empty apartment filled with loneliness. I think this is what friends mean, they will fill your heart with love at the moment you are most vulnerable. I love you guys.

Right and responsibility.

Today, right before I found out I need to do blogs from Carrie, I went to a lecture at the Union. It's about women and gender. Most of the lecture is about sexuality and sexual rights. She made some good points and there are some of her opinions I don't agree with.
One I doubted most is she think marriage is just convenient to get rights. She thinks we should more focus on fighting for rights themselves instead of marriage, which is just a format.
I think marriage should not be just about rights, There are lots of responsibilities along with the marriage. People who always says they need more rights do not pay much attention to the responsibilities they should respect. Rights are along with responsibilities. Marriage, of course, is a easy way to get some certain rights but it also requires and reminds people of their responsibilities. She is a little extreme about rights and does not see things clearly. It's cool to listen to some different ideas. But just being cool is not enough. She should be more persuasive  to let me buy her points.

I almost forgot to post blogs this week.

Last week, I thought Dr Hoefnagels (sorry, if I didn't spell it correct.) told us we don't need to do blogs for two weeks. I was really excited, because I don't know what to write about and have to squeeze words form my poor vocabulary. I went home very happy and had a few seconds doubt if I misheard what she said. But I kept it the way I expected. At weekends, with the whole two days' raining, I actually have plenty time and staff to write. But there are no assignment push me to do the blog. So I kept ignoring it.
Today, a quarter before class began, I met Carrie and checked with her what exactly Dr Hoefnagels said. She told me we just have to do 2 blogs for every week. BOOOOM! That is what it cost for being too lazy. Time to learn from this, Derek.
The good thing is there are still a few minutes for me to do the blog and quiz. So why not blog how stupid I am right now. (I think it's already 150 words and I will stop typin....

Scientific Publishing From The Inside Out, Nick Wigginton, Science Magazine

Summary

Scientific publishing is about selecting novel researches with good quality and unique scope in broad interest to communicate with others via various media. It has strict and efficient publish system, including submission, editor evaluation, peer reviewing, revision and response, etc. Scientists should plan to publish when starting a research project.

Critique

Dr. Wigginton gave a brilliant talk about general scientific publishing, Science’s publish system and suggestion for scientific authors. First, he introduced history of scientific publishing and Science magazine. Then he explained each step of publish model, e.g. submission vs. acceptation and rejection, peer review referees, source of scientific output and problems editors facing. His talk matches our broad interest and need about how to scientifically communicate our researches with others. The intense competition among rising submissions requires new researcher higher quality of manuscripts. Thus ability of writing scientific papers is much more essential. As more funding invested in scientific research and more interesting results discovered, higher efficiency of scientific communication is required to catch up with the pace of output. And scientific communication is a worldwide activity. International background of the authors, whose first language is not English, should also be considered, so scientific papers should be concise and brief. Since I’m taking BioWriting course now, there is much information that is great supplementary to what I get from class, such as magazines’ preference when evaluating submissions, things need to be done before submission. It surprised me that there are more biological topics than physical science topics in Science magazine. And ethics involved in scientific publishing is new to me. The examples of climate change rhetoric and plastic fantasy are so interesting and make me think about what we should double check during preparation. My current research, to be published, is a project set in the Tibetan Plateau, which has unique and extreme environment and is worth peoples’ attention. That may increase my chance to be published after submission, based on Dr. Wigginton’s talk taking dinosaurs as an example. Overall, it’s a great seminar and I learned a lot form it.

Breaking Bad is getting tasteless

Last night I watched Breaking Bad and found that next Sunday season finale of season 4 will be on air. Then I realized that this season's Breaking Bad isn't exciting as before and be boring for almost a whole season. If next week's season finale still stink, I don't know what to be looking forward to in next season.
At the very beginning, Breaking Bad used to be a fantastic brilliant show. It uses hyperbole and  sarcasm to show a world of people struggling between life and conscience. A high school chemical teacher got cancer and started to cook crystal meth to support his family after his death. He's still a strict teacher, so he is so different with those drug dealers. He can even use chemical reaction to produce poison gas to kill people, which is a job normally did by guns and bullets. Then he begun to involve business management of meth and went deeper and deeper in meth industry. As he ran the industry in such a creative way, he got various troubles. But he survived and solved them unbelievably but reasonably. His cancer got almost cured and he got him in a huge gang, which he couldn't get rid of. Things start to change, but still in a fun way.
But this season, after Gary's death, conflicts got narrower and obvious. There isn't much mystery but only cruelty. Walter became totally selfish and unreasonable, Skyler became meddlesome and capricious, and Jesse was fooled around and became naive. On the other side, Gus, the bad people, got more and more brilliant and powerful. Things lost balance and got out of fun.
This situation is still not solved. I hope next week Breaking Bad will come with a peaking season finale and surprise the audiences.

Games reveal people's evil side.

A lot of games are too complicate to be played by innocent children. They can affect people's humanity if people get addicted to them.
Action game involves violence and blood. There are zombies, monsters and other terrify stuff in it. People can get excitement in gunfire and bomb blast. Then there are wars and crimes involved. People start to kill enemies or criminals. It is indoctrinated that using violence to solve problems.
But this kind of games is not the most harmful kind, because people can sense it before it get out of control. What affects people invisibly is strategy game. You may wondering how strategy game can be harmful. That's the huge problem for strategy game. It seems very harmless and intelligent. But it is actually full of lair, lust and plot behind its innocent face. It lures people with huge winning price, mostly a glorious title. It encourage the participants to compete with each other by cheating or stabbing. Last minute you were friends and you will turn against each other the very next minute. The most insidious one will win by stepping others' "dead" body. People will explore their deepest evil, release their evilness and become totally different people. You will find some cruel truth you could never expect during this kind of game.
So let's play some games. It will be totally "HARMLESS".

Never cook food beyond your skill.

Last week I tried a couple of new stuff to cook. The result turned out to be a disaster.
Peking Sauce Pork, one of my favorite food, was the first on my to-do list. I looked up its protocol on the internet and I followed it step by step. I seemed fine during each step. But when it was all finished, it tasted so bad. I tried some way to fix it but it did't work out. It must be something I did wrong with the pork or the sauce.
Another food on the list is Chinese pancake. My mum showed me how to do that once. I tried to make it based on memory. The first one burned, Second too dry, third too much salt, finally i succeeded on the forth one. I made a lot and kept the rest in the fridge. But It's too dry after microwaved.
Today I found the potatoes and cucumbers I stored went bad, so I have to throw them. I used to cook good potatoes, but I abandoned them for fail-cooked food. What a jerk I am.
From now on, I will stick to what I'm good at and never try things beyond my ability, at least for a long while.

The Deadline Phenomenon

Recently, a bunch of students catch an unusual disease. They suffered from that illness and pray for a cure. It is well-known as the Deadline Phenomenon. Let's take a deep look at this cruel monster.

*The Deadline Phenomenon*
Definition-Huge stress comes over before deadline. It will cause a series chain effect to people mentally and physically.
Susceptible population-It's a very common disease to college students, even graduate ones.
Pathogens-Complicate or boring assignments are way beyond students' tolerance or conflict with parties or other entertainments.
Major symptom-Headache, dark eye circle, lack of sleep, and all kinds of pains in waist, arms, wrists, etc. Even coma. Or fake death of related people or pets, Suddenly illness or accidents.
Cure time-Right after submitting, or never if failed.
Therapy or treatment-Cancel all assignments, or make them optional.

The Deadline phenomenon is still haunting around a lot of students. Call 911! The situation is getting more and more out of control. Government is still trying to find a way to set those patients free from the disease. Please keep noticing the following updates.

Tear comes with great joy.

For many times, I feel like to drop a little tear when I'm enjoying a great time in America. The reason, I think, is mostly those happiness reminds me memories with my friends back in China. I won't call it homesick or vulnerable. It's more like a kind of Deja Vu, which happens a lot to me. I think people have Deja Vu a lot are kinda pathetic, because they indulge themselves in the past so much that they can't precious present well enough. If this psychological excuse can't convince you, I would say alcohol may need to take some responsibility. Some of those tear time alcohol is involved. My feeling about alcohol is very neutral. But it does bring me some of the most unforgettable moments in my life. There are two times I was so drunk and cried like hell during graduation season. Maybe it has become a reflection that every time I drink alcohol I will feel like to cry. Either excuse makes me immature, but I am proud of who I am just the way I am.

First party in the US

My roommate invited me to a party he wouldn't attend on Facebook. I thought it might be fun and accepted the invitation.
Friday night arrived. After a long time cooking and feeding myself, I went there with excitement and fear. It took me a while to find the place in dark. When I got there, I hesitated a while for going in or not. Then the host walked by and asked me if I was attending. It was quite coincident to meet the host in front his door right before I was about to chicken out. Maybe that was fate directing me. I went in and met a lot of people, maybe more than the people I met in the whole month before. They were all welcoming and offered me a wonderful party night. I played beer pong, teaming with one of the host. He was so great. Even though I only hit one cup and we were three cups behind the other team, we won that round based on his talent.
Great music, alcohol, winning games and very nice people around. These make my first party the best I could ever imagine. Hooray.

Eggs in the Moon

The other day Chris told me that he was surprised that there was actually an egg in the mooncake. That is an interesting thing to explain.
There are variety kinds of mooncakes in China. Black sesame, peanut, egg, and even meat can be stuffed in the mooncake. And the most symbolic kind is egg mooncake. Fisrt, egg is yellow and round like the moon. It's like eating the moon in a cake. What can more represent the meaning mooncake than egg mooncake in this way? Second, egg is new life of chicken. It represents new life or harvest. Since the Mid-Autumn Festival is in autumn, it is important for farmers to have a symbol for harvest. People gather around and celebrate this year's harvest and wish for next year's harvest. Third, egg can mean happiness or good things because of its traits. One egg means one good thing. Sometimes people put two eggs in the mooncake to double the happiness. It means two happy events come one after the other or good things happen in pairs.
Overall, egg mooncake is not just about the taste, it's more like an explanatory to ancient Chinese philosophy.

Condensed Watson & Crick's Paper

Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids

A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid

Watson and Crick

Structures for nucleic acid proposed formerly are unsatisfied. We suggest a structure of two helical chains each coiled round the same axis. We assumed that both chains are right hand helices and antiparallel. Each of these chains consists of phosphate diester group joining beta-D-deoxyribofuranose residues with 3’, 5’ linkages. This structure repeats after 10 residues or 34A. The phosphates are on the outside of the helix. Each of these phosphorus atoms stands 10A off fibre chain. The two chains are held together by paired purine and pyrimidine bases inside of the helix. The planes of the bases are perpendicular to the fibre axis. The ratio of the amounts of adenine to thymine and the ratio of guanine to cytosine are always very close to unity for deoxyribose nucleic acid. It suggests that they exclusively pair together. The specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material. The sequence of bases on a single chain does not appear to be restricted in any way. If the sequence on one chain is given, then the sequence on the other chain is determined. And the sugars are perpendicular to the attached bases. It suggests that it is impossible to build this structure with a ribose sugar in place of the deoxyribose. The structure’s water content is rather high and the structure could be more compact at lower water content. 

Modern Family's Emmy

What a terrific night for Modern Family! Every award they have nominated, I think, goes to them. The Emmy show begins with comedy and ends with comedy. The first 4 awards all go to Modern Family. Each award of these four they have about 3 nominates in average. Writing and directing go to them. Supporting actor and actress go to the Dumphys from Modern Family. And at the end, the most outstanding comedy also, with no doubt, belongs to Modern Family. Only Leading actor and actress go to other shows, because Modern Family has no nominate. Overall, Modern Family is the real comedy queen.
While congratulating Modern Family, I feel sorry for other excellent comedies. The cruel results of Emmy makes me wonder if it is right to allow one show has such many nominates in the same award. Taking supporting actor for example, Modern Family has four nominates in the total six ones. Even Ed, who used to be nominated as leading actor, is in that list. All six adults in the show are nominated as supporting actors or actresses. Whom are they supporting for? The kids? If so, I am surprised that those kids do not even have one single nominate. Sorry, kids. It's adults' game.

Bored to Death

Norman is a small city, unlike Beijing. Whereas Beijing is busy and crowded, Norman is always quite and relax. Since I don't have many friends here. Life is often lonely and boring.
Weekend is long, especially when rain comes often. My roommate goes back home every weekend. So I have to deal with the loneliness alone. And there are so many plans for weekend. Laundry, cleaning, cooking, dish-washing, etc. I tried to find some exciting things to do at weekend. It turned out everything can bore me after a little bit try. Finally, I realize that honeymoon is over with Norman. It's time to suffering homesick and paranoia. Accept it, or die. My choice is bored to death.
I watched an HBO show called Bored to Death. It's basically a loser writer feels bored and becomes a immature detective to buy thrills. It's a funny way to enjoy a boring life. So I wonder what if I'm a character in that kind of show, paranoia caused by boring. I would be an agent for actors. I would decide what show they should perform and whom to work with. I would make Colin Farrell do more comedy and Steve Carell go back to The Office. As for Charlie Sheen, I have to give him up. There is no way to rescue him from drunken hell.

Sentence Order

It's always fun to learn about sentence order.
Back in China, I was taught many things about English sentense order. One of the most impressive things I learned is about adjutant order. I was taught a Chinese jingle to remember this order. The jingle is Mei-Xiao-Yuan-Jiu-Huang-FaGuo-Mu-Shu-Fang. In English it means a Beautiful Small Round Old Yellow French Wood Study Room. There are also other jingles to remember this order. That's how Chinese people learn English.
After I read the writing book, I found out that Americans learn English by making jokes or sacarsms. In this way, how should the adjutant order be taught? A ugly giant triangle ancient black Antarctic paper bath kitchen? Maybe you guys can give me the answer.
Order in Chinese is different from that in English. Chinese say I and you study English, whereas Americans say you and I study Chinese. Chinese say from the heaven drops down an angle, whereas Americans say an angle drops down from the heaven. etc.
All these different sentence order and other grammar differences between Chinese and English cause me a lot of trouble. I hope I can overcome these without too much efforts.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, according to the Lunar Calendar. Like a lot of other festivals there are "romantic" tales involved. So I' will try my best to explain this Mid-Autumn tale.
In ancient China, there used to be nine suns in the sky. The sun we see has eight brothers. People are burned and dried by the extreme heat. It's hell during the daytime. There's a legendary bow and eight legendary arrows on a mountain. But nobody can pull that bow. A gifted man Hou-yi went there and made it. He used them to shoot down the other eight suns. People started to live happy forever. The God, father of nine suns, punished him and sent him a bag of poison drugs. Hou-yi's wife Chang-e secretly took those drugs for her husband. She flew up to the moon and live there forever. People thanked the couple by making this festival. All families get together to celebrate it and have mooncakes this day.
That's basically where Mid-Autumn Festival comes from. I hope I can get some decent mooncakes somewhere.

Celebrate my month arrival! Congratulations, Derek. You are still a lame boring Foreigner.

Yes. It's true. I have been here for a month. A month ago, my flight landed in OKC in thunder. After 20 hours' journey I finally saw the city I might spend lots of years in.
The first week was the most horrible experience in my life. I couldn't overcome time difference. I was dizzy at daytime and not able to sleep at night. And I had to deal with lots of stuff in that status. At least, I survived that.
It took me two weeks to basically settle down, even though I still need some stuff now. And thank God, I have a excellent roommate. He really made our apt like a home. It's very comfy.
Feeding myself is another challenge. When it comes to food, I'm very picky. My first try was better than I expected. After others' correcting, now I can cook really good Chinese food for myself. Things I cook taste like my mum did.
Tennis is another important thing in my life. I enjoy playing tennis though I suck. Now I play with friends in my lab every week. And I also met some new friends on the court. They all play very well. There are lots of things I need to improve to catch up with them.
Course and lab work are fine right now. But I might loose myself too much. I need to work harder.
And my English is still poor.
One thing at a time, Derek. You will get there eventually.

Congratulation Big John.

SIMON LOST 3 TIEBREAKS!!!
I still couldn't believe my eyes. Simon got lots of chances to break John Isner's serve's games. But every time he made it Isner always got a way to break back. 3 sets were dragged into tiebreak. Isner is a tiebreak fighter. Poooooor Simon was crashed by Big John's serves. All he did was defense without any decent hit like he did facing Del Potro, another big guy with powerful serves. He didn't grasp such a good opportunity. Shame!
Federer defeated Tsonga after losing to him twice in row. Both French guys need to fly back to Paris. Hopefully, they can do a good job in Davis Cup against Spain. Federer will face Djokovic for the forth time in row. It's gonna be a terrific match.
In another half draw, Andy Murray will face John Isner and Rafael Nadal will face Andy Roddick. I hope two American guys can meet in semifinal. Tennis Murray and Nadal play are ugly and boring. It's time for big serve and nice volley.
BTW, today I played tennis at 3:00. The sun almost burned me. Next time I should put on more sunblock lotion.

Big Apple won't stop raining

It's the second day matches are canceled due to the rain in US OPEN. It sucks waiting and keep checking news. The weather forecast says the rain may last for a freaking week, for god's sake. We're still not sure if the matches will start on time tomorrow. Pray for a sunny Big Apple. I'm bored and gonna go to the court to play tennis myself. Blog will continue after that.
I'm back...
One of my favorite player, Gilles Simon, is gonna make great breakthrough this time and I don't want to miss it. He had some tough matches in former rounds a few days rest may help him. he felt very well in his status. Hopefully, the rain won't take that away from him. His next opponent is John Isner, the second tallest guy in the tournament. Simon always find a way to beat the big guy, unless the big guy serves incredibly good. Even Isner has all audiences' support, I still trust Simon can win a chance to Quarter final, probably, against Andy Murray. Murray is one of the Big Fours. I wish Simon can make a history and beat that boring Murray.

US OPEN first week men's summary

Last time I talked about female players' performance in the first week. Now it's time for men.
Novak DJOKOVIC, he, without any surprise, didn't lose a single set. I think he is the one using least time for now. He even only let his competitor got 2 games during 3 sets. Match he cares maybe start from semifinal facing Roger Federer.
Roger FEDERER, I watched his match with Marin CILIC, and he didn't play his best. If he wants to win this tournament, he needs to improve his status.
Jo-Wilfried TSONGA, he and Mardy FISH played a terrific match and he won the chance to face Roger FEDERER again. I think he will still cause lots of trouble for Roger and may beat him again.
Gilles SIMON and Juan Martin DEL POTRO, two players I love the most faced each other in the third round. I am looking forward this match since I saw the draw. It's a quite heart-wrenched match. I hope both of them can go further but I expected a amazingg match between them. They already met in Wimbledon this year and Juan Martin won after 2 tiebreak and another set reaching 7 games. Every time they met the match is  intense as hell. Power vs. Speed. This is the best way to describe their match. This time, SIMON played very well and DEL POTRO is still on his way finding his serve and backhand after wrist injury. SIMON served incredible well, he served more aces than Juan Martin, who is 6 inches taller. He played an aggressive match and shot more winners too. His performance is almost perfect. I trust him to go much more further this time.
Overall, my prediction still has chance to become true. But personally, I hope TSONGA meet SIMON in men's final, and WOZINIACKI and ZVONALIVA meet in women's final.

US OPEN first week women's summary

A week ago I predicted who will be the 2011 US OPEN Champions. During this week, men's draw is stable as usual and women's draw rocked as hell, which is also as usual. Let me grade players I care about.
Women:
LI Na, as a French Open Champion, she is still struggling and can't find her feel. Lacking confidence and attention is her main problem.
PENG Shuai, as the second high ranking Chinese, currently, she did a good job and reached the 4th round. Facing Penneta, a steady and intelligent player, her plan A couldn't work out and she don't have Plan B. Even though she had 4 set points in the second set tiebreak, she didn't convert any of them. What a pity.
Maria SHARAPOVA, the Russian beauty was predicted as a strong competitor for Championship, but she still have unfixed problem. Double faults dragged her down as usual.
Serena WILLIAMS, a true heroine and queen in WTA, she defeated Victoria AZARINKA as I expected and I don't think there will be any woman can beat her at even 50% chance. She has the most powerful serve and steeled mind, and, most importantly, she don't have any injury right now. She is healthy, unlike her sister Venus WILLIAMS.
Caroline WOZINIACKI, the top seed crossed a few barriers in former rounds. I think she can reach semifinal and face Serena WILLIAMS. But I doubt she can bebeat her this time. If she, with lots of luck, beat Serena, I think she will finally win her first Grand Slam and prove her Top 1 ranking.
I will do men's summary next time.

What is Eternal?

I enjoy watching True Blood. It's full of magic, mystery and humanity. Characters in it always struggled from shits they never imagined or expected. What is right? What is wrong? Moral or Immoral? Justify or Lust? ...
During this season of True Blood, the most interesting big question is What is Eternal?
Vampires are immortal. They live through centuries and never grow old or get hurt. But technically they are dead and, most time, don't have human feelings. They are, at some points, just afterlife format like zombies. Bill told Jessica vampires still have humanity deep in their heart. It's a considerable argument. Maybe that's true for some of them. But most vampires, in my opinion, don't have humanity now, because their humanity already faded away after centuries' cruelty and loneliness. If you can't keep your own humanity last, how can you say you are eternal? It's just immortal at most.
There is another view about eternal in the show, soul of human are eternal, even though their flesh and body are gone forever. That's how Witch Antonia came back after 400 years. In this show, there may be or not be heaven after death. But there's one thing for sure that one's soul can exist forever and may communicate with the real world if he or she have unfinished business cannot be put down. Mavis's, Gran's and Antonia's souls last quite a long time.
Godric's, a vampire, also came back after his true death, because he has the most humanity among vampire, even more than lots of real human. In my eyes, Godric is the closest to eternal.

A nerd joke

It's a mathematical joke about permutation and combination. My roommate didn't get it. He asked me to put it on my blog to see how many people can understand it. Hope you all understand it.

CAUTIOUS! What you are about to view have mature content that may not be appropriated for all guests.

Assume that God made N men and M women and observed their behavior of sexual intercourse.
To simplify it, we assume there is no reproduction caused by intercourse.
a) At the beginning, God observed "min{N, M}" ways of intercourse.
b) Then God observed "N*M" ways of intercourse.
c) After a while, God observed "C(N+M, 2)" ways of intercourse.
d) At last, God observed "2^(N+M) - (N+M) -1" ways of intercourse.

Personally, I think this joke is very incisive. It's hard to understand but you will sense its humor and sarcasm after you understand it.

Did you get it? Yes? Good!

If you can't understand it, it's OK. Let me explain it to you, even though it will be less funny if someone explains it to you. The humor comes along with satisfactions and achievement of figuring it out on your own. This is, probably, why it is nerdy, because only nerd guys enjoy solving difficult problems.

EXPLANATION:

a) At the beginning, people advocated monogamy. Intercourse only happened between paired couples. So there were "min{N, M}" ways of intercourse.
b) Then they turned into polygamy. Each man and each woman would have intercourse. So there were  "N*M" ways of intercourse.
c) After a while, homosexual intercourse happened. Each random two people among N+M people would have intercourse. So there were "C(N+M, 2)" ways of intercourse.
d) At last, group sex happened. Everyone could be in or out of the group sex, then single person and no one were removed from the calculation, aka. masturbation and nothing. So there were "2^(N+M) - (N+M) -1" ways of intercourse.

Hopefully, you can all enjoy this joke.

US Open Prediction

I'm a huge tennis fan. Tomorrow a huge festival for me is coming, US Open, Tennis Grand Slam Championship. I have been making my own prediction for recent Grand Slam Championships, and the results turned out to prove I'm not an expert. This time I'm gonna write down my prediction here in case I forget it like another time.
I like lots of professional tennis athletes, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin Del Potro, Gilles Simon, Li Na, Marat Safin, etc. 2009 US Open gave me a sweet memory. Del Potro won US Open Champion and defeated Roger Federer in a breath-taking five sets match. The moment he won, I couldn't believe my eyes and really enjoyed the whole match. Sadly, he was in injury for last year and didn't come to defend his champion.
This year Djokovic went out crazy and played a perfect 3/4 year. There's no impossible for him.
Another male athlete Gilles Simon is coming to his second career peak this year. I always admire the way he plays his games. He's smart and steel-minded though he's skinny and small-sized comparing to other big men.
Let's get to the point. I think the men's champion is gonna be Novak Djokovic. Backup choices are Juan Martin Del Potro, Andy Murray and Roger Federer. Women's champion is gonna to be Serena Williams, and backup choices are Li Na, Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniacki.

FRIENDS WANTED $"Priceless" (brief description of myself)

I'm a Chinese guy who just came to the U.S. for less than a month. Generally, I'm an easy going person. I like challenge and I am ready to experience new stuff. Everything in America is strange to me and I am willing to start a bright new life here.

Lots of friends say I always smile, mostly in a silly way. I have a pretty good sense of humor in Chinese. But right now, I'm a boring guy in English, because I cannot use English smooth and smart. Hopefully, I can get American humor in the near future.

I'm really bad at sports. But I LOVE tennis a lot. I enjoy watching tennis and I'm always available to play with. If you need someone to play tennis with you, go ahead call me. I appreciate it. Besides tennis, I like variety stuff, comedy TV shows, movies, manga, etc.

My social circle is very limited right now. I am glad to meet new friends. Facebook me if you are interested. I'm Derek XU.

Thought about "scientific writing" based on BioWriting Class

BioWriting is obviously about scientific writing in biology related fields. As a graduate student, I know I must be capable to write scientific papers, at least, for god's sake, to reach certain criteria of degree programs. But I haven't given much thought to "what", "why", "who" about "scientific writing" meant to be.
What is scientific writing? I used to think that scientific writing equals articles in scientific journals. During the class I think textbooks are also scientific writing, and they're for the majority of people in our community. Then a question came up into my head. What about scientific stuff other than paper? The Discovery channel provides lots of scientific writing. That's a more popular and fun way to communicate science.
Why is scientific writing important? Definitely not for graduation. For ignorant people, as Carrie says in the class. I agree with that. We are all ignorant in certain cases. Spreading knowledge is important for human beings. Hence, printing is a impressive ancient invention and internet is a breakthrough in modern evolution.
Who are we writing for? I think most scientists want their work to be acknowledged by the public. That's what textbooks are made for. We may become scientists someday, if we get lucky. So we must learn how to write  scientific stuff in a funny, comprehensive way. Otherwise, when a future teacher teaches our work, students may get bored and fall asleep, AGAIN.

Why do I blog?

Everybody has Facebook now. People already get used to update their Facebook status with brief words instead of rambling their feelings with many pages. But writing is an important skill, especially  in scientific communication, and blogger is a helpful way for me to improve my English.
I'm a Chinese guy who just came to America for only half a month. English isn't my mother tongue and I'm not used to express how I feel about things in English. Thus, fluent English writing is much harder for me than local Americans. I need more practice, such as blogs. Hopefully, I will be able to not write poor English after a semester's exercise.
As for local Americans, they have already been well trained in routine English writing. I don't think they need to worry about their English as me. This blogger stuff must been so easy for them. If they see these craps I write, they must be wondering, "Why does this Chinese guy take a scientific writing course. He need to go back to primary school to get some basic American writing education. Stop wasting our professor's time, dude!"