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.