一个无手印的女孩 - 2

小女孩从小就特别爱哭。记得有一次，老师看见小女孩的眼睛泛红，心想小女孩肯定又要哭了。于是，老师便当着全班同学的面前问到：为什么你又要落泪了？小女孩只好含着泪回答：老师，我不小心割伤手指头了。这时，同学们纷纷哈哈大笑，而小女孩哭得更惨了。小女孩爱哭的习惯或许是因为她时常无故受伤吧。渐渐的，小女孩也变得不怕受伤的痛了。而小女孩最高兴的时候其实是看见爸爸细心地为自己处理伤口。虽然爸爸都会大骂小女孩 ，但小女孩心里面十分清楚爸爸其实是心疼自己的。至于小女孩无端受伤是否与她没手印有关，那就敬请期待后续.

一个无手印的女孩

这是一个平凡的故事。故事中的女主角是一个经常尝试在平凡不寻找不平凡的人。或许，当别人问她：你有什么与众不同的地方吗？她会回答说：我是一个无手印的人。或许，那不是一个值得骄傲的事情，但至少也是相当让人惊讶的吧，至于为什么这个女孩会没有手印和她如何发现这个奇妙的地方，那就敬请期待后续......

...待续...

Happy Valentine's Day

Thank you for the sweet gift. Love it!

I like how special our celebration is:

Hope that I can share the chocolate I made with you:

Happy Valentine's Day! :)

Time to grow up?

Today, I woke up with a weird dream. In the dream, I was playing a game with a group of youngsters. The rule is that you need to do something according to the suggestion of others whenever you lose a game. So, when i lose the game, my punishment is to give my facebook contact to a cute teenager. I was excited so I receive my punishment right away. After getting my facebook contact, the teenager started looking at my facebook profile and he even made a few complimentary comments about my profile picture in which I was wearing a nice outfit with wings. At the end, he asked me something that brought me back to reality. "How old are you?", he asked. I couldn't believe that I could be so sensitive about my ages that I will have it in a dream. Maybe the lesson learned from the dream is that it's time for me to grow up.

最一个冬天

看着外面下的雪，我想这应该是我的最后一冬天了吧。冬天有着一种模糊的美。白白的雪几乎将整个城市给掩埋了。我爱看雪但却恨雪带来的孤独感。或许从未看过雪的人会向往雪花飘落的那一刻，但是，我想后厚厚的雪带来的困扰会让人忘了那刹那间的美。

那个下雪的早晨，我突然想出去走走， 也随意拍了一些照片：

附近的教堂

我住的地方

Writing

It has been quite a while since I wrote in my blog. Maybe I am always occupied with other works. Being a graduate student is really busy, especially when it comes to publishing a paper. I couldn't remember how many hours I have spent last few weeks meeting with my professor and working days and nights for the paper. I was so touched when I saw my name listed as the first author for the paper. I remember squeezing my head trying to find an interesting project to work on a year ago. Since then, I have been meeting "secretly" with my professor and other collaborators over Skype. Since I am the only student working on the project, I feel a bit deserted from the research group as a whole. I couldn't ask for much help since nobody except for me is interested in proceeding with this project. I have even planned for things to write for the paper during the summer, but, my professor is the one who do all the writing at the end. I guess the ability to write comes with experience(it only takes him a few hours to write 3 pages!). Personally, I like writing but I don't like writing too formal or technical stuffs like academic papers because you couldn't express your feelings well in those formal writings. For me, formal writings are mainly about selling ideas to the readers. I write a blog whenever I couldn't sleep. This is similar to me baking a cake to smell the great aroma of freshly-baked cake whenever I couldn't sleep. I wonder when will be the next time I add a post to my blog again. I hope that I won't abandon writing a blog again.

Choosing the next path

It's now the final year of my Master program but it's also the time to ask myself this question: Should I continue for a PhD?

I have tried working as an intern at Intel for 2 months. Although job as an intern is a bit different from the real job as a software engineers, I think I have the same opinions towards both. I feel that I don't really like the kind of job that requires sitting in front of computers. not that I hate programming. In fact, I even start to like programming but my eyes feel so tired all the time when I keep staring at the screen.

Last night, I saw the "wordings" on my little board when I was sitting on my desk. It may look silly for some but it said "I want to be a good teacher!". I remember writing it down a few years back when I was so tiring of studying abroad alone. Have things changed? Why don't I want to be a good teacher anymore? I think the expectation that others has on me has started to make me confuse about what I want to be. You may think that the answer to the question "What is your plan for future" will become clearer as time goes by. However, if you were to ask me the same question a few years ago, I am sure that I could give a more definite answer. Maybe one thing I learn from Graduate School is that graduate students become more confused of their future.

What I want to be?

Life is short

I received an email from my professor saying that the graduate student I mentioned in my last post just passed away today. I hope that he will rest in peace now.

Below is his website:

http://www.brettdaniel.com/

*The city I am living in is all covered with snow now as shown in the pictures below:

My first lecture

Today, I gave the first lecture. The lecture is about finding bug in Refactoring tools.I was so nervous since this is the first time I am talking in front of all of students. I realized that my hand is shaking when I am talking. The lecture is relatively short and I finished it in around half an hour. After the class, I had a meeting with my students. Surprisingly, one student told me that he liked my lecture. Another student told me that he found a bug in his code after the lecture today. So, I am happy that my first lecture went well and I hope to gain more confidence in future.

四年过去了

今天我坐在Siebel Center的一个小角落，毫无目的地四处张望。原来，我待在这栋大楼四年了。我发觉有好多回忆都与这栋大楼有关。我在这里哭过、笑过，也曾经在这里向几个要好的朋友道别。我以为我是爱这个地方的，但在四处张望的那一刻，我突然开始讨厌这栋大楼。记得毕业典礼的那一天，我几乎已准备向它说再见了，但是最后我还是得待在这里。到底什么时候我能真的离开这里呢？或许，那个无法实现的梦是我留在这里的唯一动力吧，可是这一切都是值得的吗？

Grading first midterm

It is depressing to reach home at 1am after spending 7 hours in school grading the midterm for the class. I guess that's the disadvantage of living alone.

A Weird Dream

Last night I had a weird dream. A sad one. I dreamt of the PhD student whom I was working with for my senior thesis and whom I was thinking of working with for my research project this semester. He was crying in pain in my dream. He looks thinner than he used to be. The weird part is although he have helped me a lot with my senior thesis, I didn't get a chance to talk to him as a friend so it's quite surprising to me that I will dream of him. When I woke up today, I went to his website to find out if his cancer problem have gone worse. I feel so sad when I realized that he realized that he had a small tumor in his brain and was receiving treatment now. No wonder he is not able to reply to any email this week. I hope that he will get well soon!

Feeling depressed

These few days, I am feeling depressed again. Don't feel like cleaning the house, cooking or eating. Couldn't really sleep well even though I try to sleep early. Maybe I am putting too much efforts into my teaching and grading. Feel so tired all the time. Feel like crying once I reached home. Get even more frustrated when my professor doesn't seem to like the project we proposed. I went to the career fair on Thursday and Friday but I didn't seem to get any positive news even though I spend more time talking to more companies this year.

My First Power Outage

When I was doing some works with my laptop today, the power for the whole apartment suddenly went off. I thought there was some problems with the electric bills or the power box so I waited for a few minutes. Then, I started to feel panic and decide to knock on my neighbor's door to check if they are having the same problem. Apparently, the power for the whole building went off. I wasn't sure how long it will last but since the sky is getting dark, I went to the cafe nearby. An hour later, I came back home with some flashlights in case the power is still off. Luckily, the power is restored when I arrive home. Even though the outage only lasted for one and a half hour, I feel that I was defeated by the power outage. It gets scary when you are living alone as you will imagine having to spend the lonely night in the dark. I guess this is a good experience for me since it makes me realize that it is hard to live alone and to be independent.

PS: I will leave all the lights tonight because I am too afraid that it will go off again.

Fall is coming

Sweet Corn Festival...


The color of the leaves are changing...

A few days before new semester starts

Saturday, 21 August 2010 (Scott Park)

There is a park across the street from my new apartment. It's called Scott park. It has pretty much everything that you can find in a playground for kids. At first, I thought of bringing my
dinner and enjoy the scenery while eating over there. However, I changed my mind and decided to go there for a walk after dinner instead. I sat on the swings while watching a group of people having a picnic on the park. It feels great to sit on the swings since I can enjoy the light wind and the gentle sunlight. I think I will definitely try to visit this park more often!


Sunday, 22 August 2010(Quad Day)
The annual Quad Day falls on a Sunday this year which happens to be a day before school starts. I met my ex-housemate in the Turkish booth so I got a chance to have a coffee with her. She said I looks so different with my new hair color. After that, I met Harshita, a friend who is also a new TA and Master student in Computer Science. Harshita and I walked around the quad and found lots of interesting student organizations. I just bumped into a funny character (as seen in the picture above) while walking around so I took a picture with the cow. The weather is very hot today so both of us felt relieved when going out of the crowd. I hope that I can meet Harshita again for some other interesting events.

Turkish Airport

I stopped at Istanbul around 5 hours to wait for my flight from Turkey to Chicago. It's not really a pleasant experience. I feel like a stranger over there with people looking at me in a strange way. I tried going into the "Bazaar"(as shown in the picture above) and found that most stuffs are even more expensive than those in US. I only bought some food for my ex-housemates.

Things I wish to Eat before going back to US

I went back to Malaysia a few months ago. I have a few things in mind that I wish to it. The list is as below:

1. Tee Nyah kuih-It is a "Hokkien" dishes I manage to find it in pasar pagi. I usually eat it with the syrup provided.
   

2. Naan-I just ate Kahmiri Naan tonight-it has raisin and sugar in it but the raisins on it are not as many as the picture shown above.

3. Roti Canai-I ate it in a mamak store during on of the game in Worldcup. It is too dry so I may try getting a chance to eat it again.
4. Milk tea- I wish to drink as many as possible when I come back but can't drink much because I have tyroid.

5. Curry puff-I get to eat it once I arrived at the bus stop opposite KLIA.

6. Putu Mayong- Bought it when going to pasar pagi with my mum.

The above list is not complete. I will update it once I think of more food. Feel free to leave any suggestion!

最近

最近总是有人问我毕业后的计划。其实，我真的不知道应该怎么回答他们。今天，我又打电话到UMASS,希望能打听些消息.果然不出我所料，他们还是未做出任何决定，而且他们还说负责人请了一星期的假期，看来我只能耐心等待了。等待是痛苦的，之前为了申请博士的事茶饭不思，这几天却开始暴饮暴食，我几乎已经想尽所有办法让自己不再为这件事担忧了。无论结果是好是坏, 我只希望我能早点知道，以做好心理准备。我不晓得我是否有勇气继续待在美国，难道我真的必须放弃我的梦想吗？

Caramel Apple Cake

I have baked my first caramel apple cake during this weekend. I have taken the recipe from the following website:
http://busycooks.about.com/od/cakerecipes/r/caramelapcake.htm
I like the cake a lot! It is soft and moist. Smell great!



PS: Sue Yen, I will keep practicing!