96 annerversary celebration of Tsinghua

It is the 96th anniversary celebration of our school today, as a
volunteer of Zijing team, I'm assigned to send questionnaires to the
alumi came today, along with much other students, with just the same
work.

I don't think I'm suitable to do this, first I'm always too shy to
talk with strangers, especially in the topics I don't like (well, I
could do better when talking in the topics I like such as technology).
And second, I hate to be interrupped and asked for fill in a long
annoying questionnaire, when I walk in the school, along with my old
classmates, if I were a alumni. And I don't want to annoy others, so I
don't want to go and ask some people 'would you like to spend minutes
in filling my questionaire'. It's somethings like flies!

However, I didn't do a good job today, and I'll list some excuses:

1.I hadn't have a meal today, neither breakfast nor dinner. I was so
hungry at that moment.

2.I hate to annoy others, as I've just said, especially to thost who
have already done a questionaire. So I need to decide whether he/she
has not been asked for questions. Alumini would be give a notebook if
he has done a questionaire, so I just watched then, to see wheter he's
holding a notebook at his hand. However, I found that many of them did
have one, and for those who didn't, I always see students went and
asked them, but often got only negative replies (either he had already
done, or he didn't want to). I was totally discouraged by this.

3.I'm a boy, and a boy who is totally attracted by technology. I have
no good looking nor sweet voice as girls, and I have no passion in
talking with strangers in such topic as quesionaire.

4.I think there are a lot of unneccessary question in it, such like
'Do you agree with the idea 'xxx' of the school', which is, I think,
not probably answered 'no', even a man who disagree with it somewhat,
as long as he's not completedly disagree. I think it is wasting time
of the alumni.

Well, notice that I wrote 'excuses' but not 'reasons' above. It is my
fault or weak. I saw girls always able to deal with a group of people,
well, but completely opposite with boys, I even saw three boys asking
questions to one alumnus. That's only what I saw, and I can't say
everyone is like this.

And, I didn't came without even one filled quesionaire, one kind
people saved me. There were always people taking pictures around me,
and often they need an extra hand to take a picture of all of them. I
like to do so, because it makes people happy, I feel good to help
others. And one man happened to asked me for help, of course I said
ok. After the picture, he noticed the pieces of paper in my hand, and
asked me what was that, then he completed the long annoying
questionaire, I'm really grateful to him.

Last year I was in charge of registering of alumni, it was good, I did
feel good of helping others, but not this year... However I will still
participate next year.

Now I know it is really hard to do such work, at least for me; and I
know it is important that the job is done by one who really like it or
want to do it well.

Hope that I will get a job that I am reall interested in, even with
not much salary.

Typing with 9 fingers

I hurt my right middle finger yesterday, not too seriously but not
trivially either. It have been bound up and I had an injection because
of this.

So now, I have to type with 9 fingers for some days, and I found that
this is interesting.

It is not 9 actually, since I rarely use my left thumb when typing, I
always hit the space key with the right one. so now I'm typing with 8
fingers.

The right middle finger should be in charge of the 4 keys of 8,i,k and
comma, while I've not been very standard, I use to hit the comma key
with my right ring finger, so I have just 'lost' 3 keys, and now, they
are controlled by the ring finger.

My type speed has not been decreased too much because of this, and I
only stick on the suffix 'tion', which you could type very fast using
4 fingers but not 3.

I'm getting used of using the ring finger instead of the middle one,
and I'm afraid I would not be able to use the middle finger properly
after it is cured. And besides I'm consider practice my typing speed
by 'losing' one finger each time, I mean, bind it up and then do the
practice, I've no idea about its effect.

Anyway, I hope my finger will be cured soon.

Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed

I had saw this on CCTV several years ago, but it had stopped because
many magicians protested against it. :(

And today I happened to get a copy of this show, which is about 4-hour
long. I am still crazy about this, as the first time I saw it.

In the show, there was a masked magician, who played a number of great
magics, of different kinds and different sizes. After each magic show,
he would tell the secret behind it.

After knowing the secret, I'm taught to be more careful about
everything. There was a great example: in some magic shows, there
would be a big box, and to prove it is empty, without any hidden trick
inside it, probably the magician would open it and you could look
through it. Have you ever noticed the order that the magician opened
the front door (or wall,face...) and the back one? And here is the
trick! If he opened the back door first, and then the first door, what
he could have proved was only that there was no STABLE things inside,
that's because a people could have got out and hidden behind the back
door before the front door is opened! After that, the magician would
always close the first door first, for the similar reason.

Magicians always make illusions, without audiences' attention. What
they could do are just making tricks on the item that would be used
during the show and making magical performance on the stage. Always I
hate the former one, because it's boring and there's not much
technique in it, only things like hidden doors, loosen ropes, fake
locks and somethings like that, audience always have known that there
are no ordinary widgets in a magic show! (well, I have to say, I
appreciate the men who invented these tricks and who played them
first) I appreciate the latter one much more, you can make tricks on
me, and I'll appreciate it only when it is performed under my eyes and
without my attention, indeed this proves your skill.

The greatest magic I think is the street magic, where the magician
doesn't wear too much (to show that he can't hide anything along his
body), and always use small things that are common used in our lives,
such like coins, playing cards and etc., sometimes he'll let you
examine carefully the widgets he'll use (while this is somewhat
impossible for big magic shows), and sometimes he'll even get
something from you (such like glasses, cashes) to play the trick. Even
so, most of time I can't tell the secrets behind the trick (and
sometimes, I cant's see him moving even I had know the principle
before!), the magician always moves so fast and always makes you focus
on the point that is not important at all (but you may have thought
you had seen the most important place!). This kind of magicians are
really good in my opinion.

Back to the documentary I have mentioned at first, the masked magician
may be called Mitch Pileggi according to a web page, he was great! And
although I could understand those people who protest against this
documentary, I think they should work hard and created more creative
tricks. Most of the tricks in the documentary are simple but tricky,
and it's not so interesting for magician to still use them, many of
them have been used for tens of years, or even over a hundred.

After all, I like magic shows, I have been interesting in playing simple magics.

Kirby Superstar

It is a famous game on sfc(snes) and GBA, and I like it!

The main character is a pink ball-like thing, who can breath others in
and get their abilities such like sword, fire, etc.. It can also fly
after breathed air in.

It has been one of my favorite games on simulators of old game
machines. I like it's design, which is absolutely different from
others. I have never seen a game similar with this one.

There are many variances of this game, each of which is good. And I
like its happy, delightful background music.

Always I like the game that is interesting and without complicated
rules or many controlling buttons. And simulators is one example of
this type. I do appreciate the designers who created these games.
Without them, I don't know how much fun I would had lost.

Kaspersky

Found that I have seen many famous people these days. Today I saw Kaspersky who came here giving a lecture about anti-virus.

He's Russian, speaking English with some Russian accent though. He's humourous and often there's smile on his face (well, just like Gates yesterday).

And at last I got a T-shirt with Kaspersky's face printed on it (not only me but also every other one), it was good.

However, I have never used Kaspersky anti-virus software, huh.

Headquarter of Sohu.com

Today I vistited the headquarter of sohu.com, which is not far from
Tsinghua University. It was good.

The work spaces I had seen at first was too small I think, even
smaller than mine in my dorm, while there were bigger ones, which I
had seen later.

The rooms are clean, and there was a pantry, not big but interesting.
Ms Tian (often we call her Sister Tian informally) led us around, we
visited R&D group, and the groups who are in charge of Sogou input
method, Sohu web search, Chinaren alumni and etc., respectively and
also we saw the Olympic Wall and some other interesing places (all the
rooms are named after some people or some famous places) . And there
were many alumni of Tsinghua University, so many!

We spent about 1.5 hours there, and I felt good.

Bill Gates

Bill Gates came to our university today, receiving the honorary doctor
degree from Tsinghua and also giving a speech.

Well finally I see the real man Gates, the same as the one I have seen
in the newspaper. I found somewhat difficult to understand his
English, and there's always smile on his face.

I don't like Microsoft very much, but Gates is one of my favorite
people. He's really a great person.

Interests

Well I'm going to talk about interests in details.

`I like computer, especially programming' that's what I have been
always saying, since when I was in high school. And that has been
true, but something has changed during the time.

I used to be interested in reverse engineering (which is a technology
of cracking), assembly language, and C++. And now, what I can call `my
interests', maybe only Flash

I'm not saying that I don't like others anymore, it's just that I
can't call them `interests'. Now, C++ is always some assignments,
where I can't say it's 'interests'. And besides, I don't have time to
do something about assembly language or reverse engineering.

I said 'Interests would stop when it becomes assignment'. And it's
true, I think. I have to find my interests.

Well,well, above, I just talked about my interests in IT area,
actually I like piano and drawing also. I had quited a piano lesson
before but now I still like playing it. And I've been always refusing
drawing classes suggested by my parents, although they meant mean to
me. And these, are similar as above, I just to avoid them become
'assignment'. But, I have to say, it is because of the piano lessons I
had that I could keep playing it now.

Plan

I didn't feel good recently.

My friends often asked me about my plan to the future, while I always
said that I hadn't a plan yet, because in our IT area, everything is
changing so quickly than even I had mad a plan, it would have been
useless several years later.

But now, maybe it is the time for me to make a decision, since I'm
already a sophomore, or precisely, in the second semester.

I found losing myself now, I don't have a target now. I wonder whether
I would be `useful' to the society. Always I'm talking about I just do
what I'm interested in. but I'm interested in many aspects, where
there's not a special one, which is also an excuse for not determining
my future.

I do have some advantage, I think. But I don't know when and where
shall I be able to take advantage of them. Sometimes I found them
useless.

I had wanted to be `perfect' before, just be an expert of every
technology interesting me. Well, it is impossible of course, I am just
an ordinary people. And I have to make a choice.

I think I know some ideas about this. I've just made a presentation
about 'reason of worry' in my English class. And also do I know that
sometimes one should give up something, etc.. But it's hard! When
considering the technologies I like, I found I `don't' like them at
all! That is just because there's not a special one, I think, and when
I compare them with each other, they seem to be the same.

It becomes more and more obliging to me, I should be quick.

Hate my voice

Well I've learned when I was very young, that one always has a
different feeling about his own voice from others, and the reason is
intuitive: the sound goes on different ways to his own and to others,
one is through the head-bone (there must be a word for that :) ), and
the other is air, of course.

And, yesterday I had a class called Advanced English Speaking, during
which my group had a advertisement show. It was taken into video, and
I heard my voice in it.

Rarely did I think I had a accent from Tianjin, but yesterday I
changed my mind, I think I do have, and maybe rather strong. Oops!
'He', just completely another people, is recognized as me by others,
oh my!

I have to face with this, and that's OK, and maybe also interesting.

Accent

On today's Theory Computer Science class, there was a foreign teacher
gave us a lecture. Um.. Mr. Yao often invited famous professors coming
to give us a lecture about some interesting and modern topics. But
this one, somewhat special to me, had a foreign accent, for example,
he would say 'doo' while he meant 'two', or 'gase' instead of 'case'.
Seems that he did not distinguish voices such like 'b' and 'p', 'k'
and 'g', and something like that, and sometimes he used to make a
tongue-twist voice, which I thought was some Russian.

This is similar when I hear some South accent of Chinese, it's
interesting. At first I may not know what he is saying, but I could be
sure that he's speaking Chinese (while there're some accents which are
far from Putonghua I think), and what's more interesting, after some
words, I could recognize his words regularly.

There was a lecture about acoustic recognizing, saying that people
could establish some 'correspondence' from the speaker's voice to his
own known language, and now I agree with it completely. I had exactly
that feeling while in today's class, and at last, there seemed be not
much difficulty for me to understand him. It was cool!

I'm thinking that isn't it an other way of improving English learning? Probably.

Sea3d & Cities3D

Finally I found the two games for the Settlers of Catan, which could play online. I knew that MSN provide a Catan Online, but it is not free.

I found them both from www.s3dconnector.net , I tried Cities first, but it doesn't work, maybe it's due to my poor network environment. After that I tried Sea3D, and it works well, I registered for the ladder ranking, and then was able to play online with many other players.

It is really fun to play with real persons!

And by the way, it seems that I've playing two much these days, since I found a lot homework piled... So I decided, NO game for a week! We'll see.