The relationship between Taking a shower in the morning and Disney Channel

    Yesterday morning, I took a shower before going to class.

    It sound nothing to talk about. Some people prefer take showers at night before bed time, as I usually do, and others prefer take showers after they get up in the morning. Maybe there are still some people not having regular washing-themselves schedules. They take showers only when they feel needed.

    Anyway, after shower I went to class. It's just like a normal day when Prof. Oxford were murmuring and I was busy taking notes. But all a sudden, I found myself feeling so comfortable sitting on chair. It's not a wooden chair in classroom anymore. Amazingly, I felt like relaxing myself in the sofa in my living room. And the blackboard with a professor in front of turned out to be a show screen. 

    So, a note-taking class is transformed into a show time. In addition, it's my favorite one, Disney Channel. Now you hear my secret. Try taking a shower before go to class and the then enjoy it. 

Trip to Turkey Run national park

    It's a short trip, about one and half drive. The park is located in Indiana state. Generally speaking, it's a forest kind of park. There, you can camp, do canoeing, hike or just casually walk around so to enjoy the nature. I won't say the view is spectacular. But it's a good place to appreciate the scenery of fall where trees turn yellow and red.

    The weather is mild. Temperature was basically cool but sun light penetrated the cloud now and then so visitors could feel the warm. In the sky, there are always some eagles whirling. 

    Here is something interesting. Since Irene was in our car on the way to the park, I said something nice on Adrian. I said that he cooked breakfast for three of us every morning. Meanwhile I also poked fun of him by saying that the breakfast is always the same like some fried eggs with tomato on top of it. After this, something amazing happened............. The breakfast next morning became......... French Fried Toast!! Haha, good.

Trip in St. Louis part two

    It's getting sunset when we 'landed' from the top of the Arch. We then visited the Cardinals Baseball Ground under the requesting of I-Hong. He is crazy about baseball, though not a fan of the Cardinals. A fan of Atlanta Brave, actually. No game today, so we just took a look at the empty ground through the fence.

    On our way back to the parking lot, we found it so weird that we barely saw a passenger or someone all our way through . Where are all the people? It's like only we five visitors were in this city. Now I realized why somebody told me St. Louis a 'dead city' before.

    Anyway, we were on our way for dinner after that. We had dinner in a restaurant named Brio, a Italic food restaurant. It looks a little bit high-classed. Because it is recommended by Li-shin, we can't help imagine what kind of life she used to live in St. Louis. During dinner, Pin-Shin asked us several questions like some hint between boys and girls, which is difficult to me. How come a never-had-a-girlfriend boy like me would know this? No matter how, the dinner became interesting since we had something to talk. We learned something and here is the conclusion: Don't give present to someone in case the misunderstanding that you were implying something. Treating a meal is a better choice. We can also think it backward. If you are really crushed on someone, don't treat a meal but give a present instead. Or she/he would misunderstand that you feel nothing on her/him. It sound quite false. Anyway, it's just logic.

    Finally, it's time to home sweet home. However, WE RAN OUT OF GAS. I-Hong noticed the low gas warning so he followed the sign on highway to the gas station. But it was not on duty. So, we used GPS to find another two gasoline stations. Unluckily, they were also closed or abandoned. At last, we called the police.

    After about fifty minutes, a police came by to check if there were really some stupid kids with a car without gasoline. After another twenty minutes, second police came. he brought us some gasoline and lead us to a gasoline station that was working. Gas filled, we were again on our way home.

THE END

Trip in St. Louis part one

    I can't believe that I had another trip out of town again since the last time I went to Chicago is only about two weeks ago. This time, it's St. Louis in Missouri, the second-most nearest big city to UIUC. Along with me are I-Hong the driver, Grace, I-Ging and Pin-Shin.

    It took about three hours to get St. Louis. The first place we visited is fast fried chicken restaurant Lee's.

    After finishing our lunch, we went to the Budwiser Brewery.

    A brewery is the place where beer is made commercially. We first looked around the exhibition and the souvenir store. Surprisingly, there is a R.O.C. flag pattern, among about fifteen nations, showed on a big board hung from the ceilings in the exhibition hall. After that, we joined the tour hold by the brewery. We visited many facilities belonged to this brewery like the stable and fermenting room. The reason here is a stable with several Dalmatian dogs and Clydesdale horses kept inside is because that it's a symbol of early career of Budwiser.

A Dalmatian and two drivers on a carriage

    The tour is composed mostly of aged couples. They asked many questions in the ending of the tour like hard-working students. I think that's cute.

    After the tour, there is free beer for every visitor. Beer is not only free but also unlimited. The taste is not bad although it's common beer you can bought in Walmart. Grace got so blushed after drinking only half cup of beer. The others seemed to be OK. For me, I drank one cup,which is obviously not enough.

    Anyway, we continued our trip, not drunkly, to the most famous landmark in St. Louis, the Arch.

The Arch and skyline of St. Louis
(photo from www.orgsites.com/mo/stlchristianhomesports/)

    This arch is really spectacular. In some way, it looks so unreal.We took cable car inside the arch to the top of it to enjoy the view. Looking to the west, it's downtown St. Louis. To the east, it's great Mississippi River. The Arch itself symbolize the city as a bridge across Mississippi River as well as a bridge for Americans starting their development in the mid-west.

Downtown St. Louis

應該讓同性戀夫妻領養小孩嗎?

        討論這個問題之前要先有一個前題，就是同性戀者和異性戀者沒有不同。

        接下來，關於法律上是否應允許同性戀夫妻領養小孩，主要有兩種正反的意見：

        一種是站在同性戀者的人權上。他們認為既然同性戀者是正常人，那當然應該有權力和正常人一樣可以領養小孩。另一種是站在小孩的人權上來說話的。這方面的人認為即使同性戀夫妻可以提供良好的家庭生活，小孩長大的過程中仍然不可避免的會感受到社會畸視的壓力。因為不管如何，總是會有人在背後指指點點。

        我同意前者的看法：應該保障同性戀夫妻領小孩的權力。

        後者陳述的是事實。沒錯，初期被同性戀夫妻領養的小孩很可能會受到畸視。但是，一旦同性戀夫妻領養常態化後，社會才會開始見怪不怪。只有社會開始見怪不怪時，才是同性戀者被視為正常人的時候。這時候，同性戀者的小孩就不再會感受到社會的壓力了。

        我承認這對初期被領養的小孩有些不太公平，因為他們是在社會價值觀尚未扭轉之前被領養的。不過反過來想想，那個小孩的出生是公平的呢?有人啣著金湯匙出生，有人的父母卻是低收入戶、罪犯或酗酒者。基於公平的原則，法律是否應禁止低收入戶、罪犯或酗酒者生小孩呢?

        當初美國社會要接受黑人和白人平權的政策時，對白人一樣是不公平的(相較於之前的白人)。第一批被送到黑人白人混合學校的學童，就好比第一批被同性戀夫妻領養的小孩。但也就是因為美國決定接受並進行這種短期陣痛的磨合，今天才看的到歐巴馬在代表民主黨競選總統。

Research plan

Appreciated, I got more sense about what to do with my research after consulting Din, a senior member in my lab.

The research I am now involved in is to study the property of CeO2 film. CeO2 has the same structure with UO2 so it's a good object to study instead of UO2, which has radiological concerns.

The film will be implemented with heavy ions in order to simulate the situation in a nuclear reactor, where fission products are always damaging the fuel. Damaged sample is studied through many analysis like TEM, SEM and so on. On the other hand, computer simulation is also conducted. We would use Molecular Dynamics to the very short initial stage of the damage formation and Kinetics Monte Carol to the long later stage of the defect migration and relaxation. 

Din said that they had spent several years on computer simulation just before this semester. It's difficult because it seems that Pro. Stubbins himself does not know simulation very well. So Din and Bei really counted on themselves actually, that's why the process is so slow. Now, they want to spend more effort on experiments to see if it would be easier to get something. 

He suggested that I should do these simulation things and experiments at the same time with an interesting strategy. Since understanding simulation theory is harder compared to doing experiments once the procedure is known, I should put my "brain" to read papers while give my "body" to experiments.

I think this idea is fine and I will follow it. I hope I can officially start the research before winter break. 

圖書館

其實我從小到大就不喜歡在圖書館唸書

我喜歡待在家裡唸

在椅子上的我定不下來

每五分鐘就要換個姿勢

蹺腳

盤腿

蹲在椅子上

站起來

走來走去

坐到桌子上

這些都不太適合在圖書館

第二

小時候唸書時

很容易就會開始神遊想像

比如讀近中國代史時

就會想像自己是統帥反攻大陸

反攻大陸後沒事就只好征服世界

而在讀數學物理的時候

我想像的劇情就....

還是在征服世界

總之，若是在圖書館

一個人突然痴痴的傻笑起來

好像也不太適當

再三

我很容易分心

輕聲細語讓我分心

正妹讓我分心

圖書館樓下菜市場的味道讓我分心

館內的故事書小說讓我分心

所以在圖書館讀書也未必比較有效率

一直到大學畢業

我都是這麼地遠離圖書館的

我想我比較習慣在一個私人空間讀書

但是

Grainger Library很不一樣

在那裡唸了幾次

發現效率非常的好

大部份是唸了好多東西

看一下時間發現才過了一小時而巳

為什麼呢

可能是挑高的大廳

空曠感讓人安定

可能是疏遠排列的座位

遙遠的正妹很難分心你

可能是地毯

走起路來沒有聲音

可能是長大了

不再在乎傻笑被人看見

可能

以後要常來圖書館唸書了

睡了十二個小時

八點半PM

看完阿拉丁 on Disney Channel 後

想說小睡一下再起來做點正事

沒想到今天特別疲累

很香甜地一直睡到

聽到Matt和Adrian在客廳的講話聲

嗯

所以巳經十二點了

我倒頭繼續睡

第二次醒來

四點十四分

睡眠時間累計八小時

腦子巳經非常清醒

一點睡意也沒有

但四點起床真的很怪

所以……

開始做夢

水籠頭開水的聲音

冰箱開門的聲音

微波爐的聲音

我房間什麼都聽得到

不用看錶

現在巳經七點半了

但起床好冷

而且

再一個小時就睡滿半天了

加油

再睡一下

八點半AM

關於生活費

我是從什麼時候沒再跟家裡拿錢的呢?

好像是在升大四的時候吧

那時候一個月爸媽給的生活費約四仟元台幣

這個錢支出我的吃飯、交通費用

每個月還會剩一點

但在付教科書及寒假上山集訓的費用後

存款會再歸零

四上時靠大三的成績和社團活動

申請到五萬多的獎學金後

就停止和爸媽拿零用錢了

講起來很有趣

爸媽有一個規定

我們家每個小孩工作的收入

五分之一要上繳

不管是多是少

譬如說我弟家教一天賺了一仟塊

回家時

他就要放倆佰元到我家客廳的鍾魁腳下

然後

它會被爸爸拿去換成樂透彩卷

回到我的獎學金

五分之一大約就是我一年的生活費

所以互抵之下

這一年就開始吃自己了

畢業後當兵

每個月拿士官的微薄薪水

退伍後旋即回清大當研究助理

中間只有五天的無薪假期

一年後

進清大核工碩士班

津貼大約和士官的薪水相等

又過半年

來到了UIUC

我覺得自己很幸運

一輩子還未曾為錢煩惱過

既不用打工賺生活費

也沒有和家裡拿錢的罪惡感

但除了運氣之外

我想這和我的生活習慣也很有關係

可能有人不相信

在我今年去日本玩之前

我還未曾替自己買過衣服

(紀念衫除外)

我穿的都是親戚給的舊衣服

沒有逛街的興趣

也不會去電影院、KTV之類的

像是個宅男

但又不會像宅男擁有很多的收藏品

總之我的生活支出很低

所以一點點的生活費就很夠用了

記得爸爸一向是反對小孩打工的

他覺得有時間打工還不如拿來唸書

(不過最近他的堅持似乎有些軟化了)

而媽媽則是很讚成小孩打工

她總是把我們拉去當選務人員或是幫我們找家教

而我很反對我打工

原因未必在於要節省時間來唸書

或許更是因為我覺得打工的工作多半是無聊的

而我無法忍受無聊

即使它是Easy Money

一個人可以忍受無聊時

他的生活只會愈變愈無聊

You scared me, man

室友Adrain讀ECE博班三年級

每天早上七點半起床

做了三份早餐後就去學校了

我和室友Matt起不來，所以就負責洗碗

晚上他會回來吃晚飯

吃完

再開車回office繼續工作

過十二點才回來

過著令人敬佩的規律生活

這天晚上

我要到圖書館趕作業

所以就順便坐他的便車

回來時巳經是凌晨十二點半了

沒想到

他說他只是回來拿個東西

待會還要回辦公室

因為老闆晚上十點寄了E-mail給他

他必需回去加班

博士生的生活這麼可怕嗎

巳經是超人的工作時數了

竟然還要敖夜加班……

你嚇到我了，男人

Scientist versus Engineer

    I used to mention myself a scientist rather than an engineer. Perhaps, I thought scientists to be higher-classed than engineers. Scientists is related to dreams, creativity and genius. Conversely, when it comes to engineers, one may think of work and rigidness. There is Einstein as a typical scientist with white messy hair. However, engineers? You would only recall some company like GOOGLE. It seems that an engineer can not exist as a self-proved unit. Engineers live as part of something. Simply speaking, engineers couldn't exist without users enjoy their product.

    It happened yesterday that I started considering a new idea of the value of engineers. It was my roommate found difficulties launching the webpage of Taiwan U. He said that he could launch any other websites but Taiwan U. Besides, he tried it on UIUC campus and there is no problem getting connected to National Taiwan U. So he concluded that there is something wrong with our network provider, Comcast. He is anxious about this because he is urgent to check e-mails in NTU mail server but he don't want to go to UIUC campus to do that at night. 

    I thought it interesting. The truth is that the server of NTU is working well. How come one can only connect from UIUC campus but not from Comcast? It's probably that NTU server denied the request from Comcast or the server of Comcast can't find where the server of NTU is. Anyway, I recalled that some hacker would trying to launch different server so that they could escape the tracing from police. It reminded me to use VPN to connect to UIUC server first. After that, I tried to connect to NTU and, surprisingly, it worked. So, my roommate is happy and I looked good.

    What's the relation between this event and the issue about scientist-engineers? The point is, engineers exist to solve problems for others, which is very different from scientist. In some ways, scientists do solve problems. But the motivation is for themselves. It's the desire to seek the truths. For engineers, they do this because there is a need.  

The world needs engineers, but not necessary scientists.