alanlau719's Xanga

Stupid me

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:43:24 GMT

Life, could have been perfect~~

Monday, August 27, 2007

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:03:33 GMT

Never check on the phone so frequently... never waited for a call so desparately~

Friday, August 24, 2007

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 06:19:00 GMT

Just off by a few months~~

Taking the riskist bet in my life so far~~

This past year

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 10:09:39 GMT

Want to have this entry for such a long time...

Thought the Fall quarter is the busiest ever.... turned out Spring is the real limit~~ research, music, teaching, HKSA, can feel that this is for sure my physical limit~ Luckily, I think this is worth it. Did have a lot of achievements. 1.5 journal papers, another 1 ready in a month, another invited paper, finally got to do experiments and possibly have yet another paper. I am satisfied =>

My Sax is really better than ever. Turns out I just need to be more self disciplined. But I haven't practice since early June... hum... hopefully I can keep that up over the summer... might not need 3 times a week like during the school term, probably need 1 or 2...again, I really don't wanna lose it.

Did get what I want to achieve as a P of HKSA. Surprisingly, I actually did feel that ppl do respect me occasionally, something I didn't expect. Learn a lot of stuff. Didn't regret my decision to take this position.

This is probably the best year in my life in terms of accomplishments. But career/school success is not everything, and does not necessarily make u happy. Life's complicated, just gotta live it to the fullest...

Job hunting is starting in 4 months. This is the final push for my research, and summer is the most critical time. I am still not totally ready to be a real-estate or insurance agent or selling mutual funds on the streets, but I am taking steps to mentally prepare myself for that. Let's see how it goes. Wish me luck~

Stuff that I want to get eventually may be a lot different than what I think, and I might be making stupid decisions...

Monday, July 09, 2007

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 08:07:23 GMT

Thanks for everything...

Christmas break

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 07:48:12 GMT

Christmas/New Year Break is finally over... one month is still not enough...

Had a great time, obviously. Almost forgot I am building a research career. There are just so many ppl to see/ things to do/buy ... often I told myself "let's forget about research and just live/settle in macau. Work in a casino or something, and earn money and just be like that~~". Life will be good coz it is a happy relaxing life.

Dec 07: Arrived at HK/Macau

Went to my aunt's place in Kwan Tong to have my first "cha chan teng" breakfast and dropped the stuff for KKY Wong first. went back to Macau at 2 pm. Help prepared for Hong's wedding. But I ate "authentic assorted cow parts" off the street and I got sick and was puking and having diaherra that nite. Was worried that I couldn't attend Queenie's wedding the next day.

Dec 08: Queenie's wedding

This is why I came back so early. Queenie is one of the 2 very talented girls I've met so far in my life. They are both Catholics and of course the ceremony was held at a church. I think that's my first friend who had her ceremony at a church. Its pretty touching.

Dec 09: Hong's wedding

Hong is one of my best friend and is probably my first friend in my life... we are family friends. We were sort of out of contact in these few yrs.. but that's ok... His wife isn't living in macau. So we have to go to hotel to 'get' her. I was the driver and one of the 'brothers'. The events of the day was so informal/underprepared ~~ Didn't do anything as a 'brother'... 5 mins b4 banquet starts Hong asked me to be the MC!!

Dec 10: My cousin's wedding

Went to HK to attend my cousin's wedding. I haven't seen that cousin since I dunno when =P. I met Betty, one of the ppl who were sort of in Unique back in Toronto in '02 -- '03.

Dec 11: Met KKY Wong , applied for my HK smart ID card. Meet Wong Sir, Mary for dinner and Kendall, David, Angel for drink afterwards. First time I see Wong Sir and Mary since June. Congrats to Mary for getting her dream job~~~ best of luck ~! =>

Dec 12-13: Went to BBT w/ my High School Friends... they smoke too much.. I wasn't used to it that nite.. but by the end of this break I regained my 2nd hand smoke addiction that I've lost over the past yr...

Dec 14: Met Keong for late nite drinks. Had a good black label scotch and a good time chatting. This is exactly the kind of life I want... late nite drinks, great chat, relax at a bar~~ My friend Keong is one of the best musicians I've ever met.. and he is doing well in building a career in music production. Some ppl think that I am good at music, that just means they haven't met the real master~~ He had a band a while ago (shown in the pic to the rite). The bottom right is my friend. Look closely at the other ppl. Do u recognize them? haha....

Dec 15: Meet Lai, Gordon and Jacky. Gordon got a new house at Taipi... a small but very nice place and very convenient too... He's already living w/ his wife...and he's 1 yr younger than me.....I dunno how I should think of this...

Dec 16: week long HK trip: Hotpot and Drink w/ Janson, David, James, Patty, Natasha, Kendall, Angel. James, Patty and Natasha look exactly the same I think =P. I was staying at David's place, so nice and convenient~! Thanks so much David, I hope I can one day be like u~~

Dec 17: Met Saifei, and had drink w/ James, Janson and David at David's place. James went back to Toronto the next day. Good to see you James... seems like everything is going well with u~~

Dec 18: Met ar hang and angel in the afternoon at IFC Pacific Coffee...went to window shop for PDA phones with ar Hang afterwards. Met Clarence for dinner. Clarence was my roomate in UT for 3 yrs and he is so much more 'man' with his beard. And I got praised by this interior designer for my design of my apartment back in Toronto~~ so happy ! Clarence, keep up the great work w/ ur hotel interior designs, look forward to live in one of ur 'products' soon~!

Dec 19: Met my SAC friends Jason, SK and Alvin. Dinner at a Thai restaurant w/ Jason at CWB... met the rest for drink

Dec 20: Stanford HKSA/Alum gathering. The turnout is so much better than we expected. We ended up turning down almost a full table of ppl. The atmosphere is nice, but I couldn't talk to all the alumni. We should do this kinda gathering regularly~~

Dec 21: Went to Pacific coffee to drink and study. I think Starbucks should learn from Pacific Coffee. They have a few desktops inside and that's great for ppl like me who just wanna check mail and stuff occasionally. Met Phyllis for after dinner drinks at LKF. Phyllis, best of luck to your remaining months on the job, you can do it~~

Dec 22: Meet Joanne for lunch at TST. She's still like that, very outgoing and comfy to talk w/. I so wish u are still working w/ me in my club. I always tell ppl how great you were in getting sponsors~~

Organized a K party at CWB w/ Wong Sir for the Stanford ppl in HK ... but I sent out the wrong address to the mailing list... so stupid...

Dec 23: Had lunch w/ David, and bought my PDA Phone. Yeah~! I love it~! PDA, phone, Wifi, Bluebooth, Camera, keypad... everything !!

Dec 24, 25: Wong Sir and Mary came to Macau to visit for 2 days. Co-organized (hosted by Keong, the DJ) a drinking party that nite for the Macau ppl. There were presents exchange, and I got some weird presents... haha

Dec 26: Went to HK again to have BBQ w/ relatives. There were some cats at the BBQ site.. hehe... Saw all my niece and nephews. They are pretty grown up already. Apparently one of them, Justine, is pretty smart... haha

Dec 27: Lunch with mom at WanChai. Got my HK smart ID card. Met w/ my mom's friends.

Dec 28: Went to Fisherman's Wharf w/ Kwan Kuok. A really nice place...Macau is really beautiful~~

Dec 29: HK (again) to have Bday dinner w/ arHang at Sham Shui Po "Dai Pai Don". Black pepper 'salt vege' pig stomach clam soup is so yummy~~~... drinks at TST afterwards. Saw Hang for the last time in HK. I don't feel like I've met you enough man, we should've come out w/ smaller # of ppl and really chat~~

More coming~~~~~~

Merry Christmas

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 17:23:24 GMT

....

Christmas~

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 05:52:31 GMT

Its Christmas time and I am in HK... too busy to write anything these days~ Haven't been back to HK/Macau at Christmas time for 7 yrs. And I got sick the first day back coz I ate "authentic assorted cow parts".... T_T...

Had 3 wedding banquets back to back from 8th to 10th... got kinda sick of those food... although those are still so much better than the food I have at Stanford. Finally it just hit me... suddenly my best friend is married, and were complaining and shit like that... and I am still studying and stuff like that (btw I really hate it when ppl treat me dinner saying that I am still studying. How many times do I have to tell them that Ph.D. have funding~~?)

Wanna have a reivew on the past quarter. Its definitely the busiest time I ever had.

I am very glad that I managed to pick up music class again~~~ and I am better than ever now ~~ yeah~

Research wise, I do have stuff that can become a paper. And the material is a new direction within the big picture. So my 'research portfolio' is becoming better. I am happy that I managed to achieve this goal of '1 paper per quarter'. However, it becomes more and more apparent that there is a major hurdle -- experiments. Without those in my portfolio, its still 'not good' according to ppl's current view, although the industry is changing in favor of me, but I am still suffering from picking an area that's difficult to survive. My boss said I can graduate next christmas...but its pointless to grad fast if I can't get a good job...so...I dunno man~~

HKSA wise, it seems like we had done more than previous yrs, which should be something to be proud of ( my thanks to everyone in my committee putting a lot of their time and effort => !!). However, the amount of work and the problems are bigger than I expected. I think its fundamentally because

1) the number of our members is small enough that we can try to satisfy everyone interested/care enough about our events planning/execution

2) Ppl in brand name schools are more confident and competent in taking positions and defending them in any issue. When they disagree its harder to persuade them or get things settled.

These are the 2 things that I naively didn't notice b4 I take up this job. I hope to be able to better manage things later...

Have been trying to meet up old friends in Macau / St. Andrews / UT....its so hard to meet ppl in HK. Everyone is just so busy and I have to reschedule and wait and wait ... but that's ok... its a really great time to meet and catch up w/ all of them... obviously I felt like home had such a good time... sometimes I wonder what my life is like if I never go out to study in Canada/US... what job I will be doing... who am I going out w/.... its just pretty interesting to think about it... hum....

Will post some photos later.... will have the Stanford HK/Alum gathering tmr... hope everything runs smooth~~

In my face~~

Sat, 18 Nov 2006 05:23:26 GMT

There are a couple of times in my life where I feel and acknowledge that my intelligence is upper bounded by the person in front of me and I accept his/her superiority over me~~

Something interesting happened 10 days ago between me and my groupmate ( let's call him E ) . He knew that it takes so much time for me to run my siumlation, and he was free that week. So he proposed to take a look.

E: Hey Alan, can u send me ur code? I wanna look at it.

Alan: Sure ok. ( I have been using that code for 2 months. And yeah, its really taking such a long time. But I doubt if u can really speed up by a significant amount. Maybe at most 10%??)

----------------------- 2 hrs later----------------------------------------------------------------

E: Hey Alan, I have written my own version. Come here and take a look.

Alan: Ok....

E: Yeah , I got the same result as u. How long did u code take? Mine took 0.13 sec.

(My code, on the other hand, took about 35 minutes~~~)

Alan: O..... o.... o...... o.... that's....good....

E: I remember ur code took something like half an hr? O ha ha, u just have to realize that u can make use of the structure of the problem ( and he's definitely not cocky. In fact, he's trying hard to save my face by downplaying the significance and novelty of realizing that structure, whatever that is)

One very nice thing in academia (as compared to other industry =P) is that ppl are inherently nicer, and everyone has a fair share of doing/saying stupid things. My advisor tend to say something very stupid once every 2 weeks. (and he's an internationally recognized figure in my field) So part of our 'soft' skills is to ditch ppl enough but not all the way... coz ur turn of stupidity can happen anytime~~~lol

From Berkeley to Stanford

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 05:54:41 GMT

Went to the Advanced Light Source http://www.als.lbl.gov/ in Berkeley for Friday. It is a big facility where they generate ultra short X-rays for various scientific and technology research. It was pretty interesting, but I can't fully appreciate and understand all the stuff the presenter said.... coz its too physics to me.... =P

Had a good relaxing dinner w/ a friend in Berkeley. Afterwards, I took public transit back to Stanford.

I knew it would take quite a while to get back.. but I didn't expect it actually took me 5 hrs !!! I went in the station at 9 pm, back home at 2~~ I waited for quite a while at Millbrae station, that's why.

But that's ok.... I wanted to take public transit last nite coz I haven't tried it b4... and I intend to relax a bit last nite...also I did bring a small amount of work w/ me to keep me busy... anyways... its an interesting nite~~