I am now officially on a Master committee. How cool is that?
The committee chair Marianne just had a girl (3 weeks old tomorrow). So it would be convenient and nice to go to her place for the proposal defense. Walking into her dining room, I had the image:
Many years ago, I was preparing Master's proposal or thesis. Toby was busy taking care of Mairead or Kieran so that Cathleen could work. I was stressed out to meet the deadline and needed Toby's comments. So Toby asked me to go to their place for discussion. We worked on their dining table. The cat Matilda was walking everywhere. Oh, I remember the cat. She was not afraid of strangers. She was so curious of me that she put her face right in front of my nose while stepping on my paper.
Back to the present time, Marianne's mother was there helping her to take of the baby so that she could work. The other committee member Janine arrived there a few minutes before me. The student presented her research proposal. We asked her questions. Then the student was asked to get out of the house and wait for our decision. I had another image of my Master's proposal meeting, which was a disaster. My committee not only grilled me but tore my proposal apart. Well, I may be exaggerating but I felt so. The original blog entry (built before the era of blogs or facebook) was not online anymore, but I found it in my hard drive. It was written on Oct 18, 2003:
(Sorry, English readers)
不可置信的，今天是禮拜六，凌晨兩點鐘才入睡的我竟然早上七點半就起床了。
蕭蕙（交替恐龍的室友）為我做了兩個總匯三明治，讓我帶來學校。帶「來」學校，是的，我正在辦公室裡，剛才，總共花了四個小時弄完了"post-proposal" proposal of my master project。
為什麼 proposal 後還要 proposal 呢？這是一件令我哭笑不得的事情。
禮拜四（10/16/03）是我學術生涯的一個邁進，就是提出碩士研究的申請，我已經花了至少半年以上的時間（我決定要在胚胚的頁上貼出我的實驗步驟演進圖），回美國之後又不停的跟 Cathleen 和 Toby 討論，每討論一次就修改一次，大大小小的修改不論，至少我覺得我很享受這其中的過程，我可以跟他們討論出一個實驗的方向，和解決問題找出真相的方法。就在寫出正式的那一份 proposal 之前，我的三位 committee members （包括 Rick）都已經知道我的研究是什麼，也都沒有什麼大疑問，也都跟我說我是多麼的了不起想要探究一直沒人去碰的領域（是的，我是第一人啦！暗暗的爽），也都跟我說我的碩士提案可以擴大成博士研究的提案，不過我目前需要的是先拿到碩士，後續的研究就看我之後願不願意繼續了。
總之，我呈現一點都不緊張的狀態，反正他們都知道我在做什麼，反正我已經練習過好多次怎麼 present，proposal 的前一天晚上我還再看了一次 "Lilo & Stitch"。
禮拜四早上十點鐘，開始。
當我講完我提案中最複雜的部分的時候，我非常舒暢的期待這一場 meeting 的結束，因為我想連最複雜的部分我都已經搞定了，接下來沒什麼好怕的了。然後，Cathleen 突然炸出一個問題，她從來不曾對我提起的問題。
先話說從頭，我做了兩個 pilot studies，第二個 pilot 有非常驚人的（對我們廣大的 vision science 領域是驚人的）結果。通常做 pilot 的目的不是要看結果，而且 pilot 所收集的 data 不夠多應該也不能當作是很有統計效力的 data。但是這個 pilot 的結果卻讓人難以忽視。於是 Cathleen 就質疑如果這個 pilot 的結果是可信的，那麼我第一個實驗的邏輯性就會出現問題。Rick 開始點頭，本來幫我的 Toby 也動搖了。
我，傻住。
還好，我天生就是緊張起來不會臉紅，我天生就是緊張起來不會語無倫次反而講話更慢（多謝麻嗎生得好），我努力的思考想要辯駁，心裡卻有另一個聲音：如果我第一個實驗，也就是所有實驗的源頭出現了瑕疵（一個這半年來沒有人告訴我的瑕疵），那我這個提案肯定要重來，碼的。
就在我思索的時間裡，他們三個熱烈的討論起來，他們突然比我還有興趣做這個研究，回答我的大問題 " Does exogenous or endogenous shift of attention take more time to move a greater distance?" ，我也在那段時間裡理解了我的 pilot study 真是恐怖的可以變成另一項研究計畫，又憂又喜之際，Toby 要我出去。
我要在會議室外面等待他們的決定，一種被人推下高樓的心情。你們怎麼可以在 proposal 的當下改掉我的實驗？為什麼前幾個禮拜都不說一句話呢？你們怎麼可以讓我花了百分之九十的時間在最困難的部分，讓我以為簡單的部分是真的很簡單而不需要多做解釋？
Toby 開門了，"You're approved."他開心的說。
我居然可以安全的落地！
為什麼呢？第一，他們說他們難得遇到這麼有討論氣氛的 proposal meeting，他們覺得受教良多，他們覺得他們也腦力激盪到了。
第二，我在 present 的時候，很沈穩的回答了 Toby 的一個問題。
Toby 是有名的電人王，因為他太聰明了，他總是可以很快的吸收一個 presentation，然後提出一針見血的問題，系上很多人（包括教授和學生）都很怕他，雖然他平常是個超可愛的大小孩。
"You impressed us by answering that question." 這是他們的說法，但是仍然難以抹滅他們要我更改實驗的痛。只是心情忽然間平靜的像木頭。
所以我要從新思考一次我的實驗設計和流程，在大方向大問題都不變的情況下。
下禮拜我要在 brown bag （我們認知領域每週三的午餐 meeting）報告我的 master proposal，有一半的 slides 要更改。好在，我不用重寫一份書面的 proposal。
更改實驗，所以又要再弄一個 pilot，所以這兩天就在忙這個新的 pilot。
現在離十一月不到半個月，我十一月初要去溫哥華開會，要做一張去年實驗結果的海報，well... 還沒開始做。開會回來之後有兩個 presentation 在等著我。不會累死啦，只是眼睛已經快死了，短短幾個月，我的近視度數已經加深了許多，是我可以察覺到的加深速度。
呼～
Back to the present time again, we the committee discussed about the proposal a bit more and were excited about the potential project that may be brought about from this student's Master research. Oh of course, I see the Master project more promising the PhD project. My Master project, as you see, was initiated in 2003, has become a career by itself. Toby and I have done at least 30 follow-up experiments since then, using college students from Penn State to U of Iowa. We just submitted a paper last month. If Marianne does it right, this student's work can become a good ten years of work.
But I felt thrilled that now I was the person who stayed in the room while a student was asked out to wait, and who watched the student get nervous.
We chatted and signed the paper. The student got called back in. And we said "Congrats!"
Feeling even more responsible, I got back to office and work with a reminder of the reason why I have wanted to be in academia.
