中文技能

兩三年前, 系主任透過他的秘書找到我, 只因為我會聽說讀寫中文, 要我幫他翻譯幾張投影片, 讓他去中國演講的時候可以愛現一下. 專業用語的翻譯其實是很困難的, 而且我的確是不太知道要怎麼用中文表達我的專業, 更別說是系主任先生的專業了. 不過, 花了十幾分鐘, 上網確定一下一些專有名詞, 我還是幫他了, 只是我 “忘記“ 跟他說中國人不看正體字.

這人情變成滾不完的人情, 從中國來訪問的學者醫生都是衝著他的大名來的, 他都會推我出來, 要大家跟我認識認識, 其實就變成了照顧照顧. 你說從來沒接受英文教育的人, 憑他們的英文怎麼能在這裡生存, 怎麼跟美國人打哈哈, 怎麼知道什麼話是客套, 什麼話有雙關, 什麼字眼是“我其實不知道你在說什麼", 什麼表情是 "我真的不想聽你說話". 有些人的英文程度甚至沒辦法做專業上的交談. 我變成免錢的翻譯加導覽人員.


當然, 這也是雙向的. 中國人的英文很中文. 很短的句子, 很中文的文法, 很愛說 ok, 很容易中文直翻英文, 讓美國人完全不了解他們到底想要表達什麼. 通常我會讓中國人試著說一下以示尊重, 但是真的聽不下去, 或是我同事我老闆微笑的轉過來看著我的時候, 我就只好翻譯或是換句話說了. 但是雞同鴨講的時候還是很常見, 若是大家都假裝有聽懂, 沒跟我求救, 我通常就微笑當傻子.

醫院院長居然也聽說我很好用, 才送走第某某解放軍醫院又有哪省哪市有人要來, 要我翻譯一些歡迎的字句.  職務上, 我不是醫院的人, 但是以後需要他們繼續給我病人讓我的研究繼續, 我當然馬上幫忙, 強化個人公關.（那些來訪的人怎麼都沒抗議為什麼沒有簡體字?）最近這一年來, 中國超愛派人出來參訪, 我幾乎都要陪在旁邊, 中英轉換功力跟著變強許多.

總之, 說中文這項"技能"變成我的專長之一, 開始有人關心我是哪裡來的, 客套的問問台灣跟中國的差別. 這真的是滿神奇的感覺...
剛來美國的時候, 好怕永遠學不會英文口語, 好怕語言障礙阻饒我, 我不是不聰明只是不會表達, 我不是不喜歡 party 交新朋友只是不會用英文說垃圾話. 記得剛來的第二年, 我的指導教授 Toby 有一次開完笑的跟我說 "You Asians are uptight." 我只是笑笑, 因為當時我的英文反應還是很龜速, 沒辦法立刻跟他嗆回去. (Toby 是可以嗆回去的. I should have said "you don't know me.") 開玩笑嘛? 你去問問誰覺得我很拘謹保守.
英文很爛的時候, 沒人想要理我的, 沒人問我台灣在哪裡. 只好跟其他非華人的國際學生混了, 大家的英文都很抱歉. 於是我斷絕了中文的世界, 看電視看八卦雜誌看小說練習英文, 還有交了個英文比我好多的男朋友, 每天被批評英文有問題. 然後英文吵架的功力大大提升.
有一陣子連中文的閱讀速度都變慢了. 然後中文表達變得像是英文的句法. 然後我失去了書寫的能力. 不是手寫字的能力, 是作文能力.
自從班比加入我的生活之後, 我相信我現在應該有回復到國小畢業的作文程度, 不過離我十年前大學畢業的程度還差遠了. 數學也變爛了, 還好沒有美國人那麼糟.

我算是搭了個便車, 在中英文能力都成熟的時機, 享受了中國強勢下的優勢, 而且還可以數落中國, 吹吹台灣的民主先進. 
不僅來訪的人多了, 我們研究中心新進人員裡多了兩三個中國人. 新來的人都會到處繞繞認識同事, 繞到我辦公室來的時候, 我絕對只說英文. 不能因為母語相同就在工作場合搞小團體, 你既然能來這裡工作代表你會說英文, 我不會對你特別親切的. 會說西班牙文的同事們也沒有搞小團體的. 你們要利用中文去攀其他關係, 例如下次哪個中國什麼教授什麼什麼院長要來（他們的名片拿出來都好多頭銜）, 你們要自告奮勇去當翻譯的阿. 

非雜文的期許 a bilingual plan

我最近在思考要怎麼救回我的中文寫作, 又不會犧牲我依然不是很理想的英文表達能力.

Recently I am wondering how to rescue my degrading Chinese writing skill but not to impede the progress of my never-perfect English skill.

交替著寫中英文可能不是最好的練習方式, 那只是會變成有點突兀或是不三不四的雜文.

Alternating Chinese and English may not be the best practice, and it may read awkward.

所以來試試看用中英文表達同一件事情.

Therefore, I am trying to express the same idea or make the same statement with two different languages.

這超難的啦, 因為要避免怪腔怪調的直翻, 就要考慮兩種語言在表達方式上的不同.

This proves super difficult. I have to avoid weird verbatim translation and at the same time have to consider the language-specific structures so that sentences will make sense.

例如中文常常省略主詞, 英文非常介意用字的精準度.

For example, the subject of a sentence is often omitted in Chinese while it would be considered non-standard in English. The precision of wording in English is more important than that in Chinese.

從以上的練習, 又可以看出中文用字比英文精簡.

From the above, one can see that to reflect the same meaning, a Chinese sentence is more succinct than its English counterpart.

當然可能是因為中文是我的母語, 好歹也用了一輩子. 英文及使天天用, 依然不及中文流利.

Of course the reason for shorter Chinese sentences may be due to the fact that Chinese is my native language, which I have used for my whole life time. Meanwhile, although I've used English daily for a decade, my English is still not as good as my Chinese.  

但是我就是無法用中文表達我的專業領域, 非常懊惱.

Despite of the advantage of the Chinese language in me, I am simply unable to express my profession in Chinese. This is frustrating.

所以我要練習中英文互用, 這樣不僅是中英文打字能力可以一起維持住水準, 有一天我也可以用中文跟麻嗎說明我到底在美國做甚麼.

To address this issue, I am going to set a goal: One day I will explain to Mama what I am doing in the States in Chinese. To reach this goal, I will practice writing, i.e., typing, English as well as Chinese. The beneficial side-effect will be that both my English and Chinese typings will stay at a pretty good level.

其實, 她是看得懂英文的. 但是隔行如隔山, 她就是沒辦法理解認知神經心理學家到底是在幹甚麼.

Actually, she can read English. But people in different professions are like people believe in different religions. She simply cannot understand what a neurocognitive psychologist does.

我個人認為"認知神經心理學" 需要重新命名. 這樣的直翻就好像三流的電影翻譯一樣, 詞不達意, 徒增不必要的神祕和困擾.

I personally think "neurocognitive psychology" should be renamed or re-branded in the Chinese-speaking science community. The literally direct translation does not convey the meaning, like poorly translated foreign movies that induce unneccessary mistery and confusion.

應該叫做"腦與行為學".

I would propose the new label "the Study of Brain and Behavior."

雖然依然很難懂, 但是就沒有"認知" 或是"心理學" 這些字眼來攪局.

Although the proposed new label may still be confusing, there is no "cognitive" or "psychology" that invites wrong interpretation.

那我要怎麼說明 "空間忽略症" 呢?  我再想想...  今天的中文練習就先這樣.

And how should I explain the disorder of spatial neglect? Let me think about it. I'm done with today's Chinese practice. 

post-Sandy Halloween 2012

Two days after Hurricane Sandy hit, the curfew of my town was finally lifted. I took my car out and drove it away. Not so far away. I tried to get to work. There was not much traffic on the road because 99% of traffic lights were not working. However, the pathways connected to my work were blocked because of falling trees. Two hours later, I gave it up and found downtown South Orange unaffected by the storm. Oh this is the town housed my worst year of life.
Superstar and I stopped there for food and made a plan: find a place with power and internet and work from there. We decided to go to a place 40 miles away.

Superstar and I went to Flushing, Queens. (Every time when I use this expression "Flushing, Queens", it feels like Flushing were a town and Queens were a state. It's like saying "在台北的天母", no no, actually it feels more like "在大安區的東區" because Queens is "just" a borough of NYC)
Anyway, we went to Flushing surprisingly easily without any traffic jam. However, it was FULL OF PEOPLE AND CARS, taking me almost an hour to find a parking space. Chinese-speaking people there were happily doing their business more than usual. Halloween-dressed children were everywhere doing trick-o-treat. Lines of lines of people were waiting for buses (because the subway was and is totally shut down). Later, we met up with friends and went to Forrest Hill (still in Queens).

The current circle of friends is formed by people from Taiwan, living in or around Forrest Hill. I have not had such a big circle (roughly 10 people) of Taiwanese friends for ... hm... 10 years I believe. I am the oldest person in this circle. I know it sounds tacky...  When I came to the States, I was only 22. What a baby, thinking I had all figured out.

Thanks to Sopi, allowing me use her internet. I did work a bit, replying to tens of email messages. Many of the messages were asking if I was alright. I have had a bad diarrhea since the hurricane landed and I still ran to the toilet 3 times already this morning....
Oh no, the hurricane did not make any physical damage to me or my property (i.e., my car "mini wing"). The terrible thing was actually no connection to the rest of the world. My cellphone could not receive any signal even until today. I am a news junky. I love reading and watching news every day. I want to know things. I am on Facebook, Flipboard, and CNN apps. The sudden and prolonged disconnection made me so isolated and bored.
So having friends around or going to friends so that they could be around was quite a treat. We had dinner and after-dinner sweets and chatted and chatted until it's about time for bed (around 10pm.. yeah... I know.... I'm not young anymore).

When the car entered Hoboken, we felt it. It was so dark that my eyes needed a few minutes to adapt, It was the full moon (or very close to full). Shadows under bright moon light simply gave me a chill. As we slowly drove into town, the car headlights showed the spooky Halloween decorations outside the buildings. People were taking causal walks with flash lights. No trick-o-treat. Just treat. It was a peaceful night with sporadic siren alarms vooming in and out. With half of the town evacuated, street parking became so easy.
The full-moon Frankenstorm Hurricane Sandy is gone. But the scary things follow the scared people. Rumors started about the tapping water safety. Riots in all gas stations in New Jersey and New York.
Stop spreading rumors. Stop panicking! Just staying calm will be a great help.
Thank you, Hoboken. Oh, I need to go to the toilet again. 

sorry, elephants

I read Bryan Christy's essay "Ivory Worship" featured in the National Geographic's October 2012 issue.

Christy describes a world where people of different religions help one another to kill elephants for making offerings to Gods. Humans are a species who kill other species for non-basic needs. We kill crocodiles for their skin, roosters for their feathers, and tigers for fur. Humans are very creative about decorating our appearances with other animals' appearances. Ivory is a different kind. It is blessed by our imagination, and elephants are just carriers of ivory. Carriers don't matter. What matters is the profit behind humans' desire of owning a piece of something that represents one's ability to do everything and anything. Yes, simply because we can wear shoes made of crocodile skin, extend hair with rooster feathers, cover a piece of floor with tiger fur, or decorate a God-worshiping house with sophisticatedly carved ivory. Or simply decorate a house. Oh, why not?

Why do people love pandas and hate the idea of killing them for fur or meat? Because they are cute. Why don't people eat dogs? Because they are "humans' best friend." Why don't Muslims eat pork? Why don't Jews eat shellfish? Humans adopt an arbiuary system that determines other animals' fate. Pandas are lucky. Elephants aren't. Humans are their Gods.

The ivory problem is extremely difficult to solve, as Christy nicely summarizes in last quarter of his essay. Any problem involving human greed is not easy to solve. Like the oil problem in Western Africa, the girl-trafficking problem in India, the drug problem in Mexico, or the dophine problem in Japan. Just to name a few. The thing is these problems are global. The market is international. As to ivory, it is not just human greed but also labeled with holy purposes which justify human greed.

Long time ago, I read an article about saving a specific kind of boars in the US. Their number was endangered. The solution was to increase its economical value by promoting its meat. Because the meat had the red-meat texture like beef and had a mouthwatering aroma when grilled, people actually loved having it. As the sales went up, farmers raised more of the boars and saved the species. I read this article in a local magazine, so I can't be sure about the facts and other factors overlooked by the author. However, it may be a solution for many other animals. Historically, humans select who get to live and who get to die. We select fruit, vegetables, and grain. We make modern horses possible. We make dogs. We shall be able to keep elephants alive. If ivory is so valueable, we can't use up its resources. We have to care its carriers. Carriers do matter. One cannot catch the entire ocean of fish in one season and expect to have another good season next year. Big buyers (people in China, Phillipines, and Thailand, as mentioned in Christy's report) have to help Africans save elephants and make ivory trades much more transparent. Banning it is certainly not a solution. People love doing things illegal.

If humans in most parts of the worlds practice routines discriminating half of their population, i.e., women, for milleniums, how can one expect that humans will respect other species anytime soon? We cannot save a species by "respecting" their existence or treating them with "humane" acts. Only too few people lead their lives with educated principles. Too many others earn their livings by taking advantages of anyone. Take the advantage of human greed. Set regulative rules that benefit the elephant hunters, the buyers, the traders, as well as the elephants. Then we may see less crual killings and stablizing the number of the elephant population.

Sorry, elephants.
    

happy mama's day

Today the HR informed me that I needed to pay $3,000 out of my pocket for the second phase of the green card application. Of course, I complained silently and will eventually write that check in a few days. Then I went home and watched the movie Shame on DVD. The Brandon character reminded me of someone who I had almost forgotten entirely even though I have to admit that this someone changed my life in a significantly harsh way. Perhaps this not-so-positive vibe since 4pm made me complain about the difficulty of life, which is a usual excuse for me not trying to find a better justification.

Then I thought of my mother, who plays the most important role at every stage of my life. The thought of her made me feel guilty about my negative thinking of my own life. How could I complain about life? The only person that I need to take care of physically, mentally, cognitively, and finacially is myself. At my age, she had to take care of me and my brother while paying mortgage and living with the trauma caused by the fact that my father declaired his love of another woman. My mom also cooked every evening and kissed me good night every night until I went to college.

When I was learning how to ride a scooter, one thing that encouraged me was that my mother does not know how to ride a bicycle but I do. I believed that I could do better than she. When I was stressed out with only $20 in my bank account, I thought of her and believed that I could survive for a few days until my paycheck came. When I was robbed, I called her and she calmed me down. When I was heart-broken, hit by bs at work, informed with annoying news at doctors' offices, or lonely and sick...,  I did not tell her but think of her. Nothing in life will end the world because she will be there for me if I do ask for help.

Today is her birthday. I should say yesterday Taiwan time was her birthday. Learning her life, I know life is difficult. Learning her life, I know I need to be and am living my own life instead of a life that follows anyone's expectation. Learning her life, I know I need to be tougher than she was so that I will not re-live the tragedies that she went through. But she also experienced lots of joyful moments with her children in a way only single-parent families can understand and cherish.

Let's celebrate mama's new age! Thank her for her unconditional love and liberal education. She is a Goddess as many have suggested :)  I must have done tons of great things last life for being her daughter this life. Or I'm simply lucky. I think I am simply lucky.

來迎接下個十年

最近認識一個小我整整十歲的女孩。十年前的今天，我開始了我的美國生活。
如今回首，有多少巧合造就了今天的我？有多少是我的努力？有多少是努力造成的巧合？有多少巧合成全了努力？
好多的過客，時間去蕪存菁的留住值得我留住的人。

十年前小月跟著我來到美東，現在小月坐在我窗台。小搖頭是後來加入的夥伴。

female name

If J.K. Rowling or E.L. James used their full first names instead of initials, would you have read Harry Potter or Fifty Shades of Grey? Alright, I have not read Fifty Shades of Grey.

The reason is simple. I don't read romantic fictions, and I heard that is a book about a romantic story with many sexual contents. My information may be wrong, but my point is the name of the author, or more specifically, the first name of the author does not determine my interest in a reading.

I heard the rumor that these two authors decided to use their initials instead of full first names because their first names are names for females.

As a woman, I am angry about this rumor. You should be proud of your sex and proud of your name! Who says female authors can't produce best sellers?

As a person, I am sad about this rumor. I indeed live in a society dominated by men or male-oriented values. The Taiwanese media still use wordings belittling female artists or discussing whether they are "able" to give male babies. The American media still highlight "news" of female celebrities' dresses and hairdos, rather than focus on their accomplishments.

As I am angry and sad, a person -- who is supposed to stand firmly on her position as well as defend her name --insists that she is going to use her first and middle initials from now on, and get rid of her full first name. Seriously? This decision does not earn my respect. We are not writing fictions. We are writing scientific theses. If our manuscript is rejected by reviewers, it is not because of your first name! If our paper is not read or cited often, it is not because of your first name!

I acknowledge that most people (men and women) still question whether women are capable to bring more income to a child-raising family than men. However, in the field of scientific research, I do not think most scientists (men and women) question whether females are capable to conduct a better study than males, or whether females are better thinkers than men. When a piece of work is great, it is a great piece of work. Has anyone despise a paper authored by Anne Treisman, Brenda Milner, Nancy Kanwisher, Martha Farah, or Cathleen Moore because of their first names? The name simply is not an issue.

Don't blame on your own name. Hiding it does not make your work more acceptable or accessible. Unless you are writing a fiction.

to become a performer

I saw Ovid Tzeng's picture on Observer! Observer is a magazine published by the Association for Psychological Science.  As a member of the organization, I receive the magazine every month.  It's a casual read for catching up some interesting updated findings in cognitive, social, and educational psychology.  I usually skimmed it during my lunch break and left it on the coffee table in the waiting room.

The texts accompanying Tzeng's picture, in which he was holding his Golden Bell Award with a huge smile, described his contribution to cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and education in Taiwan.  Tzeng's image stared back at me.  My memory went back to the day when I first met him.  Or I should say when I first saw him.  I did not officially meet and greet him three years after that first impression, which literally changed my life.
Of course the content of his talk made me choose my career.  But what also impressed me was not only his knowledge but his passion about pursuing the knowledge.  Tzeng was so passionate that I had to do what he was doing.

Many successful characters have great passion on the subject where they are so successful.  Having passion is essential but not enough to inspire new generations.  Tzeng was a great speaker.  He delivered his passion to a group of high school students and encouraged at least one of them to pursue science.  It's like Steve Jobs encouraged people to buy iPhones or Al Gore convinced people that human behaviors can change the climate.

Then I was closely coached by Toby Mordkoff.  Even though we are on first-name basis, my respect and gratitude to him is much more than to most of the professors who lectured me.  Playing the role of my academia father, he was not the father figure of my graduate years.  He was too insensitive (some people may used the word "eccentric") to be caring his students like his children.  But I love watching his interaction with his children. That was the first man I met in my life who demonstrated what a father should be like. I wish I had that kind of love and expression of love from my father.

Toby has an incredibly logic mind that processes information more rapidly than anyone else I've known.  I may never be as clever, creative, and critical as him.  I was once upset when I realized that I might not be smart enough to be his student.  Oh, being a doctoral student definitely makes you humble.  Then I gradually came to embrace such realization and accepted who I was and what I may become.
 
One of many thing that Toby taught me was presentation.  He was a genius with few social skills, but his presentation of his thoughts was always easy to follow.  "You are teaching," he said, "the goal is to help the audience learn rather than burden them with the material."  Oh well... that was not exactly what he said (as memory changes every time humans recollect it), but that was the essence I got.

Toby's presentations were enjoyable.  One universal tip was that fewer words are way much better than lengthy descriptions -- people are listening to you, not reading the slides!  But another tip gave me a much more significant impact: Anything appearing on the slide has a purpose; if you are not talking about it, don't put it there.
When I was in the drama club during my college years, one thing was taught and practiced a lot was: Anything appearing on the stage has a purpose; you have to make every single word and movement purposeful.
If I ever become a great lecturer or speaker, Toby will get the credit.

In recent years, the two best talks of all I attended are performed by Kenneth Heilman and Brenda Milner. Both of them are well-established scholars whose work is frequently cited in textbooks.  Ken (as I respectfully call him on his first name) is one of the greatest neurologists.  Milner (who I never talked to in person so I am going to call her by her last name) is one of the most influential experimental psychologists.  However, great researchers are not always great speakers. (I shall not give examples here).

Ken was about 80 years old at his talk. Milner was 94.  Both delivered tremendous amount of passion about their work with very few slides.  The audiences in the separate events were so engaged and felt how lucky we were to be part of the events.

Ken talked about spatial neglect and anosognosia.  He shared his life-time story of conducting research to seek answers.  I remember the story of his encountering patients who could only finish the half of food placed on the right side of the plate.  I remember his explanation of the Greek word "anosognosia" -- the disorder of not knowing.  Perhaps because I study spatial neglect and because people with spatial neglect often have anosognosia, I was already inclined to get engaged in his talk.
Actually it was hard not to get engaged when Ken was talking.  Ken used only one slide bearing information that I cannot remember at all.  He just talked without looking at any note.  He articulated every single difficult concept and elaborated with understandable examples and evidence.  It was an intellectually entertaining and stimulating talk show.  Immediately he reminded me of Toby, who never used powerpoints for lectures.
I want to become a speaker like Ken or Toby.

A month ago, I sat in the audience of Milner's talk.  Her topic was remotely linked to my research interests.  But being a psychologist or neurocognitive scientist, one must know of the case of H.M. (i.e., the now revealed Henry Molaison).  H.M. made Milner's career.  Milner's career has shaped what we know about memory -- the definition of memory, the categorization of memory, the systems of memory, the mechanism of memory, the function of memory, and the entire research field of memory.  The tales of H.M. have been told million of times in books and movies.  However, Milner clarified details that were overlooked by media.  For example, the famous star tracing task was actually a random task that Milner tried out for curiosity.  Also, H.M. surprised Milner at the first meeting: anticipating that H.M. would not learn new facts, she gave him four digits to remember. About half hours later, she asked him the digits, H.M. gave the correct answer and told her the strategy he used to memorize the digits; however, H.M. had no memory that he had met Milner 30 minutes ago. In fact, over almost five decades working in experiments with Milner, H.M. never remembered her.

Among so many things Milner talked about during that hour, one epiphany she shared stuck with me. At the death of H.M. in 2008, Milner felt that she lost a long-time friend. Her sadness was soon overcome by the realization that H.M. never remembered who Milner was. For H.M., Milner was no one. This man had stopped forming long-term declarative memory since he was 27. He had no new friends since 1953.

This is so hard to imagine. It is equally hard to imagine how patients with spatial neglect live their life. H.M. simply was not bothered by his amnesia or that neglect patients simply believe that their world was as normal as before their brain injuries.  Why should we, the so-called "normal healthy people" (or neurologically typical individuals), feel sorry for them?  They are happy.  They have no complaint.  They are not aware of their disorders even if they are told or if they are trying to be aware.  They are cognitively unable to comprehend why we want to feel sorry for them.
We thank them for teaching us memory and spatial cognition.  They may feel flattered and go on with their lives.

A science presentation is no more than a performance.  Any great performance (speech, research report, movie, play, musical, etc.) evokes further thoughts and discussions. 
I want to learn from these great performers and become one of them.
Finally after five years, I set a new personal goal. Wish me luck. 

除夕的時候

2002年的除夕我在做甚麼? 那一年是我上一次在台灣過年, 我想不起來我去了哪裡又做了甚麼, 大概跟今天差不多, 看電視殺時間, 等待晚上那一餐, 然後等待午夜的鞭炮聲.
從小就不愛過年, 今天也沒有因為十年沒過年而特別興奮, 倒是有些許焦躁, 誰知道下次跟家人過年要待何時.

過年的重點不是在哪裡過, 是跟誰過.

去年我在一個國際會議上跟同事長官過年, 大家應和應和的跟我說新年快樂, 我微笑以對老美虛假的笑容下, 心裡打定主意一年後一定要跟家人過年. 家人不願意遠行, 那我就回老家啦.


這幾年回台北, 我都睡在我不熟悉的房間裡, 被熟悉的書櫃衣櫃圍繞著, 我大概知道抽屜裡有甚麼東西, 但也沒想要打開整理一番. 這回我清了兩個櫃子, 總共四層的物品裡, 將近八成變成了垃圾, 因為我想不起來那些東西的重要性.
如果哪一天非得把櫃子也丟了, 那廉價的夾板門必須要仔細的拆下來放進玻璃箱裡, 因為那上頭有一張小小的拼貼海報, 記錄著青攸君幫我慶祝十九歲的生日.
除夕, 就是要去蕪存菁的等待一個開始.

好歹也在台灣過了二十幾次的年, 今晚要有不一樣的開始: 午夜去行天宮看人擠人搶著跟神明拜年.

祝大家都找到自己的方向往前過個好龍年, 也過好這一年.

goals and objectives

Tomorrow I am meeting with my boss to discuss my goals and objectives in 2012.
I don't think I can ever get used to this corporate model of running academic business. Or perhaps I have not been in an academic business, and I have pretended that I were.

Reading Steve Jobs reminds me of a few people I met in the past decade. I currently am in Chapter 10 and have learned that he was such a dick in his 20s. I have met a few dicks in my 20s. He was definitely a combination of all of them.
But I do admire how he was convinced that he was special and living for a great purpose. I want to be convinced by that feeling about myself as well.

I am special and living for a great purpose.
Reality is constructed by one who perceive it. Even if it is distorted, it is the reality perceived.

My goal of 2012 is to have a purposeful year. To achieve this goal, I am going to demonstrate that I am special in an irreplaceable way.

Alright, this is a nice start of the first business day of the year.
See you tomorrow, the second business day of the year.