Food in Paris

I loved my vacation because I do not speak French or German.
Finally I understood why Mama loved vacationing with me in English-speaking locations. For ten days, I depended on Zabeth and Aya for everything. Zabeth, in particular, planned my daily hour-to-hour step-by-step schedules, provided me with comfortable bed, introduced me with her lovely neighbor/colleague John and his GF Julia, and fed me with delicious food.

In markets, I watched Zabeth purchase yummy cheese, wine, beer, fruit, yogurt, French cider, bread, milk, and other raw ingredients for cooking. She is not an ordinary shopper. She knows what she is doing. She spends money wisely, investing only on food that guarantees at least 3 out of 4 Michelin stars.
I said nothing. She did everything. And I was well satisfied.

In restaurants, Zabeth or Aya explained the menu for me. They ordered food for me. They fetched waiters for me. They said thankyou for me. I said nothing. They did everything. And I was well satisfied.

I loved this vacation. Even my brain was so relaxed.

volcano trip

I thought I would have uploaded these pictures two weeks ago. However, due to the unexpected event, I could not do so.
Now I am catching up. After the Pearl Harbor, let me share with you about the Big Island. Yes, there are more than one island in the state of Hawaii. The Pearl Harbor is on the Oahu island. The trip pictured below was on the Hawaii island (aka the Big Island). Oh, I knew there were many island in Hawaii, but I didn't know the Hawaii was the Big Island. Anyhooo... let's do this.

Big Island Hawaii

committe membership

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.

不再受難

前天，美國人所謂的 Good Friday，臺灣人翻譯做基督受難日的那天，爺爺走了。

他其實是外公，可是我一直都叫他爺爺，害我小學一年級的 "生活與論語"考試沒拿滿分，因為媽媽的爸爸應該要叫外公。
後來為了區分，他是松山爺爺，爸爸的爸爸叫屏東爺爺。

爺爺是山東人，後來又說他其實是大連人，反正因為他，我有四分之一北方人的血統。

每個小朋友都有的乳名，就是名字最後一個字連音就是了。漢漢，君君，中中，佳佳，侃侃，亘亘，但是我就沒有，因為我的名字不適合。
可是爺爺給我一個乳名，只有他在叫。小佩"易"。因為北方腔的關係，他唸起來就是"易"。

爺爺來台灣娶了台灣人，可是我沒聽他沒說過一句台語，倒是阿嬤的台灣國語有山東腔。
爺爺當警察的時候騎哈雷，自己也有一台打擋車，我幼稚園的時候有坐過幾次。
爺爺不當警察以後在饒河夜市當管理員，我有去參觀過他的辦公室幾次，並沒有因為他的關係撿到什麼店家的便宜。

我國小的時候，爺爺每個禮拜天下廚。他做的酸菜白肉鍋還有北方涼菜是我童年回憶裡還不錯的片段。不過，我完全沒有勇氣去碰他面前那每餐都有生大蒜和一小杯高梁。
爺爺很兇的，我沒有逗他笑的天份，只有阿姨碼媽和君君有本事逗他笑。
爺爺訂了很多吃飯的規矩，都是被罵的時候才知道規矩的存在，例如他動筷子前沒人可以動筷子，吃飯的時候不可以講話，左手要就著碗，筷子不可以跟碗盤敲出聲音，拿碗的時候不可以捧的碗，敬酒的時候要兩隻手一起拿酒杯。
跟爺爺打麻將的規矩也很多，腳不可以放在椅子上，不能用左手拿牌，不要隨便碰吃槓壞了門清。

爺爺那麼兇，我幾乎沒有頂過嘴，除了用筷子這件事。
我一直不會用筷子，像是拿筆一樣的握著拳頭拿筷子。高中還是大學的時候，他又唸了我一次，我回嘴說會夾就好了，他瞪了我一眼說會寫字但是寫得不漂亮有什麼用。我忘了是麻嗎還是阿嬤使了眼色要我安靜，可是我認為他理由沒有說服力，我現在也還是不同意。
可是就在我大學畢業前，我突然學會用所謂標準漂亮的方式用筷子。不過他沒稱讚我過。
我離開台北之後，他老得好快。不兇了，更不多話。

爺爺退休之後，練毛筆字不算什麼，他學英文，還信了主。
他成了全家唯一的天主教徒，書房裡放了聖母聖靈的畫像，阿嬤沒說什麼，覺得他要拜什麼就讓他拜啊。
健康狀況走下坡後，他沒再去做禮拜，聽麻嗎說教友會來拜訪。
最近幾次住院，神父和教友都有來探望。麻嗎說他還捨不得走。

前天，他放下了，在誦經聲中安詳的離開了。教友開玩笑說他會跟耶穌一起復活。
於是 Good Friday 從此對我而言是有意義的。

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

I arrived in Honolulu, 7:30 pm April 8th. It took me more than an hour to drive to the hotel. Not that it was far from the airport, but it was that all the street names looked alike (and sounded alike if I tried hard to pronounce them). So I missed turns and went to strange places although the car-rental clerk had told me it was easy to get to the core of Waikiki from the airport; "just follow H1 and then 92 east" she said.
After picking up mama the next morning, I agreed with the clerk that it was quite easy.
Navigating in Oahu is easy in general. The network of the highway is not complicated. The signs are clear. The roads are in good conditions with few potholes. The only thing I have to complain is the traffic lights. One night when we were driving back from the west to the hotel, meaning we needed to go through Waikiki, green lights were followed by red lights, and lights seemed to stay longer red than green. For the same amount of time I could have walked back if I had abandoned the car right after getting H1 (the highway).

The Pearl Harbor is close to the airport. We went there after the morning session of the conference on April 10th. Yes, I did go to the conference before enjoying the vacation.
I am going to post more pictures of my Hawaii trip. Here is the first entry (just click the album cover above.) The pictures preserve more memory that my narratives. Aloha.