Weekend after party

It is fantastic to find so many youngsters studying in the lab on weekends. On the surface they are so much into parties, discos and clubs, but beneath that, they all want to work hard for their own good. The different thing here is that teachers try really hard to instruct and students try really hard to understand. They discuss with their peers when there is anything not comprehensive, they would know that they are not the only ones that doesn't understand it, so they go to ask the teacher. Or if sometimes they are the only ones that couldn't understand, they go to ask teacher as well! It is always the teacher's fault when the students don't understand, quite the contrary to the Japanese system where they always blame students for not studying hard. Here in Sweden, if you as an instructor couldn't make your point understood, you can never get away from it, at least not easily!

And you know what? I just learned during the past two weeks in an undergraduate course, something that puzzled me for 2 years in graduate school in Japan! What a shame, I kind of wish that I was never in Japan to study! What a horrible waste of time! What a brain damage!

Solitude Battle

Trying to know oneself is a solitude battle...
Be tough!

Little experiment for today

It was not I who was doing it.
Our respectable senior technician was taking photos of my little norms and mutants that I made last week. He was so skillful and serious, and was capable of any subtle movement to ajust everything to its best state! In fact I guess his movement must be of micro or nano-scale precision. What an exhibition of great spirit of Japanese craftsmanship! He is not exactly a craftsman but he did make the best Microscopic photos all the time.

Conservation of Creativity

Last week, I said I dried out because of hard experiment schedule. This week I am experiencing an idea turbulence, a flood of ideas are storming in my mind!

Conclusion:
Ideas obey the law of conservation of creativity. Of course creativity doesn't stick to one person if that person is not oblidging to it.

eXp_{WEEk}(weekend)

I went to school to clean the mess!
It was somewhat funny. It is the 2nd day of Setsubun(節分) festival today, so the way to school is full of people and shops and smell of food!
Who would believe that I am going that direction to lab? :)

These are paparazzi photos of average people. You can see my handsome university building there in the first one. 

A Book

Experience:

There is this book that I read about 10%  when some events interrupted and the reading was terminated.  I pick up this book today and found myself don't remember much! 

Conclusion: 

A book reading process must be carried out regularly and frequently for the brain to weave a really strong web of it or the memory will decrease (exponentially?) with time. A few pages a day or a week is not a bad solution as the brain can always recall something that happened last week which have some connection with something that happened longer ago.

Interview tips

I found some interview tips today. Some are for high school graduates and undergraduate students, though

http://www.lewisu.edu/resources/careerservices/interview.htm

http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/interviews/

http://www.learningtechnologies.ac.uk/itq/studentservices/UCAS/submission3/page_15.htm

Funny Maybe?

http://www.zukan.tv/post/kyoto-university/

Frustrating voice mail experience

It was frustrating. To do better next time I collected some little information on how to do it. This one contains rules.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2306/voice_mail_manners_to_send_the_right.html

This one contains samples:

http://www.smallfuel.com/blog/entry/professional-voice-mail-message/

other stuff that is not useful for me right now but it will be
http://www.infotech.siu.edu/telecom/vm_etq.html
http://www.udel.edu/voicemail/vm_information_faculty.shtml

Things to be prepared:

Telephone interview manner

Next time before calling I should prepare for all kinds of cases.

A Hard Day

It was a hard day. I had to compose 2 different recommendation letters for myself from the perspectives of 2 different persons. I was shocked after knowing that I have to do all these by myself and I do not even know myself well enough! I soon learned that students in this country have to do this kind of thing some time because professors are highly engaged creatures. I had to do it myself, submit and leave them to the prof.s' final corrections.

It was a interesting journey indeed. After looking at a few samples online I started composing. On one hand I was drowning in good words that express the same meaning because I don't want the 2 prof.s to use the same expressions, on the other hand I found some other character that I wish to have as my own possession. In other words, I found something WANTING about myself. It was just the kind of experience that one of the prof.s told me "a good chance to think of oneself"

The ability to know oneself just by oneself turned out to be extremely important to a japanese person who is a part of the Japanese society because most Japanese people never say their opinions about you directly. You are suppose to "read the air" and figure it out all  by yourself. I will write a special post about "air-reading" some time, it is very interesting as a cultural phenomena that exists only in Japan. 

New year

Aura of the holiday is fading, so the time that I spend in fantasy world should shrink. Fantasies reform from a visual one to a physics one.

new years goal

• care more about reality, something that other people care about
• do more exercises, physically, mentally, also more on communication skills
• do more experiments
• do more efforts intended for future easiness
• get along well with experimental equipments
• Insight Insight Insight
• more creativity, humor and skills in "little drawings"
• more friends from different viewing angles
• launch myself somewhere

Origami for polyhedron

 I borrowed  a book from the school library named "Polyhedrons by Origami" or something like that. Hope I will have a good time doing it.

 I always think that there are different maths in the world and learning physics does not necessarily make one smarter. Actually, the very strategic "Olympic math in primary school" was a great improvement to my mind. After years of physics study my mind is once again feeling "puzzle-thirsty". Origami can be a beneficial puzzle in some sense though not as strategic as some other logic puzzle. I will have to do some other puzzle as a supplement for the very analytical and experimental physics training. 

 

For the mean time, I will make some beautiful shapes with colorful Origami to celebrate the new year.

 

The old classmates gathering

  The old classmates gathering was a total culture shock! People from different fields in different universities reached concordance in their plans for the future career. They all want to go to the money business including banking, security, consulting, trading etc. Now it is time for everyone to be determined to have "a bright future in sale" and a large income. Suddenly the conversation became like the ones our parents had. 

  A magnetization resulted in strong external magnetic field, indeed.

 However, much more guided by the law of entropy and Pauli exclusion principle, my behavior is seeking diversion from popularized mainstream all the time. Apparently, I am a Fermion.  

 In fact, I am very much inspired by my lively classmates ( I am having an excitation) and really good luck to them all! 

Dis....landish

I will go to Dis....land in Chiba for X'mas. Dis....land is notorious for keeping people waiting in ultra long ques. I never had the money to go just to experience that myself, fortunately, some rich classmates funded the 4-day trip and I got a chance. If I shall wait in the endless long que tomorrow, I can at least enjoy talking with good old classmates.