bike ride speech

Oftentimes, when I ride my bikes I have ideas coming out of my mind and then I speak them out loud. No one can hearing them but sometimes I am impressed by those crazy ideas and my speech. 

Here are some. 

"I am very happy to be here for my thesis defense. I remembered the first day when I joined in Bruno's lab that Brian asked me about my level of computer knowledge and then he said that I was going to face a steep learning curve. I am glad that I climbed that learning curve and that now I acknowledge the power of programming.  Computers and programmings have helped me to get calculations and repeating tasks done over the past years. Man, how much do I wish my brain could be powerful like that. However, I do think that human brains are far smarter than computers because computers are programmed by humans. "

inspirtations

The Apple company held a show for iPhone6, Apple watch and the new OS. I surprisingly followed the show. "Surprisingly" because I am not a fan of using phones in general, let alone this fancy smart phone. On that day, the website for the live show was flooded. I experienced bad Internet connections, poor sound and image quality of the live show. I gave up watching it, instead, I watched Mr. Steve Jobs keynote speech for iPhone 1.

He was very passionate about his product. Passion is not the thing that attracts me but confidence. He pointed out how bad design the smart phones in the market were and then introduced the Apple iPhone. It's full of humor, confident, passion and of course selling power. He knew the phone market well enough to make phones that never existed but everyone would like to own. It's all about the new ideas, making them to reality and selling them.

The process of converting imagination to reality may not be that easy. He insisted and made it!

mood control

My friend Xiaole once told me that a person who is mature is not about being able to cheat around but to be able to control mood. Xiaole also said that controlling mood is being able to show yourself in front of people you trust and being able to know the anger when it comes to you and try not to hurt your partner because of the anger.

Yesterday, I was having an unproductive day. Doing science sometimes is frustrating because I do not know where I am going in my project and I cannot tell if that was a correct path to take until I put many efforts in doing it. Nonetheless, I finally figured out what I could do with those data. Things ahead looked intense. In the meantime, Franklin went to gym for more than two hours without answering any messages. My friend also asked me to hang out in a bar after 5 pm. I thought I would rather spend the evening with Franklin instead of colleges and he did not answer any phone calls that I could not even know his plans for the evening. So I went home early, in hope that he would be at home.

The inhaler was on the table in our bedroom. I started to worry about him. Why if he had a asthma attack in the gym? What if he needed help? Eventually, I called him and he picked up the phone. I was just surprised how inattentive this guy was and how that would affect my life and schedules so much. I could have done more work in the office and hanged out with friends afterwards. Instead, I refused friends, went back home, ate dinner alone and spent another unproductive evening!

Oh, with all pressures from graduate school, I unfortunately shouted at him. I realized it right away. It's not because of he speaking about trips or not being home with me, it's because of pressure from attending meetings and getting things tougher for graduation (which is not fully under my control).

It's hard not to show my anger or frustration but I hope I can be better at controlling my bad mood in the future.

oh running

Starting from the beginning of last year, when I lost assistantship, I have been exercising regularly. In the beginning, I exercised to relieve from stress. Later, I developed a hobby of running. Thanks for the flat Lansing, I was able to do easy runs here. Last summer, after three months of running, I was curious how far I could run at one shot with not too slow speed. In a gorgeous summer morning when I was running outdoor, I decided to train myself such that I would be able to do 10-mile run in the next summer.

Now, it's the time of Spring and I have succeeded in pushing myself to 9 mile! Last week, I did 4 mile run on Friday and 6 mile run on Saturday. I felt that I was very ready for a 10-mile run. I am excited about it.

After I broke

I understand the academia pressure. I understand professors can run out of grants at some point. I understand all of that.

I was told that I lost this semester's assistantship because the professor offered the GA position had miscounted her grants and she did not have enough money for hiring me. So, I don't have income now and I have to pay for tuition, etc. I broke.

I was stressed out. If I would pay for education, why would I have chosen Michigan State University? If my parents want to pay for my education, I would not stay in the States. I know they miss me. I do not want to give my parents financial burden and at the same time, they cannot see me in person frequently although they do not think the tuition and expenses are a burden.

Boyfriend was nice to me. He did not say a lot about my broke but he was a good listener. I do not know what I am expecting for from this relationship. I was worried if one day I would lose him for whatever reasons. I hoped I could stay with him all the time so that he would not disappear. He was so sweet to me and I was addicted to his companions. I did not want to lose this relationship because he made me happy. After I broke, I was very sad. I realized that everyone needs something or someone to cheer up. Now, I am more hoping to make him happy instead of let him make me happy. I still value this relationship very much because I want to have opportunities to increase his happiness.