BBQ @ HKUST Beach

Just want to share some BBQ photos (taken yesterday). I have always appreciated HKUST for setting up a BBQ place at the beach for students. You can book the stove on student intranet. Everything is just so simple.

In these photos, one GG is an exchange PhD students. The other people except me are MPhil and PhD students from the same CS lab. For me, I'm a guest invited by my friend.

I'm also going to commence my MPhil from this summer in the next two years. By that time things will get much more intense compared with current student life. However, I think no matter how limited the time is, don't ever be an otaku. When feeling tired, try to go out, meet friends and get relaxed. That's surely better than just staying in dorm beside the laptop :-)

Is being too independent a good thing?

I learnt the trait of independence from my mum, who gave me lessons in person on how to be steely and independent when I was a child girl. Even though we had a lot of quarrels in my adolescence and I was strongly against her dominating parenthood, I eventually turned out to be an independent person – exactly like her, as my dad described.

My mum is a capable woman who can always effectively arrange everything in order. She’s recognized as successful by her co-workers, but pitiful woman in marriage from my stand. I swore that I would never be in the same tragedy like her when she crying heavily on my shoulder and complaining my dad’s coldness. I don’t wanna judging her too much, but the masses of my parents’ problems originated from her hard characters in large extent.

So I always have doubts on IS BEING TOO INDEPENDENT A GOOD THING?

Independence is defined by me as being independent characteristically, economically and emotionally. Characteristically, I always do things on my own (not in study or jobs) if I assure that I’m able to handle them well. In fact, I’m not too shy to ask for help but for the reason of avoiding to be other’s burden. Economically, I get used to make clear with friends in moneys, even with intimate friends. Emotionally, I tried to not get involved in any relationships too much if there seems no future.

Ironically, sometimes It’s hard, and also sad for me to work towards these rules. As I was told by my ex that he felt like I didn’t need him by my side because of my strong independence, I felt like something was breaking deep inside of my heart. I didn’t expect that intention of avoiding of being someone’s burden would result in the sense of distance.

remark: The vote regarding "Am i an independent person?"

Obviously, from the above vote on my xiaonei.com page (it’s like “Chinese facebook”), entitled “Am I an independent person?”, majority of my friends (89%) responded YES while the rest 11% considered NO.

“You can’t bear loneliness, can you?”, one of my intimate friends said, ”That’s why I thought you’re not independent enough, especially in the subject of emotions.”

“It’s nature that showing steely side to strangers but weak side to close friends. Take it easy.”

……
Yes, In most cases, I’m indeed an independent person. However, is it a good thing or bad? I’m still not quite sure about it. Or maybe it depends on persons you’ve met – if he/she would appreciate your independence.

New plugin: WordPress Comment Digg from IfGoGo

Well, I'm glad to announce that my third plugin for WordPress – WordPress Comment Digg is now offically released, via the platform of ifgogo.com – a group of funny bloggers from China. Download Link on WordPress.org.

Thanks to Jun He, who helped me with a lot coding with MySQL and PHP. Here are some screenshots:

The live demo:

The Option page:

The mangement page:

'Culture Shock' in Shanghai

I am from Nanjing, and just got to Shanghai for work. The school I'm working at is quite a nice place, with friendly teachers and, you bet, lovely children. However, the school is situated a bit too deep into Pudong New Area (I would like to call it District, but bus broadcast has it the odd way...), and I have to endure long time of public transportation to get to the downtown area, where, according to a foreign colleague of mine, is not the 'real' Shanghai :P

Public transportation in the big Chinese cities are almost always busy, and I feel rather safe pushing this prejudice over to the IfGoGo readership. The so-called shock came to me when I witnessed three incidents in a row: not offering seats to the old, skipping the queue, and not offering seats to a woman with her baby. For sure, it is just coincidence that I met such incidences at this high frequency, and in Shanghai there are indeed many good-ordered taxi queues, but this day in Shanghai still makes me uncomfortable. Skipping the queue is quite common in China (I saw the taxi queues first so this still comes as a shock); not offering seats to the needed is against basic Chinese culture and morality... But I may be too quick to condemn these people, or Shanghai in general. Even if these are all acceptable behaviour in Shanghai, it might just be evolution of the ethics, and I am a bit slow to catch up. However, I'd rather believe that today's incidents are lone cases, and Shanghai is still as beautiful as she should be.