上rpwt的时候突然发现, 感恩节了已经. 一直叫着喊着thanksgiving来了来了, 但总是忘记这个节日如此漂亮的中文译名. 其实美国人一点都不感恩, 印第安人给他们食物, 他们反过来杀光了几乎所有的印第安人. 清教徒对北美征服的历史, 其实就是一个农夫与蛇的故事.

刚来的时候对thanksgiving还是很期待的, 第一年在black friday晚上在实验室熬夜抢deal, 然后凌晨三四点钟步行去了一个best buy体验生活, 现在想想, 真是傻得狠. 第二年乖了一点, 去了big apple, 住在了华丽的布鲁克林, 看了极其无聊的macy's parade. 今年呢? 继续big apple.........纽约是个很容易让人满足的城市, 也是个有太多美好回忆的地方.

本来期末到了, 真的不应该到处玩的, 手头paper, project, 作业, 一堆事情...但是, 为了东方不败的梦想, 还是毅然决然地要去big apple, 去费城. 于是乎, 昨天折腾paper到5点多才睡, 没吃晚饭确实是不能熬夜, 两点钟的时候饿得不行, 扒了一大碗菜泡饭, 瞬间精神百倍, 继续干活. 这一个学期花在溜达, 东摁西摁的时间比以前多了许多, 曾经连续两天放学后瞎逛, 北到Nahant, 南到Dedham, 结果逛掉20块钱的油, 哎. 结果就是, 睡眠时间被急剧的压缩, 不过, 习惯了就好.

某天早上起床的时候, 突然觉得, 得找个早上起来后或者晚上睡觉前, 能互道一声亲爱的, 然后胡扯上两句的人了.

Happy Thanksgiving.

     

Farewell, Ghod

早上熟睡的时候被叮的一声吵醒, 手机上传来一个breaking news, 大忽悠拿下炸药奖和平奖. 请问除了是个黑人以外, 你一美国总统还对世界和平有虾米贡献...伊拉克还在打, 阿富汗也在打, 难道欧洲人认为大忽悠上台会让美国分裂地更快一点从而促进世界和平么? 从这点看来, 也没错.

于是, 因为这么一件破事, 一直困着. 这周很忙很忙, 老板突发奇想要投明年的ISCAS, 于是让我在周末之类忽悠出一篇四页的paper来, 然后submit. 奇怪的老板, 大周末没有了, 连续在实验室通宵三天吧. 这俩老头老干这种事情, 记得第一年的时候, 也是让我在两周之内弄出篇GLSVLSI的paper, 第一次写这种会议的东西, 来来回回改了二十次. 这两年下来, 其实就在第一年夏天的时候真正踏踏实实地做了点事情, 后来都是一直跟着老板在忽悠人, 发了那么多paper, 但是意义何在呢? 不是说publication不好, 但是publication实在不是phd学习的全部.

抱怨归抱怨, 事还是要做. 而且, 最近效率确实有点低下. weekdays带实验, 上课, gym, 时间过得很快. 以往周末都干活的, 而最近, 都是周末比平时更累. 上周末过了个中秋, 带小朋友去了个白山, 近十辆车, 浩浩荡荡, 然后主席的车还坏在NH了. 两天睡了八小时, 做蛋黄酥, 擀面擀到手抽筋. NH的红叶都枫了, 很是漂亮. 冬天来之前, 灿烂的新英格兰, 传说中全世界最美丽的秋景. 不过想想, 大雪封山也就是一两个月的事情了, 还是不由自主地打了个冷战...


总之, 大周末就是通宵吧通宵吧. 人都是逼出来的, 流川枫也能变唐僧. 最近通宵的时候, 喜欢看过往的自己的别人的日志, 发现也是一件很有乐趣的事情. 人出生的时候, 就像一张白纸, 然后我们拿着photoshop, 往上面一层, 一层, 一层地盖东西. 人一直在成长, 各个时期的回忆, 都应该有不同的颜色, 如果每次都加同样的色调同样的滤镜, 那么最后的色彩也是很单调的. 并不追求花里胡哨的东西, 也不在乎最后叠加出来的东西是否美丽, 只是希望在把这些图层一层一层拿出来的时候, 能看到一些不一样的东西. 看看现在的和过去的自己和别人, 也是很有乐趣的事情. 我也曾经是个每天写日志的孩子那~

棒球季后赛开始了, NBA季前赛开始了, Go RedSox, Go Celtics! Fight for Peace!

On Day for China Pride, Little Interest in Ideology

BEIJING — Xie Jun, 23, is a modern Chinese patriot. On Thursday, when thousands of soldiers and rows of tanks and caissons move in perfect order past Tiananmen Square to commemorate 60 years of Communist Party rule, his heart will skip a beat and a lump will rise in his throat.

“I’ve learned from textbooks the history of China— how we were invaded in the past by foreigners,” he said this week as he sold bananas and persimmons from a fruit cart in a leafy downtown neighborhood. “How, in order to survive, we had to band together in love of country. I’m proud that China has turned from a backward country into a country with international standing in such short time.”

Few would deny him his pride in China’s miracle. But ask Mr. Xie to explain China’s core values — not what his country achieved, but what it stands for — and he is dumbstruck, a student called on in class to report on the book he forgot to read.

“The ability of China to adapt,” he said after a long silence. “To learn from the West.” And, in a phrase that sounds plucked from a pamphlet, “the diligence and industriousness of the laboring masses.”

China’s ruling Communist Party is throwing itself a huge and meticulously choreographed anniversary party on Thursday, a celebration whose overarching theme echoes the words Mao spoke after forcing the Nationalists to surrender Beijing in 1949. “Ours will no longer be a nation subject to insult and humiliation,” Mao said. “We have stood up.”

From the displays of advanced weaponry to the celebration posters highlighting Shanghai’s forest of skyscrapers, the unmistakable message of this celebration is that Mao was right and that the Communist Party is carrying all China to prosperity and worldwide respect.

But prosperity is a condition, not a value. And on the eve of a great patriotic celebration, at least a few Communist leaders must be wondering whether lashing patriotism to eternal prosperity is not, at least a little, like riding a tiger.

“There is no ideology in China anymore,” Zhang Ming, a professor of political science at Renmin University in Beijing, said in an interview on Wednesday. “The government has no ideology. The people have no ideology. The reason the government is in power is because they can say: ‘I can make your lives better every day. I can give you stability. And I have the power.’ As long as they make people’s lives better, it’s O.K. But what happens on the day when they no longer can?”

The issue is not whether the Chinese people have reason to love their country. Beijing residents, asked this week about why they love their country, frequently talked about its economic strength and rise in global status, but they also often referred to China’s 5,000 years of history, a vibrant culture and the ethnic unity of a nation in which 9 of 10 citizens are of Han descent.

Those are national narratives that bind Chinese just as surely as melting-pot Americans are bound by Thomas Jefferson’s stirring calls for liberty and the transformative experience of the Civil War.

But despite insistent effort — patriotism is a staple of the education system, and citizens are exhorted to equate the state and the homeland — none of the Chinese narrative bears on the Communists and their government.

And the official ideology of socialism and the revolutionary struggle against capitalist roaders, though still taught in universities and factory halls, is treated as dull propaganda by all except a dwindling number of true believers.

Historians and sociologists say that socialist ideology once was a bedrock of Chinese patriotism and support of the government. Paradoxically, it was killed by the reform and opening of China that began 30 years ago and brought the economic miracle of today.

What inspires loyalty today is not ideology, but the government’s competence at raising China from poverty.

“I am not a member of the party,” said Rao Jin, a writer whose Web site, Anti-CNN, is a symbol of Chinese nationalism and rejection of Western criticism. “But I believe that you should love the party at the same time as loving your country. Everything that China has right now is because of the C.C.P.,” the Chinese Communist Party.

“History has proved that no other regime can govern China,” he said. “If you change the ruling entity, if the C.C.P. were suddenly not in power, most people agree that it would be total chaos.”

It is a view embraced by most Chinese patriots interviewed this week, within limits.

“The party is doing a pretty good job of running the country, so we’re pretty happy with it,” Li Yuqian, a 30-year-old student at Capital Sports University, said as he munched French fries in a local McDonald’s. “But what we love is this country — and loving this country is very different thing from loving the party.”

He paused long enough to have second thoughts. “But don’t write that I don’t love the party,” he added. “O.K.?”

(by NY Times)

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