Xi From China

The tale: The three sieves of Socrates
 

"Hold up" Socrates interrupts him "About the story you're about to tell me, did you put it trough the three sieves?"

"Three sieves?" The man asks "What three sieves?"

"Let's try it" Socrates says.

"The first sieve is the one of truth, did you examine what you were about to tell me if it is true?" Socrates asks.

"Well no, I just overheard it" The man says.

"Ah, well then you have used the second sieve, the sieve of good?" Socrates asks "Is it something good what you're about to tell me?"

"Ehm no, on the contrary" the man answers.

"Hmmm" The wise man says "Let's use the third sieve then, is it necessary to tell me what you're so exited about?"

"No not necessary" the man says.

"Well" Socrates says with a smile "If the story you're about to tell me isn't true, good or necessary, just forget it and don't bother me with it."

OK, then. Let's try my master's thesis. My master's thesis is &*&#%$@, (some computer-science-related math problem), and the three questions from Socrates are:

Q1: Is that true?

No. It is not a real problem. I cannot image anyone would engage this problem in industry. It's fake.

Q2: Is that good?

No. It is not a good problem. It seems impossible to get solid result.

Q3: Is that necessary?

Not at all. I am supposed to be the only person in this world cares about this problem, even which is because, it's my thesis. Yes, it's trivial in contribution, but hard to solve.

Well, it's nothing to be shame of. That's 99.9% master's students do.

When I was working in Beijing, once I took my badminton stuff to office, and my boss asked me if I was going to play. At the first time, I didn't realize it was refering me. In my mind, badminton was a "physical exercise", not something to play. The word "play" to me was for video games or karaoke by then. Yes, I really did start playing badminton for health, (and pleasing my boss too.)

Some people say that life is about pursuing happiness, like what illustrated in the picture above. They say you should lower your pace down, "smell the rose". Why not? I mean we all want to be happy. However, there is no consensus on "what is happy".

To some people, enjoying leisure time is fun and happy while working hard is pain. I don't like hard working either, which is why it's called PAINstaking. But I do like the feeling of achieving goals and taking down adversaries. Those things give me extra happy, therefore neutralize the pain of work and even make it joyful. (If fact, there is no adversary in real life of mine. Living a ordinary life, having adveraries is considered as a social failure to me. That's why I like sports. It gives me a chance to beat others!)

After all, all livings are dying until reach their eternal death.

I didn't know I have that many fans in Shanghai. Who is visiting me from Shanghai?

Stat map of Lactose Intolerance from Wikepedia:

Where:

I have Lactose Intolerance, like other 1 billion Chinese people. I just realized that. It is most everybody in China, but no one pays attention to this problem. My housemate is a Chinese Canadian, and he told me he has Lactose Intolerance. Then I realized I have the same problem.

The symptom of Lactose Intolerance of differnt people varies. Some people get severe reaction when eat any milk product, like my housemate. My reaction is milder. A cup of milk in breakfast is OK to me, as well as yogurt before sleeping. But when I overdrink milk I still get digestion problem. If I drink like 700ml milk in once, I will definitely have a bad day. Other people, however, simply have no symptom at all. They just do not absorb the lactose.

There are several ways to avoid the problem:

First, you can use product with lower lactose. e.g., yogurt has relatively low lactose to milk.

Second, you can consume small quantities of dairy products several times a day instead of eating them together.

Third, use replacement like soy drink.