All These Things That I've Done

The Killers

I wanna stand up, I wanna let go
You know, you know - no you don't, you don't
I wanna shine on in the hearts of men
I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand

Another headaches, another heartbreaks
I am so much older than I can take
And my affection, well it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no no no no

Help me out
Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the blackburner
You know you got to help me out

And when there's nowhere else to run
Is there room for one more son
These changes ain't changing me
The cold-hearted boy I used to be

Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the blackburner
You know you got to help me out
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
I got soul, but I'm not a soldier
...

Yeah, you know you got to help me out
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the blackburner
You know you got to help me out
You're gonna bring yourself down
You're gonna bring yourself down
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the blackburner
Yeah, you're gonna bring yourself down

Over and out, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done
All these things that I've done
If you can hold on
If you can hold on

In my co-op course, the instructor quoted a proverb saying "Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand." And she said it is from Confucious.

Confucious? Highly doubted. I cannot figure out what Chinese words are for the proverb.

I am trying to articulate my toughts on learning. In my opinion, TOEFL test is an "easy" test. The definition of word "easy" here is a bit different. Of course, unless you are a language genius, it will take you months of hardworking to get a fair score on TOEFL. But I still see TOEFL as not challenging. Why?

That's because TOEFL is a well studied area. (at least in China) When studying TOEFL, you don't need to worry about how to do it. There are tons of materials and instruction of how you can master the test. All you have to do is putting your feet on the ground and studying 12 hours a day. That will sure solve the problem.

However, in many other things, there is no step-by-step instruction. I heard some people say the best way to improve badminton skill is to play with those good ones. I don't totally agree. I believe the best way to improve badminton skill is training like a professional. You may hire a coach and spend hours and hours perfecting the same form, or take aerobic exercises to improve stamina. That's the right way to do it because world-class players are all trained in this way. Only practice is not enough, you need to be trained.

When it comes to, say, English learning, it is the same story. (Practical English not English test) All I've heard is, if you wanna speak better English, the best way is talking to people. Of course, it is A way. The "best" way? Doubtfully. For example, it would be much faster to learn new words from dictionary than from conversations. I think there must be a better way to learn English scientifically and systematically. Not like TOEFL or badminton, there is no off-the-rack tutorial on things like interpersonal skills or public speech. There are materials, but no guarantee they will work. You gotta keep questioning if you are on the right track. What's even worse is, you don't even know where you're going. In TOFEL test, If I scored 108 points out of 120 (which I did ^_^ ), I'd be glad. And it would further motivate my learning. But how could I tell if my interpersonal skill was improved?

So this's what I call "challenging". Working hard doesn't solve all the problems here, you have to work wisely. Practice doesn't make perfect when the person is under-trained.

I have been heavily engaged with English courses recently. In the pronunciation course, I found that I almost failed correctly pronuncing every syllable.

When the time I started learning Badminton, I read an article from the internet says "It is bad to mix up Tennis and Badminton because Tennis gives you bad habits." It was talking about the form and skill like how do you channel the muscle power. Of course, for different sports, there are different ways to do that. Hence I think, after being speaking Mandarin for tens of years, how many "bad habits" do I have when speaking English?

Quite a few I think.

They say it is hard for grown-ups to learn the pronunciation. Indeed, most aged Chinese Immigrants I met have even worse accent than me. But I don't think it is unchangeable. In many ways, speaking a language is like playing sport. It takes years to learn your skill, and that perfection procedure never ends. I have been play badminton for 2 years almost. It took me months to give a fair clear-shot, and I picked up slice-smash the very last month. There is always a way to improve your skill. You just need to keep the knowledge in mind, and train like heck, again, again and again. Sometimes, I really wanna be a athlete.

The reason I didn't improve much is because I lost the pressure. When I just came to Canada, no doubt there was great pressure on me. I was afraid if I failed anything, I could be packed and sent back to China. Well, it sounds like a joke now but, in those days, it was terribly real. Since I eased off, there was no struggle on survival anymore, and my motivation of learning English faded away. It was bad, really BAD.

Pressure makes ordinary people do extraodinary things, if you don't stressed out of course. The life as grad student here in UVic is too tranquil. They deserve enjoying it. Most of my friends are married and have kids, or at least have a girlfriend/boyfriend. For those who are single like me, they have a promising future waiting ahead. What do I have then? Nothing. I will be in constantly moving in the coming years. I gotta realize that if I don't work my way up or everything could fall apart, and it will. Sometime when I log on my MSN or some SN website, I contemplated on the friend list and thought, wow, how I wish I could exchange my life with any one of them. Heck, It is just not happening.

New year's Resolution (Goals must be achieved):

Gaining weight to 70kg while keeping the body fat percentage.

Graduating from UVic, and finding a job in Canada/US.

Further polishing my badminton skill.

Finishing my novel.

This is me heading to a suite party.

Some have noticed I didn't update my space or logged on my MSN for quite a while. No worry, nothing bad happened.

For school, I am currently doing my paper while writing out my thesis. Actually, I thought I haven't got any work done for months. However, my supervisor just told me "I see you have done enough work, now you need to write them out", weirdly, with no sarcasm! What in the world ... Maybe it is just the way of grad school here. A lazy Chinese could be diligent Canadian-wise.

So how did I spend my time if I wasn't working? I wrote novels, in Chinese.

First, I wrote a typical Romeo&Juliet love story about star-crossed youth. The story happened in World War II. The protagonist was a young military officer of Chinese Red Army (Communist). He suffered a poor and torturing life in his childhood and youthhood. The girl he got in love was, however, a rich and spoiled girl from a family of high ranking general of Chinese National Party. They met and fell in love when they fought the Nazi together. The opposite attraction is the magic of their love. Unfortunately, they finally faced a destined departure when the WWII was over and Communist Party and National Party started the civil war.

As you can see, the story is pro love and anti war

The story is now done. I am working on my second one. This one is about my previous life in China, a young man works in university. The protagonist is not me myself, but a typical young university employee I want to describe and cast my sympathy on. I want to write his emotional feelings about love, family and friends, his will to be success, and his self-lying and procrastination which hold him back. Another main concept is the conflict between an idealist and this material world. The story will be long and there will be more than 20 characters. Note that ALL scenarios will be modified REAL story ever happened in my university. When it comes to novel, I am all realist.

Except writing and working, I am working out as hard as before. I do strength training 3/4 times a week, and play badminton once a week. Not so much improvement on my muscle since I was back. Well, no rush, it takes time. My badminton skill is better tough, and playing it became more and more fun.

And I am planning a trip with friends during X-Mas. I don't know if we are going to do that for sure, but I am really looking forward to it.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=no-tall-tale-height-matters

Actually, much stronger.

I am as the same weight as him, while much shorter. The body fat percentage is about the same level. Maybe one day I will post a video showing off my body too.

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12523898&fsrc=rss

Porsche the carmaker looted 40,000,000,000 Euroes from the capital market.

I got many replies for my last post. Thanks guys. I appreciate that.

Some other thing about my gym working out plan. I started about 3 month ago because I thought I was too skinny. I am skinny. So:

1. When in Canada, I have been going to gym 4 times per week only for working out, not including badminton& swimming. Working out is boring. It's all about repeating and making yourself uncomfortable. And I am bored a little. But I ain't gonna quit. Living in this world is kinda boring, but I didn't kill myself, right? Just kidding ...

2. I am taking supplements. Among them there are protein, creatine and many others. However, I know overdose could lead serious problem. I'm extremely careful about that. Maybe you know when it comes to eating, I become extraordinary cautious.

3. I kept saying those guys in the gym are big. Yes they are.  Nonetheless, I was exaggerating a bit. I am not THE weakest. I'm only one of the weakest. There are always couple of guys in my level. Thanks to them, I don't look so bad. Still, it feels awkward a little. But I don't care. I've been feeling awkward ever since I was born. The Gym, is like my entire life ... Kidding again.

4. I have put on like 5 pounds during the past 3 month. And my strength increased also. I came China for 1 month, which lost some time, but still, 5 pounds (perhaps even less) seems too little to me. I could hire a personal coach, however: 1st) I don't wanna pay and 2nd) if I wanted, I'm not sure I could find one. Cuz I usually work out after 9:30pm. Anyhow, I think a chang of the work-out plan might be a good idea. I made a plan and trained constantly. But I'm not a pro so that I could have been doing the wrong thing. So I just got my plan renewed. I got one from internet. I hope it will work.

I wish I can reach 140 lbs by the end of this year, which is, 6~7 more pounds to go. I could use a spotter though. A spotter is like a working out partner. You and your partner can protect each other when working out. But since none of the people I know living in the similar life style as me (not even close), so ... forget it, I'll do it on my own.

Every night when working out at gym, my best interest is finding out how much the second weakest guy is stronger than me. Twice or thrice it is, usually. Oh, you should see those guys' muscles. Huge. They are not only huge to me, a Chinese. They are huge Canadian-wise, or even Canadian-gym-wise.

I must look like a skeleton in that gym.

Another thing, there is no weight scale in that gym. It's weired. Then how could I know how much pounds I gained?

Or maybe only my closet ... anyway.

I got a membership for the fancy big weight training room in ISC, and it costed me 35$.

I had been working out in the free gym, which is really small. I wanted to try something new, so I thought: " Why don't I go to the big gym?" And here I am. I went to the new gym today for the first time.

First, everybody there was big. I was the skinniest person in that room. Oh, I was the skinniest in the small gym too, but since it's small and there ain't many people, I didn't look so bad. Now, I feel so mini. Further more, it's huge and the weights being used are heavy. There are lots of fancy apparatuses I don't even know how to use. Last, I don't feel good when many people around. I feel being watched. Oh, they may actually stare at me because I am the weakest person they've ever seen in the room.

Well, I think I'm still gonna stick with the new gym. I have paid the 35$ anyway. And it's too early to tell if my 35$ is worthy. Besides, trying new things is good. It will change you in a good way. When everything goes as expected, you succeed. When things go wrong, you get experience, which helps you succeed in the future.

From Economist.com: Statistics of media shows the Crisis is really coming:

So what would happen to us fellow grads? From P.H.D. comics:

If job-hunting becomes really tough, Ph.D. may be a good choice then. After all, grad school is where people hiding from the real world.

However, I don't wanna be in my 30s and still remain no money and not married, which situation is very much likely to be if I go for another post-graduate degree. I do need a job. And it's better to be a well paid one.

If the economy in North America really goes bad, I may consider going back to China, where even if I cannot get a decent job, I can for sure find a girlfriend. You know, you should at least have one thing. (Or other developed countries if possible.)

Yesterday, I successfully landed Canada and picked up the life I left 1 month ago. I can see that I will be entirely occupied by works! Right on. It's good to be busy.