About Doing a PhD

I finally received word that I have been accepted by UCI (University of California, Irvine). Professor is Bonnie Nardi. It was so exciting to know that I now have a formal opportunity to work with her.

It was a strange feeling of excitement coupled with the same uncertainty when I first left Singapore for the Internship. I was prepared for the worst but the experience turns out very good. Now that this is my 4th year of my professional career, done stuffs, and know lots of good colleagues, it feels like time to move on. Actions become repetitive, and work becomes political. I am happy to go back to University and return to the pursuit for knowledge and personal growth. In fact, good things about my days as a Master student returns to me.

However, since I returned to Singapore, I saw good about the city. It was a clean place, with stable environment and cheap food thrills. There is nothing exciting about the city, so I heard of any great cities such as Zurich. Its too safe to be. But stability allows your mind to settle and movement become harmonize. You can 'rot' if you like, acting in a harmonic motion, day after day. Friends, family, and the usual hawker fare will always be there.

Then why would I want to go? I think I am suited for academic research, and occasionally helping commercial companies in meaningful applications. Doing commercial all day long? I am not sure if I have the taste for more politics than I encounter now. I think constant fighting with people obscure the mind and one is more useful staying happy and focus. Not doing commercial at all? Confucius forbids. Why write papers without putting it to use?

Facts supporting the idlist.

I have been suspecting that an advanced society would be appreciative of the existence of idlists. An article in newsweek just pointed out the problem of being too busy.

At 46, Philip Burguières was running a Fortune 500 company, traveling constantly and meeting with shareholders, when, in the middle of a staff meeting on a Tuesday afternoon, he suddenly collapsed. Doctors diagnosed him with depression and encouraged him to leave his high-stress job. But after a short hospital stay, he was back in the game and by the following year was running Weatherford International, an energy-services company with $3 billion in revenues. The pressure became unbearable, and in 1996 he once again took a medical leave. "The second one was a grade-A, level-10, atomic-bomb depression," he says. In his darkest moments, he was certain the world would be better off without him, but even then, he felt enormous pressure to succeed. "I want out, but am stuck because I have never quit anything in my life," he wrote in a hospital diary. Strengthened by counseling and a friendship with a similarly depressed CEO, Burguières attained what he describes as a "full recovery" and stepped down as CEO. He found new work running a family investment company and as vice chairman of the NFL's Houston Texans, positions that permit him to delegate more responsibility and have more fun. He also found that helping other people was the best way for him to get better, and since 1998, he has been privately counseling the numerous depressed CEOs who seek him out. "You get outside yourself; you don't obsess on your own issues," he says.

I think the idlist attitude has a role to play here. If we remember how to idle, to pay attention to the wind, our friends, and the flowers, we would never become too busy and always maintain an appreciation for pleasure. And we are able to realize the fullest potential our civilization as to offer.

The crazily busy and the ideal idlist.

One of our favorite question on meeting someone is, "How's your work?" The favorite answer is, "Oh... so busy." Being busy is a fashionable label anyone pursuing success should try to attain. This is nonetheless crazy from any humane standpoint. What has being busy anything to do with success?

I came across a very successful person's blog, it was a case of a crazily busy:

"When we started our vacation last week, I was pretty sure that vacations are generally not a good idea.
... I use the term "we" with some caution. We - that is, my husband and I - have never really been a "we" in the sense of those old stories, movies, TV shows. ... We argue too much, sleep too much, eat too much, and worry about what's going wrong at home, what's going wrong with our kids and our jobs, what's going wrong with our vacation. We have unrealistic hopes and unreasonable desires. We can't talk about work. We can't talk about the kids. We can't talk about "someday" - that occupied us well in our forties, but no longer - it's just too scary. I find myself secretly wishing we were at home, tending the flowers and getting work done.
... Lately two daughters and I went to see Kate Mullgrew as Katharine Hepburn in "Tea at Five." In the play, Kate comes to the realization that work was the way she always survived her difficulties. I ponder what work means to me. True, work can make a person happy - when one loves one's work; when one knows what one's work is; when one has measurable outcomes - even if only in the coin of personal pleasure. But work does not necessarily make life meaningful. When the time needed to get one's work done exceeds the time available, meaningfulness slips appallingly away.
... after a week of vacation, it's going to be even harder to climb back into my working shoes. I am cynical about the possibility of experiencing "renewal" in seven days and dreading the moment when I have to climb the mountain of email that will pile up in my short absence.
... This is my last rant for a while. I've got to get some work done so I can take another vacation."

While working in America, I am suspicious that life of all successful are not so successful. Meaning that behind their job success, their life were somehow affected. Some 'wise' consultant said, "If you put in 10% more effort than your peers, you will rip 50% more returns." But these 10% efforts come from time you would spend with your bare consciousness, so that at the end of the day, we remember who we are, where we come from, and for what purpose we are here? I am not talking about deep philosophies. I am saying that when shopping with a friend, we know we come from our house, came shopping with this person, and pay attention to her ranting. In the end, we learn more about her and she felt satisfied having a friend like us.

An ideal idlist would work in a different way. In order to keep our consciousness clear, open, and sharp, we need to keep it happy. She would work when she likes to work, take a sip when she likes, walk when she likes, rest when she likes, and return to work when she likes. There is no burden in her mind when she works, because that is what she wants to do.

However the problem an ideal idlist faced was the 8 hours work day and 40 hours work week. Following an ideal lifestyle, the idlist may wake up at 10am, worked until 4pm, and felt the need to take a walk to find out what everyone else were up to. He walked down the shopping strip and explore the surrounding. People ranting along the street, cars engine, discount posters along the malls' windows, and a long queue formed up from a bank teller machine. He is happily observing the business of others and it becomes much more important than the work he is doing. Such idlist may return to work at 8pm when he remembered an important email that he needs to write, or upon having a creative idea while bathing.

In a world of fixed-time working schedule, this idlist works when she's tired of work, unable to work when she needs to work, and unable to do more important things when she needs to. Life becomes upside down and priorities get abandoned. Soon, working hard becomes the only thing she can boast about. When there is no creative ideas or new responsibilities, the best one can do is the respond to old tasks on time on target, and make sure there is no mistakes. Respond to emails, respond to questions, update databases, etc. The next time someone comes by the ask, "How are you doing?"
"Great! Sorry about not responding to you. I am SO busy and flooded with emails."
"How's your work?"
"Oh its great! Enough to keep me busy."

For happiness or happiness itself?

There are many books on happiness. Generally it goes like: The key to happiness is to be ... ... . On the surface it looks fine. But every description requires an opposite side to stand. Its thus also implying: You are not happy unless you ... ... .

Thus every HOW of happiness imply some kind of unpleasantness.

I prefer some expressions of happiness itself. Here's one:

This morning I woke up a five after a very sound sleep and listened to a most gorgeous feast of sounds. What woke me up were the factory whistles of a great variety of pitch and force. After a while, I heard a distant clatter of horse's hoofs; it must have been cavalry passing down Yuyuen Road; and in that quiet dawn it gave me more aesthetic delight than a Brahms symphony. Then came a few early chirps from some kind of birds. I am sorry I am not proficient in birdlore, but I enjoyed them all the same. Lin Yutang in The Importance of Living

Learning to loaf, again.

Despite all the great things I have learned from America, something that I have unlearned is the art of loafing. To loaf, one must walk life with the objective of enjoying the walk in itself. However, American life is so full of actions that every moment is a planning to succeed. Planning to succeed itself, is to admit that one has not and so will need to put in more effort. So many days and weeks and months, one keeps driving for success. This is probably the essence of why America is so powerful today.

Loafing is different. A loafer is a contented soul who thinks what he has is good enough, at least for now. He is contented enough not to think too much, more than just enjoying the present moment. He smells the fragrant of the trees, caressing wind, pitying the busy passer-bys, and when tired, look for a nice cafe for a sip of ice mocha. He forgets the time, for he need not rush for the another meeting.

括猪头

在华人的习俗里，过年时，是不可以欠钱的。高利贷想必也希望能把债务澄清好过大财年。今年可能就不比往年难了。因为今年所卖的猪头又多又有过年的气息。想欠债的人被括了之后也会满心欢喜。说不定马上就把债给还清了。

温心有趣的祝福

大前天举行了婚礼。收到了许多的祝福。大多都言语谨慎，声势高雅。但有一个却让笑得肚子痛，坐不起来。


小两口？或许在我心深处还向往着简单的生活吧。

2 days before wedding.

Nothing seems to be happening for now. Feels like the quietness before the battle. :)

Blabbing about life -- Reasonable and unreasonable things

The Chinese New Year is coming. So its again time of the year for reflection. I reflected on the following.

Unreasonable things I do in the past:
1. No trying to get back the 10% discount I was not given.
2. Not raising my voice in any circumstances.
3. 100% vegetarianism.
4. Hoping to succeed in career.
5. Wanting to be happy.
6. Wanting to be rich.

Reasonable things I want to do in the new year:
1. I will ask for the 10% even if I may not get it.
2. I will raise my voice at times without feeling angry.
3. I will eat something else if the vegetarian food doesn't taste good.
4. I work but not hope to be successful.
5. I should be happy already.
6. I don't want to be rich but I don't mind having more money.