Shirley@Narita

After 17 hours, i am at Tokyo now. (local time 16.48)

The flight from Chicago to Tokyo was okay. The gentleman next to me was a 68 year old man who has 6 kids. (what a coincidence!) His youngest son (aged 24) is a PhD student at Johns Hopkin (another coincidence!)...

Perhaps i am happy in general, everything is so pleasant... I love Japan!

But flying AA is so different from flying CX. This is my first time flying AA across Pacific. The plane seems to be more spacious than those with CX.

As expected, AA service is not as good as CX. One of the cabin crew member (a lady) even did not tie up her long fuzzy hair. That's was a dissonance for me. She was making an annoyed face after her cart "hit" one of the passenger.

There were 10 video channels. You may not believe but none of them interested me. I ended up watching commercial+short excerpts of CBS programs including sit coms and David Letterman show for an hour. That's already the best for me. For the rest 13 hours, i was listening to some soft music (repeat every one hour or so) and watching the flight map that told me where i was.

The food. I don't want to sound picky and harsh. So i am not saying much here. My only comment is: not even close to dorm food.

Nonetheless, my general good mood + $200 price different + busy working on term paper make the whole trip nice and kinda pleasant. Looking forward to my CX flight to Hong Kong. I am expecting this will make it all up.

@ UIUC Airport

I am at our Unversity airport and using UIUC account to get online! I will be departing soon. Everybody enjoy the break!!

:)

How to do presentation?

I have had two presentations so far this semester. I feel pretty incapacable doing it. The two things I noticed are: (1) it seemed i stopped really thinking when i present. I ended up talking about fragmented points (even fragmented sentenses) instead of elobrating on arguments. I noticed it very strongly when i contrast my behavior in class. I am totally okay when i listen and talk in class. It is not so much a problem for me to articulate my points of view in class/research discussion. But once i am in a "presentation", my thoughts become scattered and not fluent even on things that i have been thinking for some time.

In fact, in the only 2-3 "good" presentations i have ever done, i had almost a script written up/in mind. I admire so much that people can explain concepts and articulate argument clearly. How can they do it? Perhaps i should start asking my course instructors. Most of them are really good. There must be some ways i can learn doing it.

(2) the prepared slides did not do much help. I in fact think they were hindering. I feel that i was following a chain of thoughts when i prepare the slides, but i could/did not follow it when i present. Maybe i will explain better without the slides and completely from my own memory?

The most important presentation is coming up this Friday. I will present my summer research paper to the faculties and fellow grad students in Marketing. Really want to present it well so that i can pick on their brains to improve. Think about 15+ intelligent brains!

If you shared similar problems and find good ways out. Please let me know! If you are facing similar problems, please let me know too! So i know it is not only me and perhaps we can share resources for improvement. :)

Jessie's Graduation

My sister, Jessie, finished her 4 years of hard work and became a bright teacher! I'm so glad to see her growth and her love for educating the young. Way to go!















(click on the picture to see her xanga on her grad day)

一年了

去年今日凌晨４時，我知道我沒有機會再見一直非常疼我的外婆。













最後的日子，她記憶力開始很差，經常忘記剛見過什麼吃過什麼。但我知道她過得不錯，妹妹們還帶她去了一趟廸士尼。最後一次通電話時，她還問什麼時候畢業回去。有時我會想，她臨走的時候會否想起有一個外孫在遠方。我希望她只記得我嬰孩時的怪脾性和她教養了一個令她欣慰的“大家姐”。

從電腦的相片檔案中找到這一幅，是最後的一幅。提醒我要珍惜家人和朋友。

很感謝在Champaign的朋友在我最難過的時候給我的支持和照顧。