I am 陳大同

先放首歌曲讓你可以邊看文章邊聽聽音樂,
跟我一起好好放鬆一下...

這次放的不再是吵吵鬧鬧的金屬搖滾樂,
而是我這幾天很愛聽的方大同...
淡淡的味道,卻又彷彿一道透明的靈魂穿透你的耳朵跟大腦,
還滿喜歡這種感覺的(一種逃避工作壓力的方法 :p),
Anyway,有興趣的人就聽聽看吧...



最近接了Post-Doc後,因為新老闆是個近乎工作狂的人,
自然而然我也不會太輕鬆,
不過倒是一個很好的學習機會,學著怎麼應付不同的老闆..
因為我之前的老闆是個對學生極為體貼的人,
所以現在的生活也算是一個新的課題...not so bad..
不過今天meeting,她半開玩笑的說了一句話,讓我們在場的人都愣了一下..
"I know you guys are paid to work 20 or 40 hours a week. But I would be very happy to let you work 80 hours a week."

基本上當時我們知道她是在開玩笑,但是大家的表情就是What if she is not kidding?
而且當時她還看著我說,現在有另外三篇paper等我幫她發...
還好,當時我之前的老闆很有良心的提醒她我現在已經"滿載"了;
另一個跟我不錯的Research Engineer也反諷地說,
對啊!反正威翔有兩隻手,可以一隻手寫一篇..
這才化解了我當時的一場危機...呼~

總之最近因為忙也覺得時間過的特別快,
這一個月發了兩篇paper,接了新的研究計畫,博士論文的draft,給了PhD Exit Seminar,
還要在空閒之餘帶新來的Master學生做實驗,
雖然累,不過有事情做也是一種很不錯的感覺...

這個星期就是 Super Bowl 了,
系上的幾個 Staff 在這個時候會玩一種遊戲,
就是拿一張表,X和Y軸各填上0到9的數字,各代表兩隊的分數尾數,
所以在這張表上會有一百個格子,一個格子賣兩塊錢,
如果第一節結束你有猜中兩隊的分數尾數就給你25塊,
如果是中場結束就50塊,最後比賽結束猜中就有100塊..
而我也在我們Lab Manager強力推薦下買了兩格,不過我看了一下我賭的數字好像不太容易中..哈哈哈..

The last thing,我親愛的女王大人送了我一副新眼鏡,
大概是因為現在盧廣仲跟方大同很紅,
所以我現在也跟上了這股風潮,戴起了粗框眼鏡..
下次遇見我如果覺得很鳥,請假裝沒發現我換眼鏡,謝謝~



目前陳大同(頭?)的照片從缺,感謝...

Live Well, Live More, Live Strong

新的一年,隨之而來的卻是感覺永無止盡的工作,
以及一些些生活上的挫折感,
不知道該怎麼說, 但對於人生這兩個字卻有著越來越多的不安全跟挫折感...
是因為年紀的增長嘛?還是因為最近工作上的不如意?
有越來越多的經驗告訴你人生並不是像你想像的那麼美好....

這讓我想起最近聽的一首歌, Hinder(緩衝樂團)的Homecoming Queen,

(雖然我最近的心情不是很穩定,但是這個團真的很不錯..
有空再來介紹這個走Post-Grunge風的團吧...)
PS: 如果按play沒反應,按一下F5,再試一次就可以了.

人生也許就像是你小時候喜歡的那個隔壁班可愛的女孩子,
總是有很多人圍著她,
而你唯一能做的就是躲在人群中或在上課時偷偷地看她幾眼,
也許在畢業時,能夠鼓起勇氣拿著留言本給她簽名,
然後在回家的路上看著她的留言發呆...

過了十幾年後,也許你會在某個十字路上巧遇她,
你還是能夠輕易地認出她,
即使她的外表隨著時間流逝多了幾分滄桑,
即使她手裡牽著一個和她有一樣大眼睛的小男孩..
但是你也看到她眼中已經不再有當年給你的那份感動,
也許是龐大的生活壓力,也許是因為幾段失敗的感情,
她不再是你記憶中那個完美的小女孩...

How can you let us down?

這就是我現在對人生的感覺...
真的,這就是人生....

Gun N' Rose - Chinese Democracy

有在玩團或聽搖滾樂的人手上通常都會有至少一張 Gun N' Rose 的專輯,
依稀記得在我高中大學時代, 他們的歌可以說是被奉為聖經,
如果你會樂器, 都會想要練上幾段他們的經典名曲 November Rain, Sweet Child O'Mine, Don't Cry..
(雖然我家女王以前在練團室裡, 就一直覺得他們的歌就是很吵..哈哈..)

隔了17年再出專輯的 Gun N' Rose, 雖然團員多已不是當年的老面孔,
(最可惜的是吉他手 Slash 因為跟 Rose 之間的恩怨情仇就離隊了;
有玩 Gaitar Hero 的人, Slash 就是某一代盒子封面上帶著帽子的那個吉他手)
但是憑著 Axl Rose 獨特的個人魅力, 還是把我帶回了那個叛逆的80年代..
他那高亢沙啞的聲音搭配一如既往的反叛個性(看這次的專輯名稱就知道了),
就是有一股似乎能把你靈魂吸走的力量,
讓你在聽的同時感動卻又熱血沸騰..

這張專輯我喜歡的歌還挺多的, 在這裡我放了其中三首的連結,
有興趣卻又還沒聽過的人,可以聽聽看這個被譽為死前必聽的50大樂團之一...





從上到下分別是 Catcher in the Rye; Street of Dreams; Better.

PS: 聽音樂是很主觀的, 可是卻也讓我在看大家的討論時看到了一段很好笑的對話..

A君: Chinese democracy must be awesome...then why is it in 33th on Billboard´s list?..beause is a bad album..nothing more...A BAD ALBUM ...end of the discussion

B君: because theres stupid fucks like you who go out and buy brittney spears shit

哈哈哈, 所以外國鄉民的嘴砲也是很厲害的 :p

Family never froze

這兩天跑了一趟 Reno 去看我妹,
這幾年來我去這個地方的次數應該已經有超過十次了吧..
(聽起來好像我很喜歡賭博似的..)
每次朋友來找我, 自然而然就會把她們帶到這個號稱
"The biggest small city in the world"..
這次也是因為我妹跟朋友去 Tahoe 滑雪,
想想開到 Reno 總比花六個小時開到她住的 Santa Barbara 近,
所以就跑了這一趟...

但是這次去還真的是他X的冷,
過了 Truckee 就一路24度F,
最冷還給我到19度F(攝氏差不多零下6度吧~)..
真是有夠冷的...
重點是天氣很差,能見度很低,
我就給他傻傻的想說噴一下雨刷水,清一下擋風玻璃,
結果水一碰到玻璃,瞬間結冰,想當然爾當下是完全看不見啦!
把當時正在高速公路上的我嚇出一身冷汗,
一路上也就這樣在神經緊繃的狀態下到了 Reno...

不過看到自己的妹妹還是很開心啦..
雖然只是吃一頓晚餐的時間,最後看她離開還是有點捨不得,
畢竟距離上次見面也經六個月了...

妹妹,回去好好加油,
不用擔心將來的事情,船到橋頭自然就會直的...
現在就專心眼前的工作吧!!(這些話好像也應該對現在的我說一下..哈哈..)



呼~好冷~~

聖誕快樂

今天是老外最愛的聖誕節,
記得小時候老爸老媽都會在家裡擺上一顆聖誕樹,
早上我跟我妹就會趕快醒來衝到樹下開我們的聖誕禮物,
想不到一眨眼那已經是二十幾年前的事情了...
之前才跟家裡的女王大人在逛 mall 的時候聊到,
小時候是想買很多玩具但是沒錢,
現在則是有錢可以買了,但是卻也沒什麼時間玩了..

anyway, 只是要跟看到這篇文章的你說聲聖誕快樂,
新的一年希望我們都可以有好的開始..
最後就聽聽我最愛的 Foo Fighter 的一首老歌, Learn to fly,


(如果不能播放,按一下F5,再播一次試試吧!)

Hopefully all of us are able to fly high in the coming year~

Quick update for my recent publication

During the first half of this year, I got an oppurtunity to work with another professor in our department. He and other authors would like to write a report (later was also submittd to the government for public policy decision), which discussed the water resource crisis in California due to the continuously increasing demand and global climate change. Since this report covered a huge range of various research areas, he and the other authors invited many people from different research backgrounds to prepare this report (to write several technical appendix from different views, so the authors can have discussions based on these technical conclusions). Anyway, he asked my boss to see if he can recommend anyone familiar with public health risks posed by disinfection byproduct formation. Then, BANG! I was in!

I have to say, that was a tough time working in this project. You only had six months to collect all of the information you needed, review a huge number of literatures, develop and test the models, contact the state and local agencies, and write and revise the report. All of these needed to be done in six months, and you only got a master student to help you (be honest, 她沒什麼用(這句話用中文,免得被相關人等看到), so bascially I worked alone in this project). I still remember when I was in TW for a short break (this trip was decided before I got thie project, so I couldn't cancel it), I brought all the papers with me when I traveled in the South TW with Selene and worked in the hotel every night, so sad~).

Anyway, now the project is done, and I just gave a talk regarding my appendix to the audience from the government in Sacramento last month. The report has been published in this summer, so if someone is interested in what I did during those six months or wants to know what will happen to your drinking water when sea level rises in the future, here are the links for the report and my chapter.

Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,
published by Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=810

Delta Drinking Water Quality and Treatment Costs (55 pages), by Wei-Hsiang Chen, kristine Haunschild, and Jay R. Lund
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/other/708EHR_appendixH.pdf

(I'm pretty sure that none of my friends would really read through the report~)

Happy Holidays,

Will

Recent update

It's been a while again that I haven't updated my blog. Be honest, there was nothing really special that I can talk about. Ha ha. Just working on revising my dissertation, doing experiments, reading other people's manuscript as a reviewer, probalby that's all as usual.

Time flies, and this is December again. Since people used to buy a number of gifts in this holiday month, I did few purchases as well (but most for myself. hey hey~). I got a new coffee maker, which is really cool. At one side you can drip coffee as normal, but at the other side, you can do espresso and steam milk. Maybe I should put a picture; but anyway, I do love it a lot. And today I bought a new keyboard and mice, so now I'm using this brand new toy to type these words. I think this is why I do this posting, ha ha (to feel the new keyboard, oh yeah~).

Btw, Selene and I are playing a Wii game called Animal Crossing: City Folks. At some degrees, I'm feeling that Selene is kind of addicted to this game (even though I also have to admit that it's really fun; maybe so am I, ha~). Anyway, just for anyone's information, if some one is also playing this game, feel free to let me know and maybe we can share the FC and have some fun together.

Happy holiday,