This afternoon I went to Prof Kurtz's office to get my last homework back. As he handed my homework to me, he asked "which dept are you from?" I said "Industrial Engineering". Then he said "you did really well this semester. I am really impressed." I didn't expect him to say this, so I just smiled. Then he added "if you ever need somebody to tell somebody (about this), I will be very happy to do that."  I understood that he meant that if I need him to write a recommendation letter he will be happy to do that. I was really happy to hear that. Then I asked some questions I met during reviewing the material - unforntunately, those were not smart questions - actually those turned out to be somehow silly questions. I wonder if he would still keep the good impression for me after I asked those questions :(

 

There are not many big things to congratuate on, so I have to lower my standard for being satisfied with. Since none of my papers has been accepted for publication by now, none of the universities I applied to has invited me for an interview (not even a phone interview), what other things can cheer me up? A compliment from a respected professor, a tiny progress in study or research, a beautiful scene of winter, a good meal - let's feel good about life with those (trivial?) things.

Having been reviewing the material for Math 831 the past 5 days... The exam is the day after tomorrow, and I don't think that I can finish reviewing all the material - this is fine, because I can continue reading the rest after the exam -  I kept comforting myself - it does not matter how much you get in the exam, and what matters is how much you learned - I am too old to have enough time caring about things not really important. However, exams are really good sources of motivation to review those material. I am surprised to find out how much the teacher has been able to teach in one semester, and how simple his own proof is comparing to some of those given in the textbook, and how much progress I have made. I don't plan to take more courses in Madison - although there are still one or two courses I have been interested for a long time - but I have no time. I will have to arrange some time in the future to review all the material I learned - especially those about functional analysis, ordinary differential equations and differentible manifolds - I am not quite satisifed with how much I learned from those courses - I didn't do the final review for those.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

江南给我留下的第一印象来自于书本——更明确一点，是天龙八部中段誉被掳至江南，到姑苏慕容燕子坞那一段。阿碧阿朱的温软吴音，燕子坞中大得无边的荷花湖，还有在荷花间轻巧穿行的小舟，在金庸笔下真是美的出奇。后来才知道金庸本姓查，他的家乡是在江南。

 

李清照也是生在江南的吧？我以为是，因为那首——常记溪亭日暮，沉醉不知归路，兴尽晚回舟，误入藕花深处，争渡，争渡，惊起一滩鸥鹭 ——

 

我是在山区长大的，山中有小溪，山下有小河，春天的时候，山里桃花和田里油菜花是很艳丽的，但这一切都比不上想象中的江南。

 

后来上了大学，同学中有来自江南的，果然不同凡响的才华横溢。

 

读研究生期间去过杭州一带，看了雨中的西湖，在湖心岛上“风月无边”石碑前留了影，还看到寻常酒楼前的对联也往往不落俗套，好生佩服。

 

到美国后的第一个暑假去黄石，在网上介绍中看到黄石之南有个地方叫grant teton的，颇有江南风味。一行六人从黄石出来后便兴致勃勃地前往。远处有雪山，近处有湖，山中有黄色的野花和瀑布——美则美矣，哪里像江南呢。

Just back from a walk outside. The temperature outside was about 17F and it felt like 4F (according to weather.com). I was in my coat, with my hat, grove and scarf on. I was also wearing the earphone for my mobile, so that I was able to talk with JG over the phone during my walk. He was just back from a badminton game, and was preparing his lunch at home. It felt so good talking to him as I walked - it seemed as if we were having a walk together. No, it was even more fun than having a walk together, because we were experiencing things in two totally different situations and we could exchange our feelings. Plus, although the temperature was low, I didn't feel cold at all in my warm coat. And the sunlight was so gental and beautiful.

 

I didn't take my camera with me just now. But I took several photos last morning at campus. Here is one of them.

 

再纪念一下。

from Professor Boyce

 

"Enjoy the life as a student. You are going to miss it." - An advice I have enjoyed following.

 

"Start looking for a job when you are ready, because you will have to spend a lot of time in it." - I remembered this clearly, but I just didn't follow it - maybe I am going to pay the price for not following it.

 

"At the beginning of a paper, give a brief introduction for what you do in this paper." - He mentioned this because I didn't do this - instead I started with an explanation for notations (I may lose audiances for doing that).

 

"Write the example part as if some people will only look at that part - because some people do that. Teach people how to follow your method by the example." I didn't do that either - I wrote the example to show how my assumptions are weaker than those in previous work. That is also important, but, as I now realize, it is not as important as its function as an instruction to the readers, just as Prof. Boyce pointed out.

 

"Being a professor is in some sense similar to running a small company: you do what you find interesting, and work with students... "

 

"You can invite your advisor to dinner even as a current student." - I really never thought about inviting advisors to dinner before he gave this advice. I took it for granted that it will always be the advisor who sends out the invitation.

 

"When you have a plan but your brain are telling you not to follow it, follow the plan instead of your brain." - An advice from tonight's dinner.

 

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

 

Actually, there should have been much more advices from him, but those are what came to my mind at this moment.

 

I learned from him not just by what he said. I admire his strong interest in research. He knows what he wants to do, and loves what he is doing. He actively communicates with people and he is interested in learning new things. He is an expert in transportation planning, and he tries his best to get to know all kinds of people somehow connected to this area - people working in transportation planning companies, in governments, people designing transportation planning software, people doing researches on algorithms, and people working with theories ... And in this way he knows what is going on in the whole industry.

 

He is a pure researcher. He encourages students to present their own thoughts and pursue their own ideas. He is proud of what his students achieved. He once told us a story about Hillel. After Hillel became his student, he gave him a book on traffic equilibrium problems to read. Hillel read it for some time (a month or a week? I can't remember). When they met, Hillel said that he wanted to design a new algorighm for traffic assignment. A new algorithm as opposed to the current arc-based or route-based algorithm? Prof. Boyce thought it to be a bold idea, because so many people have been working on this for years. However, he didn't discourage Hillel, but said "take care". That was how Hillel started his work on the origin-based algorithm. It was not smooth work - that work took one or two years ( I am not sure about the time), including redesigns of the algorithm for at least twice (according to how I remembered what Prof. Boyce said). I know, as a student, how important the advisor's support is for that kind of work to continue. There are also some interesting stories about Prof. R. 

 

You might say - come on, stop talking about things about research - papers are just garbage. My feeling is - yes, papers can be garbage - if the authors of the papers didn't intend them to be of anything else. Prof. Boyce took a serious attitude about doing research, and he cares about how people are going to use their research results. - sometimes I forget the basic motivations for doing research, and care less about applications.