As I was writing this page,
the only audience intended was myself. You've been warned.
Thanks for your genuine interest in my autobiography.
As I was writing this page,
the only audience intended was myself. You've been warned.
Once Upon a Time...
Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, was my hometown in China. I can't really tell you what's special about Chengdu, because there is no basis for comparison: I've lived there for sixteen years, and out of all these years, the total time when I was out of the city is probably less than three months. But still, I couldn't even name a tenth of its streets. Living in an old city is kind of like playing Dungeon and Dragon. To get to know it better you've gotta go into one of those inconspicuous alleys. Who knows? You might find a nice, small tea house there.
In front of our apartment building is Jinjiang River, which eventually goes into Yangtze River. We lived on the top floor, and you can get a wonderful view of the river on the balcony. I didn't need an alarm clock to wake up, because there were people practicing trumpets on the river bank every morning. Foggy mornings were the most beautiful: the misty river, lonely sound of trumpet playing, birds chirping, people coughing from afar... Legend says that you could actually swim in Jinjiang River, but nowadays (or at least when I left there in 1992) they warn you about six-legged tadpoles.
"Salty Road"
Kidergarten seemed boring to me. Pretty soon I went to Yan-Dao Elementary School. Guess what "Yan-Dao" means? "Salty Road"! Yikes! But it was a terrific school.
"Ink Pond"
No.7 High School of Chengdu has another name: "Mo-Chi" High School. And "Mo-Chi" is the Chinese for "Ink Pond". This weird name came from a legend about an old Master who lived there some thousand years ago. Having no environmental awareness at the time, this guy washed his brush in a pond everyday. And alas, the pond finally became Ink Pond! People thought this guy was cool, so they built a school near the Pond...
Ink Pond is a terrific school. On all accounts: Reputation, faculty, scenic campus, fancy teaching facilities, ... and the girl who sits next to you in the class... Geeze, there are just so many things one could do at Ink Pond! I won't elaborate too much; otherwise I'd have to compress this page in .zip format for you to download... A popular activity was digging pits near the school's canteen during lunch breaks. Victims usually lost their lunch food. A disgusting yet very fulfulling escapade. Another common practice was running around with small twigs to kill butterflies, and counting how many you killed during one afternoon. I have no idea why I should like it but I liked it.
Ink Pond is a famous school and we had to work our ass over. Homework assignments were due everyday. They were seldom finished the night before; instead, they were often done secretly underneath the desk in whatever morning classes on the due date. If there was no homework left to do in a lecture, then it was usually nice to have a secret conversation with the girl sitting next to you.
In Ink Pond's stinking computer lab (everybody must take his/her shoes off before entering; hence the stinking part), I was first seduced by BASIC. Not the fancy BASIC you have nowadays; but the good old floating-point BASIC which was burned into the ROM of Apple IIe.
More to come...
Food Sales
San Joaquin Delta College, Stockton, California. Two years of wonderful time --- very little programming!
EECS, Geeks?
Class of '95, Computer Science Division, University of California at Berkeley. It's not easy to get an A+ at Berkeley. I worked hard but still, for three lower (!) division classes, I got A instead of A+. I had no intention to mess up the curve... In that kind of atmosphere, it is just too difficult not to work as hard as other Berkeley "EECS".
I remember one particular morning in my first semester at Berkeley. When I walked into WEB (not the world wide web! It's the ancient computer lab down in the basement of Evans Hall), I saw a guy sleeping underneath the lab desk. Beside him were a bunch of empty coke cans and a pizza box. Then the Great Englightment came upon me, and all those words of wisdom, the Geek Code, the Jargon File, ... all became clear: It is no wonder that the word "EECS" is so similar to "geeks"! Maybe it's not an coincidence after all...
Of course, over the years, I saw the same thing happen over and over again as I spent more and more time in labs. Alas, now I've become indifferent.
On the other side of the campus, far away from Soda and Cory, there is another kind of frenzy. I cherish both kinds. I enjoy setting on the stairs of Sproul Hall and watching people in weird costumes making speeches near the fountain; or studying on the balcony on the tenth floor of Evans and overlooking the magnificent San Francisco Bay. I enjoy walking down the crowded Telegraph Avenue with friends and holding a slice of Blondies Pizza in hand; or sitting in the gloomy rooms of Cory and wiring the circuit board with my lab partner...
Today...
Database Group in Computer Sicence Department at Stanford University.
What's Next?
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