Jun 30, 2007

The things that I believe


Whenever someone is trying to ridicule people who believe in god by showing them the inconsistency of the existence of a god, it only proves how ignorant he is. We all have a set of deeply-entrenched beliefs that are unjustifiable. For those who have a religious belief, it is easier for them to know what they believe. But I don't believe in god, and I need to look deep into my heart to know what I believe. Here is a list of them.

I believe that the future is dynamic, that I must do my best to become what I truly want to be, and that I, as an independent man, have the control of my own life.

I believe that happiness is an internal state of mind, that optimism is much better than pessimism, and that a positive mindset is prerequisite for doing anything significant.

I believe that imagination is more important than knowledge and that the possibility of solving a problem should be the focus rather than problems themselves.

I believe in intuition. (Sometimes the best choice is made before I can understand why, and that is when I really need to follow my heart: "Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it." -- Matrix, Reloaded.)

I believe that the purpose of competitions is to drive me to strengthen myself, and is not to beat others, and that a good opponent sometimes worths more than a teammate.

Jun 17, 2007

Critical Self-assessment 2 -- Love


A girl with the heart of an angel and with dreams; a girl of deep personal conviction to her beliefs and of unmatchable intuition.

...

Let it be. What you can change is yourself, not others. So, let it be.

Critial Self-assessment 2 -- Research


What do you want to know?

In summer, research becomes the sole component of school activities, and for the first time, I taste its intensity: endless possibilities, daunting amount of information to digest and, of course, random excitement. One confusion I had at the beginning stage is how can I possibly do any research if I haven't read all the articles in my field.

The reading is endless. I despair when seeing the number of articles popping up in the search engine. Luckily, one senior member in my group helps me to solve the problem. He simply asked me "what do you want to know?". Even though the field is huge, any project is small, and the knowledge required to kick the project going is small.

This question is an extended version of the more general question: what do you want. I still remember on the first day I met my mentor, he said to me that I will make my life easier if I know what I want. It seemed easy, but in practice, it is not. Now I know why.