Angry adults must learn to be "mature"

"...... I think I am taking a different approach to deal with a similar problem, in the end, I believe we will all get there, :D"

MT saw me today and it looked like words that i was "badly" affected by students' noise passed on to him. He immediately told me what I should do to stop them from making too much noise. I can tell from his tones there were angers and unhappy memories that float onto him regarding those noisy students. MT used to teach the course I am teaching now. MT was retired when I joined the Business School and it becomes natural I came in to fill in the gap.

I appreciate some colleagues in the Business School being supportive on how to deal with noise in the lecture. We do have guideline on how to deal with them, but they are just static guideline. One colleague claimed dealing with students and "keeping them quiet" is a bit of a game, and that colleague appeared more "empathetic" on matters like this and I suspect some colleagues are still having problem despite their years of experience dealing with noisy students. I mean, we are being employed to teach, to impart knowledge, and to do good research over here. Many a time, we have to remind ourselves to deal with noisy students "maturely".

I "recovered" myself from the incident regarding the students' noise and was spending time today preparing the slides of my final week 10 lecture. Thinking about the "outcome" (by looking at how retired colleagues "feel" about the students after so many years of teaching) it is really sad to see that there were angers, though I appreciate MT for standing by me, but I think I am taking a different approach to deal with the similar problem, in the end, I believe we will all get there, :D

Do whatever we believe in

"I gave a firmed handshake to WDB and say goodbye to him and still with my spirits held high."

We were having a evening meal at Imago, with our guest speaker, WDB for tomorrow who will be talking about expert judgement. WDB is the lead figure in the academia on Behavioural Finance, well known in the field, being invited to many conferences and giving talks to wide ranges of audiences, academics and professional alike. WDB was engaging and people just like chatting with him, topics ranging from the current elections to taxation in the States.

RF who sat next to me was talking her experiences working in the banking sector years ago and how hard it was to quantify variables for forecasting when assessing cases in "analysis" casework. I cut in the middle and add that "we should just go do what we believe in". I mean, at that point, I thought RF make me feel as though there were things in the "forecasting" process that she was not very sure of. Then, I further said that there is nothing such as perfect "forecasting", i.e., we should just get on with it and learn from our experience.

There were some comments from WDB in which he thinks it is a "luxury to do so". I guess he is seeing this from another angle somehow, but I didn't feel I could engage or connect with him at that instant, to have fireworks, so I just not make anymore comments. It was awkward for a while, especially WDB is such a prominent person in the academia, perhaps there is some miscommunication or something, which is a shame.

I increasingly find myself becoming more and more "efficient" these days, just want to "do enough" and not anymore, even engaging in discussion with people, I just made sure I said he more "efficient" things, which I think I did today, "we should just do whatever we believe in" doesn't that sound right? how else one can still challenge that. Our evening meals finished around 10.30 pm, tired and full, we hit the road, I gave a firmed handshake to WDB and say goodbye to him and still with my spirits held high. :D

Working from home

"The material are there for me, and the"mysteries" unlocked, still I have the story line, all that I need is time and space......."

Today I worked from home, it's been quite a while since I last did that. I was away from the office and my students, just on my research. I get myself working on the paper with JR. continued from where I stopped the other day. Progress was made today and in fact, I learnt a lot from JR's dissertation, which was awarded a first class honors standard, and I think JR also went on to get the best dissertation award for finance that year. JR is currently studying a Ms.c course at London Imperial College. I sent him a couple of emails today and it is remarkable he replied quite quickly, despite him having exam at the moment. I was quite impressed. I was also pleased about the progress made today. This means it furthers unlocked the "mysteries" on a few things that hinder the development of my story line in this paper that I am writing with JR.

However, I didn't get on to finish all of the stuff working with JR today. The material are there for me, and the"mysteries" unlocked, still I have the story line, all that I need is time and space to digest them so that the next time I looked at it again new inspirations could emerge.

In the late afternoon, I get on with another of my research about downside risk. This one is an independent research, which I will take care all of them for now. This is at a different stage of the research cycle, still at the idea development stage, so I am reviewing a few papers to search out unique ideas worth the while for doing a research on. It's kind of hard for this one to say if I made progress, because some ideas seemed coming out from the paper I read, but at time it didn't appear that way.

At about 10 pm tonight, I finally read something and "see some lights", so I am getting somewhere before the day ends, and I am happy, and I should take this forward, and trust that will make some research happen out of the ideas that emerged eventually.

I am not paid to get angry

"I like to think that I can completely ignore the noise and concentrate on my lecturing,..."

Now I had given out the mock exam paper, the questions to practice, including my questions and those from the publishers. Then you get emails from students asking for answers. Well, the students are beginning to "ask for more" and then you think about how they were behaving in class, the noise, the disruptive behaviour in the lecture, and you tell yourselves you are not paid to get angry over here, still you cannot help being affected a little.

I think I was also a little tired today, and the students just too happy coming back from their Easter breaks. I have to say, I "lose a bit of ground" towards the end of the second part of the lecture. There were times I didn't feel I engage with the students and the noise got kicking in which is annoying and you heard among students, some of them go shhhhh (I like to thank the student(s) who did that, :D). Of course, that didn't stop the noise and well, I can only do so much and also being a little tired, and a bit "running out of inspiration" at that point, I didn't "find the energy" to react to those noise, and therefore I "lose my ground". Anyway, I got the slides explained in full and done my job.

I now only left with three 2-hours lectures with this course, including a revision lecture. I have roughly done my next week material, and should soon be getting on with the one the week after next. These two other lectures will not include any numerical questions or examples, the more I feel I would need some efforts to get them to pay attention. I can tell today the students are paying more attentions in the first half of the lecture, mainly because I mentioned the exam. This is exactly what one colleague told me about, you tell them the exam, they listen. Perhaps next year I could bring forward my discussion of the exam paper earlier in the weeks during the lecture sessions.

I can only say I had done my best so far for this course. I believe next week students will be given with the feedback forms for them to fill in my evaluations. I had kept a balance approach on how these students are to be supported, despite comments I am "too kind", but I think these are necessary as I only did this for the first time in this institution. I like to think that I can completely ignore the noise and concentrate on my lecturing, but at times it is hard and I should accept that and appropriately express this to the students, not necessary to cause strong outburst, as it won't do me any good, but we are not god, so it just lies in how we control the emotion and not let it affect our lecturing.

Getting a kick start to "write a story"

"And each day, little by little, it gets built up into something bigger, and the whole story should complete one day..."

I began putting together material to write the paper about the German DAX, deriving from JR's dissertation, which looked like a complete piece of work, being a dissertation, with literature review, methodology, data, finding and conclusion, like how you would expect to be the structure of any journal article. But, this time, I am facing a challenge of a different type. I think I am more of a story teller here. I need some "selling skills" here. Write something that flows, make sense, built into a climax, appeal to the potential readers and have some sensible implications. There you go and we are talking about writing an academic paper, thinking like JK Rowling (but earn lesser than her :( ), but must write in a way appeal to our "type" of readers, which are not often the same readers who would read a dissertation.

I spent most of my afternoon sourcing for papers of similar topics, and read them as if a scanner, and as perceptively as I could, pick out main idea in each of the papers I came across and connects all the ideas together and tried putting them in my paper, referencing them properly too. Well, I ended up only writing 5 lines.

This is all good experience for me, it is just at a different phase of a research and needed different type of skills and make you realise you have to be just as versatile and adaptable throughout the different stages in a research cycle. It is also something that don't use "quantity" as a measures to assess outcome, it is quality that counts, so the more one needs to be patient and be aware of the progress.

Today I finished 5 lines, tomorrow as I carried on, and built upon that, I should get new inspirations and ideas to begin with. The outcome of that research, by the end of tomorrow should be entirely different. And each day, little by little, it gets built up into something bigger, and the whole story should complete one day, not too far into the future, and hopefully it should be nearer to submitting to a good journal. :D

pleasant excitement in everyday life

"It felt refreshing having a change every now and then, though not big one"

Tomorrow is the first day back to the campus for our students, after the 4 weeks easter breaks. Friends must be envious of us also having holidays, the truth is we were working, except that the main job of teaching was not taken place and we just get on doing other stuff. It's been quite a Easter breaks for me. Volcanic ashes, virus attacks, the mad rush for exam papers, etc, all are important events taken place during those periods.

On my end here, I have been able to finish my exam papers, mock paper, questions I intended on giving students for practice purposes, and of course research plans, all seemed to be well in place. I have also done up my slides for the next two weeks, so I seemed fine with things and like "nothing to worry about".

As I said before about dealing with the "challenge" of "settling down" is to fix myself onto a certain routine or make changes to routine to inject some forms of pleasant excitement and in fact, I tried something recently. I began going for my usual swim on Sunday evening. As I came back today from my swim around 8 pm, when most shops were closed and while the day light is still on, I was walking relaxedly listening to my ipod, feeling fresh and good after my swim. Then as usual you get back home, you set the cooker up for dinner and the other routine follows. It felt refreshing having a change every now and then, though not big one.

I can now see the positive effect of preparing my dinner beginning of each day and how that get me ready for a day to start, which has positive impact for the rest of my day. Then, before I end the day, before I gone to bed, I often will have a cup of hot chocolate. It gave you comfort with something warm in your stomach. Anyway, I am looking forward to finishing all the rest of my course, and then get on with the exam marking, and I can spend more times on my research, :D

Do you remember "告別" and "一條日光大道"?

This morning I routinely tuned into Hito Fm music station, a very familiar song came to my ear. That song, more than 10 years ago, back to my college/high school day, bring back memories, but this time, the song is sang with a different interpretation, a remake. I then checked out on youtube after hearing the DJ mentioned the name of the singer. The track can be heard below



I was a little surprise to know that the music video of "告別" (farewell) has cleverly incorporated a gay-theme. The original, however, was a duet between the composer,李泰祥 and his student, 唐曉詩. The original version can be heard here. The music video of the new version of the song was well made and edited, and the musical arrangement was great. I also almost believe this is a sequence of scenes from a full length movie. The lyrics was very generic and it seemed plausible for a gay-theme by the way the song describes it, though I don't think it was what the song originally meant to be about.

I searched a little into the singer, Leo Chen (陳永龍) and find that he is a Taiwanese naive singer, singing similar tune to those commonly known to be "folk songs". I heard that in Taiwan, the naive singers are strong excellent singer with very artistic talents. He seemed to have that talents too. I found another song by the same singer on youtube, it's called, 一條日光大道 (Sunshine Avenue), another remake of the sort of songs I listened to in my high school day.



I have not heard song like this for a very long time. It is so soothing and light-hearted, unlike some heavy metal, or "bad romance", "bad boy" sort of pop tunes, this song is so bright and sunshine-ish, you just get into the mood of the song and just by the tune and tempo, you can feel the emotion already, I am sure. :D

is the Mcafee's "virus" appearing for the right reason?

"It is really for me to find out and for me to know...."

The second day I have my laptop survived from the Mcafee's crisis and I started to recall what gone through my mind when the "virus" was still on my laptop. I remember and also I said yesterday that technological leverage is something that most of us overlooked, and this is not a good sign. I don't want to take away the merit of the wonder of technology that make our life a lot better and well-being enhanced, but the truth is, there is always a "too much of a good thing" about, so when the virus was bugging my laptop, I did thought about what else I could do apart from laptop, a simple question that seems hard for me to answer.

Clearly, I have been quite obsessed as you may have read already on my other blog posts. In fact, shamelessly, may I say I had just finished a game of bubble, and I didn't have a good one this time. Anyway, what came to my mind was READING. Yes, reading stuff outside my research area. I mean, after having dinner in front of the laptop while watching "deal or no deal" and after finishing my lovely kiwi and smoothie, switched the laptop off or simply move away from the laptop and picked up a book and read, while switching on the music.

I could also check out the local drinking places and go out and about in the evening. I should perhaps thank Mcafee for the "virus" because it made me think of my lifestyle and how it could be made more interesting. Outside the world of laptop and www and perhaps also outside my work, there are many things to do and pursue, it is really for me to find out and for me to know.

Get over your nerves; get on with the crisis!

"technological leverages can be so overlooked that it did not make people realise the extent they are dependent on it"

It's been quite a roller coaster for the past couple of days. I felt as if living between heaven and hell in just a split of seconds. This darling laptop I am currently using has been with me for about 3 years, we went through up and down so many times. As far as I can remember, it has been "rebulit" after two years, in which I learnt the lesson NOT to use Internet Explorer because it has some really "bad technology" that crashes your systems often and leading to under performance of your computer. The second time was earlier this year in Februrary when it was attacked by malware. That was quite easily sorted. Now, the third time which was just yesterday, was caused by a mis-fixes of Anti-virus, McAfee when it conducted its routine update yesterday. The update is meant to give "better" protection, but it led to "over" protection to the extent it even wrongly detected some "good" files and deleted it. That resulted in big chao.

Well, I was a bit stranded in my own small world. The system shut itself down as soon as you log on and you don't know why. So, I went to logon my baby laptop (yes, I have two laptops, :D) and I found it is about the the consequence due to the mis-fix of Mcafee To make matter worst, my curiosity and anxiety lead me to keep checking on my laptop and later I found I lost my internet connection and after calling AOL they confirmed that they cannot locate my IP address and that the driver is causing problem and indeed this morning, my usb cannot even be read! I thought that was similar to what I encountered when my laptop crashed for the first time. I am not sure if I had to "rebuild" again, which I hope not because that would mean I have to wipe out my laptop completely, :(

As the Mcafee software is provided to us free for home use by the University and because this problem also creates some University wide alert, the helpdesk people give me some ideas how to get it sorted. I was not feeling hopeful to be honest. You are just not sure how this could affect you. I have to say I take it a lot easier this time. I joked with colleagues about this problem as I knew some also faced similar situations. I was glad I took it well because I still managed to keep my cool and carry on with my daily work routine. My thinking was if my laptop turned bad, I would at most work from office even on the weekend. I mean I don't work quite a lot in the evening anyway, so this would mean I would have to spend slightly longer hours everyday in the office, to compensate for the time I may resort to the computer in the evening. So, that was not a problem.

At the end of the day, I got it sorted and now back online again. Lots of thoughts come through my head arising from this event, like "how technological leverages can be so overlooked that you just have no idea how you are dependent on it. After all, it felt like a journey dealing with this little crisis of mine. I did feel I had made some insightful reflections from it. I believed this will make me "more grounded", :D

Obsession! (2)

"iPhone for a 3 year old??! that is a serious obsession!"

The obsession carried on and I am even better at playing bubble!!! I hit down all bubbles three times in that 2 hours of continuous non-stop playing the game. I think I am enjoying myself because I was not tired, so I must be doing something right, about the strategies of playing the game.

All else, I had a productive day discussing research with LLY, and thought there is something preliminary we can look at for now, but I am still trying to know more about LLY and her style. I sent another email to JR, have some ideas closer to putting all material together to tell the story for my paper with JR, so that is good news. I would not think I am aiming for a 3* for this one. I mean JR's dissertation is a undergraduate level, still some work need doing to advance the current standard. Anyway, get the story right is one important thing to get it done for now.

I also should not be too relaxed, as I only left with so many days before the Easter breaks officially come to a close. Well, I need a mock exam paper done soon and my week 9 lecture material to be ready. Just keep doing what I am doing and I believe should be soon finished what I am supposed to finish. :D

Obsession!

Okay, I admit it! I have this obsession with that game called, "bubble", sent to me in an email and EXCEL file by a "wicked" friend. If you see the picture on this post, you can see that it is not different from other similar game you may have come across, but believe me, this one make you a lot more addictive, because it is so difficult to "hit down all the balls" and very tedious. It is not the usual way you will play it. Anyway, I conquered it, and the more I know the tricks, the more I want to spend times playing it. That is how the obsession gets worse!

The main reason for not ignoring the obsession is because it is making me confused why I am not as "productive" doing my research on the weekend. Only when I decided to put it away (because I am tired playing it) then I feel I am "in control". Not sure if this is by coincidence, then I realised it seemed I am more productive with doing the research in the afternoon like after 12 pm, which happened today. So, I managed to get some stuff ready for LLY tomorrow for our research meeting, which I am happy about.

This weekend is not a bad one if considering it to be a "working weekend", especially things also get clearer with stuff working with JR. This reminded me I still need to reply to JL on the continued research idea he suggested to me.

Perhaps this is only a "transition", as in, as I get used to the new research tasks, and clearer the direction as it goes, it should get on its momentum soon and things will get going. Yes, I should be pleased. Oh, but what about this "obsession". Should I just let it go and let the obsession take over me and let it take good care of itself?

Take things one at a time

"It is more effective to take things one at a time, rather than take life one day at a time. Don't you have any ambition?"

It seemed like my lunch with BB yesterday had some good effects on me. It brought me back to perspective on my research a lot better than used to be. Just like today, I finished my draft for the material lecture for beginning of the term the week after next, and then I wasted a bit of time surfing the web randomly and playing games, etc, but as I took out JR, my former student dissertation and have a read again, I begin to see what I am supposed to do. I re-read the email JR replied to me last week about my question to him regarding some points about his dissertation. I look at his reply two or three times and I get an idea about the main idea he is getting at and immediately I started to locate areas in his dissertation I can consolidate to put together and make it into a academic article.

Therefore, most of my afternoon I was looking at the German DAX Index, the data that JR used for his dissertation. I am seeing new perspective coming from his dissertation. I think this is the second time since the beginning of the year, I had some productive time spent on doing research. This also reminded me I am going to have a meeting with LL on Monday, so I must get something prepared too. Perhaps tomorrow I will prepare a spreadsheet demonstrating how my model, as showed in my published paper, worked.

Things seem to take shape slowly on the research front. Sticking to the principle that I sometimes told myself to do, i.e., taking things one at a time, it seemed not to let me down or disappoint me and it works well on the few things on research that are going on at the moment for me. More importantly, I am enjoying it as I DO see the purpose of doing them. I am feeling upbeat about it because I strongly sense that things are going up for me on research :D

BB and his talent

"sometimes we just know too much of others and too little of ourselves..."

I was very relaxed today. I didn't leave my office until about 7.30 pm, and the daylight was still on. It was a very lovely and sunny day. I decided to stay behind to do some work as the day was busy. I had lunch today with BB. He actually treated me this one. BB, a nice guy as I heard many colleagues said of him. To me, BB is of a different league compared to most of us. He has his PhD in mathematics from one of China's most well known University internationally. And he got himself a post in a foreign University based on that. Unlike so many Chinese youngsters these days who longed to get out of China to the Western University to study, to get a degree, etc, BB certainly has got a lot more talents and very bright.

I got to say some times academics are quite subtle and needs time to open themselves up, and BB is the same.We chat generally, a bit of laugh with silly things at work, and discussion of some other talented, but weirdly behaved senior professors. During our session of chat, I came to know BB had a lot better trainings in his research and that build his experience up better.

I do know everyone background differs and everyone was trained differently to attain what they have in the life. In my opinion, BB is just exceptional. Perhaps sometimes we just know too much of others and too little of ourselves, but one thing for sure, never slow down the pace of improving oneself, because things get change so fast in the dynamic environments, which is one reason that motivated me to stay behind to get work done, for I still need to find my niche in my work and be better at it. Not that easy, but not impossible either, when there are people like BB around, you know you also can do the impossible, :D

Getting on with tasks, getting there!

I was still preparing for my exam questions today and YS, being the second marker of the exam paper was very patient and keep helping to double check stuff I wrote. That was good as it gave me good ideas about the standard of the students here, and how I should phase my questions so that it won't appear "too easy". This is helpful for future reference as well.

YS also passed on to me a PhD application, asking me to have a read and made some comments. This reminded me I have 3 other similar applications as yet to reply to WS. Thinking of how frequently we received PhD applications, honestly it freaked me out, there were SO MANY of them. And our staff strengths can only take so much, so it is important we don't become too overloaded. still, it means we have got choices and can go for the REALLY good candidate.

I guessed I also accepted now PhD supervision is one of our tasks over here, and dealing with applications, which randomly come in either in huge or small numbers is something we have to efficiently deal with and more importantly, we made the right decisions. This also brought me to the an application that we received few weeks ago in which I told BB about it and he was interested. I was asked to contact the candidate for further details, but then now I realised there are likely to have better ones coming along, so we don't have to spend too much time "qualify" them. What I did today, before I finished for my day in the office was to write quick comments on the 3 PhD applications I have on hand and then should pass to WS for him to take necessary actions. And that is one task ticked off my list! Getting there, :D

Am I taking on "too much"?!

"Oh TART, how lovely!:D"

Today I told WF I am like a "tart" because I am always "in talk" with people about research. Sometimes, you find this quite scary. Given a piece of research took 18 months complete from start to send out to Journal, you wonder how are you going to handle it when you take on "too much", especially now you also know you do get better control by doing research all by yourselves. I am not sure if it is simply a matter of telling yourselves, "take it easy" will do, because you still need to face it and get on with it. But it is a bit of a distraction when you have to do teaching related stuff like exam papers preparation, in which YS had given me lots of helps and advises today, which I much appreciated.

By the end of the day, I try to balance up my day with some "research". I emailed GS a couple of papers on the housing market. Yes, there is a time to stop being a "tart", because you do need to focus and keep a limit on the ranges of research you are undertaking at one time. It is no good to get over-stretch. WF was often very passionate when he talked about research and he did came across doing "too much", but then he is more experienced, so perhaps he can afford to do so.

A good way to deal with this, is to make sure I do something everyday about research, no matter how small they are, as long as there are some continuity and consistency, I can be ensure of being productive and get things on the move. Distraction stuff will get lesser and time can be occupied by more research eventually, which mean you have to work really hard, and that means lesser leisure activities.

Have you "settled down"?

This Easter break is a breather for me. Since moving to Loughborough, I felt I had been "working non stop". This is mostly referring to teaching, in which it can get on from one week to the next with you having to prepare stuff on a week to week basis, given you do them for the first time. This can be quite mad and at times made you breathless. I said yesterday "A load has lifted" and that is true. Today I continued to feel the same way, now with some thoughts on the sort of life when things get "settled down", which left you wondering what is so fun about "settling down". It looks like it "settled down" to some "boredom".

So what is "settling down"?! Some claimed this to be marriage, family, children, etc. If you however take this to be a "personal affair". It is like the sort of "equilibrium" you want to attain, never mind whether you are married or not. To me, "settled down" seem to mean having all loose ends tightened up eventually when you moved into a new place. So, getting your bills sorted, telephone line transferred to new place, getting bank details updated are some examples.

You then asked, so what's next? well, if you want to "get a life", like me, you may start to form some sort of "routine" to follow and then stick to it. Perhaps you are trying to position some sort of "equilibrium" in you to feel "settled". So, does that feel like a minimalist experience? or even cooking or making dinner can also become a therapy. Perhaps these are just a mean to an end, for finding an equilibrium in you, that "feel" the same consistently despite whatever happens around you. I think I am still finding that, however, have you found yours? :D

A load has lifted and I am enjoying

A load has lifted. What else, but the exam paper preparation. Came back from Cardiff last week and dive straight into preparing the exam papers, and during a period where secretaries went on Easter holidaying and the office empty, and left you there PANIC!! But I survived that, now I only let colleagues read my exam papers and I read theirs, and made comments for change, if any.

I was told the course I taught now used to have high percentage of failure from the exam. It probably due to the lecturer teaching at that time and so for now, something has to change for the better. Since I now took over the course, plus having some experiences handling similar problem before, I hope I am doing everything right up till now, to prevent another "crisis" from happening. All else, it has been a rather relaxing day, most colleauges and secretaries were back from holidays. And I finally dealt with my other unfinished tasks and made progress.

I also got on with the research with former student JR and today received a pleasant email from another former student, HM. I really should reply the email nicely. HM was a bright student and I do think I missed my former students sometimes. Facing with the noisy bunch over here, who would not? I just hope they will get better through time.

The talented Mr Ripley

I first watched "The Talented Mr Ripley" few years ago while living in Glasgow. I still didn't know Anthony Minghella was the director at the time. I enjoyed the film at the instance, particularly very appealed to the "storyline", the criminal plots and the clever twist of the development throughout the film. It was after few years as I took notice of Anthony Minghella that I began to see the uniqueness of "The talented Mr Ripley". Years ago, a friend gave me the video tape of this film. Now, I still played and watch it over again and again. Apart from Tom Ripley, the below are other characters that I liked in the film.

1) Jude Law - He played Dickie Greenleaf. I also only get to know more of Jude Law through this film. His Spoilt rich kid, and playboy character in this film is very well acted by him. He teased each and every characters in the film with his charm. That is why Tom Ripley is so drawn to him and so "want to be him".

2) Cate Blanchett - Cate Blanchett played the character, Meredith, who is a brief encounter to Tom Ripley. She only appears in the beginning, middle and end of the film. But, Cate Blanchett is such a fine actress. She shows the eagerness for Tom Ripley, whom she mistaken to be Dickie Greenleaf, and able to express it just enough to maintain her subtleness, like any posh young lady would do in the 1950s.

3) Philip Seymour Hoffman - Philip Seymour Hoffman played Freddie Miles, the only character in the film that suspected Tom to be "involved" with Dickie Greenleaf. He is camp and show enough in his campness (which is just nice!) to imply to Tom of the latter "intention".



Overall the cast of this film is very good. Each and every character has a place in them and they are simply unforgettable. I also loved the "Jazz theme" in the film, using that as an element to show it as a "luxurious pastimes" of Dickie and enhance the 1950's feel of the film and even more so when it is set in Italy. How stylish that is! Just watch the clip above and see if you agree, :D

Gabriel Yared, who is the soundtrack composer, did a great job for the background music that often reflect the underlying emotion of Tom Ripley, reminded the audience of the irony of life facing Tom Ripley's sexualities. It left the audience engrossed in the underlying emotion embedded within the tracks (here's one of the tracks you can listen and decide it for yourselves) which so subtly captured the anxiety of Tom towards his own sexuality, which was made "unclear" in the film.

There was a short note on "desire" on a postcard shown in the film (and shown in the picture above), when Dickie was trying to write something back to his dad in New York. That could be taken as the theme the film is trying to focus on, and could be understood to go beyond sexualities and explain most of Tom Ripley's behaviour.

Do you know of a Middle Eastern Cafe?!

"Big city has got their excitements. Small towns also have nice pleasant surprise......"

Friends from Singapore often very curious about what "Loughborough" is all about, information on the web can only give that much, so the best way is to report it first hand. Well, today seems a good opportunity to do so, it's a sunny and lovely Saturday, 16 degrees on average throughout the day and I went out to the town area for a walk. Loughborough is a town, not a city, only 60000 people in total. I always tell friends from Singapore that it is as good as one Ang Mo Kio or one Tampines.

Anyway, a typical town in the UK normally has got roads that are narrower, and hence you find distance between shops then to be closer, the road are also flatter and you can cycle all days long without easily losing your balance (??!!). Now that I had lived as far as the North East of Scotland, I know how it felt like "being isolated". Thank god, though Loughborough is small, it is not isolated, people worked here, but not necessarily lived here. This affects their mentality and behaviour towards work. The less isolated location creates a more dynamic competitions and environment for anyone to conduct their businesses, and particularly so for big organisation such as the University.

I went to the Queen's Park, which is not too far where I lived and today it was packed with people having afternoon picnics and kids playing games. We get to the shops easily from the Park. There are a few charity shops around. Sometimes you do get good bargains in charity shops. The other day I bought a "Levi"-brand casual checker long sleeve, nice fit good cut, and only costs me £5 (or S$10.50).

Apart from the usual amenities like cinema and supermarkets, there are quite a number of nice local coffee cafe, which is very conducive and cosy in a town like Loughborough, given that they are located along pedestrian's walkway, and especially during the a warm Summer afternoon, it's really nice. The coffee cafe comes in different characters, unlike the standardised static brand such as Starbuck!

It was interesting to note today that a "middle-eastern cafe" is to be opened from 14th April! Big city has got their excitements, but small towns also have nice pleasant surprise. This has helped enrich my experience of living here because every so often you sure have got something to look forward to. :D

Running out of time?

Sometimes I over-estimate myself, but I thought as long as it is not too high a price to pay, it is a "good exercise", it helps you revise your expectation, allowing you to know a bit of the situation and becoming more realistic. Remember the few things I listed down few days ago to complete, in which one of the main tasks is working on the exam papers? Well, up until the end of the working day, I still cannot say I had done them all, never mind the other tasks on the list. So, I keep working back and forth, always take another look on my (old)list and think how well to do them within expectation and accomplish on time.

Obviously, between then and now, new tasks occurred and I would have to attend to it, like I just received an email from WS to ask me fix a date for presenting my research next term, this means I need time set aside for the preparation. But, I have LOADS of time! Yes, loads of time and by saying so, I am not encouraging myself to become procrastinated, rather to reduce my anxiety as I always think I "running out" of time and then not having "enough time". Though time management works on the basis of one thinking "not having enough" time, overly anxious of "running out of time", however, can be counter productive and does not work for me.

I bought back home today previously unfinished task including teaching and research related ones to work through over the weekend. How does that feel? well, I don't want this to turn out as another "shock" since it will be entirely "new" type of task compared to the exam paper preparation. They are the things in my head for a while and I have been thinking and discussing with colleagues about it, so I am more prepared to start doing them. This will help ensure better productivity when I started to do them as "new" task. My previous few nights have been quite relaxed, able to separate from "work" time with "leisure" time, which are all important to maintain work life balance as well as maintaining focus on work.

Look at him, Lin Yu Chun (林育群）！

I saw him this morning on GMTV, and then later on heard about him again on Radio 2's Steve wright in the afternoon. They called him the "Chinese Susan Boyle". His Chinese name, Lin Yu Chun (林育群）. The following youtube video perhaps give you some idea how he sang that Whitney Houston's song.



So, are you impressed at all and what do you think about him? I often wonder is there anything in the east that "made a name" in the west? In my most recent memory is perhaps the famous "karaoke" machine invented by the Japanese. We are still not in the stage for the western people to sing Chinese song as easy as Chinese(Taiwanese) singing English Songs. Interestingly, the "Superstar Avenue" talent show that "Lin Yu Chun" appeared in, is also a concept derived from the west. I told my British friends "globalisation = Westernisation" and we had a laugh at it, but I think it is true to some extent!

Anyway, the fast-moving consumption preference and culture is being made more wide-spread by the speed of information transmission via the internet, which spread news and heightened people popularity as fast as the way virus spreads from people to people. The news are always interesting and entertaining and always lots of fun. In fact, Report claimed that Lin's youtube video has now been hit over 150,000 views, and searches for "Lin Yu Chun" have gone up over 200% in the past 24 hours. They even expect to see this guy become an international sensation. They even speculate an appearance on an American morning show is almost certainly in his future! Well, let's see if anything new will come from this young boy and I am certainly looking forward to the next headline he hits the press.

Do you have sleep problem?

"Sleep gives you the source of energy and drive..."

Do you sometimes have "problem" sleeping at night? I guess we all do, not that this is like "serious insomnia", rather, it is like a FACT as you grow older you sleep lesser, though doctors still insist the normal hour for an adult is 8 hours each night. However, do you know high powered individual such as Margaret Thatcher claims she only needs 5 hours sleep every night.

Let's be honest, there are some rare occasions that kept us awake all night if certain things crowd our mind, that is, however, only situational and can happen to any NORMAL person. Having said that, what is annoying is that, you get interrupted at night and you find it hard to go back to sleep. My own experience about sleep is a bit different. When I was in the previous flat in Scotland, I find it hard to sleep throughout the night at first because my bedroom is too spacious. I could not understand this. I kind of associate smallness with comfort. I have to say I cannot bear living in a big space for too long. I am afraid of space and this can affect my sleep. Now, two types of interruption often awakes me at night.

1) Active interruption: I am glad with my current location of my flat, which is not along some main streets in the town center and so it is not exposed very much to heavy traffic and human noise. So, this helps me to get less interrupted at night

2) Passive interruption. This is tricky. Sometimes quite strangely, you woke up in the middle of the night, and then thoughts get in your head. Sometimes, you asked yourselves "to sleep" and subconsciously you did, other times, not that straightforward. You REALLY have to TRY HARD to get back to sleep. But I normally woke up in the middle of the night after about 5 hours sleep, though I would think my normal hour sleep is between 6 and 7 hours.

Some tips provided in this article about good sleep are helpful. I do agree room temperature and what sort of things you ate before you sleep are important. I also found that if I went swimming earlier in the evening for that particular day, I tend to sleep well. Sometimes a slight problem for me is that, when I woke up in the morning, I can be so reluctant to get up and I just lie on my mattress for long time and it wasted some precious times that I could get myself up early for a good start for my day. Other times, when I find myself not having enough sleep, I can tell my day will be a bit affected. In any case, I normally will try to get a nap in the afternoon and that help compensate some loss of sleep in the previous the night.

Sleep is 1/3 of our daily life. It gives you the source of energy and drive as we need them to help us work our best. It cannot be ignore and it cannot be lost, so you MUST find ways to compensate for it, because you need to REGAIN your energy!

Dining out!

".... the thought of "food" hijack my head and took over the space for thinking..."

The office was still quiet today, but seen the sights of few colleagues, perhaps like me, they thought the office have opened today. I saw WF as well, had brief chat and gossips about the recent conference we both attended. Then, I went back to my tedious and boring exam question preparations, and perhaps too bored for WF too, he suggested in the afternoon we went out for a meal in the evening, which I agreed. Since then, I believe it is the boredom of preparing the exam questions and the thought of "food" hijack my head and took over the space for thinking for the exam questions as well. I just didn't feel I was working at full capacity after that, but very quickly it is time to meet and we headed off to our favourite Indian restaurant, "Koh-I-noor".

It was not located in the busiest part of town, and the restaurant design not considered contemporary, but the manager was always very smiley and polite, making the experience a very pleasant one. He often let us take the corner seats which give enough privacy. Compared to the other Indian Restaurant we went last time when RW visited us to present a paper, Koh-I-Noor serves bigger portion and the dishes better made. I ordered a Balti Mixed (consisting mainly seafood, chicken and lamb) while WF ordered his regular vegetable Balti with naan bread. I ordered rice alongside main dish and was also given a naan bread. I was already quite full when I finished my rice, but the naan bread was soft and nice. I tried some but didn't finish it. I thought it was one of the nicest naan bread I had tried.

We didn't order a coffee or tea to finish our meal, but we were offered two small shots of warm alcoholic chocolate cream, which was a delight. We were given free £5 voucher last time we came here to use for our future visit, though I had forgotten to bring it tonight, the price we paid was good value. WF and I had good chats and catching up in our 2 hours in "Koh-I-Noor" and therefore a great dining out experience there.

Knowledge is power!

"The more we know, the more we don't know, can confidence really help?"

I went to the office today. It's Easter Holiday Monday and it was quiet, but I met MT and we had a chat. I would consider our chats to be one of the more important chats that I had with anyone in the academia.

I don't aim to be like anyone, not even MT, but MT has some good quality and attitude in him that made him a good role model for the junior people to follow. We had a chat about research, regarding a published paper I showed him last week to ask him about the potential further research area that can be developed from my published work. He had some criticisms about my paper and he was honest about it. He was also encouraging and I find the discussion with him very morale and esteem uplifting and they are all very important to me, because of his experience and expertise.

MT is also pragmatic, as he advised me of the need to do the RIGHT thing as we are all facing the "institutional constraints" to produce research paper and therefore the CHOICE of the area is important. As a serious research himself (and I believe I am one too!), he definitely see the TRUTH underlying each research, such as the level and margin of contributions of each piece of published research. He suggested me to keep doing what I am doing and be aware of the more "revolutionary" issue that he told me about, which I am sure I will.

The chat with MT further reinforced my decision to want to "do something" in the academia. I don't want to turn my head back twenty years later to know that, all that I did in that twenty years for published research work is just to satisfy the institution's needs to produce research papers, and not taking care too much about the extent of my research's contributions to NEW knowledge. And that's VERY sad.

In fact, the more one knows, the more one don't know, how can one be just satisfied to go by the "empirically convenient" means to do research, and totally ignore the fact that we are in a business of building new knowledge. The next phase in my academic career will be an exciting journey and perhaps going to be a lot more challenging than I thought, but the good discussion with MT today already inspired, encouraged and more importantly, motivated me.

The truth about Relaxation

"Everything has to be "complete", that includes relaxation......"

There is something new to learn everyday, that way, you never get tired living another day as you look forward to experience another new interesting event. I learned something that many knew already today. I learned about "relaxation". Let me share with you.

1) "Relaxation" is planned - I would not go London to see friends at very short notice for the sake of relaxing, that is too much of a shock, both for me and my friend.

2) "Relaxation" is doing different things at the usual time schedule - I was normally preparing lecture slides on the Sunday evening. We have no lecture next week, so thinking of this, we are not pressing for time, we can engage in different activities for relaxing on the Sunday evening.

3) "Relaxation" is about being focused - relaxation should not end up making one feel bored and that time has wasted "doing nothing" or "nothing much". Following from 1) above, if planned properly, it is not hard to find things to do when relaxing, it might be as easy as reading a book, going for a shop, getting out and about, etc.

4) "Relaxation" is another "learning" experience - whatever you do when you relax, it should make you feel you are gaining something from it, learning something from it, that way the whole relaxation experience should be considered complete and should get you ready to the next task and I am now ready for work tomorrow, to execute the lists drawn up shown in yesterday's post. :D

The remains of my Easter holidays

"Time flies, but you are the pilot..."

As I began counting the remaining of my Easter holidays, I find there are actually only 3 weeks left. Time will definitely pass before you realise it. This week has been a mixture of work and pleasures, conference, blogging, etc. It's time to get "serious work" done. This reminded me it's also time to pick myself up and to be "productive again".

The followings are the things I should get done soon.
1) Set last tutorial questions/answers for CF
2) Exam questions and answers
3) Sent email to conference attendants
4) Submit my claims
5) Credit cards bills
6) Call collaborator to come here for a presentation
7) Fix a time to meet BB for lunch/discussing research
8) Do a WP for the paper JL/I just sent out
9) Discuss with JL on further research
10) Conduct own research
11) Get train ticket for placement visit in May

Some of the above are more urgent than others, and have deadlines. I am trying to get the exam/tutorials stuff off the lists as soon as possible and then do the rest. I also promise WB to give a seminar end April/early May, so need to get that sorted too. I wanted to take things slower than normal because it is the holiday, I mean now that I have no urgency to do my slides for the usual Tuesday CF lecture, it should be fine, but then there is always "something" I want to get it done.

I am also thinking if I should go in office tomorrow, so that I can get some stuff done soon, like claiming for expenses, etc, just so that I will have more time for other items on the list coming next week. I don't know how to take things one at a time now, though this is what I sometimes told my students to do. All that I know is finished my tasks before time and having enough time for later is a "good feeling". You "work hard now and enjoy later" - a very "Chinese way" of thinking, :D

I can't "wear my skin", but my blog can!

"Life can be complicated, having a cute blog doesn't have to be"

It's the Easter Friday and it is wet. I had a quiet day spending at home mostly. Today I mainly search the web for "new skins" - it's the skins for my blog. That is how I spent my day. One of the rare days that I didn't do anything about work, how amazing! I enjoyed writing blogs so far, but get bored with the design and the background theme. I am looking for something new and have few considerations when thinking any changes.

1) It has to be pleasant to the eyes - When people read my blog, I don't want them to be too "shocked" by the design, "too heavy looking", "too futuristic" or "too dark".

2) It has to be suitable for my theme - I named my blog "zen breather". In a simplest way, it means a form of thinking "properly" and "sequentially". I might not get RIGHT by my definition, but it is just the way I believe to be CORRECT WAY OF THINKING because it works for me and relate appropriately to ZEN THINKING. A suitable theme is something more of a lighted shade of colour. Zen needs not be nature, waterfall, Japanese, etc, it has to have a shade of light green, not sure if it is because I like green, :D

3) I must know how to do it - I adore some fairly cool designs of skins, but they were too complex for me. In the end, I discovered that it doesn't have to be too complicated for a change, some blog background themes required very few amendments to the html codes and it is easy to do. I tried out some to see if it works on my boring blogspot theme.

I have good fun trying out all sorts of skins and background. You never have a perfect one. I really like the header of my blog, it is after all provided by blogspot and now I am getting a bit bored, perhaps it is time to look for new inspirations. I am still enjoying the blog writing experience. I didn't feel I am all too geeky because I spent loads of time in front of the PC/laptop, which, fairly enough about 8 hours in total everyday. I find my life integrating nicely with those spent in the cyber-world and those in the real world. In the 21st century today, I am leading a very "normal" life. :D

Interestingly, I saw this site about this guy decided to stop writing blogs after having 2000 entries. His ego must get a boost after comments come flooding in from his supposedly regular readers. I can be sure I will still stick to blog writing for as long as possible. I think it is about the expectation and whether you can stick to the habit of doing so with some discipline, just like brushing your teeth everyday and night. Blogging is ABOUT YOU, the nice side, the ugly side, other people don't have to like or accept it, that includes the design and the theme. I like to thank my friends reading the blogs and leaving comments, it should be an experience that "help you to grow" and becoming better, just like the way your life operates, if not how can one ever find a reason to live, you tell me! :D

7 tips to get the most out of a conference

"I am afraid venue alone is not enough to make a conference a success."

Today is the last day at the conference. Having experienced some "food fest" shocks yesterday didn't stop me to take a step back and think, the following are few tips I think will help you get the most out of any academic conference you are attending.


1) Attend the presentations selectively - One is motivated more by the popularity of the speaker than the relevance of the topics before deciding which parallel session to attend. Experienced researchers tend to be better speaker. They are clearer and can communicate better, but it also benefits attending talks of topics relevant to you, this helps either enhancing your knowledge or allow you to contribute productively to the speaker

2) Listen attentively - I am normally too lazy or busy to go through the papers in advance and therefore not able to get an idea of the papers. Therefore the more I need to listen attentively. The presentations and the slides may not be the best or well organised, but there are always the main points, so pick that up and see what the presenter got to say and if you can beneift or able to contribute constructively.

3) Think about the speaker sympathetically - Sometimes the speaker may not be as experienced, like e.g., a PhD student presenting for the first time, and they may be nervous. We need to be able to bear some imperfections.

4) Ask questions appropriately - Following from 3) if later we have questions to ask the speaker, we ought to be as appropriate as possible. In any case, ask appropriately is quite important because it shows whether you are asking to show you are an expert or asking to show that you are giving good inputs to the speakers to help him/her improve on his/her paper.

5) Speak slowly and clearly - Apart from 4) it is very important to ask the question to the speaker clearly and slowly so that not only the speaker but others attending the talk know you are asking. this will benefit most of the people. It goes to apply if you are the one presenting the paper that you must be clear and speak slowly too, though other factors like good presentation slides are also important if you are presenting, but these are not covered on this blog post.

6) Share your opinions honestly - Normally one gains from the experience of other people and a conference is a channel to allow one to learn that from other people. It does requires one to be honest about one's experience in order to help others see the insights. I had a couple of chats with early stage PhD student and PhD student completed their viva and ready to write their chapters into Journal articles. Both stages are different and I had been through them and I am just happy to talk about to some who like to hear and who will find it helpful.

7) Eat lightly - It is important to eat lightly though one may not be strong enough to resist the temptation of the richness of choices and varieties of food available during the conference. But remember if you are too full you only end up having lower concentration than normal and especially if you are giving talks or attending talks sessions immediately or shortly after the meal. It is likely to affect you badly