The day has come!

Finally the school starts. A lot of things I planned to do can’t be finished cos the break is too short. But I am glad I have done useful things during the break, including tidying up stuff and shopping for new clothes, cos I knew I will not have time when CS3216 starts. Typical girls like shopping. But to me shopping is rather troublesome.

Before school starts, we were given an optional homework to do for CS3216. Though I had other things to do, I watched this video nevertheless. I brought back meaningful messages in the video.

The Art of Teaching Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Entrepreneurship is something I have never really thought of. Cos I thought it is sth impossible at this stage without enough capital. And was the “$5” I was limiting myself to. I am very impressed by the creative ways they used to solve the problems given.

Actually Computer Science is very much like Entrepreneurship. We are always asked to solve problems. The main different is the types of problems we have to solve. And creativity is important in both. Creativity is the element that makes our life interesting, yet many people are restricted by habitual and traditional ways in solving a problem. To me, creativity is something that relies on the moment of inspiration. Just that some people have more of that moments, some have less. So in order to get more of that, it is essential to always open your mind and interact with more people and things.

Besides creativity, I feel that entrepreneurship needs a lot of efforts to “put down face”. Just like those students who stood in the streets with a sign saying “Stanford students for sale. Buy one, get two free” and making your own business card calling yourself President. In other words, one needs to be brave and have “thick skin”. In addition is the attitude to be able to put up with failures, try again and again. I like the idea of failing fast, frequently and cheaply.

I shall end the video review with this quote:

…every big problem is a big opportunity. If you think about it, no problem, no solution, no company. Very simple. Every big problem is a big opportunity. If you don't have a big problem, you don't have a big opportunity. Nobody will pay you to solve a non-problem. 

Show-and-Tell Preparation

I was rather surprised when I learnt about this, cos I don’t know this beforehand. And so I end up having only 2 weeks to prepare.

I will be doing a playing a pop song on traditional Chinese instrument. I have no problem choosing this performance. The challenge is the part on choosing a piece. I select the theme to be a pop song first, to cater to the young audience. But I have never performed pop songs before, not to say solo in pop song (cos Chinese Orchestra is usually group performance). I found this song being playing quite nicely by this instrument by someone online and a score somewhere else.

Then to realize the song is actually not for this instrument, it is for guitar. This is not the main problem; the main problem is the score has many wrong notes and rhythm, I only managed to edit a bit. I also later (after 1 week plus) found out there are many versions of this piece online. I found mainly scores for piano. By doing these I was able to compare and contrast. I think none was actually totally correct (my own thoughts together with the comments on the forums), but it was not too bad since this instrument is different from piano (I can’t play all those notes in piano on this instrument lah). That was when I made the major adjustments. But I was already used to the old fingerings and bow style. So I tried to minimize the adjustments, while making the piece sound right to my ears. This is the first time I customize my own score used to perform!

I think those reading this would be able to guess the instrument (but not the song:)). I wonder there if would be another person performing the same instrument, cos that person was/is from the same section as I do in NUSCO. And I wonder how many ppl would actually perform (cos FB videos don’t show many). It would be very weird if there are only a few who perform and I am one of them. Also there is no time limit to a performance. So if too many ppl perform, would it drag till too late?

Actually I have not been playing this instrument from quite some time after my major performance in my 3^rd year second sem. I took a break off Chinese Orchestra that time cos of my health and my final year. Hope these two weeks would be sufficient for the upcoming performance. I should be able to perform do a reasonable performance provided that if I don’t get too nervous. All the best for myself!

What have I been up to?

This is the first time I am keeping a blog like this. I actually have one other blog which I update some of the thoughts I have whenever I feel like I want to, maybe once a month, maybe once a year. This is going to be a challenging task for me, cos I don't have the habit of blogging. I wonder what I should say and what I should not, hehe...

I managed to put up a Facebook profile badge and an embedded Google wave gadget. Yay!

Why this blog name? 

If you have noticed, I have changed the blog name. It is called “Stop! Look forth-back-forth. Run!” This phrase came from the phrase "Stop. Look left, look right, look left again. Walk.", something that your school/parents would have taught you since young. This blog has three levels of significance.

1) Blog
Blog title is a branding. So just to make sure it sounds catchy enough to attract attention. Hope I have done so.
2) Programming
Make sure you don't cause any bug. Stop for a while, check your code then run your program. LOL.
3) Life
I think it would be good to be brave but careful in life. Be brave to try something new and be careful in the process of planning. When you recognise your target, head for it!

I have watched the two recommended videos "The Last Lecture" and "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish". I watched both some days ago, so what I am gg to blog below would be those statements that left me the most impression. I looked through their transcript again to search for those statements that touched me the most.

The Last Lecture

Randy Pausch is an excellent speaker and he presents his speech in a very humorous way.

The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.

We should not give up when we face obstacles; he used the metaphor of a brick wall very well.

Oh yes, I just remembered I read about sth like this recently. I think it was a story in Chinese, but I can't really rmb where exactly I read it from. So I would just provide the translation here based on my memory. It was a story teaching us abt financial education in English. I accidentally come across it again=P

It is about a person who is very interested in beverage business. So he came out with a drink called 1UP, but it didn't sell. He did not give up, and he improvised the drink to 2UP, yet it didn't sell. He didn't give up, and he came out with a newer version 3UP, still it didn't sell. He kept improvising his drink until 6UP, but still it didn't sell. So he gave up. Years later, someone came out with the drink 7UP.

This story is not the truth about how 7UP came about, haha. It is rather an analogy that we shouldn't give up so easily. And I believe many of the time it is the stubbornness and the determination that make us move on.

And I said, Andy, I just gave a two-week assignment, and they came back and did stuff that if I had given them a whole semester I would have given them all As. Sensei, what do I do? And Andy thought for a minute and he said, you go back into class tomorrow and you look them in the eye and you say, “Guys, that was pretty good, but I know you can do better.” And that was exactly the right advice. Because what he said was, you obviously don’t know where the bar should be, and you’re only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere. And boy was that good advice because they just kept going.

It was so funny and so enlightening. Yes, it is indeed very true. There is no boundary in life in achieving something. It is often yourself who set the boundary for yourself. For instance, you become lazy and sloppily finished off something, so you don’t do well. We must always hope for something better, must always be strict on ourselves. There is always room for improvement.

Stay Foolish

Steve Jobs speech is more solemn and short, but is very meaningful.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

My interests have always been very diverse. There is a saying about one possessing many knifes but none is sharp. I don’t wish to be one of those; I want to have at least a sharp knife. But I believe I don't have to make all the knives sharp, and it is alright to keep many blunt knives, but at least know the right knife to sharpen at any particular time of life. I really hope the dots will connect.