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June 12, 2007

What do you need to know to know me?

Filed under: Toast Master — Tags: — Fei @ 11:11 pm

Thanks Mr. Toast Master. Hello everyone. Today my speech’s topic is "What do you need to know to know me?" So, what should I tell you so that you can know more of me? My past experience? Can my past experience tell you what I’m going to do in the future? No, right? I’ve been to elementary school, high school, collage, but I’m not going there again. However, I do agree that deep under the surface, there are some connections between the things I did in the past and the things I might do in the future. As far as I can tell, it is called, personality. There is a Chinese saying that it’s easier to conquer a land than changing a person. That’s literal translation. It means it’s very very hard to change a person’s personality. So, if you want to know me, you’d better know my personality.

And actually, it is very easy to know my personality. You only need to know one thing from me. What is it? That is the date I was born. Don’t you know that a person’s personality is determined on the date he’s born? Okay, now I tell you my birthday and you should know all about me. I was born in the middle of May. So, now… if you haven’t skipped your elementary school… you should know exactly what to do… You only need to, go back home, open an astrology book, and turn to page… what sign is it if I’m born in the middle of May? Yes, it’s Taurus. And read from the first line. It’s not extremely accurate, but it’s a pretty good approximation.

The first thing for a Taurus is… it thinks really slow, really really slow… that’s is actually why I can’t think of anything in table topics… Let me show you how slow my thinking is… one, plus one, is…. is two… are you all Tauruses? you think slower than I do… (see, you all know the answer, this is my usual thinking speed)…

The second thing for a Taurus is… it is very stubborn, very inflexible. Once I make up my mind, nothing can change me, and I don’t consider any other options. Because I’m stubborn, and I always do things super slow.. I usually refuse to accept new things. I always prefer things as it is… And I always do things half a step slower than others. I’d like to go extremes, from one extreme, to the other.

I remember, when I was in elementary school, an animated TV series was very popular, and I bet you are very familiar it.It’s going to be shown in movie on July 4th. It’s called, the transformers. At that time, every kid in the school talked about it, was excited about it… except me. I did not watch a single episode for at least an entire year. Some little shops outside the school sell some little cards about transformers. On one side of the card is a picture of a transformer, on the other side is some description of that transformer… Everyone liked it, bought the cards, played games with the cards… except me… I did not show any interest in it for a long long time.. Then suddenly.. I changed… That is still a mystery to me. I still don’t know how and why I changed, but I just changed. I suddenly showed extreme enthusiasm for transformer cards. I bought all the cards I could find in the shops. I remembered the pictures and I read the descriptions… Soon I became a transformer expert. I knew all the stories about transformers, solely from the cards… because at that time, it was no longer shown in TV. I talked to my friends about the stories, and they really admired my knowledge… but they didn’t really care either. Since it was not shown in TV, they were chasing something else… So, I was always, always half a step slower. Actually the same thing happened again in my junior high… it was a Japanese animated TV series called "Saint Seiya".

I don’t like my personality. I don’t want to be stubborn, I don’t want to be slow… I want to be flexible, I want to be super duper fast… I always want to change it… My first try was when I was at age 10, when I first knew from astrology that it was born in my blood… and now ten twenty years later, I’ve already lost count how many times I tried it… it’s just like people want to quit smoking… and obviously, as you can see, I was not quite successful…

btw, do you know stubborn has a synonym. it is called loyal.. did I just tell you that I wanted to be less loyal?

Mr. Toast Master…

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Time: 5 minutes 37 seconds
Date: 06/06/2007

June 10, 2007

Toast Master…

Filed under: Toast Master — Fei @ 2:50 am

For some while I’ve been wondering how to improve my spoken English, public speeches… and a lot more things… Since I started my job two years ago, I bearly spoke English… what kind of job is this! working environment is no good place for this.. it’s as simple as that…

well, looks like I have found a way… at least for something… that is the toast master club… I happened to know it a couple of months ago and it’s really a great club… obviously, you need to find the right one… so do some shopping before committing to any of them… well, I shopped for over a month… (typical me) and finally decided on one of them…  hmm… my only concern now is that the club has 12 new members in the past two months…  and counting… plus… two senior memmbers dropped out recently 🙁 all these happened after my decision…

I just had my first ice breaker speech… will post it here shortly… hopefully I can get 10 speeches done in the next year… let m know if you have any interesting topics… 😉

June 5, 2007

True or false

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 11:56 pm

In the all hands today, I was asked to give three statements about my past, two false and one true… Below are my statements… guess which one is true?

1. In China, athletes are trained at very young age. When I was at elementary school, I was trained to be a table tennis player at prefecture level for a couple of years. Then I lost interest in it and became a member of the school’s track and field’s team, mainly focusing on high jumps. I was still a high jumper in part of my junior high, then I completely discontinued it in my senior high. Now I don’t do much of any sport.

2. In China, there are a lot of students in the same class. Because we have a lot of people, the competition to get good grades in the class is intense. Unlike United States, we know our relative position in the class, like top 10%, top 20%, bottom 30% etc. So, the statement is: I have never been in the bottom 50% since my first grade.

3. In my junior high and senior high, that is from seventh grade to twelves grade, we have a few kind of important subjects. Some other subjects are less important. For example, Chinese, English, maths, physics, chemistry, and politics are more important than subjects like history and geography.  For some of those more important subjects, there are some contests. They are actually step by step contests to select people for the international olympics of maths, physics, chemistry etc. I liked physics a lot. I spent a lot of time studying physics for the contests. However, I did not receive any major prize in physics contests, both in my junior high and senior high. In contrast, I started chemistry quite late. I only spent a little bit of time on chemistry, and surprisingly got better prizes, also both in my junior high and senior high. However, after I got into college, I did not take a single course on chemistry.

Which one is true?

May 19, 2007

Princeton tie

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 11:26 pm

I’ve been away from Princeton for almost two years… don’t know why, I still cannot leave Princeton behind me… in other words.. I still cannot fully adjust to the new environment. Princeton is so special. Some people say Princeton is oasis, Shangri-la. Some people say Princeton is very un-America. I totally agree with them. It is an ivory tower, secluded from the secular world. In my eyes, no other place can be as good as Princeton.

It’s graduation time again. I have been wondering whether to go back to Princeton again for a long time… On the one hand, lots of my friends will graduate and leave Princeton this year. I don’t know when and where I will meet them ever again in the future… on the other hand, I don’t know how to come back to reality if I ever go back…

About a month ago.. I leant towards not going back… decided to put Princeton down.. The way I did this, as usual, was to go to the other extreme. I told my friends that I would not go back. I would cut my tie with Princeton and be myself… I would Yi4 Dao1 Liang3 Duan4 with Princeton.. Maybe it would be a long time before I go back again… well, so far so good… until…

Last Wednesday… I suddenly heard a sad news… some kind of family emergency… It happened so suddenly and everything was so unexpected. Without hesitation, I immediately booked the plane ticket, packed luggage the next day and at Friday night, I was on the plane back to Princeton… Maybe I meant to go back one more time…

Well, I told myself… it was a perfect closure… I could meet all my friends one more time… and I could drop Princeton once and for all…. nobody or nothing could hold me back this time… well, that’s just my thought… Immediately after I got off dinky station, I liked Princeton. It was soooo familiar. The leaves were sooo green, the light green I could not find in west coast… I got to see all those lovely, beautiful buildings one more time… looking at them… thinking about all the things happened in the past five years… I love Princeton…

I hesitated… I didn’t know whether I should cut the tie… or how to do it… Maybe it’s not time for me to make the decision… maybe I could be more cruel when I’m far far away… As I was hesitating… on my last day at Princeton… my friends brought me a gift, unexpectedly… it was a Princeton tie, a tie with Princeton shield… and a Princeton card… I opened it.. and it said… "Since you have always told us that you wish to break the tie with Princeton, we have decided to get you a tie from Princeton…"… OMG… I did not know what to say… it was sooo special… I wanted to break the tie not because of any bad image from Princeton or something… but because I loved Princeton sooo much… having a Princeton tie at hand, how can I break it?… immediately… I told my friends… no, I would never break the tie…

I won’t break the tie… I will hang it in my closet, with most extensive care… wear it once a while… and be a Princetonian forever… Thank you.. my friends… the tie will never be broken…

February 19, 2007

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 11:50 pm

很久没有写博客了,主要是没有静下心来。一旦没有心思,什么也写不出来了。昨天晚上做了个梦,年初一晚上呀,说不定对整年都有什么启示呢。这个梦很有趣,就写下来吧。

梦其实很短,也很简单。就是我在梦里遇见几个老美,就随便聊起了天。聊得还挺长,可聊了什么已经忘了。人家是老美嘛,说的英语可是那个地道呀,说的又快,音调又准,用词又丰富,让我佩服得五体投地。可我说的呢?真是和他们有天壤之别,说的又不快,有时候还要想一想。正在想找各地洞钻进去,突然想到,靠,我是在做梦耶。老美说的话也是我说的,可为什么我以老美口气说话就比我以自己口气说话好很多呢?那我的英语究竟是怎样呢?

看来我潜意识里英语还可以。希望我以后说英语就像我梦里老美说的一样好。

hoho… new year wish 😉

November 12, 2006

S.W.A.T.

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 9:10 pm

Just watched an old movie: S.W.A.T. One of the gun scenes was at the intersection of Hollywood Blvd. and Wilcox Ave. God damn… that’s the exact place I parked my car when I visited Hollywood… No wonder it looked so familar… If it’s NYC or Princeton… I can understand.. coz those are popular places… can’t believe it is such a small place … hollywood…

November 6, 2006

Worst negative campaign ever

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 10:09 pm

Someone says this year’s campaign is the worst negative campaign ever. I’m not sure about that. However, it is for sure the worst negative campaign for me. After all, this is the only campaign I followed reasonably closely… hmm… tomorrow is the judgment day… let’s see who’s the winner, who’s the loser…

November 5, 2006

Prop 87

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 8:11 pm

Do you think it necessary to invest on alternative fuel research? Are you willing to pay an extra 10c per gallon gas for it? Prop 87 may be the most controversial proposition in this mid-term election for Californians.

October 30, 2006

2 out of 22

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 12:55 am

In a recent airport security test for the screeners of Newark international airport, the screeners stopped 2 out of 22 fake weapons passing the security line… That means the remaining 20 weapons were successfully brought to airplanes… This news interests me in two folds. First, EWR is the airport I’m most familiar with. I’ve been there at least 20 times… so I’m pretty connected to the airport… Secondly… it’s quite a good use of the 10 billion dollars spent in airport security after 9/11… and we have seen its effect… we can now stop two weapons, instead of zero… it is obviously a great first step.. the next thing we need to do is to spend another 100 billion so that we can catch the rest 20 weapons… hmm… I’m really looking forward to it…

October 28, 2006

In the headlines

Filed under: Freestyle — Fei @ 11:09 am

Can’t believe I start this topic… I’m sure I will regret it someday… just I can’t resist the temptation to write something down to "comment" the news… I borrowed the title from Jay Leno’s late show… so you can sense some irony from the title alone. well, this topic is all about "news", some are "political news". I just feel so funny where the world is going… It should actually belong to the topic "freestyle". Actually lots of issues can belong to that topic. well, seems I’m now starting more and more topics with no real follow-up contents… hmm… I should make that up…

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