Making of Eugene : Part II

Anti-authoritianism:

As you have seen in Part I, I've not always been with good teachers or leaders. Some are extremely demanding, while others are favouritist. Hence anti-authoritianism. I do not like to have someone that has too many powers over what I do, what I say, what I hear and any of that. They are extremely unfair and unhuman things and they will be dealt with when I grow up to be a ferior match to them. Only one difference: I will try my best to share my power.

So, why do I do when I'm faced with that? I'll build up my self-discipline, mental and physical health and reinforce my self-esteem (not build it up: I'll be too high profile). In short, I go into full "war-mode", ready to bust the fortress of authority. I'll try to get more people on my side too.

This is the path to the cool side of life.

The making of a eugene!

Kindergarten...yes....kindergarden. Today (26-8-2006) was the day I stepped through the door of the Hong Kong education system. It was a life-changing day and will be what turned me into what I am now.

That first day was absolutely exciting. It was the start of a social life, of having friends and also of dealing with some pretty bad teachers who shouldn't have been in that job. They were what I would soon learn to call favouritist- teachers were biased because of stereotypes and their first impressions. I was a kid who couldn't sit at a specific spot for very long before having to get out and have a chat with someone else. When I talked, I actually stammered. I couldn't really control it. People teased me for it, and I was soon a rather repulsive kid. I didn't like the teasing and all that stuff. But I loved it when I was the one doing it. I didn't like being excluded from the slides on the playground and that stuff. So guess what I did?
I kicked someone (I can't remember the gender, but I think it was a girl) right off the platform when they denied access. She cried really badly, and when the teacher came out to the playground, I just stood there, starring down, trying to be sorry. And the next thing I knew, I got pushed off by another kid. I somehow managed to land on my feet, but the teacher was just standing right in front of me. You can guess what happens next. (Hint: my parents were involved)
There was nothing glorious about that, but that was, at the time, a great boost of ego. I also thought that maybe girls were considered better than any boys at the time. A statistic that I thought I saw confirmed my suspisions. You too can guess what that was.

I wondered why there was so much coloring and stuff in kindergartens and schools, why those kids that look different from what we were, why they seemed to score so much higher than we do in stuff like Chinese.
Of course, I didn't know what was unfair, but I did know what was gender and the differences.

THinking back, I knew I had to get this stuff out of my mind before I got too angry. So, I hope you know why I can be a bit gender -ist in thinking.

Steve Job's speech at Stanford

I happened to receive this e-mail from a friend I made here in the US. He's a Stanford graduate student and he sent me this speech. I'm not allowed to forward this to anyone, though, so I'll take a few quotes out of it.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

"If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. "

"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much."

*** FAIR USE NOTICE.
This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance their understanding, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. I believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. If anyone disagrees with the use of the above content in this post, I will remove it immediately.

Loose Change

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218920724339766288&q=Loose+Change

It's a video introducing a conspiracy theory that I have long thought of.

Tahoe

This is the tundra patches on the ski slopes. (left-up)
This are my cousins and relatives (right-up)
More tundra patches.

Camp Photos

This is Eugene at camp. On the right is me trying to tackle a bulging piece of the wall.

surprise!

Does anyone here know why the IT company Adobe (the one that made Acrobat Reader for pdf documents) is called Adobe???

It's because one of the founders live by a creek called Adobe Creek in Los Altos!
And by the way, he lives right across the street from where I am.

Maybe I should say hello to him next time he drives to work...