Stories

Jul 17-19 going out to Kenneth Wilson for camping

Fairly nice experience, the environment is quite nice. It’s a pity that the kayak is not in service, which might be fun. I enjoyed the time together with my NY friends. In one week, I will be in Seattle for my future learning towards a PhD. I guess it will be much harder to see them in the future, but anyways… Farewell is never easy but unavoidable. To embrace the new things and meet new people is not a bad thing.

Jul 24 Thoughts about life

People or maybe just me can get an illusion that they are living for granted. But if you start to count the days you are still able to be alive, it might be a shock that it’s not really that big a number, not some number like million, but just a few tens of thousand. Feel alive, do things with heart.

July 27 See u, Columbia

Today would be my last chance to revisit Columbia University due to the airplane tomorrow to Seattle. It’s hot outside, at the time of around 5pm, which didn’t make any sense back at Hangzhou or Haian before I came New York.

It’s quite ambitious to say goodbye to the place where I stayed for two years. I can still remember my excitement and also some fear when I first came to USA, a country with totally different language and culture from China. But I have been changed by the great friends I made here ,and thus left the fear behind, got and will be pursuing my ultimate goal of my life: learning and teaching.

Over the past 2 or 3 hours, I walked around the campus. I saw just a few people reading or chatting on the grass field due to the COVID-19 situation. However, this still reminded me of the days and nights working together with the respectable friends and learning-mates. To me, Columbia is an honorable place only because I met so many great people here, in terms of both work and life.

I went to the EE department on 13th floor of the Mudd building and stood in front of 1327 for a while, a quiet and peaceful place holding a great amount of memory. Alex, Zicong, Kristoff, Lyla, Haiqiu, Han…

I chose to sat at the EE lounge for a few minutes, where I held office hours as TA before the Covid all of a sudden broke out. I still remember Zicong and Haiqiu came here chatting with me when I held OH without presence of any students in the class. I did the similar thing to Zicong’s Office hour… I couldn’t help go into one of the two the cubes, trying to find any trace of my handwriting on the whiteboard, but none was found. A feeling of sadness attacked me and I grabbed a mark pen, which was blue and nearly broken, wrote down the following words:

Photonics and Elctronics, Physics and Engineering, knowledge and intelligence …

I didn’t try to make any points, but merely wanted to leave some clues, telling people that I was there.

I also went to CEPSR 8th floor, I was afraid that I might be able to meet Yoshi or Yun or Bok. I couldn’t find myself a reason to be afraid but yes, I was. I walked around on the 8th floor, skimming the posters on the wall. I saw the names of Prof Bergman, Prof Gaeta, Prof Lipson… I love their works.

The basement of Mudd was a place with a lot of fun and happiness, also knowledge. I bought myself a bottle of water at the auto seller, then I heard the familiar sharp sound of ‘Gerr~’, which was the sound of an induction door opening and closing. I always tried to guess how old the door was, maybe 10 years or more, anyways.

I walked around, suddenly remembered of the scene where Zhendong, my first friend and roommate at Columbia said long time no c and gave me a hug… I guessed that it was the scene when I came back from China after the first Christmas. That was a cold day.

When I stepped down the few steps, pushed the door open and walked out the Engineering school to the 120th Street. I realized this could be my last time at Columbia, at least in recent years. I heard the noise of the door closing and the cars flying by. I could only think of one sentence at that moment:

See u, Columbia.

July 31 Arriving at Seattle – beautiful city

I actually arrived here 3 days ago, but quite busy with the setup of computer and purchasing of several other stuffs. It turns out my new living house is quite great, it has a albany even a yard. The living room and kitchen are unbelievably huge!

The only thing that bothers me a lot is the weather these days is desperately hot and wet. Hard to get into sleep… And at late night the temperature would fall down a lot, I was even woken up by the coldness the day before yesterday. It seems my roommates don’t have a airconditioner and the window type here is horizontally movable which is quite different from the type in New York. This make the installation of airconditionor even harder cause we lose the option of small ones that can install at the window…

I will take a look at lab today and visit my PhD advisor – Prof. Arka Majumdar.