The World of Little Little Bird

On Saturday, a new Chinese grocery store had its grand opening in Austin. It is claimed as the first Chinese owned grocery store. I received a bunch of emails of its opening and decided to go there having a look. There I found so many Chinese people in Austin. :) I drove around the plaza three times to get a parking far away, and couldn't get a cart or basket for shopping. Dozens of people were waiting for checking out. It was too crowded and not my favorable style. I met Hui's family in the check out queue. Finally, I ended up with a bag of on sale rice and 30 minutes waiting. So I had to go to anther Hong Kong store for vegetables. Maybe I will get there later when fewer people around. Whatsoever, the chat with Hui was pleasant.
I installed a very old game, San Guo 8 on my lappy. I brought this game with me when I first arrived but never played. It occupied most of my weekend. :)

DELL dropped from $40 to the current $35.50 in two weeks. It is stochastically oversold. There should be a bounce back next week. If I had money, I would definitely pump some.

Suddenly, I find myself in Texas for one year already.
One year ago, I left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, drove through West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, to Texas. In the four-day journey, I stopped at Great Smoky Mountains, Hot Springs, Hope (Bill Clinton's home town).
Retrospecting the past year, I summarize my major accomplishments as follows:
1. Got my Ph.D. degree
2. Started the first job in my entire life
3. Published three papers
4. Went back to China
5. West coast trip San Francisco - Los Angeles - San Diego - Las Vegas - Grand Canyon
It is a very productive year. :) Hope I can continue my strong performance.
Here are my goals for the next 12 months:
1. TBA
2. Do a great job and prove myself in my work
3. Submit GC application
4. Get my parents to US for my commencement
5. Trip to Florida?
6. To be continued

I find my new favorite this week. The club house of my apartment opens every evening till 11pm. There are a gym, a computer room, a pool table and etc. So, here are my activities each evening after dinner.
1. swim for half an hour
2. play two games of pool, yaping vs. yaping
3. jog around 2 miles while watching TV

NOTHING TO DO AH!!!
Here is the list that I did this weekend.
1. finalize my thesis -- the only accomplishment
2. shop for grocery in walmart
3. watch a movie
4. swim
5. cook -- 青菜小排骨汤,油面筋塞肉,芹菜炒时件,三文鱼,茄汁虾 -- will take me a while to finish them leh
6. waste time online
Need to find something to do tomorrow night

I moved to a new apartment on the last weekend of July. It is my 3rd moving. As usual, A uhaul was rented. Large stuffs were moved on Saturday and I went back to the old apartment cleaning up on Sunday. I only had 3 hours' sleep on Sunday night and took the 6am flight to Pittsburgh for my defense.
After numerous naps on the plane, I arrived in Pittsburgh. The little train connecting the terminals and the hall reminded me my first arrival in this city years back. Zhong picked me up from the airport and took me to CMU. We had dinner together at Rose Tea thanks to my big face to get Zhong out of his incredibly tight schedule. :) Rose Tea became very popular during the year that I was away. I stayed at Zhong's apartment which is the last place I had stayed before I headed down south to Texas.
The next several days were normal. I cleaned my office desk, packed my leftover luggages, practised my presentations, and talked to professors and fellow students in CSSI.
On Thursday, I rehearsed my talk to Prof. Li and Kelvin arrived in Pittsburgh as well.
On Friday morning, Kelvin did his thesis proposal and I defended my thesis in the afternoon. In the evening, Larry invited us to dinner at a nice little restaurant. The foods were awesome. After the dinner, we watched an old HongKong movie, "The Killer", by John Woo and Yun-Fat Chow in Zhong's place.
I went to a finace seminar held by Zhong's friend on Saturday afternoon. Then Kelvin and I played Pingpong in the graduate lounge. It has been a long time since our last match. It was back to the days in SJTU. Then we went to dinner at Oriental Kitchen. It was sort of a tradition that friends dined there after someone's defense. After dinner, Rong, Zhong, Kelvin and I played cards. It was a close game. Zhong and I were boosted by SHE's songs and finished one step earlier. It was Mah Jong time next, until 4:30am. Kelvin left for his plane back to CA at 7am.
Zhong and I got up late in the morning and cooked a little for the lunch. Then Zhong sent me to the airport. I connected my flight in Dallas. However, due to the storms, the flight was delayed for an hour.
I was able to arrive home at 10pm.

I went back to Pittsburgh for my Ph.D. thesis defense last week. After three years and a half, I farewelled to my study in Carnegie Mellon. I stayed at Zhong's place for a week and passed the defense smoothly. Together with excitement and happiness are sentiments. My boss called in for my defense despite of his sickness and staying in hospital. Best wishes to his health. I said goodbye to my friends who accompanied me and brought me fun for the years in Pittsburgh. Wish all of them good luck. I don't know what is the next time that I can see them all, maybe at ICCAD, maybe at the commencement.
Life comes back to usual today. I submitted my final script of ICCAD paper this afternoon. A new project will start this week, which will keep me busy at work. Also, I need to submit my thesis in two weeks, during which, some more experiments should be done. My roommie is back to Taiwan for a month and left me alone in my new apartment.