It was 10:45PM. I was at the front door of Bartlett hall waiting for the ARSC van. It had been raining for all the day.
In the afternoon, I brought the bicycle back to ARSC and then went back to dorm to pack. Although it looked that I had only a few items to pack, it still took me a lot of time to have everything in good shape.
I took a nap around 6:30PM and was waken up by some stupid girls in the hallway. They were very annoying and had a very noisy chat for a long time. Actually, they did the same thing again later around 9 PM. After I got up, I re-heated some rice with water. I almost put everything into the big luggage and was ready to leave at 10:00PM. The resident assistant came to check me out and took the key away. However, he still let me stay in the room until 11:00PM and left the door locked.
The ride to the airport was scheduled on 11:00PM. However, the other 6 guys didn't show up until 11:20PM. We packed all the luggages into the back of the van. It was raining very hard. So I got into the car. Jose, the guy from University of Pueto Rico, drank some alcohol. We chatted a little bit in the van on the way to the airport.
After I was charged for $15 for the luggage, I proceeded to the desk to check in my luggage. It was 60 pounds. The lady asked to remove some items into the carry-on. I took the book out, however, it still weighed 58 pounds. The lady was nice. After she checked my stuff and found there was no easy solution to remove other 8 pounds, she let me go without paying any extra.
I passed into the security checkpoint and waited for the boarding of Flight 128 to Seattle. At 12:50PM, the boarding began.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Today is my last day of my PhD program and the last day at Alaska
Today, August 14th, 2009, is the offical last day of my PhD program. And it is my last day at Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
I should be joyful. But I am not. Actually, I am very sad and deeply lonely in my heart. I already want to write something in the past several days. However, I could not find a lot of free time to do it. Today, as the final presentation to report my project is finished, my dissertation revision is uploaded, and Dr. El-Ghazawi is gone, I can grab some free time at night to write some feelings.
The past summer was a tough one. I needed to finalize my dissertation with Dr. El-Ghazawi, prepare the defense presentation, look for jobs, take several phone interviews, and do my project with ARSC. I didn't do any excursion this summer, not like the summer in 2007. I did once bypass Denali National Park on the ride from Anchorage to Fairbanks due to diverter of my return flight from Washington DC after the dissertation defense on July 27th. I didn't go to WalMart by bicycle. I didn't go to downtown by bike. What I did was to stay at the office in ARSC, sleep in the dorm at Bartlett hall, and go to grocery store occasionally. I had no passion to have any fun at all.
My project is regarding the new type of data storage device, solid-state device. However, in the most time of the summer, I was not able to focus on it because the dissertation defense. Eventually, after I came back to Alaska from the trip to DC on July 31st, I kind of was able to concentrate on the project with only less than two weeks left. I had developed the routine to have a jog around 10:00PM every night before I went back to DC. However, I found I could not follow the same routine in the last two weeks. I stayed in the office until midnight and always went to bed after 1:00AM. I was worried so much about the final presentation because I was afraid that I would have no good result to report and look weak. Finally, the breakthrough took place at the last week. Olivier helped me write the framework of the writing cache for SSD and I was able to do some simple simulation and develop my presentation slides on top of that. Yesterday, I prepared the presentation until 2:00AM and finally my topic caught a lot of attention.
However, I am not happy at all. Actually, I feel so lonely for one moment and I break into tears. The loneliness is mainly the result of the combination of several things. The first thing is the huge pressure to find a satisfying job. Until today, the future is not very certain. I am not sure when I will be in a stable situation and start living a normal life. I will write the job hunting experience more in the future when the situation is settled. The second thing making me feel bad is the pressure from my wife, Yujuan. Yujuan is a good wife. She loves me, loves Lisa and Patrick. However, she becomes mad for the lack of a stable life occasionally. When she is in bad mode, she will blame me and say I am worthless, the last word a man wants to hear.
Worthless!!!
I agree that I am not a perfet man. Maybe I am not working hard enough to transfer to a better university. Maybe I am not very smart. But I am a good and responsible person. Sometimes, when I feel the pressure and depressed, I have no person to talk to. My mother passed away when I was nine-year old. My father is a typical Chinese man, working hard, however, lack of the fine feeling a young kid needs most. My grandmother was kind of mean to both me and my brother. My aunt always cares me, but she lives very far away. In tv or movies, I always see a man can cry in his mother's arms. I have no this luxury. I have to deal with the pressure, the depression and loneless by myself. I studied from high school to college by myself, without any suggestion from parent. I decided to study overseas and carried out it alone. My daugher and my son don't have go through the same tough process again.
It is late again. It is 1:30AM of August 15th, 2009. I cried again when I was writing the passaway of my mother. I didn't have chance to visit my mother's grave in the past six years. The first thing I will do after I go back to China is to visit her tomb.
I should be joyful. But I am not. Actually, I am very sad and deeply lonely in my heart. I already want to write something in the past several days. However, I could not find a lot of free time to do it. Today, as the final presentation to report my project is finished, my dissertation revision is uploaded, and Dr. El-Ghazawi is gone, I can grab some free time at night to write some feelings.
The past summer was a tough one. I needed to finalize my dissertation with Dr. El-Ghazawi, prepare the defense presentation, look for jobs, take several phone interviews, and do my project with ARSC. I didn't do any excursion this summer, not like the summer in 2007. I did once bypass Denali National Park on the ride from Anchorage to Fairbanks due to diverter of my return flight from Washington DC after the dissertation defense on July 27th. I didn't go to WalMart by bicycle. I didn't go to downtown by bike. What I did was to stay at the office in ARSC, sleep in the dorm at Bartlett hall, and go to grocery store occasionally. I had no passion to have any fun at all.
My project is regarding the new type of data storage device, solid-state device. However, in the most time of the summer, I was not able to focus on it because the dissertation defense. Eventually, after I came back to Alaska from the trip to DC on July 31st, I kind of was able to concentrate on the project with only less than two weeks left. I had developed the routine to have a jog around 10:00PM every night before I went back to DC. However, I found I could not follow the same routine in the last two weeks. I stayed in the office until midnight and always went to bed after 1:00AM. I was worried so much about the final presentation because I was afraid that I would have no good result to report and look weak. Finally, the breakthrough took place at the last week. Olivier helped me write the framework of the writing cache for SSD and I was able to do some simple simulation and develop my presentation slides on top of that. Yesterday, I prepared the presentation until 2:00AM and finally my topic caught a lot of attention.
However, I am not happy at all. Actually, I feel so lonely for one moment and I break into tears. The loneliness is mainly the result of the combination of several things. The first thing is the huge pressure to find a satisfying job. Until today, the future is not very certain. I am not sure when I will be in a stable situation and start living a normal life. I will write the job hunting experience more in the future when the situation is settled. The second thing making me feel bad is the pressure from my wife, Yujuan. Yujuan is a good wife. She loves me, loves Lisa and Patrick. However, she becomes mad for the lack of a stable life occasionally. When she is in bad mode, she will blame me and say I am worthless, the last word a man wants to hear.
Worthless!!!
I agree that I am not a perfet man. Maybe I am not working hard enough to transfer to a better university. Maybe I am not very smart. But I am a good and responsible person. Sometimes, when I feel the pressure and depressed, I have no person to talk to. My mother passed away when I was nine-year old. My father is a typical Chinese man, working hard, however, lack of the fine feeling a young kid needs most. My grandmother was kind of mean to both me and my brother. My aunt always cares me, but she lives very far away. In tv or movies, I always see a man can cry in his mother's arms. I have no this luxury. I have to deal with the pressure, the depression and loneless by myself. I studied from high school to college by myself, without any suggestion from parent. I decided to study overseas and carried out it alone. My daugher and my son don't have go through the same tough process again.
It is late again. It is 1:30AM of August 15th, 2009. I cried again when I was writing the passaway of my mother. I didn't have chance to visit my mother's grave in the past six years. The first thing I will do after I go back to China is to visit her tomb.
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