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.