Cerulean Cordillera

Posts Tagged ‘China’

Found this in the New York Times today.

Apparently some artist is becoming the defiant voice regarding unreleased data on deaths and casualties for the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. I read through the article, and I noticed this particular quote:

“I’m really tired of this bull,” Mr. Ai said Thursday in a telephone interview from Beijing, where he has a large studio. “I went there, and I saw the school building collapsed, and next to it is a building that is fine.”

This makes me remember the argument often used by global warming skeptics, that goes something like this:

“I’m really tired of this bull,” A global warming skeptic said Thursday in a whatever interview from wherever. “This year has been colder than last year and they’re telling us the globe is supposed to be warming.”

I think what we ought to be on the lookout for is these kinds of “common sense” analysis. Being in Engineering has taught me enough for me to know that when you get into the details of scientific principles, many things are nowhere near intuitive. This is an artist who comes up with clever ideas of visual presentation. I will not take his analysis on construction seriously. Now… if instead of him, it’s some renowned civil or structure engineer talking, then it might be worth more attention. But if he’s an artist, he could be right, or he could be wrong, but it’s nothing better than a guess.

For the record, I went to his blog and read quite a number of his posts. Being able to understand Mandarin helped me quite a bit. The real discussion-worthy posts were highly opinionated and most of them left no supporting evidence. On top of that, there seems to be at least eight straight pages of blogging posts where every single post is a carbon copy of an initial “5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake Student Deaths Research” project introduction. What was the point? To boost the apparent number of Wenchuan-related articles?

See, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be skeptical about many of the Chinese Government’s position on things. However, if NY Times is going to bring in someone like this, it’s going to sway a lot of people’s views emotionally, without reason. And that’s an example of the dangers of media.

Originally posted on Tuesday, March 17, 2009

It’s been a while. I have updated the articles page with photographs from the remaining two days of the cruise trip. Those two days were merely days spent at sea, so there’s not much new things to take photographs of. In any case, this closes the chapter on my week cruise.

<Edit: Since moving to WordPress, the “articles” page is no longer the location for the photographs. Photographs for days 1~5 can be found in previous blog posts. Photographs for days 6 and 7 are here.>

I’ve also updated the cool links page with a few more articles mostly about China and Tibet. One article, the one by Michael Parenti, has an overwhelming amount of citations and sources, whereas the other one, by Peter Hessler, is written with quite a neutral outlook. They’re quite a refreshing change from the media’s constant bashing of China’s Tibet policies. With the Tibet issue, I recognize that there are lots of things that we don’t want to see, like government creating an unofficial state of martial law by sending in lots of soldiers. However, I’m of the opinion that before you demonize the Chinese government, at least try to understand the situation as situations are often much more complex and harder to deal with than people think. The more articles I read on this, the less certain of the whole picture I become, and thus the less I want to make conclusions about it.

This past Saturday I visited a friend whom I haven’t conversed with for a very long time despite the fact that she lives just down the street. From the visit, several things were made apparent. Our lives certainly grew apart since university began. She still houses the same spirit of self-improvement that I no longer share. Actually, that’s not true. I think it’s our psychology that’s different, and thus our methods for tackling our own growth differs as well. I am not as strong or disciplined as she is, so if I try to handle things like she does, I will get burned out easily. This is why a better strategy for me is to maintain constant harmony with myself and allow my irrational desires to push me to grow at a natural pace. And with my rate of growth, I’m quite content.

It seems that we no longer have many things in common to talk about now. It’s kinda interesting actually. She kept on insisting me to relax, and don’t always be so serious, or something like that, yet I kinda wanted to point out that Innis in general is extremely clean, organized, simple, and square-like just like any office building. When I entered her room, I saw two computer screens in a neat room. One screen was displaying news from BBC, the other screen was on several communication streams including Skype. When I sat on the bed, she would be talking to people over IM not unlike a scene where an office worker is communicating with her client over the Internet. When the phone rings, it is immediately picked up in a professional-like manner. When we talk, her voice was quiet and efficient. In that kind of environment, it feels like waiting at a receptionist desk. Naturally, I got into my “serious” mode without even realizing, and later on when I tried to get out of it, it just didn’t feel natural.

I think most of my other friends would agree that I’m usually quite balanced between being serious and being goofy. That’s how I am naturally, but for some reason this becomes restricted in Innis, I guess tis one of the reasons why I dislike that building.

Hmm… Woodsworth rez is probably worse.

Ah, right. I got an AMD job, and it was quite an ego boost. PEY results for first round was released last week, and I was ranked #1 for two positions. When I went to the PEY office, the people there told me that you don’t see people with multiple offers very often during round one, and if you do see them, they’re usually for people with top marks in the program. My GPA right now, although on a rising trend since I rebounded from the fall during first year second term, still only reaches a 3.3. Yet, of the six applications I got a response from, I got four Interviews. Of the four interviews, each one of them went very well, and I got ranked #1 for two of them. It seems that my efforts got me results.

Since the beginning of PEY, I made sure to treat each and every job application as if it’s the job that I absolutely just have to get. To do this, I did my research and made sure to cater every cover letter to the position. It was important to show them that I understand what the job is about, and I tried to do that to the best of my ability. This included attending info sessions, talking to past PEY people, and doing online research on the company and positions. Every time I submitted an application, I would know that my application will be the one that looks a great deal more solid than the average application.

Apparently, doing this got me quite a few interviews. According to the career center, if a company wants to reject a student, then the company must indicate this on the PlacePro system, so I would know if I was rejected. I applied to about 20 places in total, got responses for six, and no responses for the remaining. Some of those companies probably backed out of the PEY system due to the economic scene, others probably haven’t reached a decision yet. Out of the six, I was rejected by two, but got interviewed by four. This can probably be roughly considered as a 66% interview rate, so clearly all those research was worth it.

Then I adopted a perspective of confidence. For each and every Interview, I was never nervous or fearful of rejection. I made sure I dress well. Upon meeting the person I made sure to shake hand firmly and project an image of confidence and professionalism. The thing with Interviews is that, if you can deal with the nervousness of anticipation before and when meeting the person, then everything after becomes perfectly normal. I knew that I was perfectly capable of tackling any problems or questions they might throw at me because I had confidence in my abilities and my personal growth in the past. Throughout the Interview, I didn’t treat it as them interviewing me to see if I’m good enough. Instead, I treated it like we’re both interviewing each other to decide whether we can work well and create something together. Apparently, once you’re in that mindset, talking was easy, efficient, and fun. At the end of each of these Interviews, I’d feel this awesome sense of self. It made me start thinking that if I ever need a mood booster, an interview would do the job.

And apparently this worked. Out of the four interviews, I was really only weeded out by one, and that was the interview where I was interviewed by four employers at once, and it was a management position. I believe I only lost that position because I lacked the experience or training. For the other three interviews (one hardware, two software), I got ranked by them all, as each of them sent me an email afterwards telling me I’ve entered their final selection pool. And out of these three, I got first place for two of them.

So, on Monday, May 18th, I’ll be beginning work at AMD’s Toronto office. The position is a testing position, but quite an extensive one. The idea is to make sure various AMD graphics chips are compatible with all sorts of operating systems, programs, and platforms. Not only will this offer quite some experience with computer graphics in general, there’s also a chance to work with Windows 7 before anyone else. There’ll be lots of challenges ahead, but I’ll definitely be able to overcome them. Meanwhile, this also means I need to obtain my G2 license before May 18th. I’ll also need to look for housing for the summer and next year.

I also attended an info session on graduate school yesterday. The session was hosted by Willy Wong, my old prof for E&M. Graduate school seems to be really tough both to get in and to stay in, but the idea of it is very awesome. Apparently the minimum requirements is a mid-B average. If I maintain my current level of grades, and improve a little in first term fourth year, I’ll have a chance, and if I have a chance, then my pro-activeness will make it an almost certainty. I’m still not going to make a decision about it until after PEY, when I have better knowledge of the industry’s conditions. However, I think it is likely for me to try for a M. Eng after getting my degree. And then if I’m still ambitious (I’m fantasizing now, lol), I might go for an MBA. Ultimately, I want to make a difference with my knowledge and skills, and I want to do it in my own natural way.

I’m getting hungry now. Recently I’ve been criticized by several people for not eating healthily and not exercising. These are things I will get to eventually, but for now, other things have higher priorities.