Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Dinner in DC
Uncle Jay visited in DC yesterday. Thus, I invited several of my friends to have dinner together with him. :) I decided to go to Georgetown for this romantic Friday night event. The restaurant I picked was Miss Saigon which had authentic Vietnamese dishes with good prices. (Too bad we did not drill a hole in Uncle Jay's wallet, as Aunt Shichin told me to :p)
Here's the issue we discussed during the dinner: (cited from New York Times Magazine)
A new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide b/w school and not-school is out of date. It ignores overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environment s on children's achievement. At the most basic level it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle-class peers. There is evidence that schools can do lot or erase that divide but the reality is that most schools do not. If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more.
This is closely related to "Summer Loss", one of the issue that Irene's adviser, whom Uncle Jay admires a lot, had researched on. During the summer vacation, Children from middle-class (or upper) family gained a lot of knowledge and different trainings from all the summer camps and classes while the poor just stay at home watching TV; Thus when the school starts again, the performance of the poor children is lower. This effect actually accumulates as time follows. Specific interventions in the children's lives might diminish the gap - as long as they begin early (the earliest the better) .
Major thanks to Bryce, Irene, Lu for accompanying me to DC/ Georgetown. My uncle is indeed a cool and fun guy to talk to right? Georgetown at night was so pretty. How nice it was to stroll along the street while watching all the glimmering shop window displaying and showing off. :)
Here's the issue we discussed during the dinner: (cited from New York Times Magazine)
A new and growing movement of researchers and advocates has begun to argue that the longstanding and sharp conceptual divide b/w school and not-school is out of date. It ignores overwhelming evidence of the impact of family and community environment s on children's achievement. At the most basic level it ignores the fact that poor children, on average, arrive in kindergarten far behind their middle-class peers. There is evidence that schools can do lot or erase that divide but the reality is that most schools do not. If we truly want to counter the effects of poverty on the achievement of children, these advocates argue, we need to start a whole lot earlier and do a whole lot more.
This is closely related to "Summer Loss", one of the issue that Irene's adviser, whom Uncle Jay admires a lot, had researched on. During the summer vacation, Children from middle-class (or upper) family gained a lot of knowledge and different trainings from all the summer camps and classes while the poor just stay at home watching TV; Thus when the school starts again, the performance of the poor children is lower. This effect actually accumulates as time follows. Specific interventions in the children's lives might diminish the gap - as long as they begin early (the earliest the better) .
Major thanks to Bryce, Irene, Lu for accompanying me to DC/ Georgetown. My uncle is indeed a cool and fun guy to talk to right? Georgetown at night was so pretty. How nice it was to stroll along the street while watching all the glimmering shop window displaying and showing off. :)
Saturday, September 13, 2008
AI2V workshop (2)
Wearing in business casual for a straight four day is indeed a breakthrough for me. Thus, group picture again:
What else did we do? We had quite an experience staying in this really ancient, old-style "Memorial" hotel. Here is the word which everybody uses to describe it: creepy. We found one really scary thing in Vanessa and Lu's room each day: a naked pony doll under the bed, a children drawing in the drawer, (Believe me, you will NOT want to see it), and another toy which I don't know how to describe. Besides this , there was also flickering light, (both in the room and the bathroom), blood on the curtains (and shower curtains), a old piano at the lobby which looked like it would brought you back to centuries ago if you play it. Also, the coffee shop next to the hotel is called "Uncommon Ground". True. Everything is very uncommon, and ... haunted. Back in 1920s it was a 5 star. The decoration itself was very flowerish, and colorful: bedsheet, wallpaper. There were even two armors on first floor. Thus, all in all, Vanessa and Lu ended up pulling the Bible out and touch it before touching any thing in their room. :-(
We also played Mafia, at the last night of our stay there. Harry made up some scary stories of people who got killed by Mafia. I was strangled by the curtain. (Vanessa was sucked into her laptop... we should all get one red envelope for compensation following Chinese tradition) Mafia is always very triggering and interesting. I did doctor and Mafia once this time which was completely new to me, despite the fact that TJ, who was supposed to be my mafia teammate, accidentally admitted that he was the MAFIA and got killed immediately. :D It was also Girish's first Mafia game. (He had done quite well, surprisingly.) We celebrated his birthday earlier that night at a decent Thai restaurant near by as the grant paid for it.
Nimra learned A LOT OF Chinese during our trip. She is now able to say "你的中文好爛" to other Chinese-learning beginners. She also recognized all the Chinese numbers through our Ma Jong playing (previously in MS/PhD retreat). We planned our graduation trip next June at our flight from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (US-tokyo-上海-杭州-西安-HK-Taipei-US) We are going to intentionally not submitting our thesis to the department, take our time traveling and graduate in August. :p How does that sound? Also We had talked about the spring break CA trip.
What else did we do? We had quite an experience staying in this really ancient, old-style "Memorial" hotel. Here is the word which everybody uses to describe it: creepy. We found one really scary thing in Vanessa and Lu's room each day: a naked pony doll under the bed, a children drawing in the drawer, (Believe me, you will NOT want to see it), and another toy which I don't know how to describe. Besides this , there was also flickering light, (both in the room and the bathroom), blood on the curtains (and shower curtains), a old piano at the lobby which looked like it would brought you back to centuries ago if you play it. Also, the coffee shop next to the hotel is called "Uncommon Ground". True. Everything is very uncommon, and ... haunted. Back in 1920s it was a 5 star. The decoration itself was very flowerish, and colorful: bedsheet, wallpaper. There were even two armors on first floor. Thus, all in all, Vanessa and Lu ended up pulling the Bible out and touch it before touching any thing in their room. :-(
We also played Mafia, at the last night of our stay there. Harry made up some scary stories of people who got killed by Mafia. I was strangled by the curtain. (Vanessa was sucked into her laptop... we should all get one red envelope for compensation following Chinese tradition) Mafia is always very triggering and interesting. I did doctor and Mafia once this time which was completely new to me, despite the fact that TJ, who was supposed to be my mafia teammate, accidentally admitted that he was the MAFIA and got killed immediately. :D It was also Girish's first Mafia game. (He had done quite well, surprisingly.) We celebrated his birthday earlier that night at a decent Thai restaurant near by as the grant paid for it.
Nimra learned A LOT OF Chinese during our trip. She is now able to say "你的中文好爛" to other Chinese-learning beginners. She also recognized all the Chinese numbers through our Ma Jong playing (previously in MS/PhD retreat). We planned our graduation trip next June at our flight from Indianapolis to Atlanta. (US-tokyo-上海-杭州-西安-HK-Taipei-US) We are going to intentionally not submitting our thesis to the department, take our time traveling and graduate in August. :p How does that sound? Also We had talked about the spring break CA trip.
AI2V workshop (1)
I took quite some small trips these days. Our design team recently went to University of Illinois, Urbana- Champagne (UIUC) for a 4-day workshop called AI2V. It's basically to guide you through the process of getting your innovation idea/ prototype device to market and the real business world. We see this as a team retreat, thus 6 of us all managed to go.
Most (entire) my life in the u.s. was around the east coast. It was my first adventure to the middle west state. It was really different, and fun. :-) Design team 9, which is Tjensin's team went with us as well. That made the trip even more fun. :p
We got there at Sep 7, which is a Sunday. It was really shiny, and bright. The sun lighted up all the fields along the highway from Indianapolis to Urbana. Nimra was still fasting that day. Harry and she were sleeping at hotel, while the rest of us all fit in TJ's rent car and went Steak N Shake. As title, Steak N Shake is a famous middle west thing that has delicious steak hamburger and milkshake. :") We had the most delicious frisco melt I have ever had. Hmmm~ Trade secret. :p I love the onion rings and the raspberry vinegar sauce for salad, as well as the chloride-flavored water.
So we went there the next day. :p
Harry, me and Bryce.
Somehow I don't really want to describe in detail what I've learned from the workshop from business' perspective. I did learn something, but the business terms were overwhelming. :"( The best part for me is that we came up with this 90- second elevator pitch, which is very concise, compact and LOUD. The pitch begins with:
"You have all seen someone collapse and stop breathing. The ambulance arrives and CPR is performed by forcing air into the lungs. But what you don’t know is that this current method of CPR actually kills patients faster. This forced air creates unnatural pressures in your chest that ultimately block blood flow to your heart and brain. In patients with traumatic brain injury, this can easily be fatal."
The pitch can be really useful when you try to sell your idea and catch VC's attention, within a very limited time. We all should memorize and use it when this chance comes by.
Group picture can never be missed. Harry took this picture when 5 of us were sitting (& Posing) on the 1900 bench. We were doing self guided campus walking tour in UIUC that evening.
Most (entire) my life in the u.s. was around the east coast. It was my first adventure to the middle west state. It was really different, and fun. :-) Design team 9, which is Tjensin's team went with us as well. That made the trip even more fun. :p
We got there at Sep 7, which is a Sunday. It was really shiny, and bright. The sun lighted up all the fields along the highway from Indianapolis to Urbana. Nimra was still fasting that day. Harry and she were sleeping at hotel, while the rest of us all fit in TJ's rent car and went Steak N Shake. As title, Steak N Shake is a famous middle west thing that has delicious steak hamburger and milkshake. :") We had the most delicious frisco melt I have ever had. Hmmm~ Trade secret. :p I love the onion rings and the raspberry vinegar sauce for salad, as well as the chloride-flavored water.
So we went there the next day. :p
Harry, me and Bryce.
Somehow I don't really want to describe in detail what I've learned from the workshop from business' perspective. I did learn something, but the business terms were overwhelming. :"( The best part for me is that we came up with this 90- second elevator pitch, which is very concise, compact and LOUD. The pitch begins with:
"You have all seen someone collapse and stop breathing. The ambulance arrives and CPR is performed by forcing air into the lungs. But what you don’t know is that this current method of CPR actually kills patients faster. This forced air creates unnatural pressures in your chest that ultimately block blood flow to your heart and brain. In patients with traumatic brain injury, this can easily be fatal."
The pitch can be really useful when you try to sell your idea and catch VC's attention, within a very limited time. We all should memorize and use it when this chance comes by.
Group picture can never be missed. Harry took this picture when 5 of us were sitting (& Posing) on the 1900 bench. We were doing self guided campus walking tour in UIUC that evening.
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