Drafts cleaning

This morning, the time is changed; 2 am became 3pm, so I lost a hour in this 23 hour day. Now it is 12:19am, Monday, but on the old clock, it should still be yesterday at 11:19pm, which is too early to sleep. So I feel like doing something in this hour that should belongs to Sunday.

I have had several drafts composed during the past several months, but never completed them. Most of the time it is because I don’t think I have enough thoughts to make a post. These are small revelations that I don’t know how to present them in order to make a point. But on the other hand, why bother making a point. So I decide to pile them up in this one post in the hope that they collectively will mean something.

1. A Meaningful Pursuit. Last edited 27 Dec. 2009.
That’s the title I gave to a self-assessment post on relationship. But nothing really happened, well, actually nothing encouraging really happened, so there is really nothing to say about. However, I do feel there is a change in my perception on relationship, as the title suggests, which is borrowed from a line in Casino Royale. This change is this: a relationship is not simply a task or a job, but something that you can spend your life on in order to better and better it everyday. (I begin to feel I don’t actually know what I am talking about now, so stop here.)

2. Tolerance, Last edited 2 Jan 2010
This draft was inspired by an article on Steve Chu, the new secretary of energy. In the article, there is this line:
“With scientists, he can be impatient. “He does not suffer fools,” says Michael Levi, an astrophysicist at the LBNL.”– Newsmaker of the year: The power player, Nature News. And I know exactly how he feels. I can be impatient, and very intolerant of imcompetency. However, having being incompetent myself in my first few years of graduate schools, I know how the reverse feels as well. People around me gave me help, but most importantly I think, I helped myself. No one can help you if you do not help yourself first.

3. Politics in the Copenhagen Climate Summit, last edited 2 Jan 2010
Having read so much about the climate talk, I wanted to write something about it in order to help me to form an opinion on this issue. But it is just too complex an issue. I felt like writing a research article. I wrote down a list of things that may be of interests. Here is the list: 1) different interests at play: international, domestic agenda, celebrity, energy industry; 2) Complex problem with a complex solution. 3) Negotiations between nations, the good, the bad and the ugly of negotiators. A hero in one side is a villain on the other . 4) Reality VS. Ideal. 5) Keep practical but not to lose ideal. Interest VS. conscience.6)Get rid of the simple-minded notion of politics.

4. a revelation had when seeing King Tut exhibit in AGO, Last edited 11 Mar 2010
I went to see the King Tut (http://www.ago.net/kingtut) exhibit last Wednesday evening by myself. And during the visit, I had a deja vu, as if I was back in New York or London, visiting Met, or British Museum, especially when I saw a canopic jar that looked so much like the one I saw in NYC. I felt suddenly being pulled out of the routine life, and I was back in travel mode, starting again exploring everything around me. I used to hate museums, because everything in it is so old. But now I had this sudden joy, maybe I should go to see ROM (http://www.rom.on.ca/) some day not too far in the future. Yes, eventually, after living so close to it for more than four years.

5. Feeling being victimized will never help, last edited 11 Mar 2010
Someone said something to me like this when writing a paper: if you write it in Chinese, it would be ok, but it is in english. At first I recognized the fact that I am not a native speaker, but immediately after I felt being discriminated against. Just because I am not a native speaker doesn’t mean I cannot write well. I felt like being a victim. Naturally I wanted to fight back. But this instinct didn’t help. On reflection, this feel of being victimized takes control of the emotion and the mind and justifies me fighting back at that moment. However, after cooling down, I started to think win-win. Ego-battle is not worth fighting, not at all.

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Wendong Wang

A scientist who blogs

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