What are you up to?

I was asked the question "what are you up to"? when I just met one colleague, before giving my presentation. Do you know its exact meaning and the proper response?

Fantasy

How much I want a biiiig hoooooooliday!

Back home

Coming back home finally! Missing everything in Manchester, eg. nice food with awesome price, movies with one fourth of the London price, a lot of talks, a lot of chats, except the barbecue, because that had to be the indoor one to escape the rainy day, which has yet been made up for with the outdoors barbecue at the side of the canal in the beautiful sunset tonight! So I have no pity left there.

Finally

Finally, going to hand my thesis out.

Butterfly Orchid ------ 蝴蝶兰

Seeing this fully blooming Orchid, would you believe that this small plant has bloomed from last July till now? Close to one year, but now it is like......

Orchid has many species. Because this orchid's flower has a shape of butterfly, so it is called “Butterfly orchid” (my mother's favourite). It likes the sunlight a lot. One reason I think my orchid had such long blooming time is that I arranged the flowers to face to the Sun.

Enjoy it!

Why Hillary failed?

I am the supporter of Hillary, not only because she is a woman and a strong woman, but also for a personal reason. I talked about her with a New Yorker. No doubt, she is for her. And now she is addicted to her shows. At that time, her winning chance is already very slim but this friend told me that she still had much hope because she thought, in the democratic party, at the end, they might do some black-box operations to make Hillary to be the candidate.

Such old but not good political term, in such highly advanced society, is still believed by many people. When everyone hates the dark side of the politics, can we hope the one voted by those who believe in these dark sides, to fight against it; or can we hope the one, won by taking advantage of these dark sides, is willing to overhaul them? That might explain how Obama got that magic power to win the young people's hearts in one night, just by declaring changes.

曲高和寡

昨天从一位朋友那听说iPhone 在国内大流行，当他知道我还在用我的pay as you go 三年还没换的手机时，大吃一惊。然后又说现在笔记本都是宽屏了，说了半天，我恍然大悟。最后他很理解的说：我刚从英国回来时，也觉得自己有些土。刹那间，我有种火山爆发的感觉，因为平日最恨没有头脑的跟风族。知道这种风气在国内最为盛行，到处都是风。看见别人用了，对自己有用没用先不说，就先跟上。看见别人走这条路，不管是不是一个方向，也要挤一条路。等到时候发现错了，也迟了。自己天生就不是追风族，因为也没有那种虚荣心；又加上实在恐惧这种风气之害，因此对fashion 总有保持距离的感觉。说到笔记本，前两天在会上时，Harvard, MIT, Stanford 的学生也没用宽屏呀，反而很多和我一样，用着IBM 的告别版。这么看来并不是我一个人不追风。朋友解释：其实追风挺好，这样很容易就知道现在流行什么；不像在英国，也有流行的，就是自己不知道。我想了想，说：那你还是适和在国内生活。