It's unbelievable!!!

The purpose of this blog (well, it's also a letter I sent to some authorities, working or not, it doesn't matter) is not just to complaint, but to evoke the awareness of our public servants – herein are the cops. Of course it’s not all the cops, there are good cops who are very responsible and protect the community with justice and right. However, there are inevitably some cops don’t really care, just a job for them, at least some of them don’t really “pull” their hearts out for the community.

Here’s the story:

Date: 9/16/2009

Time: Around 10:01pm – 10:47pm

Venue: Dunkin Donuts at Kissena/LIE

Police Car Number: 1794

Three of us were in Dunkin Donuts to get some tea/coffee. While one of our friends was waiting on line, and two of us, including myself were looking for seats. Basically most seats are occupied; there was a table with a guy reading newspaper, and three other seats. So we walked to there, and asking if we can sit there. He moved his two bags of sodas to another seat. We told him that we have three people, and he got mad and asked us to get another chair from other table with a very unfriendly tone.

Well, its fine, then I decided to move his sodas back to his original seat (I was thinking it’s not a big deal, it’s just sodas). All the sudden he just grabbed my hand, pulling my fingers (left hand) very hard. He was shouting at me, “Don’t touch my stuff!”

I was a little shocked with his reaction, and I was really hurt by him and my conscious told me to shout as loud as possible to make sure he stopped pulling my fingers. I actually have no idea why he’s trying to harm me since I didn’t have any weapon with me at all!!! This shouldn’t an act of protection. The worst thing was not the argument part (it wasn’t an argument at all), there was no one coming over, they just watching and sitting there, including the manager in the store.

My friend called 911 immediately. We figured that we should not confront him directly and wait till the police come. We called at 10:09pm and waited for 22 minutes, and then I called again at 10:31pm. The police showed up at 10:43pm. They just sat in the car and NEVER step out of the car. The woman seemed very unfriendly at all. I wonder isn’t that cop should be trying any possible way to help, and she sounds like she didn’t care at all!

I told her the story, including I tried to moved his sodas. She just said that I was wrong, and I told her I admitted I should ask but it was sodas (she seemed like she didn’t understand), and there is not a big deal (it was not something valuable), if yes, he didn’t allow me to touched his stuff, he can always ask politely.

When I said I forget to ask for permission, the police woman actually said, he can also “forget” to hurt you!!! Isn’t that sounds ridiculous coming out from a public servant??? Sounds like the cops actually allow something like this happen!

She also asked me if I told the management. I said they all saw what happened. She actually suggested that, “If I were you I’ll never come back to this place again!” What kind of answer is this, very irresponsible!

When my friend try to talk to her, then she stop my friend with a kind of rude manner, without actually “listen” – she actually “hear” but not “listen”! And repeated, “if someone touch your stuff, you may do the same thing”, at least twice! Then I was thinking, police actually ENCOURAGE people to harm others!!!

She actually asked me what I want her to do, and I really don’t think she would take any action, so I asked back, “since you are the cop, then what will you do, and you can tell me what should I do?” Her answer was, “just leave”. Wow! Amazing! No warning at all? And she added, “Do you guys still fight, it’s over, right?” I was thinking, if we’re still fighting for 40 minutes before the cops came, this place was already like a mess. I don’t know why she asked this and maybe she just want to see something REALLY happen before she take action? Isn’t that police supposed to prevent things happen, instead of waiting till things happen before taking action? Isn’t that too late? And this particular guy may not hurt me that much, he may hurt other people with no reason in the future, can’t the police take a little initiative or responsible to talk to this guy at least?

We were very disappointed and we left after the police left. My two fingers are still hurting where after a night, it becomes green and black from appearance (of course this is nothing compared to others, but even though this is a small incident to the eyes of the cops, but they are the one who set examples for the community, to make sure things can be prevented. Is there a way that we can have our little voice out? Society changed! People don’t care, and the cops don’t care too. People wait till things happened and take action. Why not take some prevention before it really happen?

It just feel GREAT!

After 5 weeks of summer school, despite the toughness, discipline, and the not so fun homework with low score in tests/exams, I finally see the improvement "within" the students. Not only academically, but also personally. However, they are still kids!

Seeing them getting more focus and more discipline is nothing you can buy, it's just so precious. From cheating during the tests until able to control and be honest on their scores (Imagine that the temptation of cheating is very high since they just sit very close together).

Nothing is more important than the "right" attitude and behavior... academic is just something add-on on top of the quality of a human being.

I believe that these kids will be so strong in the future, they can face any tough situation and be able to handle them well. This is just great!

How to Count Without Counting

When I first saw the subtitle, I was so amazed there is a book in Math does sound like Philosophy! It's true that people have been spending time in a lot of unnecessary activities and decision making. A lot of people just spend too much time on doing something that could be done in a lot less time. That's the problem! People don't understand why we should save time! Most of us think that we can take our time to do things, well, it's just depend... (Another decision making moment).

The title of this book is "Mathematics of Choice". It's indeed very true that we have a choice, not only in Math. God has given us choices in life for many things. We make our own choices... Do we make a good choice? Or we has been spending time to make wrong choices all the time (there are a lot of people spending too much time making wrong decision...).

However, a lot of people don't want to save their time... people are generally stubborn.. haha... They want to stay at their own status instead of change (even though they always say that they wanna change) - I think this matches Newton's First Law! Or may be we are just too "Solid", where all molecules in solid state can't really move around, and can only have very limited movement unless some external "heat" or "forces" acted upon it. Wow! Our life is just so Mathematical and Scientific!

Well, our life has so many Combinations, Permutations and Distributions...

I Remember...

To Honor Our Father...

I remember it was you, who always bought me something whenever you came back from a trip when I was a kid.

I remember it was you, who gave me a surprise birtday at my nursery school when I was 4.

I remember it was you, who prepared two movies for me everyday before I went to bed.

I remember it was you, who beat me up and then helped me to put on medicine when I was out of control.

I remember it was you, who always remembered what I like and bought me books even though you believe "book" would bring bad luck (in terms of gambling).

I remember it was you, who built up "whole room" of bookshelves in our study room.

I remember it was you, who always wanted to be the chef cooking for my guests whenever there was a chance.

I remember it was you, who always took us out for dim sum during the weekend, and spent the day with us.

I remember...

Something about Math - Career or/and Entrepreneur

Found these 2 articles, may help to explain the wonder of why Math? There are still a lot of articles out there, and of course the debate between the bright and dark sides of it.

Too much math will not be good, and knowing too little of it will not help either. We all need to know "adequate" - enough to function! How much is adequate? Technically, you don't WASTE time, resources, energy - yours or/and others... to do anything (well, don't take me wrong, we all still have to relax - therefore, we must be able to separate ourselves from working and relaxing - clear line between them!)

online.wsj.com/article/SB123119236117055127.htm
(This link may not work from here, copy and paste will work)

www.gaebler.com/Entrepreneurship-and-Math.htm

Smart Vs. Wisdom

It just strikes me when I was listening to a talk few days ago. I think we all actually aware that both smartness and wisdom are two totally different phenomena.

A smart person doesn't mean that he/she has wisdom. However, the reverse is true! A person with wisdom must be smart! Perhaps, I can say that the smart person without (much) wisdom is not that smart actually, and he/she is only on a lower level of smartness... just like myself... it's not easy to reach that level, and perhaps we need to spend our life to acheive it, which need a lot of discipline.

Smart people can solve problem, and can be very successful. On the other hand, people with wisdom, may not seem that successful, but they are happier.

This may be just my opinion, this world has put us into a tiny and narrow view to judge a person's success: in terms of materialistics, fame, power... Human is losing the power of judgement with wisdom...

Knowledge Vs. Morality

As someone who teaches, nurturing our new generation is the main mission. However, are we just nurturing "the knowledge"? How about the other side of being a "right" person for the society. Especially the Asian community, parents emphasis too much on studies and getting good jobs for the future, which leads to good grades in school. Is it about being a good students depends on how good the grades are?

There is no doubt that as students, the only focus is study and learn, but what is good if a person is good for knowledge and doesn't have a "heart"? Being in the "world" just for the materiality, without the "heart" of knowing the needs of others?

Perhaps being a "good person" is boring, but is that true? Well, yes or no, but we don't want to be just a good person, we want to be a "right" person! And define "good" and "right"... I think I'll let you to define them.

Here is something that I want to share:

Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.
You don't have to have a college degree to serve,
you don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.
You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.

by - Somebody

Who wants to be a Millionare?

Well, I have this book a while ago, and just found it again while I'm moving... Of course there is no free lunch, and you must work on it :D

The book title is "The Millennium Problems" - The 7 Greatest Unsolved Mathematical Puzzles of Our Time.

In May 2000, the CMI announced seven $1 Million prizes for the solution to each seven unsolved problems of Mathematics in Paris. There is a promotional site: www.claymath.org

Somehow, the problems are pretty interesting, and if someone would like to work on them, then you should check out the site...These are the topics:
1. The Music of Primes: The Riemann Hypothesis
2. The Fields We Are Made Of: Yang - Mills Theory and the Mass Gap Hypothesis
3. When Computers Fail: The P vs. NP Problem
4. Making Waves: The Navier-Stokes Equations
5. The Mathematics of Smooth Behavior: The Poincare Conjecture
6. Knowing When Equation Can't Be Solved: The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture
7. Geometry Without Pictures: The Hodge Conjecture


I have seen some of these when I was in college, back then... it's always complicated stuffs. Of course, I wish there were some books that can explain complicated items in a very simple way... but in order to understand complicated stuffs, and make it simple, we should go through a process of learning of complicated things, then we will understand what and how is simple.

People nowadays don't like to think, that's the problem why a lot of us actually take life for granted. Brains are not being used often... make me worry if human will be like those in Wall-E!

Anyway, hope some of you will enjoy the problems...

What REALLY is Education?

Often I heard that people telling getting education is to complete your study, to get a degree, then get a good job, in order to become secure in your life. Is it true?

Very often, in the schools or even in prep schools, teachers tend to emphasis on knowledge too much instead of overall personal growth from deep inside. Even though schools that want to "growth" the younger generations; but the educators don't seemed to know which is the priorities! And confused on where to start, often take the children as experiments!

Knowledge is IMPORTANT! Teachers definitely MUST be equipped with what they are capable in, not just teach by learning them the day before. Teachers MUST set the right example, not just because they HAVE TO, they must come out from their own hearts!

Is it knowledge the only thing we need to have? The answer is NO! Knowledge is just part of our skills that get us to be a better person. Nowadays, people with knowledge, may not necessary success. And how do we define "Success"? Is it how much money you make? or how is your society status? or everything that we can see and tangible? This is a great question that everyone must spend time to think!

What's good is the money, status, popularity, etc if we don't have friends? define friends... I mean "real" friends, the one who will be there whenever you need them, and no afraid to tell you if you are wrong. Not running away when you are in trouble. Not just want to be a freind because of benefit...

How about having your whole life, and you have a chance to be the one who can impact others' lives? Bring cheers, laughs, hopes... or we are the burdens of the societies or if not, just another human beings that never cares about others except him/herself... or just because we don't think this world has any hopes...after trying to help... are we the one who always blame on others... and not seeing why it happened, and try to figure out what can we do in order to become better?

Our schools focus on what we so called "education", which is just merely the surfaces of what we should be... teachers, educators should be more concern on human growth of integrity, care, morality... Otherwise, we will be the waste products of our own education...

相亲相爱 (Xiang Qing Xiang Ai)

Whenever I listen to this song, I am in the time capsule traveling back to my high school time. The time that we were fighting for retaining our culture, the Chinese culture, together.

Yes! We are family, and now we are still family, the Society is still standing and growing strong after 32 years.

I miss you all, and I believe that I'll see you all very soon... and keep the dream alive!

Writing a book...

It's harder than I thought. Well, I should expect that. Writing something that I have been taught for past 8 years shouldn't be that difficult, but putting them into words and set up a practice plan is a lot time consuming. Finally, after 2 weeks, I have done the important portion, the tough one is yet to come...

Has been another 2 weeks now that I have been working on the "extras", which really take me a lot of time of thinking. The first book can't be perfect, but I want it to be almost perfect! I want it not just a normal academic book, but also something that is fun and worth reading.


Just wish that the flow of ideas will come like a fountain...

Learning Center/Prep School/After School in NYC

I have been thinking of writing an article about prep/after school program in the City. There are too many of them here, at lease when we flip over the newspapers, they are always their ads. Are they good? well, anyone will learn something "ACADEMICALLY" from any prep school since most public school don't really "TEACH".

The only concern I have is that out of those ads, there are over 90% of the ads are not telling the truth or may be they are inadequate to really understand what is the TRUE MEANING of education!

Education is not all about academic, going to top colleges, and having a good life in the future!

Education is about personal growth not only knowledge, but also wisdom(wisdom is not what from the book, it's from within...) to fulfill and achieve the best of mankind.

It's so sad that to see most of the prep school would lie on the ads just to attract students or customers without knowing that they actually just hurting the society in the long run. When I see some "Big Name" prep school and knowing that they are actually not telling the truth, I just feel sorry to them, especially the school owner is a well-known educator in the city and was recognized with awards before. It's just sad to know that this is what happened now...

A Nation In Crisis: America's Education System Is Broken

One more video to be shared today. This video has break down what's happened systematically. It provides very great information that everyone should know.

Education in America is really a crisis now. Most of the kids today will be out pf competition in 10 - 20 years.

And this actually match my personal motto: Learn to Learn! Amazing! Well, enjoy the video.

A Real Life Look in American Education

Came across this video, and pretty much agreed with the comments the students and the teachers made. As mentioned before, this is not a news. I totally support the idea of DEMAND EXCELLENCE instead of letting he students feel good.

Really wish that something will be done instead of just talking. action must be taken, and the first thing is the unity of all the teachers who have the passions!

Are we just waiting or are we moving forward?

College Freshmen In US And China: Chinese Students Know More Science Facts But Neither Group Especia

This may not be a news any more since we all know that U.S. students are behind academically/knowledge. This is just something with numbers that technically shows how behind we are. However, scientific reasoning has no differences.

I agree that U.S. students do not attend enough years of Physics (for students who take physics), even though there are "few" of these students who excel in the subject, but average, most of the students who took the class are just taking it for the sick of taking the class or passing the class. On the other hand, China students may have the same attitude at first, but since the subject is taught for years, then students may have eventually absorb the subject better, and appreciate it.

There is nothing wrong to just study the course for one year, but is it enough for someone who is just in high school? And is it enough for the students to "digest" what they have learned in such a period of time? Perhaps, when the students start understanding what is Physics all about, the course is done.

For me, I never really understand or appreciate Physics and Chemistry until my third year of the courses during my A-Level course. It's good to know that educators now may want to join hands to find a better way to improve the standard/knowledge of our students.

Why Most American can't do the Math?

It's actually not American can't do Math, it's just that they are SLOW and NOT EFFICIENT! Something that can be done within seconds, may take them up to few minutes. Just imagine something that may take less than an hour, that may take them few hours to solve. This doesn't occur only in Math, but also in any situation.

Of course, there are those who can do thing and think fast, but the proportion is comparable low 90/10; where 90% of the American are below average compared to other countries. Now, is this the fault of American? Yes and No!

Yes! Because a lot of American want to have short cut, without building strong foundation. Most of them don't like to think, want to enjoy, high self-esteem, low self-discipline, and lazy! Hmm... sounds like American are worthless. Well, of course not, most of these may not what the American want at first. It's just what had been done past 30 years in their Education systems. The so-called educators had "destroyed" the generations. Is that bad? Yes and No again! They did nurture great scholar and successful people, but very handful of them, compared to the general success like China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong etc. The average and below average students from those countries are considered the top 5%-10% of U.S. It's very sad to know that and to admit that American are actually way behind of the Global Standard!

What should we do? Build the teachers first, and have the right person, with REAL Experience, to do the job!

What Happen to the US Elementary and Middle School Education?

If you are raised in other countries and completed your high school there before coming to US for your higher education, most of you will find out why it is so easy in US, and most of what you are learning in US perhaps the first 2-3 years of colleges, were what you learned back to your high schools. Well, of course, most students in US don't admit that they are behind, but you know that you are ahead of them. For example, in High School, if you are taking Chemistry, you will have to study Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Lab Experiment in your 2-3 years High School if you are in Science Stream, and another 1-2 year in Pre-college (12-13th grade). The Exam consist of about 10-20% MC, 40% Free respond, 40% Essay, and 10% lab,o which is very different from the US AP Chemistry format which usually consist of about 60% MC.

The question is why students in US always find out AP is difficult and yet they have very High Esteem even they may not know their subjects very well. When there is something a little more difficult, they will stress out. US always accuse the East put too much stress on students, which I agree 100%, but on the other hand, US has spoilt the students here!!!

The past 30 years, US has moving backwards in terms of education, that's why the education, especially the teachers who are in their 20-40s, they are not equiped to teach. MOST (not all), which is about 90% of the teachers, are not well prepared and are not aware of what outside this countries, and yet they often claimed themselves educators and received awards and recognitions that may be just overestimate their abilities as compared to the "GLOBAL STANDARD".

Students are students, and they are still kids, and adult must be able to guide them, not helping them to find EXCUSES for not able to learn or study. I personally am not going to deny the efforts the teachers have been putting in because I have met great teachers, but it's just a handful of them.

In order to help building our next generation, teachers MUST BE able to build themselves too, academically and personally! Right attitude is the key! Learning from the world instead of always thinking within the box.

New Year Resolution!

It's been a while that I haven't done anything on this blog. Besides getting a little lazy, the main point was that I have yet been trying to figure out what should I focus on. I want to hear from my heart and need some time to listen to it. It has been a wild ride for 2008, and I enjoy every bit of it.

Things happened and messages were sent to me strongly by letting me experienced and saw them. FAMILY! Yup! Family issues! A lot of families may seem perfect, no fault, but is it healthy in the sense that there maybe a lot of hidden conflicts among the family members, or lack of communication. Do parents actually understand their kids, or do he kids understand their parents on the other hand. Questions arose. I have seen great family, and I have seen broken family. I have talked to them and I have experienced it. I will start to write twice a week on issues that I have encountered either before or recently. There maybe no solution, or we just an opinion, or maybe if someone happened to drop by and want to give some suggestions or opinions, you are very welcome.

Just a new start!