Expecting that there may be no dinner in blackford, I fried some pancake yesterday to bring to the lab. Just this afternoon, it happened that my postdoc was there. I happily invited him to try my food. As usual, he is so reluctant to eat other people’s stuff. But the mischievous I was, the more he sticked to not coming, the more I tried to have him come. At last he gave up. He has to give up before me, haha 🙂
When eating together, I was so happy to taste my own cooking. And I said: there are a lot more intersting things in life, not only research! Postdoc said: You are trying to critisize me again! OK, go ahead…
He asked me about the party. He said: Qinghong, you like parties so much! You like talking with everybody! I said: Well, not really. When you are in the party, you should try to talk with other people. Or what else can I do? Just sit there with no move like you? You shouldn’t make the party waste your time. You’d better try to make use of it, make use of yourself. You know Confucius’ writing well, right? There is a famous sentence in Confucious’ words– As long as you’re already there, you should try to get used to the environment, try to make yourself comfortable in it and try to make use of it. …
Later he said: You don’t like science, qinghong. Hoho~, it true that I don’t expect myself to like it so much. But I have my logics to like it. Said me: Well, of course I like it, or I won’t be here. I can stay in Stony Brook, it’s much better to enjoy the life there. There are truly many things interested me. But you know what, in science, I can control everything myself. I gain from my own effort. How much efforts I pour in, how much will I get. You can feel that you’re not wasting your time. Of course there are chances that you may have wasted your time. But in most cases, you get as much from how much you efforts. In addition, you control everything yourself. That is, unlike any other fields dealing with people, for example, you are not only the element that controls the case. Everything is controlled by some other people that you can’t control. But in science, you are the controller, you do what you want, you get what you want, you decide, you win.
He looked at me smiling without talking. After finish eating, I left him there staying in the sofa, still thinking. I went to the lab to put some stuff back. When passing through his office, I found he was still not back. Hehe…
flyingred 