Peace2mnd's Space

hi,

I goto Facebook everyday now, so, my status are updated more frequently there!

Going to China, arriving Shanghai on 4/7, flying to Nanning on 4/9, then taking a railroad trip, 2500 km, 26 hours, from Nanning to Beijing around 4/18,
meet up with friends in BJ for 3 or 4 days, then, take another train ride (overnight) back to Shanghai, plan to cross Hangzhou cross-sea bridge and
visit Hangzhou's Zhejiang Univ, back to Shanghai visiting friends, before returning to U.S. on 4/30.

I bought a Nikon Coolpix s220 digital camera, so, after 5 trips to China relying on friends for photo's, i'll be able to take few my own;)

Please feel free and be generous to comment or suggest, so I can post here more before I move to FB totally.

Attended ex-Executive Officer of Hong Kong after 1997, Tung Chee Hwa's  talk about his US-China Exchange Foundation and his views on US-China Relations at Harvard Kennedy School. Many young students from China mainland and Hong Kong asked many good questions, and Tung answered very
well. The talk and Q&A was very touching and hopefully helpful for US-China Relationships in the future.

Yesterday, 11/15, I attended Chinese Teacher's Workshop at UMass Boston, as before, the workshop was well run by Primary Source and Confucius Institute @ UMass Boston. Participants were mostly Chinese teachers from  local public and private schools, due to the Chinese fever, everyone was in high spirit! Hopefully, I can find some teachers for our school, Derry Chinese School ;)

Babson asked me back again for EMBA Class study tour from Zhejiang Univ. of Hangzhou, China, on 11/13 and 11/14 this week, I did both afternoon on-site translation for Professor Jay Rao and John Edmund of Babson. Luckily I didn't have to do the morning sessions, so I could sit down and enjoy the lectures. I got to experience the morning traffic of Rte. 128 again, and lunches at Babson's Excutive Conference Center cafeteria was nice ;)

Today, I went to Taubman Building, Wiener's Auditorium, at Harvard Kennedy School, for the People's Repulic of China's National day celebration seminar, there were two speakers from Harvard Kennedy School and one Chinese professor from MIT Sloan School of Management, each gave a presentation about
the Reform in China, started by Deng Xiao Ping 30 years ago.  It was my first time there in Harvard Kennedy School (for Politics and Governments), so it was quite exciting for me, the presentations were all good ;) Well, the audience are mostly young, bright, Harvard students, only one other American guy, VP of World Trade Center of Mass., I know who's about my age;)

After the seminar, I walked aroung Harvard Square a bit, very nice interesting place with many interesting stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. I ended up wandering into Harvard Coop, the bookstore, I felt young and adventurous again, and I found the text book for the following on WIDE World course.
I bought the text book, since it's very much connected with the course I am taking, Teaching for Understanding with Technology, along with a high liter, a pencil, a ringed notebook, and a binder , bergundy (red) color with Harvard as label on it. I felt like a college student again !

I bit the bullet today and agreed to register for TfU1 (Teach for Understanding 1) course for the WIDE World Project,
online learning for educators, a profound project at Harvard Graduate School for Education, to bring research and
practice together. My objective is to help bringing WIDE World to Taiwan ;)

Pigged out at Hampton Beach Seafood Festival, last Saturday, it was cloudy, nice no sun burns, and the hurricane, Hanna, was coming brining
lots of rains, the firework at night was cancelled; we left early to go to Portsmouth, Peirce Island, and continued onto Kittery, Maine, to
Badger's Iseland Marina, to see our friend, Wayne, the marina's owner, he promised us a harbor cruise later in Fall once his boat gets a
new engine ;) We had a nice seafood dinner again at Ray's Restaurant again, before the pouring rain started.

Went NYC/NJ, visited my daughter, she took us to Brooklyn's Botanical Garden on Saturday and treated us with Sichuan Food for dinner.
On Sunday, she cooked us lunch, nice mexican food, then took us to Broadway Show, Mama Mia, which was so fantastic, I was in tears
laughing, making noise, over half of the show time, what a wonderful show!  After the show, I went to meet a new friend from Excutive Learning
Center and his wife from Wuhan and her girl friend from Wuhan too! We had huo guo, fire wok, at another Sichuan restaurant in New York
China town near the Brooklyn Bridge, had a great time !

Tonight, went Boston Oldies Summer Concert at the Hatchshell, Esplanade, by the Charles River, to see
the famous K.C. and Sunshine Band, many old songs from the 60's and 70's, Shake Your Bootie, That's the Way I like it,
Get Down Tonight,..  This is the nice things in Boston in the summer, it's FREE !

Yesterday I attended New England Chinese Information and Networking Association's Annual Conference '08, held at Royal
Sonesta Hotel, Cambridge, Mass.Socialing with old friends and meeting new friends, nice party with no alcohol ;)
The keynotes given by Boston Power's Founder and CEO, Christina Lampe-Onnerud, was compelling, at the end, she said: "coming together is the begining,keeping together is progress, and working together is success!", certainly, she's a leader !  The dinner keynotes given by 3COM's CEO, Edgar Masri, was very inspirational, he shared with us his experience of forming a joined venture between 3COM and Hua Wei, the biggest networking company like Cisco, in China, again, another great leader !  I got to speak to both of them after and before their speeches, respectivley; hopefully, they would both accept my LinkedIn invite and be connected !

 Took T from Alewife, got off at Hanes Auditorium, and walked onto Hereford St. near Boylston St. and watched 2008 Boston Marathon. It's 26.2 miles, started around 10 a.m. from somewhere out near route 128/InterState 95, passed Heartbreak Hill in Newton, and ended near Copley Square. There, I came up with the idea for the poster:

B2B  B2B
Boston Marathon 2 Beijing Olympic
B2B  B2B

to raise awareness and support of 2008 Beijing Olympic, but didn't get to make the poster ;( however, I put that slogan on all my instant messengers. I also offered my blank orange-color poster to a Canadian Lady, sitting next to me on the railing, to wave to get her boyfriend's attention, who's among the marathon runners. That was a nice thing to do ;)

Another unexpected nice thing happened to me was, after the Canadian Lady left, an old all-white-haired lady with a little about-8-years-old girl came, and the old lady was trying to put the little girl to stand on the rails to be
high enough to see the maraton runners. I offered to help, so the old lady let the girl sit in my lap and she held little girls' legs, and we watched the marathon together for over an hour. I felt like a grandpa;) The old lady made sure the little girl thanked me when they were ready to move on. It was a gorgeous sunny day, perfect for Marathon!

On the way back to Alwife on the T, I got aquainted with a Chinese marathon runner from Shanghai, had a real nice conversation ;) I gave him a ride home in lexington, since his wife with kids missed him at the end of Marathon, so he needed a ride to get home. Then, I went to lexington to see my friend who owns Yangtze River Restaurant, and watched
the ending of the Patriot's Day celebration at the Minuteman monument. I killed some time talking to my friend, and then I drove to MIT to do my Monday night cardio-vascular exercise - Salsa class, and afterward, went to BU Beijing Cafe to have dinner, Ma Po tofu kui can with hot-sour soup, before heading home ;)