Category: English

I was often jeered by others as a Desafinado in my childhood because of my voice. since my parents are average workers with little musical literacy, I have never received musical education. In fact, my knowledge of music is just a electrical organ brought by my grandparents, which was broken by myself later.

This situation continues until my sophomore year in the university. At that time, SECRET, Jay Chou’s first movie, was very popular among students. The melancholy tune of the movie greatly impressed me, activating my inner musical desire. Another reason why I like this movie is that I was in love with a girl similar to XIAOYU, the heroine of the SECRET. I have presentiment that the story between that girl and me will have the same ending with the movie. Although I tried my best, the predetermined thing still happened at last. To avoid the agony of departure, I plunged myself into Mathematical Modeling and Music. The sound of music was like a shield, protecting me from any sad sentiment. 

I also chosed piano as my optional class, which was a casual but lucky thing for me. I still remember the first day when I stepped into the art building of my university. It was a small yet elegant building located in a corner of the campus, a building can be easily recognized because of music drifted from its windows. I once introduced the art building to my foreign teacher as follows: "when you close your eyes and hold your breath, your heart will bring you to a place, that’s the art building." Whenever you cross the narrow corridor decorated by portraits of famous musicians, you can met one or two students with a score in their hands.

Mrs. Jiang, the teacher of the piano class, is a very beautiful and eager woman. She has spent all her efforts in the past 10 years, in her words, to spread the beauty of music to average students in HUST. Thanks to her efforts, I have the chance to touch the classical music. Since the number of students greatly surplus the capacity of Mrs. Jiang’s class, some students were transferred to the members of keyboard team to learn piano skills in detail. I learned piano firstly from Song Hongming, then from Liu Haokun. Song is a very lovely boy who has learned piano for 10 years. One of his habits is to collect the data of buses. It was said that he can remember all the bus number in Wuhan and Huangshi. Liu Haokun, the captain of the keyboard, is a charming person with high techniques not only in classical suites but also in pop pieces.

I have grown much in the past year accompanied by piano. Although my techniques are terribly bad in some senses, I like listening to the piano suites which can bring me to a holy state. Chopin and Beethoven are my favourite composers. Chopin’s nocturnes give me a sense of serenity and elegance, while his Polonaise show the Spartan side of the Piano Poet. Beethoven’s works has a distinctive mark of romance. Although his Pathetique was created before his deafness, the sonata still show the composer’s determined desire to take Fate by the throat. My favourite pianist are Li yundi and Horowitz. Yundi, the champion of 14th International Frederic Chopin Competition, has a unique temperament similar to Chopin, making him suitable for the expression of Chopin’s melancholic elegance. Horowitz is undoubtedly the most renowned classical pianist in the 20th century. His performance can always set up resonance in my heart.

The most lesson I learn from piano, or classical music in general, is that the the maturity of heart is also important to a person in spite of the accumulation of knowledge. The meaning of life is not just about the promotion of social state, bust also about the consummation of the soul.

(Welcome suggestion for grammers or styles)

The Gadfly  written by Ethel Lilian Voynich is a very important book which I’ve read from several times in the past 4 years.

These are some beatiful sentences of the book:

He pointed to the valley below them. Arthur knelt down and bent over the sheer edge of the precipice. The great pine trees, dusky in the gathering shaes of evening, stood like sentinels along the narrow banks confining the river. Presently the sun, red as a glowing coal, dipped behind a jagged mountain peak, and all the life and light deserted the face of nature. Straightway there came upon the valley something dark and threatening—sullen, terrible, full of spectral weapons. The perpendicular cliffs of the barren western mountains seemed like the teeth of a monster lurking to snatch a victim and drag him down into the maw of the deep valley, black with its moaning forests. The pine trees were rows of knife-blades whispering: “Fall upon us!” and in the gathering darkness rows of knife-blades whispering: “Fall upon us!” and in the gathering darkness the torrent roared and howled, beating against its rocky prison walls with the frenzy of an everlasting despair.

This is my first blog written by ScribeFire Blog Editor 3.4. It is a very useful addon for firefox browser. You can download it here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1730

I’ve done research under the supervision of Prof Jiaqing Huang for almost a year. But in my view, Prof Huang is indeed not a good supervisor. The reason I hold this opinion is that he always pushs me to publish papers.

It is very hard for an undergraduate student to publish papers. Without a deep understanding of a field and the support of solid result, it is almost impossible for a researcher to locate the research direction and write a excellent paper. Both solid understanding and solid result requires devotion of time.

The deadlie of GlobeCom(Mar. 15) is approaching. Prof. Huang requires me to submit a paper to this conference. However, I couldn’t spend enough time in research because of my application. Although I’ve gotten some preliminary result, I still need a large amount of literation reading to support my research.

But time is not enough. To make the matter worse, prof. Huang have little knowledge of the research field I am involved. I couldnot find a profess familiar to my field, either.

Because of this reasons, I hold little hope for this paper.

Since Google Sites has been blocked in China, I lose a place to record my experience. For now on, I’ll record my research diary in Live Blog.