| Hi there, you must have a good reason to click
my head. Did you just say "open sesame"? All right, I'v got a short
story for you to read about. |
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I was born in Nanning, China. My mom is a middle school teacher, and Bearer of National Medal for Educator. My dad is a musician, and his weapon is the longest woodwind instrument in a band, that is right, Bassoon! When I was very young, I already knew how to design a pose for myself in front of a camera. One of our good neighbors was a director in our TV station, and he had a very expensive camera at that time.
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Here is the only picture I have now which was taken by a professional photographer. Yes, I started playing the violin when I was 4, and I kept practicing for more than 9 years. My training was professional, and my master was the first violin of Guangxi Orchestra. Is it hard? Well, if you have any experience of playing violin, you may understand what the hard means. Is it worth? I can not answer that question yet. But lots of my friends are pushing me to return to my "Jedi" life. If I can save some money next year and buy a good violin in Chicago, it has a new meaning in the rest of my life. |
| Now I was 6 already. Though my mom
and dad did not have a clear idea of what the computer is, they
spent a large amount of their saving and sent me into a special
computer education class. Then I and my classmates became the
first generation who know computer programming in our province.
My adventure in computer world turns out to be a non-stop trip. My first computer is an Apple II, and I mastered BASIC, LOGO and 6502 assembly language all in that computer. After staying in PCs for several years, now I am back to Mac, and she is an iBook. The other half of the story in this picture is the girl sitting beside me. Who is she? She is much much more famous than little me. She is always very tall, and then she became the swimming world champion and once record holder of 200 individual medley. |
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| Here are some other stories in my
childhood. My mom was born in Guilin, a very beautiful city in the
South. The first picture is mom and I sitting in front of a
mountain called Camel Hill in Guilin. What surprised me is that I
just found out that the word in my T-shirt is "Arizona" with the
US flag! Amazing...
Sometimes I might have the chance to wear girl's clothes, but not often as I can remember. :) And the last picture shows the only promotion in my childhood, I was happy, so was my mom. |
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| Then I jump to my college study. But wait, where
is your high school life? I was not happy when I was 16. (Clarify: it
is NOT a teenager problem ^-^.) But I have my best friends in my high
school, they tolerated
my spooky way of life. What I can still remember is we bought ice
creams round robin and shared them everyday! We were "shell-less" at
that age.
After my high school, I entered Univ. of Sci. and Tech. of China (USTC) in Hefei. One thing I did not think of is that, in one day, one of my Math professors here asked where I graduated, I told him USTC. He shook his head, "Where is it?" "Hefei" I said. "Oh, Hefei, I went there two times, and Huangshan, it is amazing, the mountain, the cloud..." From then on, I know that Hefei is more famous than USTC. I was selected into the Special Class for Gifted Young. I spent two years studying nothing but Math and Physics, then I jumped to Computer Science. Here is my graduate picture we took before we went to Shanghai for our visa. |
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After 5 years' hard study, or I should say a campaign for my dream, I finally standed in the campus of the University of Illinois, Jerusalem of Engineering. Everything here was new to me, and I spent lots of my time trying to understand the difference between words such as nuts and rookie, geek and nerd. The first year went by just like a whistle of breeze. |
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In the fall 2002, an officemate of mine brought to me a list of awards offered by the Department and the Engineering College and said to me, "You know what, I think you should apply for some scholarship." I said, "But you know most of them are only for the citizens." "Let me see", she pointed her finger down the list, "citizen ... Ph.D. only ... you are not a Ph.D student, right?" "Well, I am still waiting for my qualifying exam." |
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| Finally we found just one award which matchs my status in the Engineering College. "For a master student in his/her second year ... preference given to research in automobile industry... hey Yang, you should go for this one." "It is easier to say than do, I am even not sure if I can get the nomination from ECE Department." | To my surprise, I won the award when the final dicision was made in the spring 2003. I invited my parents to attend my convocation in the University of Illinois and 5 days' vacation in Chicago. There is nothing comparing to the happiness I can give to the ones who care about me the most. |
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As one of the top items in my wish list, I own my first violin for performance. I return to the pratice room again after 7 years of absence and do not need to suppress the feeling that I were sawing a pine when I was playing on student violins before. I was amazed the completeness of the collection of the scores and books that the University has in the Music Library. For the first time, I learnt that the soundboard of a voilin should be made of pine wood with the average age of 200 years at very high altitudes to achieve slow growth, and the wedges need 5 years' drying before they can be used to make violins. Meanwhile, I am pratising some easy works by Rachmaninov and Kreisler, maybe you can find me in the Music Building if you hear an engineer sawing a pine. :)) |
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I have many other joyful stories to share with you in 2003. I passed the notorious ECE qualifying exam and published my first paper in ICCV conference. I got my driver's license after two stupid fails, the first time in the first second when I didn't hear the mean instructor asking me to row down the window, and the second time in the last second when I hit the curb in the parking lot. I built my first audio system with a powerful NAD C350 amplifier and two Mission speakers, and an update to Acoustic Energy is already in my wish list. But it is time to leave them behind just like old calendars and tax returns, and start planning another great journey again. Because the happiness lies only in the future, not in the past. Let's get started now! ^-^ |
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