2 November
我不知道有多少人问过自己受教育的意义是什么?我们为什么要上学?为什么要学习各种科目?为什么参加考试,和同学比得分高低?所谓的教育究竟含有什么意
义?它涵盖了什么?这实在是一个非常重要的问题。我们不只是为学生质疑这个问题,同时也跟父母、老师以及所有热爱地球的人们,共同来探究这个问题。
我们为什么要通过竞争来受教育?难道受教育只是为了通过几项考试,得到一份工作?还是为我们在年轻时奠定基础,以便了解人生的整个过程?获
得一份工作来维持生计是必要的,然而这就是一切了吗?难道我们受教育就是为了这个目的?显然,生命并不只是一份工作和职业而已,生命是极为广阔而深奥的,
它是一个伟大的谜,在这个浩瀚的领域中,我们更有幸生为人类。如果我们活着只是为了谋生,我们就失去了生命的整个重点。去了解生命本身,比只是准备考试、
精通数学、物理或其他科目要重要多了。
所以,不论我们是老师还是学生,我们是否应该扪心自问为何教育他人或受教?生命到底是什么?难道生命不奇妙吗?飞鸟、花朵、翠木、蓝天、星
辰、河流、游鱼……这一切都是生命。生命是贫穷的、富足的;生命是群体、种族、国家之间永不停歇的战役;生命是静思冥想;生命是所谓的宗教;同时它也是心灵中微妙的、隐藏的东西,包括羡妒、野心、激情、恐惧、成就及忧虑等等。这所有的一切以及更多的事物都是生命,然而我们通常只准备了解生命的一个小角落。
我们通过一些考试,找到一份工作,结婚,生子,然后就越活越像一部机器。我们依然对生命恐惧、焦虑,因此帮助我们了解人生的整个过程,难道不是教育的目的?还是,教育只为我们谋职或找一份最好的工作而奠基?
我们长大成人以后会怎么样?你是否问过自己长大以后想做什么?最大的可能是你会结婚,在你还没有搞清楚自己的定位时,可能你已经是父亲或母亲
了,然后你会被一份工作绑住,或是被厨房绑住,你就在这其中渐渐衰萎。这难道就是你所有的生命了吗?你有没有问过自己?你应不应该问自己?如果你有一个富
裕的家庭,那么你已经确定自己将来会有一份不错的工作,因为你的父亲也许会提供你一份舒适的工作,或者你可能在婚姻中获得很多财富,但是你仍然会腐败、枯
竭。你看见这点了吗?
显然,除非教育能帮助你了解广大生命的所有精微面——它惊人的美、它的哀愁及欢乐,否则教育是没有什么意义的。你也许会得到学位,得到一连
串的头衔,得到非常好的工作,然后呢?如果在这些活动的过程中,你的头脑变得迟钝、衰竭、愚蠢,那么生命的目的又是什么?所以当你年轻时,你是不是应该弄
清楚生命究竟是怎么一回事?
教育的真正意义,难道不是培养你的智慧,借着它找出所有问题的答案?你知道智慧是什么吗?它是一种无限的包容力,允许你自由地思想;没有恐惧,没有公式,然后你才能发现什么是真实的、正确的事物。
但是如果你有恐惧,你永远也不可能有智慧。任何形式的野心,不论是精神的或是物质的,都导致焦虑及恐惧。野心不能带来清明、简单而直接的心智,所以是不可能有智慧的。
当你年轻时,生活在一个没有恐惧的环境里是非常重要的。大部分的人在年纪渐长时,都变得有所恐惧。我们对生活恐惧,怕失去工作,怕传统,怕邻
居,怕丈夫或妻子的批评,怕死亡。大半的人都有不同形式的恐惧;一旦有了恐惧,便失去了智慧。我们是否可能在年轻时,便生活在无惧的气氛中,不只去做我们
喜爱的事,更能了解生命的整个过程?
生命真是美极了,它不是我们制造出的这些丑恶。惟独当你对所有的事物革新之后,你才能欣赏到它的丰富、深度及可爱。革新组织化的宗教、传统和现今败坏的社会,然后以人本的立场来探究什么是真理(不是去模仿而是去探究),这才是教育。
服从社会、父母及老师的教导是很容易的,那是安全又容易的生存之道,不过那并不是生活,因为在其中存有恐惧、腐败及死亡。活着就是去探索什么是真相,只有在自由中才能做得到,或是当你的内心拥有永不停歇的革新时。
但是你从没有被鼓励去做这件事,没有人告诉你要发问,去探索上帝究竟是什么,如果你开始反叛,你将和所有的错误对立。你的父母及社会要你过得
安全,你自己也想过得安全。安全的生活通常代表的是模仿,所以是活在恐惧中。显然,教育的意义应该是帮助我们活得自由无惧,不是吗?创造出没有恐惧的气
氛,需要你和你的老师共同进行许多的思考。你知道这是什么意思吗?创造没有恐惧的气氛是一件多么伟大的事!我们必须创造它,因为这个世界已经陷在无止境的
战争中,它已经被追求权力的政客误导,它充斥着律师、警察、军人以及互相抢夺地位的野心男女。还有一些所谓的圣人、宗教的教主以及他们的追随者,他们也想
在今生或来世得到权力、地位。
这是一个疯狂的、完全混乱的世界,每个人都在和别人作对,极力想达到一个安全的位置,一个有权势或享福的位置。这个世界被冲突的信念、阶级
意识、不同的国家主义、各种形式的愚蠢及残酷所分割,而这就是你要学着去适应的世界。你被鼓励去适应这个悲惨的社会,你的父母要你这么做,你自己也想这么
做。
然而,教育的意义只是帮助你顺应这个败坏的社会制度吗?还是要给你自由,一种全然的自由,来让你成长并创造一个不同的社会,一个新世界?我
们必须拥有这份自由,不是在未来,而是现在,否则我们将被彻底消灭。我们必须立刻创造出自由的气氛,你可以在其中生活并且探索什么是真相,然后你会变得有
智慧、有能力面对及了解这个世界,而不只是顺服它。因为在你的心底深处,你是不断在革新的,也只有那些不断革新的人,才会发现什么是真理,那些服从与跟随
传统的人是无法做到这一点的。只有不停探索、不停观察、不停学习,你才会发现真理、上帝或爱。如果你的心中有恐惧,你就不能探索、观察、学习,不能深入地
察觉。所以,教育的意义很显然就是消除外在及内在破坏人类思想、关系及爱的那份恐惧。
3 October
导师和研究生的关系是“指兔子”和“打兔子”的关系。
导师负责给研究生指出兔子在哪里,并指导学生学会打兔子的本领。反之,研究生则是从导师那里了解到兔子的位置、大小、肥瘦,并采用从导师那里学到的打兔子本领擒获一只兔子(也就是做完论文)。
华罗庚先生的华氏兔子定理
情形一:本科及以前的阶段。这一阶段是学习捡“死”兔子的过程,这里的“兔子”指的是知识,本科及以前所学知识都是别人已经发现、并经过了反复验证的知识,是固定、稳定的,属于“死兔子”。此阶段的学习训练只是学会找到一条比较便捷的路径把已经死在那里的兔子拿回来。做作业、考试,乃至做一篇简单的毕业论文,进行一个完整的毕业设计都属于这一范畴。
情形二:硕士生阶段。此时,需要面对一只活的、在视野里奔跑的兔子【代指还没有解决的问题、还没有被反复确认的知识】。这只兔子在哪里?需要导师指给你,或者需要导师和学生一起来确定其位置及是否容易抓取?导师在“指子”的同时还应该告诉学生瞄准并射死兔子的本领【也就是所谓的科学研究方法】。硕士生需要遵从自导师处学来的方法和技术,去把这只尚在活动中的兔子
打死,然后再通过以往已经具备的方法把兔子擒在手中【论文完成】。
情形三:博士生阶段。此时的兔子也是活的,但是可能不在你的视野里跑着,而是在树林里跑——导师可以确认一定有这只兔子存在,可是,需要你先从树林里把这只兔子撵出来,判断是否值得去猎取,再用更高级的猎取技术去射击并沿用原有方法将兔子取在手中。
情形四、博士后阶段。此时,导师叫合作导师,他就要和博士后一起来确定究竟到哪里去寻找兔子,此时面对的可能是不一样的森林,需要一起商量后确定是否需要在这里伫足,并重复以上过程。
以上的四种情形是一个递进的过程,后面的过程严格地依赖于上面的所有过程,当你超越了这些过程之后,就到了“指兔子”的阶段了,恭喜你成为华氏兔子定理的另外一个主要角色。
7 September
Finally, thesis was submitted.
I used to think I would have a lot of things to say on this day. But now... I just want to sleep.

Thanks to all my friends for helping me getting through this.
28 August
How far are you from me, O Fruit?
I am hidden in your heart, O Flower.
—— Tagore "Stray Bird"
你离我有多远呢,果实啊?
我藏在你心里呢,花儿啊。
—— 泰戈尔《漂鸟集》
20 August
from : http://quthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-write-phd-thesis.html
It is the time of year when grad students throughout the world are
struggling to get their thesis finished in time to start that postdoc
in October, or even to enter the real world. Recently I wrote up some
tips on how to write a PhD thesis, and I thought I should transpose
them onto my blog. So here are my thesis writing tips:
- Use LaTeX
Latex can easily be learnt in an afternoon and
will make your thesis look more professional. It will save you hundreds
of hours of correcting formating and will be far more consistent than a
word processor. It handles equations and vector graphics with ease and
is extremely versatile. Latex also allows comments which do not appear
in the document, which are extremely handy for keeping notes to
yourself. It is also the prefered format for most preprint servers. If
you are planning a career in the physical sciences or maths, then latex
is a must. - Work out the structure first
Spending a day or two at the
start working out exactly how you want to structure your thesis may
seem like procrastination, but will prove incredibly valuable later on.
As you near the end of the thesis you will undoubtadly get the urge to
restructure things. Putting in a little time at the start can save a
lot of time spent on rewrites. - Leave introduction and conclusions until last
Believe it
or not, the introduction is the very last thing you should write. It
might seem logical to work through in the order the reader will
encounter chapters, but this is a big mistake. In the first chapter you
will want to describe the structure of the thesis, and outline how you
are going to proceed. Even though you may should a plan for this at the
start, it will change as space and time constraints begin to take their
tole. Believe it or not, you will almost definitely over shoot the word
limit and have to axe material. - Break each chapter up into managable chunks
Everyone gets
writers block. You come to a chapter and the thought of filling twenty
pages with the intricacies of some mathematical technique or
experimental setup seem overwhelming. In order to avoid this, it is a
really good idea to break down the thesis into smaller and smaller
named sections (\section, \subsection and \subsubsection in latex) even
before you start writing. Break it down into chunks on the order of 200
words so that they are easily attacked. It makes it easy to work on
lots of different sections simultaneously, and means you can write a
section in less than half an hour. Even if you don’t want your thesis
to have such fine graining, add the headers at the start and remove
them later. - Use at least one chapter to introduce techniques used
It
is often a mistake to introduce a new mathematical or experimental
technique in the same chapter you use it. Having a seperate chapter in
which you introduce necessary techniques can help you from making
chapters overly long, and gives the reader time to absorb this new
information. This also provides a very clear cut line between your work
and previous work from others upon which you intend to build. This is
essential to avoid annoying examiners. Poor students often try to blur
this line, and so it is a red flag for anyone reading the thesis. - Use a bibliography manager such as JabRef
It is scarily
easy to create duplicate references. I spent almost a week weeding out
duplicates and triplicates from my bibliography file. Using a reference
manager from the start avoids all this hassle by automatically
detecting duplicate entries. - Use BibTeX
Don’t write in references by hand. It will be
hard to give them a consistent look, hard to keep track of where
references what, and hard to update. Use latex, use JabRef (or similar)
and use bibtex. You’ll avoid all sorts of formating issues. - One chapter per paper if you have them
Every paper you
wish to include should have its own chapter. If you have several papers
on one topic, then you probably need several chapters on it too. You
may need to mix content between these chapters, but one paper one
chapter is a good rule of thumb. - Neglect earlier work if it isn’t to as high a standard as the rest
Let’s
face it, that paper we got in our first 6 months isn’t really our best
work is it? If you have some particularly weak material, don’t feel
obliged to include it. You absolutely do not have to include everything
you did over the course of your PhD, so don’t feel obliged to. - Keep to less than 80% of the word limit/page count
It’s
just a fact of life, examiners don’t like long theses. Don’t use the
full word limit, even as a guide. Keep it short and punchy, rather than
long and drawnout. - Add a page listing collaborative work
No man is an
island, and that goes double in science. Almost everybody collaborates
on projects, and this is certainly not a bad thing. It is however very
important for you not to appear to be passing off others work as your
own. To avoid this, add a page to the start of the thesis listing any
collaborative work, describing honestly your role. This makes it much
clearer to the examiners who did what. Again, poor students often try
to blur the line, but such bluring raises an immediate red flag and
will cause pain in the viva. Avoid it. - It is ok two have two themes
Sometimes our work is in
more than one area. Mine quite distinctly focused on two different
topics, which could be unified under the broader topic of the thesis
title. It can be hard to see how best to mesh two seperate topics
together into a readable document. In my experience having a common
introduction followed by to distinct parts to the thesis was the
answer. It’s quite common to do this, and can save you quite a headache. - Don’t fear THE FEAR
Are you freaking out because you have
been procrastinating and now you have little time left and little
progress made? Good. That’s called THE FEAR, and pretty much everybody
gets it. It will motivate you to do superhuman amounts of work in those
last weeks. No matter how tight the deadline, THE FEAR will see you
through.
14 August
微风细雨带着红尘来回的追逐,
天翻天覆地依然没有改变我脚步。
偶尔让那风尘吹得双眼都模糊,
是非黑白,还是给我看得好清楚。
轻轻说声面对风雨我决不在乎,
谁会明白背后经历千辛和万苦。
人生舞台本来就是一条不归路,
来来去去起起落落难免有感触。
风风雨雨都经过,不变的脚步。
永远向着明天走,不看来时路。
眼总看着朝朝暮暮善变的面目,
心里藏着海阔天空,从容地起路。
走过繁华才会知道平淡的满足。
曾经拥有,曾经失落,经得苦中苦。
几许风雨,教我珍惜走过的道路。
ps:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/tf7ol1k6vk.flv (flv格式,请用暴风影音或VLC media player 播放)