工程師媽媽的生活雜記

和老爸老弟合照於Gasworks park, 後面是Lake Union
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I came to realize that how fast time is flying and the world is spinning since I started working in the crazy semiconductor industry. Racing against time is what I do every day. The amount of work is overwhelming most of the time and it drives me nuts.
Sometimes I think to myself.....I really don't give a damn care about how to make the electron moves or spins faster, how small the transistor needs to be, how much we need to shrink the microprocessor, what defect mode kills the transistor.....I just don't care and can't care less. What I do care is to have more time to be with God and study Bible, more time to serve in the church, more time to be with family. Who cares the stupid little transistor.... If I've ever given it a tenny tinny care, that is because it helps me pay my bills.

聽同事說Rose Garden 的roses in full bloom, 就和另外還沒看過的同事一起去看傳說中很壯觀的rose garden, 一到那邊, 果然roses有夠多,
一開始還會認真要知道每種不同種的玫瑰的名字, 後來發現實在太多了, 就作罷,rose garden的玫瑰是我今生以來看過最大的玫瑰, 沒有一朵是像以前在台灣花店看到的玫瑰一樣小,
總覺得這裡roses都是吃特殊肥料長大的嗎?

On the morning of Thursday I checked emails before starting to work. After a long list of emails were pouring in, I noticed there is an email sent from my PhD adviser. It is always pleasant to hear from my UW adviser, Fumio. However, this time I hesitated to read the email as I was kind of frightened by the subject of the email...."bad news".

It is about Sam Fain, my committee member and the Physics professor whom I used to work closely with.

家門口帶著訂做的" I heart Taiwan"包包

轟轟轟....沒想到電影裡面看到的警察抓壞人的情節竟然發生在自己生活中,而且還是發生在治安好的不得了的郊區(Hillsboro, Oregon),加上我們家在單純優美的apartment complex,
以前在Seattle,我們住在不是很安全的區域(Lake City)都沒遇到這某扯的事,
事情發生在昨晚三更半夜...應該說是今天凌晨三點多,真是又刺激又緊張

前天收到公司email說要幫我們group裡的所有engineers的 laptops 全部要換新, 換有high capability, 我一看到這封信就想哭.....
原因是我們用的一個分析data的software被upgraded了, 所以本組有其他engineers跟公司反應他們laptop跑起來太慢了, (根本是自己hard drive裝太多東西).
結果沒想到公司竟然要把我們這組每個人, 20幾個engineers的laptop都要換新, 我可是一點都不高興,我的laptop runs 那個upgraded software並沒有比較慢啊, 還要跟那些人一起換新電腦, 換電腦會搞的很痛苦, 因為會搞到不能工作地花個1-2天把所有分析data要用的softwares重新install,
(一定又要搞到熬夜把工作趕完), 還有很多雞毛蒜皮的設訂,我好不容易在工作這8個月內, 都弄好了,現在要換新laptop了, 又要重新設訂了,

My disorganization is sort of like a birth defect. Organization is something that I strive for in order to keep my life manageable. But still, I am bad at organzing my time, my desk, not to mention finance. I didn't pay the price for my disorganzation until I went to graduate school in the U.S. Both of my advisors (Physics and MSE) are so good at organizing all sorts of data. It is such a breeze for them. My disorganizaton had given me a headache to deal with hundreds of reference papers and plenty of research data. God has given me many obstacles (or chances) so that I can be trained to overcome my disorganization. HE KNOWS my birth defect.

I did suffer and stumble but Jesus walked with me. Later I picked up how to be more organized along the way of my research. However, the obstacles never stop coming. Now, my job requires dealing with more tremendous amount of data. What is more challenging is I need to make a systematic model out of this chaos. It is indeed a higher level of organization I ought to strive to achieve. How am I going to sort out this chaos? I am suffering and scratching my head again.

今天不知道怎麼搞的,很沒耐性, 雖然說我本來就是個沒耐性的人, 沒耐性一直是我常常在禱告裡跟上帝認錯的,悔改真難...... :(
以前在學校帶學弟妹做實驗, 同樣一件東西, 教了第2次, 就會要學弟妹好好take notes, 第三次我就會用比較嚴厲的語氣,
所以我一直對當教授這檔事, 一點興趣有沒有,as I don't want to deal with students.

My eyes were filled with tears while I was reading the news regarding the powerful quake in Sichuan. The death toll climbed above 13,000. The pictures on NY TIMES showed how heart-broken, frightened, and devastated those survivors and victims are and how terrible the disaster zone is….. the debris of collapsed buildings, and the bodies of victims buried under the remains. It is even more shocking that tens of thousands of people still remained buried beneath rubble. The level of the stricken damage is so immeasurable.