Last week at school

So, finally, this is it - the last week at school.

Movie club has an event last night to watch "17 Again". I am not a big fan of this movie. It is all right. But the plot is so predictable. No excitement for 90 mins. However, this morning, when I was sitting in Ford Library, watching the trees outside of the window, thinking of my past two years at Duke, I asked myself what will happen if "25 Again"?

Well, the answer, no surprisingly, is that without changing a thing. As I have said so many times, this two-year is the best thing has ever happened to me. I deeply appreciate everybody around me and everything have happened to me. There are sadness, regrets, loneness, down, heartbreaking, and missing direction. But what I got - happiness, maturity, confidence, open-mind, and friendship - far out weight the down side.

All the things happened push me to look forward and let me think that how can I make today better. I woke up today without passion. But I am determined to be the kid who has pieces of the Sun in his blood. I shined after talking with Diane about joining the NPCO team for Chicago Marathon this Oct. It is naive, sometimes too simple and stupid. But I truly believe the cartoon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkmSH8caIL8) I loved when I was a kid. That kid was born with the pieces of the Sun, and is chosen to use his sunshine to destroy the dark monster at the end. I should be the same, do I?! Of course. So, here I am, I should think of how to promote NPCO charity and help more people in developing countries in the next few days.

Catchafire! Yes, our team won Duke Startup Challenge's Social Entrepreneur Track!!! Looking forward, I can see myself trying to use Catchafire to change the world and make it a better place! We are still in development of our website, but in the next month, it should be available. Check out then at www.catchafire.org.

Yesterday, Fuqua FY Chinese students gave us a great sendoff party. We went to hiking at Eno River State Park near my house. It is a great time. We are leaving school, but hope our dearest FY classmates can make their second year at Fuqua fullest.

Wednesday Morning Song

She asked me to watch a movie last night. I was thrilled and happy. The movie is pretty calm, nice, and meaningful. I was not a fan of pop corn before, but now pop corn taste good. I felt good after the movie, but one thing I know for sure is that I can NOT dig the hole anymore. It should be easy, right? I am always a runner :p

I went to see the physical therapy yesterday. She said that I do need to stretch my leg A LOT! It is one of the worst she has seem before. So here comes - Nick sleeping on the floor, with two hands on his thigh, counting "one fish, two fish, three fish" and trying his best to pull up and straighten the leg. It is a good exercise not only for muscles, but also patience.

I was too bored to relax yesterday, and then found an interesting website http://www.fmylife.com/. I thought f stands for fxxk??!! It has all kinds of short but very funny story on it. I downloaded the iPhone version. Then it became the best way to kill time when you are in bathroom. Try it, and then you will get addicted.

Finally, it should be today now. Traveling light -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hgnsMg4z2I. I have been listening to this song for years. It always reminds me that I can take the lightest backpack with me and travel to every corner of the world. HOWEVER, before that come true, I should still knock down VALUATION monster today! May the force be with me.

So, what really happened...

What really happened yesterday when I played tennis - only 20 mins play but 4 hours difficult conversation.
What really happened yesterday during CAF meeting - the laziest man pushed the whole team to have more meetings... I am impressed by myself.
What really happened on Saturday when driving on the highway - as I was waiting for the left turn signal, an old man from my right lane completely stopped his car, waved to me, smiled, pointed to my door, thumb-up, and shouted "this is awesome!" I knew I have a cool door, but sir, you don't need to stop the traffic to compliment me, do you?
What really happened on Saturday when playing poker in the party - I did make tons of mistake and made Chen Wen and my winning became castle in the air. Shit! Sometimes I am so stupid. No new discovery, but confirmation though.
What really happened on Saturday when I was supposed to taste Kevin's cooking - man, I pushed this dinner for three months, but it turned out all other people have it, but NOT me. This is ironic. I was having some awesome pizza though. Nice choice, buddy!
What really happened today - the doctor said "SOMETIMES THE MRI IS TOO SENSITIVE!" Hope my knee can recover as soon as possible.
What really happened tomorrow - who knows?! Let's see.

Is it sunshine out there?

These couple of weeks have been weird for me. Don't know why and how, but everything is not on the track. I have tried to make everything right, but it just became worse and worse. Hummm, dude, what's wrong?!

I am always floating somewhere, can not calm down, can not focus on now, can not treat every person as good as I can, can not be confident, can not finish what I was supposed to do, can not view this world in a peaceful angle. This is a torture, so I did something bad to myself. Until yesterday, don't know how, but somehow I was relief. I skipped class, had napped, canceled BBQ party but had Chinese foods one, had some great talks, watched the best Supernatural, got drunk, read Tavis again, and most importantly, had a great sleep.

One thing I know for sure, I should treat everybody equally. Don't bring my judgement into how I treat people. Everybody deserves my equal treatment. The second thing, be confident, really, I need to bring up the internal confidence that I never had. It would be hard, but can start from peacefully talking with my friends. Let's me try this with Scott and Natasha today. The third thing, treat myself well. Don't hurt myself. This is the stupidest thing ever, and I should not do it. Also, I need to keep curiosity to others, and have a heart that want to explore people around me. Last, enjoy the road trip this weekend! Roadtrip, oh, baby, it is awesome!

The weatherman said that there will be some thunderstorm this morning. I woke up with a cloudless sky and tons of sunshine. Hope this can keep going on.

Best Running Video

It is a sunny day at Durham, North Carolina. The leaves start to turn yellow and red. The whole Duke forest is amazingly beautiful. I put up my dark gray Adidas running shirt and pants. I tightened my shoelace and jumped out of 710B, the sweet home. I went all the way from home to WaDuke Trail. It is a nice run – there are some up and down hills, but not very aggressive. I kept breathing in and out twice of my each step. “Slow down, no need to hurry, my goal is to finish.” I told myself. 20 mins later, I arrived at the entrance of WaDuke Trail. This is going to be awesome! I thought. And, it is! There were people running and walking in the forest. Some were walking dogs, while some chatting to each other. I waved to people who passed by, and they smiled back. People at Duke are nice.

WaDuke Trail is not an easy one. The hills are much more aggressive. I tried to keep up with my previous speed, but I slowed down a little bit. And now, here came the most difficult one. “Come with me hill, let’s get up together!!!” I encouraged myself. When I reached the top of the hill, I was breathless, but at the same time, the view of WaDuke golf course is amazing! I was happy.

The last part of the running is fun. It seems that the forest pumped me up. I ran faster and faster. I ran pass school, and I went to the intersection of 15/501. Finally, I was home. I felt happy!

New Orleans

What's up tigers? So I am at New Orleans today! Just finished a short running -- something like 4-5 miles. The running is pretty tough. My legs are still sore, I stopped several time, but still finished that. The view is amazing! It is in city park. There are tons of huge old trees in the park, and the river, is absolutely awesome! Robert is a pretty amazing man. More than 60 years old, I think. He is nice enough to host four of us. So, Joe and I slept on the floor, Eva and Echo slept on the bed.

Well, I am too tired to type right now. Talk to you guys later.

An email from McK

I just received an email from McK HR saying that she was out of office on Friday, that's why she did not reply my email. And she said it is all right to have a call at any time.

I felt bad. Deciding not going McK is the hardest thing. I remember clearly everything I did for McK in my first year. I tried my best, got what I want, but now I am going to give it up. Maybe this is life.

On the other side, what waiting for me is exciting Seattle and MS. I should be happy. Don't torture myself, seriously. Now, go back to study High Tech Mkting final. Good luck tomorrow.