拒馬˙磨坊賺美金˙威呀心杯杯

一眼瞬間，萬聖節一如那些虛有其表的妖魔鬼怪，討了糖就腳底磨油一溜煙地不見蹤影。十一月不尋常的暖陽，伴隨著徐徐的涼風，讓過去兩個禮拜都在華式五十度上下遊走，著實令人喜出望外。但不管三七二十一，就是要下午四點就收工打烊的任性太陽，冷不防地提醒著，那躡手躡腳的嚴冬，轉眼就要帶著不見天日的黑入侵。街道旁成排的人行樹，早就落髮禿了頭，在沁涼的晚風下枯瘦地搖曳，伸長了歪曲的臂膀，向茫茫天際無言地祈雪。日趨消逝的白晝，讓本就單調平乏的Evanston街景，多染上了一層灰澀黯淡。好在沿著Sherman Avenue的排排路燈上，不知辛苦了哪些同樣無法忍受這般慘澹光景的無名英雄，隔夜便掛上了一叢又一叢閃著點點光芒的聖誕花圈。或許這乏善可陳的街景，需要的不過就是蓋上一層皚皚白雪，就是最貧乏的小徑，也都注入蓬勃生命。

Teamwork, like its name suggests, is work. But more importantly, it's an art, and one that's not easily mastered. A team is a living organism that constantly evolves and metamorphs. There isn't one single formula that's applicable to all, simply because the dynamics are never constant. Even within a single team, it could very well vary overtime and in different phases.

這不是一種驕傲，而是發自內心的訝異。很難去接受，現在所感知的，就是傳說中的文化衝擊。或許流行感冒可以施打疫苗，就連肝炎都可以產生抗體，但或許有些事情不管經歷過多少次，都無從免疫，無法駕輕就熟。好像道別，好像分離，好像孤寂，好像迎新，又好像重新開始。

我猜測我的腦門上肯定被烙上了『書呆子』的字樣。不然為什麼平白無故的會被人家在私底下討論是『統計、財管天才』??

Life is like doing yoga: if you're not stretched good, you're not getting your money's worth. But the catch to this seemingly infinite work-out is that, the more you're tossled and folded and twisted and bent in the most excrutiatingly unthinable ways, the more likely you are to be tempted to throw in the towel early. Most people, in fact, do. But the real problem here, isn't that you don't have what it takes to be pushed to the extreme, it's really just that you'd much rather save yourself from the pain and effort. Because it's easier to say you can't than it is to say you can, but you just need to try harder.

I don’t think anyone’s ever too young to decide who they want to be and how they want to live their lives.

For anyone who's ever studied in any discipline of social science, at some point in your life, you've made your unfortunate acquaintance with SPSS. The acronym in itself is pretty self-explanatory in terms of its importance in your becoming of a data-saavy social scientist: "Statistics Package for Social Science". I used to have this incredible fear for SPSS back in my sophomore year in college, when all the students in the College of Communications were required to take "Research Methods". As if the course alone was not overwhelming enough, all students were expected to learn the software SPSS, if not master it and apply it to life cases.

It never occured to me until recently that the fact that teachers who have taught you once upon a very-long-time ago should remember who you are and what you did all those embarrassing years before isn't something that should be taken for granted. Teachers have stampedes of students that rampage through their careers on a yearly basis, and to hope that they would retain some form of recollection of who you are, whether it be the class clown, the teacher's pet (you'd think they'd of course remember you!), the jock, the prom queen or the geek, takes more effort than you would think!

A healthy dosage of "why's" will definitley serve any product, any company, or any individual well these days. In an era where nothing and no one is irreplacable, it becomes increasingly important to question "why", and specifically "why me". What add-on values can your presence in a classroom, on a project team, in a corporation, or at the negotiation table contribute to the greater picture? For Asians to live up to their meekness and modesty and other stereotyped virtues they were brough up with, it's only too easy to dodge this million-dollar question and shrink away behind feigned humility.