Confessions of a researchaholic

A rising star in HCI pinged me about my physical whereabouts. I asked if he would like to drop by for a visit, and he told me that he was here last Friday for the fellowship award ceremony, which I skipped to get some work done despite the UR manager knocking on the door.

Like many wise people have cautioned, we never regret not doing enough work.

Head-buffs, bought by and felt like my parents

If I could foresee my entire life I might have made some choices differently. But since I cannot I have no regret so far.

Find out what you want to devote yourself to, and stick to it without ever giving up. You will then more likely to have a happy, fulfilling life.

A colleague who has been with the company for more than 30 years recently retired.
During our lunch at his last working day, I asked him why he wanted to retire. He answered that he preferred his individual researcher + developer role more than management and team roles which tend to happen as one becomes more senior, and he also likes to spend more time with his hobbies in art and physics.

I joked that if I were ever forced to retire I would heist the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. But maybe one day that will change, just like I could not imagine I will ever get married when I was still in school.

A few days ago a lens was knocked out of my eye glasses.
After carefully putting the lens back and ensuring that everything is in shape, the glasses still produced weird optical distortion.
Finally, I realized that the lens is symmetric in boundary shape but asymmetric in optical axis, and I have put it upside down.

I heard this teaching about life-long learning from Confucius when I was a little kid, but it took time to appreciate what it really means. Instead of assuming we will continue to master what (we think) we already know, constant reviewing what is already there in our heads and help learning what is new in the future.