红酒·绿茶 / Red Wine & Green Tea / Vin Rouge et Thé Vert

View from Killington Peak Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . We had been planning a Christmas skiing trip to Killington, Vermont since two months before because it was a very popular, allegedly the best ski resort on East Coast. It turned out to be an experience of a lifetime. Although I usually didn't think of myself as a sports person or associated myself with adjectives like "athletic", I still tried to keep myself in a good shape by going to gym two or three times a week. It finally paid off with this ski trip. Surprisingly even to myself, I learned to ski quite fast ; when I took a beginners' class on the first day, I quickly realized that I had had gone through more than the class could offer. So I didn't waste my time on it and started to challenge myself with more difficult trails right away. Bin and Li, who were experienced skiers, were kind enough to lead me through my first mountain trail - Great Eastern. I was all excited about how beautiful...

I was checking out some funny Bush clips and couldn't help laughing at the "Fool Me Once, Shame On You" clip , which easily became one of the most hilarious clips I've ever seen. Maybe Jiang's (former President Zemin Jiang of PRC or Jiang Core, as we call him) "Too Young, Too Simple, Sometimes Naïve" clip could be a contender, of which I could only find the transcipt .

Went to Ski Roundtop , a small ski resort in Pennsylvania not far from Baltimore, for my first time ever skiing. They had a very nice deal of $19 package for beginners through the beginning of the ski season. I was exhausted after a whole day of learning to ski and having fun. My friends were all experieced skiers; they were excited for newfound fun in snowboarding. So nobody was watching over me except for a brief course by our ski instructors Willie and Jessie. After some practice and not so many falls, however, I was doing pretty well. People on the lift were yelling at me: "Doing good! Keep it up!" and knocking their skis to pour some snow onto me when I was passing underneath them, which by the way was a "common practice" of having some fun while on the boring lift. Will shop for more gears today.

I-76 in Snow Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . I had a hard time driving back home the other day due to ferocious winter weather. It was snowing hard and I had to drive in the snow before the road was cleaned. Fortunately I drove back safe - in seven hours! (It should have taken four. Saw a dozen of accidents along the way.)

Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . I missed the Cathedral of Learning in University of Pittsburgh last time I came and couldn't afford missing it again. It was unbelievably magnificent. (BTW, I found their live cam pretty interesting. You could actually control its movement!)

Vincent van Gogh: The Plain of Auvers, 1890 Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . At my request, Rong and I then went to nearby Carnegie Museum of Art . It was a midsized art museum with decent collections which were not going to be shy in every major period if compared to others. Unlike others, it had pretty good light over the paintings or sculptures so that I could take nice photos of the works.

Art Cafe Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . After two days' exhausting meeting in Carnegie Mellon University , I finally got the chance to visit my friends in Pittsburgh, PA. Rong was kind enough to spare his time to show me around the campus. I especially liked the School of Fine Arts building, inside which eight marble sculptures spanning Greek, Roman and Medieval times were illuminated, creating an immediate and unmistakable visual impact of Western fine arts. Meanwhile, art from other parts of world such as Islamic and Indian could be found outside the building, suggesting the School had an eye for all arts in the world although it was the study of European art that was at its heart. I also found their Cafe had a nice neon sign simply saying, what else, "Art".

Saw a few good European movies recently. Two in French: "Les Invasions barbares" (The Barbarian Invasions) and "Comme une image" (Look at me); two in Spanish: "La Mala educación" (Bad Education) and "Hable con ella" (Talk to her). They successfully catched the subtlety of human relationships (as opposed to Hollywood-style phony emotions) and delivered a strong sense of humanity through (extra)ordinary eroticism. Probably only "Before Sunset" and "Before Sunrise" can be mentioned here for American cinema.

Today was our lab's annual Christmas party at The Inn at Government House . For afterparty, we went to Red Maple . Both places were nice, but I felt old. I wasn't a fan of alcohol before; now it's my best friend. I don't understand those who don't drink: they must be either a genius who never fails or a child too naïve to feel the pains in life. Like Jorge Cham presented in his talk that survey says 95% of the Ph.D. students have felt overwhelmed during their graduate study, then he went on and commented: "I don't know what the hell the other 5% are doing, either."

Even in a day packed with overwhelming frastration from a poorly designed, twisted minded and profoundly stupid programing language, I didn't forget to watch the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on CBS featuring live performance by Seal and Ricky Martin. Yeah! Nothing gets in the way between me and sexy lingerie models! (Oh, my sweet Heidi Klum and Gisele Bundchen ! Thank god Tyra Banks is retiring!)

I spent a whole day to figure out what's going on in my C++ code with a lot of templates. The lesson: ALWAYS INSTANTIATE YOUR TEMPLATES! or INCLUDE THE IMPLEMENTATIONS OF YOUR TEMPLATES! Because the compiler will miss A LOT of errors which could have been detected if you don't. When you have errors in the template, it is the linker, not the compiler that will complain. And the worse thing is when the linker complains, it gives you completely misleading messages. The other two sources of errors were 1) forgetting to give dummy implementations for constructor and destructor; 2) forgetting to typecast the pointer to the father class into that to the daughter class for accessing daughter-specific fields. P.S. The most relevant documentation is here . Time to spend more time reading geeky online user's manual and/or documents. :(

Homewood House Magnet Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . Visited Homewood House , a historic Colonial architecture from which the Hopkins campus got its name. It was snowing outside but the house looked great in candlelight with a harpsichordist playing periodic and holiday music. I even got this cute magnet featuring a 1990 watercolor by Joan Hanzlik.

I have been taking a swing class taught by our lovely teacher, Nancy for eight weeks and last night was our "graduation party" at Gardel's , a nice restaurant and bar with a dance floor. We had a very good time kicking and swinging. (Well, actually no kicking yet cause kicking steps are not for beginners; but Nancy wouldn't have problem with that.) Finding confidence and inspiration in dancing is a recurring theme in movies: "Saturday Night Fever", "Footloose", "Napoleon Dynamite", "Shall We Dance?", to name a few. And I can also feel, if not find the inspiration from time to time, if not always. What I feel most exciting is the challenge, the challenge of putting my body in the right position at the right time, the challenge of finishing a step with both accuracy and elegance, the challenge of spontaneously interpretting the music, the challenge of expressing myself through my moves, the challenge of overcoming my deepest shyn...

Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would Freeze Originally uploaded by nuance1979 . Philadelphia Museum of Art suprised me with its breadth and depth underneath a modest appearance. Not only did it feature awesome collections of European medieval and renaissance art, it also had several architectural installments including an early Christian church, a Hindu temple, a Chinese Buddhist temple and a Japanese teahouse, among others. I liked this work by Hendrick Goltzius called "Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would Freeze" , which really reads "Without food and wine, love would be impossible". No wonder people start dating by asking girls out for dinner!