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

...as I am waiting for the plane to take off. C'est la vie.

Ok, I was bluffing. Grand Prix du Canada did not happen this year. But I was looking forward to its rumored return in 2010 and could not settle for a NASCAR replacement . So hopefully see you next summer on Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve !

Roddick Serving Originally uploaded by nuance1979 The second event I am excited about is Rogers Cup , which is a joint event of ATP and WTA . The men's and women's matches alternate between Toronto and Montreal. This year Montreal hosts the gentlemen. Based on my schedule and budget, I bought a ticket to a quarter-final match on August 14, featuring Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic. The program was bashing about the fact that all eight seeds had reached quarter-finals, which had not happened since 1973. However, if you had followed the result, you would know that that pattern did not last long as major upsets happened right away. Roddick v. Djokovic Originally uploaded by nuance1979 The match between Roddick and Djokovic were pretty enjoyable. Unlike in a major event such as the grueling Wimbeldon final with Federer, Roddick was relaxed, even playful from time to time, as long as it wouldn't cost him the victory. Enjoying what you do and doing what you enjoy are typic...

There are only two seasons in Montreal: winter and construction. So what do we do for fun in "construction season"? Well, for starters, we have the International Jazz Festival , a two-week long celebration of jazz, blues and beyond. The largest of its kind, the festival attracts world-class jazz musicians as well as young hopefuls, who perform in an open stage for free, while sweaty young funs cheer them in the audience below. There are, of course, ample supply of beer in nearby stands and I smelt marijuana, too. For older folks like me, we buy ticket to see some older musician playing some old-fashioned jazz. Chucho Valdes is the quintessential Latin jazz pianist from Cuba. His quintet consists of a piano, a bass, a drum and a conga. He didn't speak much (all in Spanish) and just played and played . Some songs showed off his skill and speed and others presented his softer side. There was a brief quotation from "Rhapsody in Blue", playfully resolved into his o...

Yesterday was Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, a.k.a., the National Holiday of Quebec (La Fête nationale du Québec). So it was only fitting that I went to "OVO" , the latest production of Cirque du Soleil . Founded in Québec and based in Montréal, Cirque du Soleil is markedly Québécois. My first encounter with Cirque du Soleil was made possible by generous Microsoft Research, where I had an internship for three months. The "Corteo" show was touring in Seattle in summer 2008. I wasn't quite sure about what to expect but was generally pleased by how it organized many usual circus acts into a coherent story and fascinated by their costumes. After I settled in Montréal, I wasted no time to exercise my privilege and bought the ticket of the "OVO" show, which premiered here in May. Being so close to the site, I was able to take the metro 45 minutes before the curtain and walked leisurely to the Grand Chapiteau. The show was up to its name. Absolutely amazing costum...

Over the years of my PhD study, I met a lot of interesting professors. I had entertained the idea of putting their memorable quotes in the beginning of my thesis chapters as one of my friends did. I finally gave it up but here are the ones I had in mind: "Some of my best friends are linguists." -- Fred Jelinek, using it as his LREC 2004 keynote speech title. "Engineering is advanced through two human natures: laziness and nastiness." -- Gerard G. L. Meyer, explaining how engineers, unlike scientists, always prefer simple ideas that work. "Mathematics is not a spectator's sport." -- James A. Fill, an avid Chicago sports fan, encouraging people to work out the details of the proofs he sketched in class.

Doctor of Philosophy , originally uploaded by nuance1979 , courtesy of Haolang. I just came back from my commencement. It was great. Unfortunately none of my family could come so I took a lot of pictures to share with them. (Click the photo above or here .) I like the forward-looking way of calling it "commencement", as opposed to "graduation", because I am certainly looking forward to the future and excited about the possibilities of life ahead.

When I found out that Gil Shaham was going to play Brahms Violin Concerto with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal , I thought it could be a perfect chance to savor my new hometown orchestra. The orchestra has a great place: Located right in the middle of downtown at the metro station of Place-des-Arts, the Salle Wilfrid Pelletier Hall is easily accessible. You don't even have to walk out of the metro station, which is a life-saver in winter, if you know what I mean. The music director, Kent Nagano, a Japanese American who have worked in Lyon for a long time, is fluent in French. He started the evening with a lengthy monologue, which I could not understand because of my limited knowledge of the language. Just before he appeared on stage, we were informed that the Schumann Second Symphony, the other main course of this evening, had been rescheduled to proceed the Brahms Concerto. I could understand this move because I bet what happened last night was many people simply left the conce...

If you live in the United States long enough and watch movies a lot, you would certainly be disappointed by the stupidity of the mainstream Hollywood flicks. With their enormous budgets and gigantic marketing machinery, unfortunately, stupid Hollywood flicks dominate the world, not to mention the States. That was why I loved The Charles , a cozy independent movie theatre which shows some fantastic films that falls into one of the following categories: low-budget, independent, foreign and art. I always felt my brain was working again after I saw a movie in The Charles. If you are a movie junkie in US, you would certainly want to live in one of the following two cities: New York and Los Angeles. Why? Because these are the places they put up some movies and decide whether they will show it nationally. As you can imagine, many good but not so popular movies never made it to the next step. Thanks to technological advance, they would be made into dvds so those who like it could see it eventu...

When I checked my blog's SiteMeter , I noticed that a surprisingly large number of people were lead to my blog by googling for "phd fun". For them I have a few words: First of all, do *not* put "phd" and "fun" in the same search query. PhD is anything *but* fun. Second, if you ask someone whether PhD is fun and he/she answers "yes" or "no", that person must have not done a PhD. A real answer should start with something like "well..." Oh, by the way, I just submitted my dissertation and my PhD years are officially over. Jokes aside, getting a PhD is a unique experience. It is so unique that I believe even if I had a second chance, I would end up choosing to do it anyway. As far as I know, a person who finishes a PhD usually has a big ego, is a little idealistic and definitely lazy . I would end up doing a PhD because of my personalities. So I say to myself: stop whining and life goes on. :)

As many people point out, it takes perseverance, patience and pain to set up Chinese support in LaTeX . So after I took the pain to do it, following these two great tutorials (TeXLive users take note: DO follow instruction 4.b .), I thought I should use it more. Here it is: the bilingual pdf version of the " Analects of Confucius"（《论语》）, or "Confucian Analects", translated by James Legge and typeset by me. Many thanks to Project Gutenberg for the original plain text version!

My Birthday Treats Originally uploaded by yisu79 It's that time of year again. This year, we had delicious cakes from Patisserie Poupon for desert. The dinner itself featured a traditional dish of Szechuan Cuisine: Boiled Pork Slices（水煮肉片）, prepared by my lovely girlfriend! (BTW, don't be fooled by the dish's name; it's very hot.)