Xinying's Space

2008 is going to its end, and it is an unusual year, for China, for most of us, and for me. I feel my 2008 filled with gratefulness, growth and happiness. My top 10 memorizable things in 2008 are:

1.     Mom’s good health. The year end of 2007 was an awful period, when my family learned that Mom got a really severe disease. During that time many friends send me their blessings. Jin, L, Lyy, Doudou, Duoduo, ww and bailey also visited Mom in hospital, and gave her great warmness. Dear friends, I really appreciate your concerns and helps. I am grateful that Mom has been in good health for this whole year. I am sure she will be good forever. God bless Mom! Thank God!!

2.     Publishing my first paper. I was lucky enough to get my first paper published, and it showed up in EMNLP 2008 proceedings. Though I was not lucky enough to get the visa clear in time and it was pity missing the Hawaii trip, I was still grateful. Thanks to CY and Yb’s guidance, thanks to Shilin, Shujian and groupmates' help, I learned how to do research and how to write a paper. I am also skilled in LaTeX, GVIM, Gnuplot, Graphviz and PSTricks now. I feel that I am more like a PhD student, :-).

3.      “Stars of tomorrow” musical drama and MSRA 10 year anniversary banquet. It was really amazing and happy for me to be one of 20+ interns who performed a musical drama at MSRA 10 year anniversary celebration banquet. It was a fantastic memory in that month when we brainstormed out the scripts, discussed about the songs, and rehearsed from times to times. I remember how awkward my actions were in the first rehearsal, and how confident and fluent we performed at last. When we finished the show successfully in the banquet, and CY, YB and other mentors came to say that it was a good one, I was so happy that all our efforts turn into harvest and we can contribute to MSRA 10 year celebration. Those precious moments will be vivid in my mind forever.

4.     First video shot in “Breakout Sigma”. A week and half before all FTE’s went offsite in November, we were asked to produce a short video to entertain our dear mentors. I have been always saying that our interns are the most energetic and creative: we spent only one hour’s meeting to brainstorm out the main story, and Xiongyi used a weekend to give the full script, and we took a Saturday to finish all the frames. Thanks to Sunny, Huaishu and actors/actrees, the video was awesome! Many mentors like it. It’s great ~

5.     Foosball Regional Championship. My partner Yb and I won the Regional Championship of 3^rd MSRA Foosball Open in August. Though we were beaten badly by the final champion (Xiang and Like), that was beyond our abilities, J. We enjoyed in the game. (Xiang later turned out also to be Billiards Open Champion… Too strong!)

6.     Badminton Club Owner. Tao passed this position to me in March, and I am very proud to have this honor to serve our interns. I am the only intern who has sound rights to send emails to “All Interns” every week, haha, ;-). I am proud to say that we have held our badminton club activities constantly for almost a whole year, even during the Olympics when it was extremely hard to book gyms. Thanks to Danqing and Litian for helping booking courts in PKU and Beihang. Thank you to all badminton guys.

7.     Swimming. Thanks to PV and Shujian, I learned how to swim in May this year, breast stroke. I also got the deep water certificate, ;-). I can easily swim 500m, and I believe I can swim up to 1km. I am also learning free style very hard, though I didn’t expect that free style is so much more difficult than breast stroke… We go swimming at least once very week. I like swimming ~

8.     PKU Graduate English Program. As a new PhD student, I applied for PKU Graduate English Program, and took the course this fall. It turns out to be the best English course I’ve ever had. The oral class was fun, with free discussions, debates and impromptu speeches. The writing class was extraordinarily burdensome, and yet unexpectedly fruitful. Reviewing my 25 journals and 5 essays, I feel fulfilled and even moved. I issue myself the Best Insight Writing Award, and it was signed by Mrs. Smalligan, :-). I got familiar with my PKU classmates, and I cannot forget the Christmas Program, in which we performed the funny Christmas carol “12 days of Christmas” and won the Best Audience Appreciation Award. Thank you, Charlie, Sheryl and PKU classmates.

9.     Not ready to write now. Reserved for the future.

10.  Family, Mentors and Friends. All my gratefulness, growth and happiness come from the people in my life. I must show my appreciation for my family, my mentors, and my friends. Thanks to Mather, Father, and Jin. Thanks to MSRA mentors. Thanks to HIT guys. Thanks to MSRA guys. Special thanks to a special person. Thanks to all friends.

Look forward to 2009. Hope it is another fantastic year!

Thanks, friends. I really appreciate your concerns.

Mom will fight againt the disease confirmedly, with Dad, me and all friends beside!