A Sun With Rainning Every Day

In last two quarters, I began taking up research works in PhD study. I started with solving math problems and this is indeed hard(I still believe it is ridiculous if not reading too many valuable papers and working blindly). However, I am anxious to make results and spend lots of time on solving small series of math problems. At first, I am doubting the value of proving those diversity results because I can not see the far destination behind these intermediate points. Are they just math games to satisfy intellectual curiosity? At that time, I chose hardworking as I believe solving those problems preparing me with math skills and this is a platform where I can connect with research fellows, such as Yindi.

But the more problems you solve, as you want to generalize the results to complicated issues, the more problems you find in the way. The issue I am working on now is how to apply interference cancellation to relay networks. The big problem behind this is that if multiple users can send information at the same time even though interferences are added up at the receiver. The motivation for interference cancellation is that decoding complexity can be reduced to be linear of user number instead of exponential if joint user ML decoding is used. We have very specific coding schemes to support interference cancellation and that's where the problems are. For simple terminal points with no more than two transmit antennas, all problems are able to be solved by Alamouti scheme. When it is generalized to M transmit antennas, generalized orthogonal STBC seems not possible to be applied. Quasi-orthogonal STBC seems applicable for M=4. I am doubt at its applicability for M=2^n, not to mention M is nonpwer of 2, and the statement in previous papers are vague. In addition, there is the idea of tradeoff of interference cancelation at the relay or at the receiver, if the previous problems are not solved, this one is also not possible and it requires applying quasi-orthogonal STBC at both the users and the relay. Count how many questions I have to solve in the future? At least three. And these are not easy.

It feels like hiking on a mountain and perhaps I can try another trail or reduce the height I wanner climb. Capable of solving math problems is good, but find a simple trail to the destination is better. If we can walk around difficult problems, why not try it? Another thought I have in the mind is that are these generalized results valuable? or is it just for the purpose of my perfectionism? If it is not of too many values, why spending time and effort on these issues? These thoughts are not only applicable to research but also to life.

The recently-opened New Port film festival has featured lots of interesting movies. The one most attracted me is the nature of existence, directed by Roger Nygard. Not only this movie has an official website ( www.thenatureofexistence.com ) which updates the movie continuously, but also it focuses on a series of fundamental exciting questions that we have encountered in the life but seldom spend time pondering them, such as the existence of god, what is existence, is capital punishment justified? This movie collects the answers from people of different religions, ages, occupations, and colors.

Being narrowed in a small cubicle of life, It would be interesting to just think big, feel exciting and jump out of the box in real world. One of the sentences I apprieciated in the movie clippers from the website is that: "when we were in the age of kids, we were curious about everything. However, at some point of life, that curiosity is lost. If someone is not interested in exploring and discovering something, that means his life is dying."

It is just to remind myself, keep open-minded and curious about everything.

趁着春假最后一天，又去LA跑了一趟，这次的目标是LA的高档生活区Beverly Hill和Santa Monica。对于Santa Monica的好奇完全源于袁唯仁的一首恋曲LA。

Beverly Hill可能是South CA最高档的生活区，这里只有隐秘的豪宅和奢华的商业街。说其豪宅隐秘，路的两边都是高达的松树，给里面的豪宅增加了神秘色彩。透过松树可以看到很宽阔的草坪以及隐约可见的别墅。其city hall无比奢华，可惜没拍到王道，下次去补。Berverly Hill最贵的一条街是Rodeo。欧式的风格加全世界最奢华的品牌。可是这边人到没有上海那边多，到这边来的基本都是游客。

最近春假，闲来可以enjoy一下今年的oscar awards movie。先看了The curious case of Benjamin Button。

这个故事从一开始就更吸引我。Imagine a man is born old. He grows younger everyday. As he gain wisdom from everyday experience, his body becomes stronger, which is contrary to the normal way that we gain more wisdom when our body is far from its peak. 从一开始就觉得这是一部关于完美男人的电影。

看完之后，这先入为主的映象被另两个思绪搅得一团糟。这是一部很温柔的有着史诗般的电影。可以说他描述了一个男人的一生，这一生虽然有着很多和常人不同的地方，但还是有着一些相同的情节。在benjamin一出生，就被他父亲以为是一个怪物遗弃到街头。所有人都不觉的小benjamin会活多少年，被滞留在老人院里。他从小和老人们在一起，没有嬉戏的童年，这也使他后来言语不多。但他经常听老人们说一生光辉的故事，电影里重复很多遍的镜头就是：有个人一生被雷击中过7次...。这促使他有了想闯荡世界的想法，所以在17岁那年，苍老的benjamin决定成为一个tugboat man，离开New Orleans，去周游世界。他在很多第一次中不段成长，第一次喝酒，第一次爱上一个人，第一次参加战争的洗礼。这是他生命的一个阶段，不停得积累新的experience。在第二个阶段，他开始settle down。他去NY寻找了他认为是生命中的destiny。但由于双方还不在生命的同一个阶段，benjamin做出的决定就是回家安心等待她的归来，一直到若干年后。在这期间，当年他无情的父亲找到了他，把家族的企业交给了他。有了金钱，婚姻，家庭，他的生命感觉就像普通人一样向前延伸。

看到这里，笔锋一转，开始引入了另一个让人思考的问题。如此grow younger everyday究竟是好还是坏呢？他们有了宝宝，但benjamin觉得不能等待自己越来越年青，有一天他会比他的女儿还小，他的爱人要同时照顾两个小孩。整个电影的后面一半笼罩在这种无助依恋的氛围中，离开也许是唯一的解答。benjamin被迫开始了他生命最后孤独的阶段。但可喜的是他能已婴儿的样子在他爱人的怀中结束了自己奇怪的一生。

看完电影后，心里又被温柔得刺痛了。上一次有这种感觉，还是cinema paradiso。

人们总是在所有传统的方法都走不通的情况下开始想新的创造，吃早饭也不例外。早起，发现冰箱里又没面包，又没牛奶，眼看着没啥能直接做早饭吃的。想想这也算是spring break，平日有学业忙为理由让自己偷懒，这break时，应该好好享受生活，创造生活。于是乎，open your mind，做了一道中西合璧的早饭。