Spring

Spring is here already. When you don't have to get up early and fight traffic, you really appreciate the poem: 春眠不覺曉, 處處聞啼鳥. Around 5am, the mockingbirds are calling, & then the doves follow. I got awaken, but I know I don't have to get up, so I fall asleep again. But mockingbirds are tenacious. They arm with at least 10 different calls & easily make good music. Spring is such a nice season, full of life & energy. The followings are some things I remember related to spring while we were in school.

春, by 朱自清,

盼望著, 盼望著, 東風來了, 春天的脚步近了. ....春天像小姑娘,花枝招展的,笑着,走著 ....

康橋, by 徐志摩

春,這勝利的晴空彷佛在你的耳边私語. 春,你那快活的靈魂也彷彿在那裡回响.

四時田家苦樂歌, by 鄭夑

細雨輕雷驚蟄後, 和風動土, ....漸茅簷日暖,小姑衣薄.

Longing for Spring, by Mozart

This is a little piece of song longing for spring, especially delightful sung by Vienna Choir Boys.

Concerto Spring, by Antonio Vivaldi

This is the first concerto from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. You can sense all the spring environment in the first movement.

Spring Symphony, by Robert Schumann

Schumann composed this symphony right after he married Clara, one of the best time in his life. You can hear all the high spirit of spring season. Especially the first movement with title: Visiting of Spring.

Voice of Spring, by Johann Strauss

Everyone knows this delightful waltz. It sounds as if the dance occurs right at the mid-spring with everything in full bloom. I happened to watch a new year program two years ago. It featured this Voice of Spring with Ballet dancer from London Royal Ballet. You will always remember that performance if you watch it.

Rite of Spring, by Stravinsky

This is a heart-pounding music used in that famous movie Fantasia. You can exercise a much wider area of imagination in painting music. The movie shows all volcano erupting, the earth shaking & sends all dinosaurs into extinction. It is a very powerful portrayal.

Spring Song, by Mendelssohn

This is a short piece of gem, a song without word. It fits the mood of late spring. Although the melody is sweet & light, you just feel that you miss or lose something at the end of the song: 淡淡哀愁,若有所失.

Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson

This book is the forerunner of the current Green Movement. It is the warning of using pesticides uncontrollably in our environment. Carson also wrote that famous bestselling book: The Sea Around Us. There is a Chinese translation by 夏道平: 海的故事.

論語, by 孔子

莫春者,春服既成,冠者五六人,童子六七人,浴乎沂,風乎舞雩,詠而歸.

This sounds as if everyday is a holiday, what a good life. Our life should be like this, especially in spring. By the way, this text gives the hint that Confucius really had 72 disciples, 30 (5*6)adults & 42 (6*7) boys. Don't get serious, this is just for fun.

Hi, All

This blog has been very quiet. I wonder how many of our classmates really read it or even know about it. You feel as if you are doing some monologue when you write something here. Life should be a many splendored things. Don't just work all the time, enjoy life should be a higher priority.

Taiwan just finished the presidential election & all of you already know the result. One week before the election, I took a walk in a nearby park with some of my friends. It was a beautiful day, I raised my head & see some cirrus hanging in the blue sky. Cirrus is a kind of clouds formed in very high altitude, about 5,000 ft. I have seen this before in autumn of Taipei during our college days. Suddenly, I have an urge to make a poem out of it. I said "藍天馬尾雲", I asked my friends to finish the sentence .ie. 对联 or 对句. We had some interesting combinations. I invite our classmates to do the same if you are interested to supply the inputs.

Engineering Drawing

Some time ago, I hang around a local library's book sale. I encountered a book: Engineering Drawing by French (French is the author, not language), 1960. This is the text book we used in our sophmore year. I don't know how many of you still remember the class by 凌霄. My memory is fading fast, so I think it is worthwhile to write something about him & his class. 凌霄 was unique because he always complained something in the class. For instance, 你看那些窗子, 都不是垂直的. 工程館是怎広盖出耒的? 一包水泥八包沙! Apparently, he was not a happy man at that time. I heard that he was running some kind of bufferfly business in southern Taiwan. Life must be tough at that time as a professor. I just hope those poor butterflies don't get perished or extinguished. I browsed this text book, it reminds me a lot of interesting stuff. After we finished the drawing assignment, we needed to have the drawing checked by him. Nine out of ten, we got problem and had to redraw. It was very frustrating and really a pain in the neck. I am not sure this class have anything to do with my future career. Anyway, the same holds true for 投影几何, 工程材料 & 三民主義, totally a waste of time. I did remember a person who did the best in 凌霄's class, 黃中平. Since I left NTU, I have never heard of him & the classlist has no information or data of him. Anybody knows where he is?

Life can be boring sometime. We always remember something unusual & forget all the boring routine stuff. For instance, when it comes to 翁通楹, it is "Tighto Sido", 李举賢, it is "你這是 shami-isu", 白光弘, it is Reading the text book Antenna in the class. How about 楊進順, it is "楊都美". She reminds me of him instead of the other way around. I actually forgot the title of his class & I am not sure I learn anything from him. One thing I did remember what he said, "我一碰到 delta 和 epsilon 就頭痛". He probably hates calculus. Next, how about 馬雲龍? His 电机机械 is another pain in the neck, too many assignments. I remember we had to spend those precious weekend just toiling along with slide rule for his assignment. If we had electronic calculators, it might save us some time. But slide rule, it is killing. We all found out that we might as well wait a little while until Apo finished his work & shared some of his secret.

I am sure some of you have good memory & stories. Please blog & share them before we all forget those good old days.

A Wise Old Man

Remember the slide show sent by AJ? I wonder about the following.

1. The guy has no human companion. A dog won't disagree with him, and if it did, he certainly will have the upper hand.
2. The picture of the guy with his dog at the beach looks good. Would it look as nice if the background is changed to something else, say, a busy street in Taipei?

Get On Board

Dear EE64 Classmates,

Thank Wei Chen for setting this blogger up for us. I am happy to be the first one to try this out. I hope to see many postings about nostalgic old days or interesting new things from all of you.

Since my retirement from National Space Orgination in Hsin-Chu last summer, I moved to live with my 100 year old (Chinese way of counting) father in Taipei. The NTU campus is among my favorite places in Taipei for taking a walk. It has many more buildings extending all the way back now, but the section near entrance remains pretty much the same as the old days. The old library has been converted to the university museum now. The azalea starts blooming already though it will be another month before it gets most spectacular. I know some of you are coming back to Taiwan in March or April. I will be glad to take you for a campus stroll if you like.

Paul (Cheng-I) Chen

Greetings

Dear Classmates,



A.J. Chen, Mark Yang, Cheng-I Chen and I have chosen NTUEE64 as the name of our class blog. Let's use it and have some fun.



Wei-Long