Albert Yip

The above is the menu of a hot-pot restaurant in a hotel in Hong Kong. Click the image to enlarge. Shredded cow stomach translated to "Albert Yip"? Instant noodle translated to "a previous small"? I laughed so hard that my belly was almost torn! What a shame!

Yesterday was an important and memorable day in U.S. history. Thank you, President Obama, for passing the healthcare reform bill!

Charles K. Kao awarded Nobel Prize in Physics

I am so excited. I am sure every Hong Kong citizen also feels very excited. We finally have a Nobel Prize laureate who is "made in Hong Kong"! Congratulation to Dr. Charles K. Kao (高錕) for being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009 today "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication". Dr. Kao is widely regarded as the "Father of Fiber Optic Communications". His high school years were spent at St. Joseph's College, Hong Kong. He then obtained his bachelor degree and Ph.D at Imperial College London. He has worked as an engineer and researcher at several facilities in UK and USA, but most importantly, ever since 1970, he has been a faculty member of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was the university's Vice-Chancellor from 1987 to 1996 (the Chancellor was the Hong Kong Governor and was just an honorary position, so the Vice-Chancellor was the actual head of the university). I think almost nobody from Hong Kong in my generation does not know Dr. Kao. He is our treasure, Hong Kong's treasure. However, I've just read a news article that says Dr. Kao may be suffering from Alzheimer's disease. After all, he is 75 years old now. I know in many cases it takes time to verify the practicability of scientific works, but how come the Nobel Prize committee often does not award the prize to somebody until s/he is approaching the last stage of her/his life? Anyway, my congratulations to Dr. Kao again!!!

Chicago

One week ago I was in Chicago because Mom took a flight at O'Hare back home. In the past I had never stayed in Chicago for leisure, so this time I stayed in Chicago for two more days after Mom left. I spent one whole day at Woodfield Mall; I was surprised that as a shopaholic I didn't buy anything there. The other day (last Sunday) I woke up late but managed to reach and enter the Shedd Aquarium at 3pm. Three hours of stay at the aquarium was definitely not enough, but at least I managed to see most of the attractions. It's definitely worth the visit; the belugas and otters were so cute. After the aquarium was closed at 6pm, I should have taken a bus and then transferred to another bus to reach Union Station. But I was just thinking: given that it's still early, why not I walk along the lakeshore trail to Monroe Street so that I can avoid paying the extra 25 cents for a bus transfer and practise walking? So I spent 2.5 hours to walk along the lakeshore and briefly visited the Millenium Park. I am from Hong Kong; I love water and sea since I was born. This was the first time I walked along the shore of Lake Michigan. I felt so good, so relaxed, so relieved of all stress from work. I never had good impression about Chicago, a city with so many old and deserted factory buildings. But as I walked along the lakeshore and enjoyed Chicago's skyline, I suddenly started to love the city and admire its beauty. I walked for so long, and most importantly, I walked with weight-bearing on my left leg. I haven't done that for years. Yes, they were very very slow steps, but I cherished and enjoyed it. Some pedestrains who passed me looked at me with support and encouragement. Thank you. My left leg felt much stronger the next day. I hope I can enjoy such a walk every Sunday.

Screencast

This is the first time ever in my six years of teaching that I am unavailable to teach due to personal reasons. The physician will discharge me from hospital the day after tomorrow, so I was absent from class today and will still be absent tomorrow and the day after. Instead of asking for a substitute instructor, I have decided to record screencasts for the lectures and asked my TAs to play the videos in class. This is also the first time I have ever recorded screencasts, and I really find the experience interesting and appealing. I feel like a teacher of an online course! I used .Windows Media Encoder to record the screencasts. It's nice, except that it may produce a glitch if the video is too long. After finishing recording a 1-hour screencast for the CS410 class, I've just realized that I had plugged the microphone wire into the headphone jack, so no audio was recorded. What the heck! Anyway, it's good lesson to learn.

Longest English Word

What is the longest English word? As listed in the Guinness Record, the longest word ever to appear in an English language dictionary is the 45-letter word

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

which means a lung disease caused by the the inhalation of very fine silica dust from volcanoes. Interesting thing to learn!

Santyl

The stitches were removed three weeks ago, yet part of my incision wound is still not healed yet. It is a small incision opening with a white-yellowish bed. My surgeon prescribed me Silvadene, but it didn't quite work. I was worried that it was a skin infection, so I went to see the surgeon yesterday. She said it didn't look like an infection, and she prescribed me a stronger topical cream called Santyl for skin healing. I hope Santyl works, because I don't want to go back to the OR room for sutures again.

I do learn a lot in the area of pharmacy these days, particularly the topical creams Silvadene and Santyl. Silvadene is actually silver sulfadiazine, which promotes skin healing by preventing the growth of many kinds of bacteria and yeast on the damaged skin. It is the golden standard for second-degree to third-degree burns. However, patients should not be tempted to apply too much Silvadene cream on the wound, because that will somehow inhibit skin growth. Santyl is actually collagenase, which digests collagen in necrotic (dead) tissue, thereby promoting the formation of granulation tissue and subsequent epithelization of dermal ulcers (which is what my wound looks like) and burned areas. However, my surgeon warned me seriously that I must apply the Santyl cream over the ulcer area only, not the surrounding skin, as it may cause skin irritation.

Dizziness is worse than pain

I finally got out of Barnes. The few days right before my hospitalization last week were horrible to me, because Carbondale had been struck by a tornado, leaving us with no power for four days, significantly impacting my grading plans and ABET paperwork before getting into Barnes. But maybe partially due to such a tight work schedule, I had no spare time to get myself nervous for the surgery. Frankly speaking, I shouldn't be scared of it because it's my own choice.

The two days right after the surgery gave me the most pain. If I am asked to grade the pain level over a scale of 1 to 10, I would say 10. But interestingly, maybe because I'm getting older, I feel that I am more capable of bearing pain now. Even though five injections of morphine and dilaudid didn't help me at all in alleviating the pain, I still managed to bear through the two nights. What I found hard to endure was the dizziness and light-headedness resulted from the pain medication. Such drowsiness made me even hard to sit for a few seconds. Then how could I even take my lunches and dinners? What's worst was that such drowsiness was so uncomfortable that it couldn't even make me sleep. I've told my doctor: I'd rather bear pain myself than take those painkiller IVs that cause dizziness.