学习律师助理课程有感

2019年春季开始在社区学院学习律师助理证书课程，连带上一些执法相关的课程。

初衷只是想增强法律知识，以便以后做法庭口译用。开始跟不足二十岁或四五六十岁的美国学生们同堂上课后，发现自己的写作功底还可以，但语法上的各种小毛病开始显露，尤其是police report writing课。另外，在lega research课上学习了美国法律体系，深感法律体系的严谨、严密和庞大。深思熟虑，逻辑严密地写好一篇作业后，自我感觉良好，甚至有捧着艺术品的感觉。

开始感到前律师同事hl所说，对律师而言，写作相当重要。 要读一些法官写的案例分析，学习他们的逻辑。

下午欣然得知2020年春季的课程目录出来了，很高兴，发现民事诉讼（上）就在下学期开，于是迅速找好了其他要上的课，跃跃欲试就等着选课系统开放了。

第一年上了入门课、法律研究、法律写作、劳工赔偿法。第二年春季准备修民事诉讼（上）、律师助理计算机使用（短学期+网上课程）、高级法律研究与写作；夏季修计算机辅助法律研究（网上课程）；秋季修民事诉讼（下），准备NALA考试 （或者加个criminal、probate、tort之类）。夏天的时候可以问问老师怎么准备这个考试。
https://www.nala.org/sites/default/files/files/users/2019%20CP%20Program%20Handbook_0.pdf
第一年还在另一个社区学院修了一门综合法律课，暑假修了世界宗教，秋季修了警察报告写作。第二年准备修DNA和指纹（仅一个周六）。

下班后走在校园里，想到可以学东西，可以免费借阅图书馆的书，其实还挺开心的。深感过去蹉跎了岁月。现在奋起追赶吧。

最近有点烦

说来都令人惭愧，这把年纪了还为几个小年轻的八卦而烦恼。有人的地方是非多，只是我忽然看到他们如此热衷议论别人，内心有些难以接受。他们怎么能做到人前一副模样，人后一副模样？
可能身体实在太过抗拒，昨天早上本来计划跟其中几人参加活动，闹钟竟然没响，因此错过。颇为难受了一会。不过，一个朋友说可能是身体给我发送信号，可以借此机会跟身体对话。我想她是有道理的。别人的宽恕，让我自己也原谅了自己。既然赶不上其他人的车，就从容的吃了饭，自己穿好行装去公园走路。在老公起来前已经在山里走了一圈，看了马，看了油菜花，去超市买了新鲜的鱼。
回家一起打扫屋子，准备饭菜，迎接亲戚到来。坐着房车去公园，在里面围坐一桌吃了饭，又在草地上坐着聊天，聊了好久，感觉长进挺大。下午回来，七点不到就睡觉了，一直睡到半夜两点多。
四点多又想到令人烦心的事，烦到之前的好心情都一扫而光。决定起身。告诉自己，看淡周围，把一切都交给时间。

背个小包出门去

2018年圣诞，收到一件礼物是nordstrom闪闪的名片夹。一开始心想那同事怎么给我这么不实用的东西，后来她说晚上夜生活可以放卡和一点钱，就不用背大包了。

这个用途让我醍醐灌顶。确实，每天出门，用的卡也就是一两张，为什么拿一个大钱包呢？用了两天名片夹当钱包，发现自己的包有点大而空了，于是开始搜索小包，准备换个小黑包。

在搜索的时候看到一篇文章，说女人出门还是背小包，只带必须的。背大包，里面塞满各种责任，其实自己也很累。用小包，优雅又简单，正好契合最近迷的极简主义Minimalism。于是就这么决定了！出门只背小包！

Life 3.0 Week 3

Why Learning Math and Physics

I am at a loss when I come across paragraphs that contain mathematical or physical explanations, which is frustrating. The good thing is, I now understand the reason we learn them is to be able to imagine the world in an abstract way, which helps us project the future and make good decisions.

The existence of God?

I once had a discussion with a friend who believed in the existence of God. He believed that there is a being, who introduced thoughts into our mind. “Our brain is made of the material,” he said, “and our thoughts are intangible. How come the material produced intangible thoughts? There must be a god who puts thoughts in us in the first place. ”

-->

That question got me, and it still does. From the book, I know that when fed enough data and patterns, computers can make good decisions and perform tasks that required human intelligence. But in the very beginning, humans gave the computer a goal to set it off. In the same vein, is there a god who put in something in our mind to set us going? 

Life 3.0 Week 4

1. Once our brain gained consciousness of a thing, it will turn it into unconscious so the consciousness can focus on higher-level challenges

If so, then we need to keep learning new things to avoid losing consciousness of our life. 

I think the last chapter on consciousness is more relevant to my life, compared with other parts on AI.

To be honest, as I was reading the book, I constantly battle with the idea that I am not in the position to think about those concerns-I haven't quite figured out all the philosophical questions such as what happiness is and what is the meaning of life, so building up any thoughts for AI on a non-existent base would be too far fetched. I haven't figured out those questions, why should I be trusted on the discussion of AI?

The author said that once our brain gained consciousness of an action, it will gradually turn it into unconscious actions so that the conscious mind can focus on higher-level challenges. I think it is a good reminder of my life and career: try to maintain consciousness and avoid drifting into a zombie state of mind.

What can be done to achieve consciousness in life? My general list includes: 

a. read books to gain new knowledge and experiences
b. join discussions to exchange ideas
c. learn new skills
d. get on new adventures

A gym employee once told me that the gym started to be filled at the end of January, instead of right after the New Year as I thought. So I guess that now is a good time to take actions to live a more conscious life, and maintain the human part in us as much as possible.

2. Consciousness is substrate-independence twice over.

if consciousness is the way info feels when being processed in certain complex ways, then it is merely structure of the information processing that matters, not the structure of the matter doing the information processing. 

3. "It is not our universe giving meaning to conscious beings, but conscious beings giving meaning to our universe."

4. “theory was wrong, but it was scientific!” 

I gained new understanding in “scientific”-can be tested and falsified

Completed the Personal Training Sessions

Today I completed all my sessions with Joe from Fitness Club Personal Training. It was a no-pressure, no-judgment environment, and I felt good after each session. I did my first deadlift, and my sitting with the bars and forty pounds on my back. I learned that even with knee pains I can still train weights. I am ready to do it on my own in the gym!

Life 3.0 Week 2

Thoughts on robot judges

I find the thought experiments laid out by Tegmark are fascinating. Based on his, I had the following thoughts which might be part of a story.

Tegmark described the scenario of having robot judges to process all the evidence and give verdicts, which will lead to a more fair and efficient legal system. I think this conclusion is based on the condition that the laws are created fair. If, by human error or due to the changes in the definition of "fairness" as the society develops, the laws are no longer fair, robot judges' efficient execution of the laws won't make the legal system more fair.

A question that came to my mind is: what if the AI writes the law? I think that the first stage may be that AI writes laws for human being, so that human being may have laws that are more fair as the law makers are unbiased. It may lead to the second stage: AI writes the laws to govern AI or even the human being? Will there be a Human-AI board to write the laws governing Human-AI relationship? Will the world run by laws written by AI be an orderly one that follows the optimal path? Or will it be a nightmare for the human being if the AI law-makers turn out to be tyrants, or its laws are not quite compatible with the human society due to occasional technical glitch? Also, by the time AI can write laws, a lot of changes might have occurred in the human society. For example, the immigration law will change as the national boundaries may have disappeared by then, but possibly new boundaries based on AI/human content in a resident's body may be created...

On machine translation

Tegmark said that machine translation is quite good nowadays, but he was probably only talking about English <> Spanish translation, which are similar in syntax. For English <> Chinese translation, the results yielded by the machine translation in most cases cannot be used without human post-editing yet.

When I went to the American Translators Association conference last October, some senior translators expressed their concerns about AI. I didn't think much of it, but our discussion on career choices this and last week made me think of my future as a translator.

Life 3.0 Week 1

I found the way the author writes is worth pondering upon.
1. The author raised a question to readers: Do you think that superhuman AI might get created this century? If No, skip to Chapter 1. If Yes, continue to next page.
I wonder why those who are optimistic about the development of AI should read the prelude about an earth that comes to be dominated by AI, and those who are not can jump into the main body of the book sooner. Why does the author describe a story with AI gradually dominate the world? I look forward to finishing the book to find out why.
2. When the author describes the stages of AI's development, he moved from technological products to the media, to business, to community building, to politics. It reminded me of such a theory that the first generation immigrants should study science and technology, the second generation can try their hands at finance, and the third generation can consider joining the politics. It seems that science and technology is relatively classless, so the opportunity is equal to everybody. Politics is on the other side of the spectrum and involves more rhetoric, connections and social relations, which is controlled more by humans and is harder to be unraveled. What do you think of the sequence of the fictional AI conquering the world?

Response to a post on the structure of the book:
I am also interested in the structure of the book, mostly in the choice posed by the author in the very beginning: "Do you think that superhuman AI might get created this century? If No, skip to Chapter 1. If Yes, continue to next page." I chose Yes, and was led to the fascinating account of how AI dominates the world. As I proceeded to Chapters 1 and 2, I realized that the author designed an option to bypass the scenario so that readers with more understanding of AI can avoid reading something that does not interest them anymore and get to the major topics sooner. For a moment I wondered, did the author use AI to predict readers' behaviors when he was writing the book? :D

2018: New Year Wishes-finished on Jan 3

As I was about to type down "2018: New Year Resolution", I paused for a second and changed my mind. Instead of putting it as "resolution", I want to bring things down a notch and put the following as "wishes" instead. (I read a post about keeping up with New Year resolutions, that is to make specific goals. Therefore I revise my following goals and make them in red.)

1. Read books>read one book per month. Actually, when I was reading the book that I actually finished, When Breath Becomes Air, I felt I was living another person's life. The author's experience and reflections made me think and treasure what I have. Moreover, I have a strong feeling that my language is going backward. I often struggle with names or a sentence structure. I don't know if it was because I am exposed to a bad language environment, or because the language section in my brain is deteriorating.

2. Strengthen my knees>being able to ride 60 miles without knee pain. After the last two rides, I am scared of the knee pain. Worse still, the pain didn't go away after the last ride. I need to figure out if I need to adjust my seat. Then I need to do exercises to strengthen them.

3. Post one blog per month sharing knowledge. As I am the Twitter master for ATA Language Technology Division, I am devoting at least one hour every week to keep this account active. As I am reposting the blog posts, I am thinking: I can also share my experience as a paralegal/translator in my firm. It will provide useful information and hopefully grow my client base.

4. Pass court interpreter exam. I successfully registered the written exam today. Great first step! Just need a study plan and start studying!!


Here is a tentative breakdown for a weekday:
Read a book while standing against the wall: 30 minutes
Practice SI and CI: 20 minutes each

For weekends (2 days in total):
Read a book: 2 hours, standing against the wall: 1 hour
Practice SI and CI: 30 minutes each every day
Review: 1-2 hour
Write blogs and manage Twitter: 2-3 hours

"Un-install sleepy"

张哥这几天赶着黑五，亚马逊网店冲了好几单生意，心情大好。计划着下周回国去跟厂家谈生意监工赶生产。说什么说到卸载睡眠，然后说了个un-install sleepy，笑死我们了。
张哥让我们记录下来他的语录，于是就在这记一笔。经典的还有：服子（胡子），服思乱想（胡思乱想）

戴头灯做饭

房子较老，由于香港夫妇用大功率电器，结果屋子线路烧毁，换了一条后又烧毁，于是一条一条烧毁后，终于有一天厨房也没灯了。张哥戴起头灯做饭，而电饭煲有电，还可以烧汤。竖起一根手电筒当蜡烛，在天花板上照出一个圆形。
给房东发去黑漆漆厨房头灯做饭的张哥的照片，这次她回得快了。后来她爸爸还打来电话，感觉这个问题百出的房子（更重要的是有了个跟他们不对付的孙姨）要把他们逼得焦头烂额。这次我没有吼，没有逼问维修时间，懒得理论，主要是不会有什么结果。今天张哥发了个公寓的图，在这住满半年后应该就会搬走了。
晚上张哥收拾东西，明天飞机就要回中国了。给我介绍了如何使用他的显示器、键盘等。等我妈来了我们两个可以用这两个房间了，空间大一些。他回去跟厂家谈生意等，希望可以有丰富收获。

The Holiday

这是Nancy Meyers导演的浪漫圣诞影片，室内装修和演员服饰都非常好看，令人舒服。主角做的都是富有创造性的工作：报纸作家、图书编辑、片花剪辑、影视作曲。两个女主角受到情伤，于是交换家度假。然后作家找到了best friend，曾经享誉盛名的好莱坞编剧爷爷，同时遇到好男人；剪辑公司老板遇见了脸帅情深的图书编辑。最终四人齐聚伦敦，度过了幸福美满的除夕之夜。

相比情节，我更喜欢整个氛围的营造。我喜欢LA圣诞前后的阳光和温暖，还有santa anas季候风，如同春天的暖风让人沉醉；也喜欢白雪覆盖的伦敦郊区，一栋装满书和瓷器的温暖小屋。电影中的洛杉矶总是公路两边棕榈林立，又有大海，其实跟现在的生活略有出入。不过，也可不时的提醒自己：生活在这样美好的环境中，不要忘了去欣赏和探索。

现实中的工作是单调的、需要耐心的，而刺激的生活即使到来，也势必带来目前没有的烦恼。做好准备，在暗夜中耐心打磨自己，才能从容面对以后的挑战吧。

Grateful for the good things that are happening on me

Tonight is the singing night. I told my teacher that I wanted to stop taking lessons. At first, she said ok. Then as I was practising the tunes, she reminded me of the opera pieces that I love. "O Mio Babbino Caro". As soon as I heard the melody, I was captured, as always. Then I blurted out: "Oh, I'll give it another month perhaps."

From that class, my another takeaway was to be committed to a gesture or movement. Show the audience you are enjoying yourself, even it is a small movement, a dance move, commit to it. Otherwise, the audience would feel bad for you too.

Tonight, I proposed to teach Ken English. His language barrier holds back his career progress. If he speaks good English, he would be able to stand on a much much higher platform.

我的室友张哥应该是我见过的最有趣的人了吧，符合我小时候对理想生活的想象。户外运动（骑行跑步轮滑滑板上周又加一个皮艇）、电子元件（机械灯、机械手）、电脑编程（职业）、画画（以前专业学的），样样都是我感兴趣的。在他的鼓励下准备十月份开始一个project ，另外发展水上运动。今天主动提出教他英文，不太确定怎么教，按照我以前的教法会太harsh，估计会打消人家积极性。从我的唱歌老师那里学到，其实可以gently push you forward。

Arts is NOT Instant Noodle, but Be Aware Don't Kill the Interest!

As a translator in a law firm, I often translate press reports. Today I ran into an article about a training program in the United States. Their selling point is to teach traditional Chinese culture to local Chinese American children. I was shocked by one sentence: "After two weeks' training, the children performed what they've learned, singing, stage speech, dance-acting and combat of Peking opera." Wow, only two weeks and now you can perform Peking opera? If you have watched the Chinese film "Goodbye My Concubine", you would know that the Peking opera performers usually start at a very young age, and endure extreme physical (and sometimes psychological) challenges in order to master one skill. I don't know if this harsh training scheme still hold true today, as today you rarely see teachers as strict as the Shifu in the film, nor students as hardworking and enduring as those in the film.

The other day I went to a music school for a trial singing lesson. While I was sitting outside waiting for my turn, I heard the sound of the piano inside, which was slow, not fluent and not at all melodious. As the door opened and our ran a little girl, the teacher came to the waiting Dad and praised his daughter profusely: "She makes progress each time she comes. She knows to start slow instead of going unsteady. She is doing a fantastic job!" I was gasping disbelief in my heart: Come on! If you continue to let loose the discipline, the girl will never learn the piano well. The bar is too low. As the Dad went with his daughter, the other door was open, and another little girl ran out, who I don't think was any better than the previous one. 

I feel I am thinking Tiger Mom. Compared with those two, I do think another music school, The Academy of Arts, Music and Science, which was run by a Korean lady, would offer more serious music training. The Director told me that she didn't want me to start and then quit. She suggested I think thoroughly before joining her school. I felt the familiar pressure which I experienced when I was learning the violin. Compared with the no-discipline vocal teacher I'm currently having, I feel more secure with strict disciplines. I am yet to discover which method is better. Perhaps for different people, there is a better way of teaching. 

I found that I have drifted from my original furious title "Arts is NOT Instant Noodle!"So here it is, I added a second part to the title to make my drift not so obvious. 

港剧推荐——女王办公室

最近想重新捡起蒙尘的粤语，于是搜哪部港剧好，于是找到这部女王办公室。
很佩服杜汶泽演的角色，以前是个销售员，非常会忽悠人，后来阴差阳错来到大家工作的公司做秘书，在他顶头上司和公司首席秘书之间周旋，同时还要独自照顾家里一对孪生小姐妹。
在剧中看到许多熟悉的场景，挺亲切的。剧中经常听到宣传市民责任的台词，举报违法停车、公车上不得饮食、行驶时不得与公车司机讲话等等，又觉得港人挺可爱。
再说粤语，看着画面的时候很明白情节，现在边打字边听，就听不到很多细节。尚需继续努力。

About BL

The first time of me to have a vague impression of homosexuality was when i was watching A Dream of Red Mansions, a TV series adopted from one of the four most famous Chinese classic novels. At that time i was so confused and shocked to see that Xue Pan should flirt with a handsome singer boy. How can a man do this to a same sex person?

Then i watched the famous Goodbye My Cocubines, a movie starred by Zhang Guorong. In those three hours, breathing the traditional Chinese air, listening to the splendid Peking opera and seeing the sparkling opera makeups and costumes and lighting, i was totally immersed in the beautiful story.

The above was written years ago. Now it is 2017. One of my old classmates is a gay. He came out of the closet long ago, and is living in Shanghai as a PR professional. He often shares his sharp opinions on his WeChat Moments, which read very smooth, funny and venting. Key words in his posts include: bitch, shit, curse, idiot...A very interesting figure. 

美国女生的团队合作精神

这次出行，让我对美国女生有了更加深刻的认识。旅途开始，在华盛顿，Kelsey需要导航，Whitney就在后座帮她看往哪拐。我虽然坐在副驾驶，但看到GPS粘在玻璃上，就完全没有帮忙（不过我也完全不会开车，也不知道如何导航；会不会开车真是天壤之别）。
后来路上我手机定位有问题，找不到目的地，Whitney也帮忙找。这些都是她主动做的，我和Kelsey并没有让她帮忙。
在沙发客主人家，Kelsey也主动帮我在客厅架起沙发床，铺好被褥，早上帮我收拾好沙发床。其实她在家就很有眼力见，在我做好几道菜忙不过来的时候她就主动去洗碗碟，清理厨房。

Amish人

这次旅行一大收获就是见到了Amish人。在华盛顿见到那群穿着彩色裙子头戴白帽的妇女之后，又在两个城市的加油站和黄石公园见到了穿着黑裙子戴白帽的妇女和穿黑裤戴黑礼帽的男人。校友Joe邮件说，不知道他们不用汽车，怎么去到那些地方的。回来借了一本书"Born Amish"，准备了解一下他们的生活。

couch surfing

I am new to couch surfing. Before this trip I only heard about it from Kelsey, who used to host and surf in Russia. To help find us a place to sleep, I registered an account on couchsurfing. In the beginning, I didn't make any successful requests, maybe because I was new and didn't quite write much about myself on my page. Kelsey has some references from her past experience so she found us Daniel and Angel at Columbus, OH and Makai at Madison, WI.

We arrived at Daniel and Angel's house around 9. Before arriving Kelsey suggested picking up flowers for them, which was very sweet. Daniel is Polish-Taiwanese American and Angel is Indian. Their house was very comfortable with two large baby toys besides the fireplace. Angel said her daughter was in the room asleep. I used the bed in the living room and Kelsey and Whitney shared another bed in the bedroom. We chatted with them on the impressions on American Mid-west states. They mentioned some cities and states but I wasn't familiar with those places. Daniel must have had some thought on this area as he sounded that he had a pretty complete picture in his mind.

Makai was an interesting guy. His two walls were covered by game/movie discs and CDs. He said that those were currencies on his job, which was ground staff at the airport. His grandparents had multiple ethnic origins, not to say him. When asking him to list the countries he had traveled, I soon regreted that I should have let him list the countries he had never been to, that would take much less time! A most incredible thing was his love story in Hawaii. He fell in love with a pretty girl. One day he had to go to a party in the backyard of his grandma, and he knew that she went to her relative's party that day as well. After a few minutes in the party, he found her walking through his grandma's door! That is the situation in Hawaii. It seemed that every one is a relative to someone else, as long as you keep asking questions.

At Portland, I began another round of search for hosts because I had a reference from Angel and Daniel now. Rosslyn replied to me very quickly with a brief message. We were all very impressed by her trust to us, because she agreed to let us in without even meeting us beforehand. We arrived under her building and I ran upstairs to find an envelop sticking to her door with a key and a parking permit. After we had supper, I bought her some flowers and Kelsey gave me a Thank-you card to write. Her room was not very big, but very comfortable with thick carpet. And she uses a lot of Kieh's products. Her bathroom was also spotlessly clean.

Her two cats were friendly and fluffy, walking quietly in her clean room. We had a good time with the cats. After we took another walk to Powell's City of Books and chatted in a brewery with Kelsey's friends, we went to bed. Rosslyn came back from work later that night. I got up to shake her hand. Her hand was cold, but from that handshaking I was somehow touched. What trust! That is her, not some gunman or a crazy person. She took her shower and went to bed very soon. On the second day, she got up a few minutes later than we did and talked with us a little bit. I felt sorry that we had to leave soon, but would really love to be friends with her.

I feel doing couchsurfing is similar to playing trust game. You can feel the warmth and friendliness of the world, and also let you gain a glimpse into local people's lives. However, who knows when danger will seek on you? Anyways, be trustful and trustworthy, and also vigilant.

Amandine Martin: Freelance Interpreter and Translator between D.C. and Madison

Amandine graduated from French TI in 2014 and is a freelance interpreter and translator in D.C. and Madison, Wisconson. She was one of the first persons referred by Jeff. He said that she was an alumni panel member for MIIS spring break trip to D.C. and was a good person to talk to. When scheduling with Amandine for an interview in D.C., I learned that she was currently in Madison, which happened to be on our itinerary. So we decided to meet in Madison instead. Our interview happened in a bar in downtown Madison on May 19.

I was mostly impressed by her thoughtfulness. As she told me she was not in D.C., she kindly referred Miguel to me, who was in D.C. She was so considerate as to offer to make a reservation with the restaurant before we arrived in Madison! I believe that all good interpreters and translators are first of all thoughtful.

Not only for me, she was also thoughtful for her clients. Not all clients are experienced with working with interpreters. "Never put the client to a position of embarrassment." Once a client wanted to include consecutive interpretation in their event, she reminded the client that the lecture needed to be cut in half if they wanted to finish in time. Another time, the client used a PPT with French plus bad English translation or inconsistent terminology. She stepped up to offer help with the translation so as not to confuse the audience.

Her first assignment was working with high school students from French-speaking African countries, who came to the States to learn US culture and learn social entrepreneurship. She traveled with the group to different parts of the States. One seemingly funny but important lesson she learned was that while going through a door, she should go with the team leader or guide, not holding the door for other people! Of course, a culture-related activity would involve a lot of culture-specific terms and idioms. One activity was about students quoting a proverb in their home, and she was stuck for one. She had to raise her hand to request explanation so as to let the interaction go on; otherwise the conversation wouldn't go anywhere.

When asked how she got to know the alumni in D.C., she said that there was a MIIS alumni meetup once a month on a certain day. She also got to know other interpreters while they lived in the same hotel for different projects.

Amandine has a balanced workload from translation and interpretation with a relative stable client base, but she was also trying something besides that. Her advice is that: when opportunities come up, just say Yes! Amandine has never done logistics before, but she has interpreted relevant topics, so she took that job and found that interesting. So you never know whether you would like a job or not until you try it. You may be surprised if you try the things that may not be your first choice.  She said that actually freelance translator and interpreters also have other identities, such as author and artist. Life offers so many opportunities as long as we keep exploring.

With Amandine, an angelic girl