海阔天空

这周发生的事情太惊心动魄了。

我正在申请博士位置，这其中有些事情还是不要公开太早的好。在倾诉欲望的诱惑之下，我有点想把一部分内容用中文写出来，也算是小范围内地吐槽吧。其中最中心的内容我还是要留着我下一个博士位置有着落之后再开始撰写。为了安全起见嘛。

我这周得知我的博士申请受到了一些影响。影响的来源吗，各位可以自己猜一猜。如果你跟我足够熟悉的话你可能已经知道了，或者猜到了。总之，我这周一从瑞典那边的好友处获得了一些内部信息，并且在这些信息的基础上预料到一些申请过程中的隐患。我急忙尽我所能排除这些隐患，希望能加快面试方对我进行个人评价的过程。周三的时候我以为已经把问题处理妥善了，周四的时候得到了一个坏消息。虽说我前面的操作并没有直接带来令我满意的答复，但至少也把申请程序向前推动了。周四一天本来打算出去购物，但因为这个坏消息，我和女友花了一天的时间竭力挽救。庆幸的是我们当天很快就得到了答复，申请程序总算可以走下去了。挽救过程中，她给我的帮助以及精神支持非常重要。周四晚上我们经过了一天的紧张，根本没有心情打火做饭，于是破费出去吃日式火锅。这顿饭是我们到瑞士以来最奢侈的一回。

周四的事情又让我注意到了找工作中两个很重要的因素。人在成长中，成功的经验和失败的经验必须要平衡。我之前可能是前者太多，老天爷就特意给我上了堂课，让我体验一下不好的经历所教会人的事情。既然我的博士申请还有希望，到目前我觉得上天还是很给我面子的。

用某歌手的话来说，我这几天，“很惶恐我的未来”。也许你猜到了说这话的人是信乐团的Chris。我对这个乐队其实并不了解，只是几年前听过他们一首《One night in 北京》。最近的紧张，愤怒，担忧和压抑，我很想寻找个途径发泄。跟亲朋好友倾诉是一种方式，但诉苦诉得多了对别人也是负担。我非常不想让自己的怨天尤人把自己心理状态放置在受害者的角度，这样只会令人丧失斗志。于是我翻出来了信乐团的《海阔天空》，跟着原声学这首歌，熟悉了之后自己K歌。一方面是倾诉，另一方面是寻找我能在KTV里面唱好的歌曲。

我不会说无病呻吟地认为自己没有实现自己的梦想，从小时候的IBO，后来的美国之旅以及我在SCIENCE上文章的发表，这都是我实现的梦想。只是此时的我处于一个生活和职业生涯的低谷期，有时看不清自己的未来。这就像得感冒一样，虽然是小病，但脑袋烧得厉害的时候很难想象几天后痊愈时的轻松。这首歌里我最喜欢的歌词，是那句“日落是沉潜，日出是成熟，只要是光一定会灿烂的”。我现在不就是处于日落的沉潜期吗？另一首我这两天发掘出来的歌曲，是加拿大歌手Billy Klippert 的《Death & Love》。你也许听出来这首歌的旋律是信乐团的《死了都要爱》。这两首都不是原版，都是韩国某歌曲的翻唱。相对于国内某些213的狂热歌迷，我不会为了包庇自己喜欢的歌手而愣把翻唱说成原唱。而事实上翻唱太多缺乏新意是我几年前决定不听华语歌曲的原因之一，后来听到了周董等人具有中国风的原版创作，我才恢复了对中文歌曲的兴趣。

相比信乐团的翻唱，我更喜欢Billy Klippert的版本。英文版唱的是战争，Billy的声音比阿信浑厚许多，歌词也成熟多了，总体感觉歌曲的人格更加完整。我试着用音乐伴奏唱这两首歌。几天前，每次唱到一半我总忍不住流泪，发泄的目的算是达到了。这半年多来的委屈，无助，误解，狂喜之后的低潮，大半都伴随着歌曲化成泪水流出来了。每次流泪我都无法继续唱下去。我此时终于明白了为何职业歌手能被称为歌手，而我这种业余的只能是麦霸。几周前看《我是歌手》里面黄绮珊等人含泪表演，每一首歌都能感动场上无数听众。那时的我精神还麻木，有些无法理解为何场上那么多歌手和观众都被唱哭。现在终于明白把人唱哭得并不是歌曲本身，而是歌曲背后给人带来的回忆和思绪。而且我也知道了在哭泣的时候还能唱好一首曲子有多么难，只有多年的演艺生涯才能给歌手们如此过硬的本领。

在我得到好的offer之前，我应该不能在KTV里面唱《Death & Love》了。相比《海阔天空》，这首歌十分消极，它的目的是纯发泄，毫无振奋可言。希望有一天我能把两首歌唱好，融入自己的感情而又不影响演唱。但愿那天能早点到来！

Praying for good karma...

I'm so restless these days... Because I'm waiting for an important answer.

Almost three weeks ago, I had a full-day interview in Zurich, with two professors whom my Swedish supervisor Prof. A recommended for me. Both are good guys conducting very interesting research. The day looked like this: I traveled to Zurich from Basel in the morning. By the time I arrived, it was 11 o'clock. The professor who welcomed me told me they had a small program just for me. First I was going to have lunch with the other professor (since he was busy with teaching assignments that day), followed by approximately 1 hour each with two of the experimental researchers (these two perform biological experiments, the other half of the group is doing in silico computer modelling work). Then I'd get back to my host, discuss a bit about the science. The day would finish with me giving a presentation in front of FIVE research groups! When I first booked in my time for the presentation, I thought it was for two groups only, namely each PI will bring their own group to the talk. As I found out later, the presentation was actually a joint meeting between five groups with very tight collaboration. One group was sort of a spin-off from another group. The PI was recently granted professorship in Zurich, before he was a junior group leader on SNF-grants. To show the relations between these five groups, I'll just number them as 1 to 5 for now. Group 1 hosted the PI of group 2 some years ago, while the spin-off group (call it number 3) I mentioned is from group 2. Group 4 is led by a seasoned professor who is about to retire. They hope to let the guy running group 5 to take over the full professor spot once the group 4 guy leaves. By the way, the group 5 leader has only been in Zurich for one year. My day was reserved for PI 1 and 2, I've also met PI 3 in February.

So my day began. I really enjoyed the conversation with everybody I spent time talking to. Especially when I spoke to the professors, they were able to have intelligent and scientific discussion while still giving me the decent share of attention. This is quite important in my opinion. I believe how your future boss treats you can be hinted by his/her behavior during the interview session. To be honest the interview for my last PhD position was a bit strange. There were clear signs that something was not right, but I didn't pay attention. After a whole day of activities, I think I liked what I saw. The group was doing interesting things, they had very good collaborations as a science lab should do. I believe I made a good impression overall with my presentation and chatting with the fellow researchers. One of the senior researcher I talked to, if I'm not gravely mistaken, I think he likes me. To make it sound overly optimistic, I feel the team chemistry is already there even before I start. My heart tells me I would like to work there.

Now I'm still waiting for the professors to come back to me and tell me they'd hire me. Even though this is not the only lab I'm applying to, this is certainly one of the best. Everyday that went without them giving me an answer is driving me crazy. I want to ask them about their decisions, although I don't want to push them in any way that makes me disservice. If I still don't get reply within the next few days, I'd send them an email to ask. In the meantime, I'm asking you, my reader, to give me your blessings. Wish me luck and wish me have enough good karma to get an excellent PhD position!

Thank you!