Haven't been sick for almost 5 years, and last weekend I got a good one. Friday I started to feel queazy in the morning. After lunch at a Thai place with a few colleagues, I felt worse, and the long drive home was like hell. I knew by then that I was having a bad flu. Saturday the whole day I couldn't do anything but lying in bed. I couldn't believe that I could be that sick.

Maybe I shouldn't have boasted to a colleague Thursday that I hadn't been sick for 5 years--that's a bad omen. She was under weather at that time and we carpooled to Irvine for a meeting, maybe I got the flu from her. Or maybe I worked too hard running on the mountains last weekend and my immune system was compromised.

After a couple days of recovery and a few more days of coughing, I'm as good as new and ready to restart my workout. This illness is a big lesson for me. Health should always be the top priority in your life. Without good health and a good body, you simply cannot enjoy the life, at least to its fullest.

May health be with you. Thanks for reading.

Myth1. Americans are simple-minded.

Myth2. American workers are lazy and sloppy.

Myth3. Americans are all straightforward and not good at relationships/networking/undercutting.

Myth4. Americans have unhealthy lifestyles.

Myth5. American parents don't care about their kids as much as Chinese parents.

Myth6. American scholars are not as good as their foreign counterparts (e.g. Chinese, Euros).

Myth7. American government is corrupt.

Myth8. American economic, political, and societal structures are failing.

Myth9. Americans are not proud of their country.

Myth10. Chinese people will have better quality of life than Americans after a few decades.

Life is but a game. Disagree? Read on.

Game theory is about what you choose to do in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others. I found it fascinating that how some intricate situations are plainly explained by Game theory, and how the theory can actually illuminate how the society works.

Here comes the famous "Prisoner's Dilemma", and many other varieties of situations where people are forced to make difficult decisions with regard what others do. Dilemmas emerges and people make choices to maximize his own benefit. For example, in Prisoner's Dilemma, two prisoners can cooperate with each other and get the best result for both, or chose to defect in order to get free (suppose the other keeps silence), but it always turns out that both defect and both get the maximum penalty. However if they are allowed to learn from their past experiences, they will make different choices. After collecting a large amount of data from all kinds of people under different situations, the mathematicians found out several conditions are necessary for a strategy to be successful:

Nice/Optmistic

The most important condition is that the strategy must be "nice", that is, it will not defect before its opponent does. Almost all of the top-scoring strategies were nice; therefore a purely selfish strategy will not "cheat" on its opponent, for purely utilitarian reasons first.

Retaliating

However, the successful strategy must not be a blind optimist. It must sometimes retaliate. Always cooperating is a very bad choice, as "nasty" strategies will ruthlessly exploit such players.

Forgiving

Successful strategies must also be forgiving. Though players will retaliate, they will once again fall back to cooperating if the opponent does not continue to play defects. This stops long runs of revenge and counter-revenge, maximizing points.

Non-envious

The last quality is being non-envious, that is not striving to score more than the opponent (impossible for a ‘nice’ strategy, i.e., a 'nice' strategy can never score more than the opponent).

Just think how true these principles are.

Also, it's mind-boggling to think that morality is a calculated strategy based on Gaming theory, where you behave nice to achieve the most individual benefit for YOURSELF.

Life is but a game.

I keep a positive attitude but I believe sadness is beautiful

I think everyone is different but equal at the same time

I work hard but play hard and I enjoy both just the same

I know for myself that Chinese can be better sportsman than American if he/she exercises

I believe in pursuit of happiness as long as it is no harm to others

I am not a big spender but I am not cheap

I believe Chinese in America have to do a lot to improve our image as a whole

I believe that like life itself the journey is often more enjoyable than the destiny

I enjoy coming to WMJY to witness colorful lives

I believe most posters in WMKJ have no business to be there

Since last attempt to hike from mountain to the ocean, I have tried it many times and it was fun. First of all, it's not as hard as I had thought. I also tried other scary mountain biking trails in SoCal, and I'm becoming a real avid mountain biker now. Just like in life, you never know what it feels like unless you try it. You might become a CEO or president some day--you never know.

Last week I took the famous "Mountain to the Sea" trail across the Santa Monica Mountain. The trail was 8 miles from its start at Newbury Park (off Lynn Road) to the Sycamore Campground at the Pacific Coast, and the round trip was 16 miles. I walked (with some running to save time) as fast as I could and ate lunch on the way, and it took me 5 hours.

I had enough food and water (too much water--there are supplies on the trail) but I planned to head back without finishing it, but the trip was fun, and my curiosity and competitiveness got the best of me and I vowed to finish it, then viola! I saw the ocean! The feeling at that time was unbelievable...

This trip is easier than I thought because the trail was for the most part paved road. I should have run the whole way if I didn't carry too much food and drink. Next time I should be able to cut the time in half (2.5 hour round trip).

The view was incredible along the way. I like the oak- lined trail, some hidden trails through the wild area, the Boney Mountain that towered over everything, and layers and layers of mountains like rolling waves. I even saw a deer jumping along on a hillside....(to be continued)