Genius in Town

Today is the day: that Prof. Jin Au Kong from MIT visits MMU. When I was informed last week that I had to prepare a presentation about my research to him, I was already anxious! Our data don’t match! He is THE expert in the field that I’m involved in. His books have become some of our reference books. He’s reviewed thousands of papers. He is the editor of international journals and books. He chairs research conferences. In short, a super genius! What if he asks questions? What if he says that all that I’ve been doing is wrong?

My fears were allayed when I started presenting. He did butt in with a lot of questions. He is definitely a genius. Just by looking at graphs, dots and equations that are almost a page long, he can tell what is wrong with the data, what is happening. We tried to explain things away. When we couldn’t, he tried to explain. In the end, it became a sort of an informal discussion. He was a funny guy as well, always cracking some ‘intellectual jokes’. I think it was a good session for all of us. We managed to discuss the results and data of our research. He commented that we made really good progress in our research since the last time he came. What a compliment! He also gave us some good suggestions for our research.

I felt so relieved after it was over. I have been preparing for this session for the past few days. I’ve been so busy that I have had to put a lot of things aside. Now that it’s over, I can go back to those other things. Agnes and I had dinner with Shiau Wen. It was good to catch up with her again.