Randy Pausch



I have just finished watching 10 parts of a clip regarding a dying professor's last lecture, and i decided to post this up to share with you guys. Saw this piece of Yahoo news when i open up my Internet Explorer this evening when i got home. Spent 90 minutes watching this clip after doing a search in Youtube, though it was rather draggy in the initial few parts. But nonetheless, do try to finish it if you can afford to do so.

Reason why i decided to publish this was rather simple. Randy Pausch is a professor of Computer Science; related to my studies, and most importantly, i share most thoughts he have. I didn't really jot down all this life principles during his last lecture for the university he taught in, thus i'm going to leave it for you guys to finish watching it.

When he finished his lecture, more like a speech, he earned a 2:04s of applause from the 500+ audience. Not so much about this feat itself, but what he believed in and what he shared with the audience, which is more significant.

Of cause, i'm not going to be so thick-skinned to quote him and take them as my own views, but i do agree and hope to be able to achieve what he has done. And the most respectable part, he did it with humour. Fun was his primarily nature, as he mentioned during the lecture, making the "last lecture" fun is like a fish telling the world how nice it is to be in the water. It is his second nature.

I guess that's a feat to achieve. Doing what you do best, doing what you like, and doing it with the best fun you can ever had.

Relating to my current university undergrad status, i'm often questioning what i really want or hope to achieve. A friend of mine was asking me during yesterday lecture, "What you hope to achieve during this 3-4 years, other than academic results?". Seriously, i don't think i have any.

Almost everyone is result oriented in university, and i just can't help think, is this what we really have to go through, in order to enjoy a better life? I guess no one can really answer that.

My Economics lecturer was sharing with us during today's lecture that, in the next 2-3 years, which happened to be the time we graduated, the world economy is bound to set into recession. One of the key points he mentioned was the bloom of recent stock market. And going by last 15 years, the trend is set to be 4 year bloom, 2 years of recession.

So with this information, what are you going to do? Freak out? Plan for the future? Well, if you ask me, i guess even after reading this, you would just ignore and move on. I just wonder how many will actually finished the 90+ minutes clip in the first place.

Remember, we choose what our lives turn out to be. And i always believe, just like Prof. Randy Pausch, having everything we wanted is never as great as being the enabler to people's dream.

Till then.