tl;dr
My name is Kelvin. You can also call me KK or 郭仔.
Or call me whatever you like, if you don’t mind waiting for a response.
Born in Hong Kong in the late 80s, I barely survived the CE public exam before leaving to explore the bigger world from the British perspective. It was the early years during my stay in the UK that calmed my agitated mind down. Shocked to the bones by the cultural difference, as well as my total incompetence in speaking English, I looked into the mirror and said to myself, stay cool and be receptive. In the end, I spent 6 years there for sixth forms and undergraduates before going back to Hong Kong a different person. I was slightly more confident in myself after the long journey from home, and I realised that it was ok if I needed more time to understand what my super nice Scottish housemaster was telling me the first night I arrived in the public school.
Not long after being back home, I was engaged in an epic war with science – I did a PhD in Hong Kong. It was a lot of fun and tears, experiments and writing, as well as talking to yourself at 11pm in the lab and giving seminars to hundreds of people in a lecture hall with horrible echos. But science is cool. Well, that is if you can somehow explain your work in 20 seconds to your tipsy friends on a hotpot night. The more you try, the better you get. Occasionally, you receive shining eyes from them if you manage to get the punch line through, followed by imaginative questions that put you in doubt about your own creativity. For me, this is sometimes even more satisfying than discussing hardcore technicals with fellow scientists. After all, there is a difference between 0 to 1 and 4634114 to 7053086, in terms of magnitude of change. Yes, immeasureable it is for the former.
After the decisive battle that earned me a PhD, I decided to leave home again. This time I landed in Scandinavia, just to find out if it is indeed colder than Hong Kong during winters. Who knows. Right now I am still pursuing science, and my mission to spend the golden 20 seconds with as many people as possible is still ongoing. But as I see more and listen more, I feel it is not just what I do professionally that needs to get through, but rather everything I learn and contemplate along the way.
I cannot guarantee my regular presence here, but I will try to splash a few ink drops every now and then.
Kelvin
K in the clouds 