NG:
I wish you and the labmates all doing well in NTU, too.

KM:
Great! Wish you all the best. This semester I'm determined to get everyone here oriented. Hopefully, they'll be proud of what they have done when they look back at the end of this year.  Cheers. 

NG:
It sounds to me you are still kind to them. They still have 4 months left instead of 4 days.=) Hopefully someday they will understand what you meant and motivate by themselves.

KM:
Perhaps next time I'll give them 4 seconds! :-)

If they wanna do something solid, they need to be self-motivated. Some of them are doing fine now, but to tell the truth, the rest have to be tuned up in order to keep them "functioning." I just want them to know if they can't concentrate on their research, sometime soon they might be asked to switch to other lab. I'd rather have fewer students well-motivated than a bunch of unqualified graduate students. God bless them!

NG:
That's a problem. I think some of them didn't really understand your principle or take it seriously because you are easygoing and nice to them. Perhaps you can consider using some straightforward sentences instead of a story next time or to some of them. The last story u told is great because I was lucky to know some extremely smart guys yet still working very hard. We have some talented students yet it's a pity to see they spent lots of time on something else which shadow their ability. I do hope they will find it out by themselves in some way.

KM:
I just can't run a lab like a company. In terms of management, of course those who are unqualified should be fired immediately. But speaking of education, I have to be more flexible in a way that not only the productivity is important, but also their characteristics count. Besides, most of my research themes are focused on the science part instead of the engineering part. That kind of research requires hard-working researchers, but definitely not "workers."

NG:
You are definitely far from the running-company style. And that's what I admire and it should be like that in terms of education. What I meant is it may be difficult for some junior labmates to realize something you wanna tell them, because they play around and talk like kids, which make me feel quite old sometimes.=) That's why I am afraid they might not take your story seriously. But maybe they will turn out to behave as you expected later. Wish all the best to them.

KM:
Thanks for your comments, which are very helpful for us. I shall excerpt your words and post them anonymously as a sequel of this issue. Coming right up.