Good luck Randy!

With all the buzz that Randy Pausch has made since delivering his Last Lecture speech, I want to say a few words too.

Back to 2001-2003 when I was a grad student, Randy was already hot on the campus. He taught Building Virtual World, which was one of the most popular classes at CMU. I was struggling whether or not I should sign up for that class, meaning that by the day open registration starts, I have to get up before 6:00 in the morning and rush into the online class registration web site in order to secure a spot for that class. I finally chose to shy away partly because of Randy. He was young, aggressive, and somewhat arrogant according to many students. I have some kind of natural tendency to stay away from people feeling too good about themselves. He later talked in one class I took. To be fair, I didn't get the perception of arrogant. To this day, I still remember his tip on surveying usability testing participants: you only need to ask "what's the biggest problem that bothers you (in the test)".

That was my brief encounter with Randy. The next time I saw Randy after graduation was in the last lecture video through the web. I was shocked by the news and awed by the way he handles the problem and of course, truly touched. Looking forward to miracle.