(For new reader and those who request 好友请求, please read my 公告栏 first).

While I am enormously gratified but also a little bit embarrassed when a number of my former students organized a workshop, published a collection of essays at the 2013 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE August 16-20, 2013) in honor of my forthcoming 80^th birthday, and a moonlight cruise on Lake Monoa, Madison, WI, USA withy many former students and their families . Since my 60thy birthday almost 20 years ago, my former students from Harvard and Tsinghua have organized numerous events in my honor:

lThey published a volume of technical papers in honor of my 65^th birthday

lThey organized a workshop and banquet celebration for my retirement in 2001 when I was 67

lThey organized a surprised birthday party in Cambridge MA for my 70^th birthday in 2004 as well as events in HongKong, Xian, and Beijing.

lThey organized a workshop and celebration in Shanghai during the IEEE 2009 International Conference on Decision and Control when I was 75. For the occasion they also  published a special collection of celebratory greetings from my friends all over the world – stuff one never gets to hear in person but only during memorial service and eulogies. I was moved to write “I am a lucky guy and God may become jealous http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-279300.html ”

l  A duplicate party for the above in Cambridge, MA for those who did not get to Shanghai, http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-436543.html

l  And now this celebration in 2013. What more can a teacher ask except to repeat the title of this blog.

I am now on my way to Beijing for my annual work visit at Tsinghua. Will write more.

Note added 8/29/2013. Please also read "I am a lucky guy (III) newly added blog.