Time

I found two interesting articles which describe about time. One of them was written by Yu-Fen, she described the fireworks in the New Year’s Eve as “The powders and pieces of papers were exploded into the fire trees and silver blooms in such a luxury way, and nothing were left behind. That was definitely a quite adequate time-ceremony could not be suitable anymore. It was like a parable, mist, and lighting. It was a dizzy and captivating emptiness. We were extremely charmed in the moment, but exceedingly regretful as we were awake…And that was time, and its elapse.” You can find the article in full text with the following URL, http://blog.chinatimes.com/yufen/archive/2008/01/06/233147.html

I think that is very thoughtful, and accurate. When I was doing something important, emergent, or meaningful, I thought I was doing something good for me. Nonetheless, I look back on my past year now, I think, what the hell I was doing? It is hard to me to recall many memorable things. And when I think about the memorable things, or the time I might be able to make something forgivable and significant, I feel regretful.

Another article talks about the relative feeling about time elapsing between childhoods and adulthoods. He says we feel every new year is shorter than the past year. The reason is, comparing to the years we lived, to the latter year in our lives, the divisor or the denominator becomes greater. Thus we feel each of the latter years becomes shorter and shorter. You can find it in
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/gradlive&article_id=7093650

Well, I think that is true. I feel the latter years are shorter than those earlier years. And I think another reason is, if we choose our rest years as the divisor, then we will have a divisor which becomes smaller and smaller as the years are passing. Thus the value of the latter years is greater than the one of the earlier years in our lives. As we think our time is more and more important and valuable as we are aging, we feel the time is elapsing faster and faster.

The Last Day and The First Day

Happy New Year, everybody. Where were you when you are counting down the last few seconds of 2007? I was in a mountain which is near Taipei 101 with my classmates. There was a very good sight, and there were so much people, and, we contributed about 25 of the sum. It was a bitterly cold night, filled with enthusiastic emotions. It was my first time to see a Taipei 101 fireworks show. I felt pretty excited thought I heard about that it was the same as 2007. Some classmates of mine said he was not as heart-beat as last time, the first time he watched the fireworks show. Well, I may have to spend the last few second of the year at something else next time.

After the show, we left the square, where we crowded in, with our junks to the lower lane where we parked our scooters. When we were riding down the mountain, a friendly foreigner was chasing me and my classmate who was on the ride. He was video-recording us and said, “Happy New Year”. We slowed down and said, “Happy New Year”, to him, too. He seemed extremely happy, and said the blessing to every passenger delightfully. That’s interesting, I don’t remember I have seen any Taiwanese except clerks and groups of Christians said “Happy New Year” to strangers.

And then we were gathered in our Lab, and planed where to go next. Nonetheless, I left earlier because I felt I got a cold and ached everywhere. Well, to say the truth, I felt uncomfortable before we went to the mountain. It seemed that I got the cold already but I still went to the mountain to see the fireworks with them. One reason was to keep my promise, another one was that I seldom attended my class activities, and I might have to attend this one at least. Finally, when I was back to my studio, I laid down in my bed, fell asleep immediately. And I spent the whole first day in 2008 at traveling in my dreams. However, in the second day, I felt much better. Cool, I never recovered from a cold so fast. Maybe it was a good sign to me.

Happy New Year!!!

Compare and contrast living at home and in the dormitory (Final)

There are a lot of differences between living at home and in the dormitory. I have not lived at home for more than 6 years, and I enjoy it! According to my experience, I think the most concerned distinctions between living at home and in the dormitory are expense, commuting, privacy, and freedom.

Living at home has the advantage of lower expenses. The rent of living at home is much cheaper than living in the dormitory, zero compared to thousands per semester, but the expense of commuting between home and school may exceed the rent for a bed in the dormitory. However, living expenses– meals, night snacks, fruits, washing liquid, shampoos, etc. – could be saved up a lot if we live at home, or at least we do not have to expend our pocket money, salary, and scholarship at living expenses too much.

If we live at home, it costs us some amount of time to commute to school, no matter by walking, scooters, or transportation system. A student who lives at home may be having his or her breakfast on a bus while another student is still snoring in the dorm. Then the former jumps off the bus, rushing into the classroom whereas the latter may just finish a sandwich, sipping his or her coffee. Commuting could be time-consuming and life-wasting, or could help us steal more leisure time, that depends on the way we think. Although we could have more sleep if we do not have to commute, it could give us more chances and leisure time to listen to music, watch the city changes, indulge into our thoughts, or whatever we do not do if we do not have leisure time. However, most people are more charmed by their dreams than the way to school, and I am not an exception.

Privacy is nearly impossible to have if we live on campus while freedom is much easier to obtain than living at home. If we have to share a room with 5 people, to have privacy tends to be a dream, and a noiseless personal space is likewise unreachable as we have to share a floor with more than one hundred people. In contrast, we have freedom in hand. Living in the dormitory, we do not have to worry about that our parents will worry us when we are hanging out outside at midnight, or staying up all night for homework, exams, or chatting with friends.

Living at home might be cheaper than in the dorm, but the extra commuting time is required. Living in the dorm sacrifices privacy, but freedom is more available. I had lived in the dorm for 6 years, and I enjoy it much more than living at home. However, now I live in a studio. One reason is that it is worth to trade money for privacy and freedom.

What does Christmas mean to me?

Hum, I don’t quite remember what I wrote in Tuesday morning. (I should’ve written it down immediately after class.)

December 25, Christmas Day, is also a memorial day for our Constitutions. But it’s no longer a holiday since I was junior high. When I was junior high, friends of mine and I wrote Christmas cards to each other. We gave each other our wishes, and hoped each other to be happy or to fall in love with a potential lover. If we wanted to know someone in the opposite gender, we also wrote them cards, described how we felt about them; that could make us knowing each other more, and have general classmates becoming friends, or beyond friendship. And I still have a box that stores those cards I received during the three years (I miss those cards but I didn’t re-read them for many years).

However, when I graduated from junior high school, I went to a junior collage (five-year collage) that was set for boys only. And classmates of mine did not celebrate Xmas anymore. Christmas day, to me, cecame a meaniful day for lovers only. Some classmates of mine would hang out with their girlfriends, but most of the time my roommates and I might stay in the dorm and prepare for electricity or calculus quizzes, and send blessings to some friends by MSN in Xmas Eve. Some communities of my school would hold a ball, and some friends of mine would have a short-strip with girl-schools, but I only attended those activities on occasion when I was junior, and I attended them less and less as I progressed to my senior year. Christmas day seemed to be a day we met people whom we did not know, and whom we even would not contact with, to escape from our loneliness.

After all, I went to a party with my ex-coworkers last Xmas Eve when I was a part-time employee in a study-center. We started from the midnight, the time we were off work, till dawn. It had a lot of funs. We circled with a hot pot, exchanged gifts by lottery, and ate and chatted. That time I just joined the company, and after the party, I became familiar with each co-worker. We did no met each other very often, that enabled us knowing each other better though.

Maybe Christmas Day is a chance that we can know each other better, but most of time, it acts like an usual working day. I still have to go to school, do my homework, and prepare the final exam which is scheduled on the following day. Some of my friends may hang out with their girlfriends, or girls they like. Most of us stay at dorm, library, or Labs as usual, and do nothing special at all. Maybe I do usual things with unusual emotions in this day. Maybe I think I should do something special today, but I do not know what to do, and it is better to deal with those things that I need to do. Xmas may be special and memorial for Christians, lovers, maybe businessmen, but not for me, at least not this year.

A Child Cried

This week, I made a child cry. I take a one credit class which is called Disadvantaged Children Tutoring. The attendees are required to tutor children in their homework as well as playing with them until their parents take them home or out of attendees’ due time. My time is scheduled at every Wednesday, and one of the kids whom I am mainly in charge of is a boy, Jian-an, which means constructing and smooth, safe, and peace. Jian-an is a kid who is prone to whine. Sometimes he is whining for adults’ consciousness and attention. Sometimes he asks me for doing his homework since he thinks he can’t do it, and I help him drawing with my childlike sketches on occasion.

This Wednesday he asked me for drawing, and I drew two pieces of silly overlapping soda cookies, a helmet, and a constructing building and a crane for him. He was satisfied, which I thought that day would go smoothly. However, when he started doing a Chinese words practicing homework, he was tired. He was doing it reluctantly, with continuous whines, and begging for my help. He wanted me doing those stuffs for him. But I refused to satisfy his desire. I said I couldn’t do the homework for him, I could demonstrate how to do it but I couldn’t benefit him in that way, there was no benefit to him. Then he in turn began crying, complaining, and whining. He said he’s tired, he’s sick of this. I said he could relax, eat something, or go playing. But he just still sat in his chair, and cried occasionally. I told him that’s okay, I would accompany him with his homework until he finished it, took it easy. And he continued his homework, and whined occasionally. Finally, he cried again, and drew some attention from others. And the chief tutor came to take care of him. He seemed happier, and writing those characters and words faster. When he finished his homework, I said good-bye to him and left.

I told this to one of my classmates, he said I could tell him I wasn’t able to do it, or I could’ve told him I wrote first character, and he must finish the rest, that would not work like a cheat. Well, I may have to try it next time.

Who Are You

    Who are you? Do you know who you are? Are you able to speak in such a way that others will know who you are? How will you speak? What words do you use?


    Frankly, I don’t really know who I am. If I have to use words to describe who I think I am, I would say: my name is Shine and I am a Computer Science major at the NTUST.

    I am a male technically and obviously, nonetheless, sometimes I act in a way that not satisfies social desirability, for example, my eyes sometimes become moist when I see a tear-jerker. And I am an introverted, pensive, kind of pessimistic person. If silence is one way to speak, then I think I may be able to make people know who I am since usually I don’t speak at all. I think and read more often than I talk. I am a common reader, as everyone who likes reading, I have a lot of unfinished books on my bookshelf, and new books always come so fast, that I never finished those books on my bookshelf. I read, therefore I am. Furthermore, I am a judicious person most of time but nevertheless investigative sometimes. I can make decision for myself easily most of time, but sometimes I am frustrated about making decision for important issue such as my future, or something trivial such as what to buy for a drink. Moreover, I am also a logical and analytic person, most of time I speak and think in such way, but sometimes my brain and tongue malfunction, that may hint that I am a computer guy. Most of all, I am a solitude person. I enjoy being alone. I like my own company. I love the atmosphere that makes me be able to talk to myself and to understand myself. I am learning the art of enjoying solitude in this noisy world.

    The most bothering thing to me would be schoolwork. Now I worry about the up-coming final exam of Mobile Computing, which will take place at the day after X’mas day. The final presentation of that course also worries me; the presentation is scheduled at the beginning of January 2008. Students in that course are asked to present a paper, but I haven’t prepared. Mobile Computing is a grad-school course; I am the only undergrad who takes it. I hope I can obtain a satisfying grade from it. On the other hand, the up-coming project presentation of Internet Security and Cryptology, which is set in the end of this year, also bothers me profoundly. Furthermore, I have a meeting with a grad senior tomorrow, who is in charge of my undergrad project. I hope the meeting will go smoothly and the project can be finished on time. Recently, I am waiting for the results of my applications for grad schools. And unfortunately, I am in the second choice list of the NTU, NTHU, and NCKU. NTU announced their second round result last Thursday, and I need two more people give up their entrance to get into the CSIE department. Similarly, I have to wait 24 more people giving up their entrance to get into the CS department at the NTHU. Worst of all, it is almost impossible that so much people drop the NTU or NTHU. However, fortunately, I was in the best choice of the NTUST, and I was accepted by the CSIE department at the NCKU yesterday. According this situation, I will probably go to Tainan if I have no luck at the NTU or NTHU.

    Despite the love of reading, another character of mine which is different to most of my classmates would be the part-time and intern experiences. I have had a part-time job at Wanner Cinema Village, a study-center, etc. The strange thing is that I still don’t know why that people were so hesitated, no mater in the highest class cinema or in the mass studying area. They always seemed to live in hustle and bustle. Furthermore, I was in an internship at Formosa in 2004, where I was responsible for assisting office affairs and developing a database program. In the contrast, this summer, I was in an internship at Texas Instruments, where what we summer interns had to do are finishing two projects each, no trivial office stuffs at all. Now, I am a part-time programmer and administrator of servers at a small foreign business located in Neihu. In spite of the unsatisfying low salary, it is a place where I can really enjoy the benefits of teamwork so far.

    Thus far, I noticed that I am a realistic person, yet reality is what I want to escape from.

Bell Man

When I just started my Yonghe life, I was confused about why there is always a man riding a bike and ringing a bell while a garbage car is passing by. The car can play music such as “For Elise” and “The maiden's prayer” itself, then why a bell-man is still required to inform everybody the car is coming?

I figured it out recently. The reason may be the streets and lanes are too narrow for a garbage car goes through. Thus a bell man rides his bike through those narrow lanes is required.


Argument

Last Saturday, when I was reading the novel, Swam, around 3:00 a.m. Two neighbors who live in up-floor were arguing, one of them is a woman and the other is a guy. The argument was caused by a guy came home late, and the woman was heated about that.

The woman yelled “Do you know what time it is? Blah blah…”
The guy murmured “….” (Fortunately, I couldn’t hear that)
She yelled “Blah blah…Do you know what time it is?”
Silence…
She yelled “Do you know what time it is! Blah blah…” again and again.

I thought “You two both don’t know what time it is, do you?”