I know I am lame but I had some difficulties with my computer. Basically my computer crashed and I have to send it back for repair. The new one will not arrive until next week.
I have been quite busy with my work recently. Other than work, there is really not much going on. In this long weekend, I finally have time to look at some pictures taken before. I just uploaded.
A dive trip to Pebble Beach in July 4th.[see'em@flickr]
Some random pictures for Juliana’s Birthday.[see'em@flickr]
Beach party at Professor Langer’s place.[see'em@flickr]
Olympic game is not only a big entertainment of summer but also serves as marker of personal growing up, anchoring the memory of every four years.
I have no any impression of 84′ summer Olympic games. That’s before I entered the primary school. I even doubt if China broadcast the event, even it’s the debut of China in Olympic games. I had little memory of 88′s games. I watched diving at my grandparents’ place. China didn’t do well in that game and only obtained 5 gold medals. It’s a big shock to China after the success in LA.
The first time I really followed the game was in 1992. It’s a beautiful summer. I remember my parents were staying in Beijing and I had chance to stay at home just by myself. I was selected into a team to representing my province to compete general history knowledge in Beijing. There was a lot of learning during the day but it’s lots of fun as well. At night, I stayed up every late to watch the games. It was a 16-day game and China won 16 gold medal’s – one for each day. Olympic game was a big party for everyone. I remember I was riding a bicycle to see my grandparents in the afternoon right before the opening ceremony that was going to held in Barcelona. I was thinking that four years are such a long time – in four years I would have been in the college.
Indeed, I got acceptance to Tsinghua in 1996. It’s such a relaxing summer – I had accomplished what I was supposed to accomplish. All I need to do then was just to wait for the school to open. China did much better in that game. I remember it’s such a thrilling game of woman’s volleyball between China and Korea. I watched with my mom and we both held our breath for the whole game. Of course I imagined after another 4 years – I finished my college! ‘Are you kidding?’ I was thinking. It sounded so far away.
But time flies. When the game was in Sydney, I was at Yale. I went to US in that summer. Since the game was in Sydney, it’s in later September. I didn’t remember I watched any games of that one because I was working on settling down in a new country. That’s why I didn’t envision what would happen after 4 years. It’s just unpredictable. When the game was held in Athens, I was approaching the end of my graduate school. Now even the Beijing Olympic game was wrapped up into history.
Four seems like a prefect number to mark years. It’s not short – otherwise we all would get bored with the games. It’s not that long either – it gives hope and expectations. I think four is also a magic number – it’s so valuable because when you count the time divided by four, we don’t have that many.
You probably noticed that many links, including the front page of the site disappeared. I am currently upgrading the whole website. There are two reasons why I have to do this. First, many pages of the old site are hacked. I constantly receive warnings from Google. I realize it’s a big deal when I find the site is completely blocked by the new firefox. Second, most of information in the website is out-of-date and needs to be modified. I think the best way to keep website dynamic is to make it compact and leave only the most important information.
I decide to take the advantage of WordPress. WordPress is just amazing. The new ‘page’ function makes it possible to use the structure that WordPress provides and at the same time to freely create web pages with personal style.
I will have to spend sometime to write some pages. But the most challenge is to incorporate my old web journal into the new site. These will be added little by little. Thank you for your visit!
Today is so special. It’s not just because of the olympic game opening, but because it’s a dream coming true. I watched my country, my people, and the 5000+ years of history in a wonderful openning ceremony, through both Chinese and American TV channels. It’s just wonderful!
p.s. The funny thing is CNN spent the whole day non-stop talking about that politician’s affair! How big the deal is!!! And how heart broken CNN is!
