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Sunday, January 06, 2008
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The starting of a new year
Year 2000: graduated from high school
Year 2004: graduated from college
Year 2008: ???
2008 should be a significant year for me. Pressure is already mounting. I am set out to proof myself to a whole new audience. Will I fail or prevail? I don't know. But despite of the outcome, I know I will have to pump up my courage and face the new challenges ahead. Challenge yourself constantly--that's one good way to maintain the functioning of your brain.
I am going to explore new paths in life. It's a scary thing. I hate changes, but it's not like I prefer stability either since I tend to get bored when things start to become routines. Often times the "what-if"s that are in my mind make me hesitate to take the step forward, yet without the "what-if"s I probably wouldn't even think of the possibilities. Knowing when to let the "what-if"s get to me and when not is still something that I need to master.
Monday, December 03, 2007
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Latin
As I've already mentioned in my previous blog entry, my latest interest has been studying Latin. Latin is basically a dead language in the modern society, but Latin terms or phrases can still be seen everywhere, especially in scientific literature.
I have always had interests in learning foreign languages, but Latin never came across my mind until this past summer. One day out of no reasons I did a search on amazon.com and found a cheap but popular Latin textbook that was being sold for less than $15. These were my thoughts at the time:- Wow, $15 for a textbook. Cheap!
- Maybe I was stereotyping, but I thought the ability to read Latin = intelligence. Smart guys always seem to know Latin.
- It might help improve my vocabulary since 60% of the English language is based on Latin.
Indeed, Latin is not an easy language to learn. So far the grammar rules themselves are not too difficult to understand. It's just that there are many of them. Verbs need to be conjugated just like many other European languages (French, for example), but the things is, nouns and adjectives need to be changed to different forms as well! So once again the good old model of "practice makes perfect" is being applied. I do the exercises faithfully and am making good(?) progress. I am pretty sure that I will forget these grammar rules sooner or later, but as of the moment, I feel satisfied. :)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
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Holiday Season
Ahhh...the holiday season is finally here. I had a restful Thanksgiving break. Four days actually felt like a decent amount of time. It was like a mini vacation!
As usual, my family didn't celebrate Thanksgiving. We did have a special dinner though--my parents cooked one of my all time favorites (I forget/don't know what it's called in English). I only get to eat it once or twice every year in the winter (because no one else in the family is that fond of it), so it was good. :)
My sister and I went out for shopping on Black Friday. The malls were crowded. It was the first time I could remember that the malls were open at midnight. Anyway, I learned from long ago that it wasn't worth it to wake up before dawn and try to beat the crowd for free cookies or $5 coupons, so I just started my day around 9:30 am. We didn't find any "exceptional" deals, so we ended up not buying much. (Well, we did buy a $10 hand vacuum, which was a pretty decent deal.)
I spent most of the Thanksgiving break watching videos. No coding at all. It felt good to step away from my usual routines once in a while to do something different. I finally read the first chapter of my Wheelock's Latin textbook and made some sense out of it. 39 more chapters to go...
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
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Best wishes
My grandma is sick. She has a tumor in her gallbladder and is in the hospital right now. Because she and the rest of my mom's family live in China, it's hard to tell how she is. Apparently my grandma has seen doctors and undergone numerous tests already, but no one told my mom and the rest of us until tonight. My dad actually spoke with my grandma couple days back, but she didn't say anything either. She just said she was fine. The one good news is that the tumor is benign, but the doctors wouldn't operate on my grandma because of her age. Sigh...whatever the outcome is, I just wish that my grandma would suffer the least amount. God bless.
Monday, November 05, 2007
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So this is life
I don't like the life that I live right now. Why is it that things always come all at once? In the past few weeks, at least one thing happened unexpectedly each week, and almost every single one of those involved my parents. Dental appointments, medical appointments, radiology, naturalization, leaky toilet..., and yet to come, another round of dental and medical appointments, Social Security Administration, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes I feel like my parents, whether intentional or not, just make life tougher for me.
My parents complain a lot, and usually their complaints concern things that I don't think are that big of a deal, but they constantly remind me of those things during every moment that I spend with them until there is some sort of a resolution. It's both frustrating and depressing. Sometimes I feel bad for not spending more time with my parents, yet I don't want to be around them either if they are so negative all the time. I would appreciate it if they can just complain less and argue less.
I never like going to doctor's appointments--for myself or others, but most of the time I have to go and translate for my parents. I tend to get pretty stressful over those because I am afraid that the doctor might bring bad news. The one thing that I most dreaded to hear is, "We'll need to run some more tests to see if there really are problems." Why? Because I need to selectively translate to my parents, providing them with enough information to understand why they need to undergo more tests but not too much that would make them worry. Secrets are heavy burdens.
I really want to find someone/thing to blame, but all I can do now is complain in my little blog entry and torture my readers. Sorry...I will try to be a more cheerful person tomorrow.
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yimster82
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- Name: Yim
- Gender: Female
- Member Since: 7/20/2007
About Me
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I am a full-time software engineer who helps build enterprise software. In my spare time I work on buddystumbler.com, a site that helps people make new friends and connects people on IM.
