Serenity

Last year, I wrote the article "Review of 2006", and recently I found that it’s interesting to reread it after several months. Therefore, I decide to write this kind of article again.

Same as last year, I look back my diaries, and found that I didn’t do any special things in January except that I attended an English camp with two weeks. In the camp, I knew the teacher Magar who is intelligent, humor and good at speaking. I came to visit him for revising my English diary in the next semester. It’s terrific that I keep that habit for a whole semester. I felt that my writing was improved during that period.

A great change to my technical skill is that I read a book named “Beyond Java”. According to this book, Ruby is a good choice to learn, and it has many attractive functions. The essential idea behind Ruby is that programming languages are used by human instead of computers. Thus, we should design a friendly language to human beings. I tried to use Ruby in my winter vocation. First, I read the documents about Ruby and Rails and programmed a web site for Arts Center in NCTU simultaneously. I earned some money and found that Ruby is indeed cool in this case. Then, I finished reading the part I of the bible book of Ruby, “Programming Ruby”, for a whole week. After that, I learned more about Ruby and decided to use Ruby as much as possible. This decision helps me a lot in the rest days.

In the same time, my favorite animation, Kanon, was on air. I felt very lucky to watch this story made from Kyoto Animation. Kanon brings me a lot of memories – I could write many articles to describe it. Also, in the New Year days, I read some fictions and brought up a new habit which is reading fictions. It’s kind of cheap habit and I bought about ten to fifteen fictions during this year. I also wrote some valuable thoughts in the blog during this period. Although I felt I did nothing in February, but when I look it back, I found there are great impacts from that period.

A small interlude is that I decided to publish a computer book about Ruby after my father brought me to KingStone. I also chatted with an interpreter who have been interpreted many computer books. However, I didn’t execute this plan and forgot this idea after several months.

I attended about five or six different contests in the second half semester. Some of them are business types which I was not familiar with, and some of them are technical types with good creative ideas. The most challenge point is that most of them required a business model and a management plan to convince the reviewers this idea makes money indeed. Although I finally concentrate on only one contest, and lost in the others, I learned a lot about business which I was unfamiliar before. It’s a good chance for me to start to understand it. Another unexpected acquisition is that I made confidences of being a creative person.

During May and June, I spent too much time playing the small games about tower defense. It took me too much time that I should record this stupid period here. The only mentionable honor thing is that I went to Xi’an to attend a contest, and travel some places. It was pity that I didn't hike Huashan where there are wonderful views.

The greatest thing is that I finally concentrate on my research. I focus on data in del.icio.us for a long time and proposed some bad ideas before. During this research process, I learned a lot of things such as programming in Ruby, how to use MySQL efficiently, and, of course, the abilities of research. There are too many notes about research to talk. The best way is to read some notes from masters, and follow the procedure of research one times. After that, read the notes from masters again, and then you’ll know what it is. Some pre-process works have been done in March, and I concentrate on the remaining tasks during July to October. It’s an amazing thing for me to do similar things for such a long period.

After finishing two researches works in the past four months, I cleaned many small things which I should do in the past days, and I started to find my jobs in the next three years. When I start to think my future for a long period, I start to wonder what I love and what I can do again – just like what I did when I choose my adviser of studying master. I chatted with so many people that I never imagine. Of course, I spent very much time to handle this thing. It took almost one and half months including doing some entertainment to relax my mind. I also wrote many pieces of thoughts during this period. I understand I understand what I love and what I can do more; however, I cannot tell what I understand clearly. Maybe this is a longer story than what I learned from making researches.

In the beginning of December, I performed the music “Tifa’s Theme” in the show of Piano Club. I’m glad that I could play the Steinway grand piano, and with this chance, I improve my piano skills a little. In the end of December, I was happy and sad that I receive the accepted notification of my first paper. I was sad because it was accepted as a short paper which means that I should revise it into a shorter version even if everybody cannot understand it from the only six pages. Anyway, it’s a good news to be accepted after all. Hope my second paper will bring good news. I’m glad what I wished in the end of last year is come true (concentrate on the researches). I already have some plans for the next first half year. Hope I make a good habit and have a good concentration.