The Safest Place
I was checking my email inbox as usual when I was having breakfast. Just to digress a bit: having baked potato chunks as breakfast is really better than mashed potatoes, for some reason. It just tastes hearty.
As usual there are tons of junk emails. Sometimes I select all of them them and delete once for all, but sometimes I delete one at a time, maybe out of boredom. There’s an email, from a website called LiveJournal, which is basically a blog site. I thought it’s from Microsoft for some reason, but after reading the wikipedia page I learned that they’re an independent website from Russia. The email is basically a notification for the update of their user agreement, and I thought, hmm since when had I registered an account there? So I deleted right away, thinking it must be a junk mail. But suddenly I noticed the user profile in the email, and the username “mrholidayplus“, are absolutely of me. I immediately clicked on the “undo“ button to get that email back, and was curious what did I do on that website.
I followed the link to the webpage. Yes, I did wrote a few entries there, from September to November in 2013. That was after I came back from my trip to the states, and a transition period for me in college, I think. That was when I started caring less about getting top grades in my classes, started skipping classes and focusing on doing research, and, more importantly (now that I think of it), I started working out in the gym regularly.
Among the 15 posts I posted there, 11 of them are something I read and liked from the Internet so I pasted them there, like web clips. They are all in Chinese, and mostly about studying in the states, career guidance, research advices, and so on. The other four were written by myself, and to my surprise they’re in English.
Without logging in, I can just read my posts there, which means I don’t have password to protect the website and everyone can read it. I don’t know if I forgot to set it, and I have no idea how many people — at least my friends/classmates from college — have read it. I’m going to retrieve my account there, and take the website down. Not that I care that people will read something I wrote years ago, but I just don’t like being exposed. I will copy the only four posts I wrote there in this post at the end.
Throughout these years, I had been writing now and then on the Internet, to keep my personal journal/diary. The earliest was around 2006 on Sina Blog. I really couldn’t find the account anymore. Then in 2009 I switched to Blogger, when I couldn’t breathe from the pressure of school and the loneliness. In 2012 I opened LiveJournal. In 2015 I started using Blogger again, and later I was able to retrieve the content I wrote on the one in 2009 and merged them together. I stopped using these websites since I started grad school in the states, because instead of writing them in a form of diary, I planned to write them as a kind of “memoir“, hoping I’ll have a book at the end of my grad school. I wrote them on Evernote at first, and switched to Google Doc, and then Pages. During this period, I also started this Squarespace site, and wrote a few posts here. When I lived in Massachusetts in 2020, I started using the app Day One briefly, and wrote probably 4 or 5 entries there too. Just a few days ago, I wanted to close this website, and put all my posts in Apple Notes, but gave up the idea because of feature limits.
I’ve been thinking, why can’t I just stick to one place? Why do I have to constantly move my diary to another place? I think it’s because of insecurity. Those diary entires are my past, my footprints, so I want to cherish them all. But I’m worried that one day, some website I use for these posts will shut down, and I won’t be able to get them. For example, many years ago there’s rumor that Blogger is basically dead and Google will discontinue it. But in fact, they’re still used, though I don’t know how many people. All I was doing these years, is to find a safe place, a reliable place to hold my memory. I was looking for the safest place, knowing there’s no such a thing.
I have to be AGGRESSIVE
Sep. 27th, 2013 at 7:53 PM
The requirement for the National Scholarship is: every student in a class is going to vote a student whose grade is higher than 90 to the oral defense, and finally the selected raters will decide who will get the scholarship. I was not the one who has been voted to the oral defense. Last year I missed the chance and the scholarship. This time I cannot, because I really think I deserve it. I have reasonable statement for that. Specifically, I need this scholarship to back to my high school and greet my high school teachers. It has been two years after I left the school. I do not think I can be myself if I did not have them in my life -- the most important time during my growth. So I took the reasons to my adviser and reported the problem. Actually I was not going to cancel the chance of that voted student, and what I wanted is just adding a additional chance for me. But the raters said no. After negotiation, I got the chance, and he gave up it. I really wanna say thank you to him, for giving me the chance. Maybe I am a little aggressive and tough, but that is what I am supposed to be. What's more, I have well-prepared reasons and the confidence. How could that be aggressive? I have to get what I deserve, and I cannot see the chance missing again. From now, I have to prepare the oral defense seriously. If I got the scholarship, it belongs to all the teachers that have devoted to my study, which I always believe.
Rememberance
Sep. 26th, 2013 at 6:21 PM
After having dinner, I encountered my math teacher Mr.Wang who taught me Discrete Mathematics. It wasn't a surprise to me because I saw him this morning without greeting, but it was to him. He asked something about my current situations, wondering that if I am still learning the Machine Learning, and my answer is definitely yes, since that is my dream.
He also wondered my physical situation. Yeah, I am better than before, even if it is only a little. I remember that my failure in the final exam of Discrete Mathematics made him disappointed, which I am still feeling sorry about. To me, the most severe guilty is that I did not live up to one's expectation. So for myself, I have to be aggressive.
Gamble
Sep. 10th, 2013 at 10:41 PM
I have to achieve something. I stop half of my major elective courses and all the campus-wide elective courses, I stop listening to the lesson carefully, and I stop preparing English test. Because I have to successfully submit my paper before 20th December. I have searched and read at least 10 papers and most of them are math. It is not a easy task for me, but I think I have understood something. All I wish is that the performance is capable of publishing a paper.
That is the gamble without way back.
Same changes
Sep. 4th, 2013 at 7:37 AM
Remember that my blogspot in 2009. After the Beijing Olympic, the Great Fire Wall in China started again. Though I tried to post some entries via email, but I stopped eventually. I have no idea whether I can back to there. But I'm sure that my memories of young will be placed there and I'm not gonna interrupt it again. Everybody who can browse that blog can click: http://jasonheinz.blogspot.com, if you can read Chinese. :-)
Now I'm back from a long journey, NYC, Boston and DC, and so starts my junior. It's the first time I feel confused. I stop TOEFL and GRE preparation; I'm in the intersection of choosing UK or USA; I'm not sure whether am I supposed to move out off campus; I'm not sure whether am I supposed to start my fitness plan.
I dreamed a baby crying ceaselessly. Zhou Gong (a famous dream interpreter) said that means I am faced with a hardship. I also dreamed I am swimming back and forth in a pool without anyone else. Zhou Gong said that means there will be some achievements in my career or study. Few of people believe that. Well, I just read them and throw them away, maybe.
Who knows what the future will be. Who knows where the history will lead to.
