Another Start

It's never been easy to keep the habit of writing, let alone to do so on an electronic platform.

It has already been over 5 years since I first got acquainted with the web blogging system. At that time, I took a short note marking the event as "Origin." Yet it has stayed thus for a long time since. Not too much has been produced or blogged after the start. Probably for the too much time spent on figuring out how the blogging platform works.

Then almost a year later, I finally got the template done for the weblog. Half a year later, I transferred and translated my not too many blog entries to another platform, which was followed shortly after by another transfer to a new platform signaling another, or the third origin. What ensued was more time spent on familiarizing myself with the new platform and the server set-up procedure as I tried this time to house the weblog on my own machine. A bit more blog entries followed this second origin due likely to my feeling not too bad about the new platform. There was at least a short period of productivity.

Yet the process came to a halt suddenly in 2006. Then for almost two years the weblog has been left unattended and almost deserted. No upgrade of codes, no update of writing.

One cannot help thinking about what the hell has been going on during that period of mental blankness.

Now I finally have the site revamped, in a hope that this quite ridiculous fourth origin (isn't this kind of an oxymoron?) can boost me into a continuous life of writing. The layout, though kept the same, is remade for words to be more readable (much to my aged eyes' benefit), and the newly added feature of free-tagging should be more helpful in blogging something other than life snippets (something like research notes).

A comprehensive and automatic backup routine has also been set up to guarantee future restore or conversion of all of my past writings. The Linux server where the weblog resides will also simplify the character encoding problems especially regarding the Chinese characters (which gave me a lot of pain in exporting and importing SQL database).

Though self-ridicule seems a constant in my life, I do hope that this time my weblog can have its last say at least in terms of platform. Then the only problem left worth my full efforts will be the will to write and the perseverance in keeping that will alive.

Zero Count

Everything comes back to where all should restart. How can one have no solicitude for the future, or better, for time itself?

Though time should be passivity, or patience, in waiting for that which one would never lay fast hold of, this understanding cannot dispel the solicitude at present, a present in wilderness with nothing to look ahead of or back at, any more than accrue courage to confront the unknown that is one's equally uncertain fate.

Crying, want to be. Crying. Crying for that nothing in front of which one can shiver only. Tears as a token foreboding a year of throat-slitting test. A token betokens of a year of darkness.

If only tears can be shed.

Heartbeats

The heart, the tiny one, does really beat, when the waiting was over.

Speechlessness. Only grateful tears.

Please keep growing and be stronger, my tiny tiny sweetheart.

Ultrasound

Waiting outside the ultrasound room of the clinic. Waiting for a sign, a sign of event—either of happening or of non-happening. Waiting for a verdict, one that concerns life and death.

Does faith or prayer have any place in a waiting like thus? The mind stops working, all sounds strike mute.

Waiting for a sign, a sound. A sound at the ultra level. An ultrasound of heart that beats, and will keep beating our hearts.

Just beat, please!

The Second Second Coming

The second coming fails to come, fails its eventuality and our expectation. Maybe what we are facing is a real hope that cannot know in any way, and can only be blind to, what is hoped for. Maybe the not-coming is in fact its very eventuality, is what the hope it brings forth really meant. Or maybe the coming is not prepared enough because we are not well-unprepared. All is in a mist. Yet all is glittering, gleaming, speaking of something that no one understands but may come to articulate itself shortly after.

The 6-month interval is sheer waiting for nothing.

And now is the second second coming. The same unexpected. The same of that for which we will never be ready. And the same as before will we welcome the coming.

It is the coming that makes the waiting waiting.

Encoding Babel

Moblogging is enticing. Yet the test on communicating between different encoded systems has turned out no satisfying results. Kind of like standing in front of a Babel tower with no hope of getting diverse tongues together in mutual talks. Finally gave up on the efforts as they had cost almost twenty hours of human health and energy. Those of mine, of course.

Decide going back to simplicity. If technology cannot make things easier but complicated, maybe it’s time to go back where simplicity reigns. Productivity, supposedly, starts there.

Mobile Blogging

After quite some time of trial and error, a way is found, thought not without certain comprise, to post blogs on the move. Blogging by email, ftpping photos taken by the phone camera to the server, and cron-activating the entry . Though a simple 3-step procedure, a pda camera phone with GPRS wireless connection and a palm ftp tool are needed to make it really work. Time and energy exhausting to get it go.

Blogging on the move; a moving blogger; a blogging wanderer.

The only question left, however, is this: how often would one thus keep thinking and blogging thoughts after technologically empowered as such?

A fearsome question.

Site Update

Today is N’s birthday. Yet I could not make it home for the celebration with S and N and other families. Alone in the office study room to take care of academic chores and class preparation. Finally, I gave up the more productive efforts and in to spending time on upgrading a xoops site under my management.

The site’s core files have not been updated since last September, I suppose. Though quite a few updated patches have come out in the meantime, I simply refuses to integrate them due to the consideration that ruthlessness in this regard may cause site users graver inconvenience. The other reason is simply my want of time in doing it with the utmost care and patience, both of which are essential to a successful and smooth update. I never imagined that the update would finally occur on such an occasion—being alone far away from S and N, having mild headache, and regretting for not being able to attend N’s birthday party.

Yet the update has finally been done and the site now looks running pretty well. Since the server machine was rebooted yesterday to deal with unknown problems, I’ll take a note of how long this time the server will keep running before another needed reboot. The module Protector is a real pain in the ass. I still cannot figure out how it should be set properly and how well it would run with other modules. I’ll just keep an eye on it.

The Second Coming

S called me for an event already happening, yet not in its full presence.

Though a bit surprised as it exceeds daily expectations, I did feel the burgeoning of something new inside.

We had a long talk through the phone, exchanging thoughts regarding the impact the event may have on our life. This, of course, is of the line of thought that resides on the reality principle. Reality, for sure, demands that the event be stopped.

Can reality ever think otherwise?

Deep inside my heart a voice did sound otherwise, singing to me a celestial bliss the event's coming will bring us.

Along with the bliss will come hardship? Yes. Ordeal? For sure. A great disruption of our already planned and scheduled life? Definitely.

To deal with that disruption will be the greatest and the gravest challenge we will face were we to decide welcoming it. We will need courage, wisdom, and love to house the bliss coming to us.

To be ready to not be ready. This is the essence of hospitality, of hope, and of future.

After thoughts and tears, I have made up my mind to receive the gift, to welcome the guest into my house, into my life, and to believe at the same time that the blessed guest will enrich my life, will make my days countless ones teeming with life.

This is the Second Coming.

And I have nothing at hand to prepare myself other than the patience in love and the faith in hope.

Future Writing

This afternoon I had a talk with Chi about literature in the future. He said that all revolves around the very single question: cryptography. How does one encode signs into what pattern and how would others decode that pattern to get signs back to what it intends to.

Though some points therein need elaboration, I can see the rationale within.

The question urgent to myself is none other than this: if I want to write, either literary works or works about literature, in what pattern should I encode my signs to keep faithful to my view of literature in the future, and on what would that view of mine predicate itself?

The question is worth one's thoughts for a long time to come. Yet it enthrals me.

Tidy Room Disrupted

The other day I wrote about going to start tidying my room. Yet the procedure was called off for some reason I can't remember now. Likely certain familial concerns in need of being taken care of.

OK, now I got to start it all over again. Hopefully by this Sunday I can finish the job imposed on me by myself.

Pick Up Reading

For a long time, I seem to be living in perpetual vertigo. Whenever I started, if I dare, to reflect upon what I have done for a whole day, I felt sorry for myself as the result, more of ten than not, turns zip, nil, zero. I desperately want to pick up my reading habit like in old days when I would force myself to read books of whatever type for at least three hours.

I would like to start as soon as possible to read on a regular basis. Like one hour for theory (including philosophical or theoretical writings) which will be good for my own research and thinking, one hour for literature (for both study and pleasure), and another hour for science, my all-time favorite.

One reason for my lack of time spent on reading is I am required to write too much. Proposals, documents, business reports, etc.. Right now at my hand is a translation project. I also want to do some creative writings if time allows. At the same time I have to produce enough academic papers to secure my teaching position. Well, that’s hell a lot of writings to do.

Anyway, I got to push myself a bit harder. To initiate a habit is never easy. Pick up an old one may be equally never be easy-going. Yet what got to be done has to be done. I just have to start doing it before any regret arises on my part.

Tidy Room

Don't remember how many times I've attempted to tidy my study and never once has the tidy condition remained for long.

Today I am gonna to have another try and hope this time it can last longer.

One good thing about weblog is that I can write down my attempt here with its time stamp, then I would check it out later to see how long the interval is between my attempt this time and the next.

Feel a bit pressure though.

Translation

Should pick up again the work of translating Neuromancer. Need to squeeze time out of my already tight schedule. Yet what has to be done should be done. The test never disappears and is now coming. Have to face it, with better preparation and more courage. Got to re-schedule my time. May god give me strength and intelligence to finish the project.

Conversion

Spent the whole day converting previous logs on MT to WP. Happy to find the platform of the latter that is built on PHP and MySQL. (May never figure out why MT would announce the new licensing plan.)

The open source community always amazes me by its responsive time and its collaborative problem solving and bug tracking. Now I need not backup two databases as the MT stores its data in the non-MySQL one. This is also the first time I dared enough trying my hands on using CVS. Amazement never stops when I started to wire myself to it. Wonders everywhere. Dazzling.

Spent in fact more time to rebuild the layout to make it appealing to my own eyes. As the sole reader and writer of the log, I still don't want to compromise myself on this. One will never be too lazy to make one's home cozy enough to rest both the body and the mind. To me, this space is where I am and will keep dwelling my signs and thoughts for days to come.

Yes, for the countless (or numbered) days to come.

Recommence

After almost five months’ interval, I restart my weblog by transferring previous logs from Blogger to MT. I spent almost 48 hours to install the MT. Don’t know if I’m too dumb to shorten the time spent on making the platform work. Whatever. The system finally started working to my satisfaction.

Now I begin to see my work, not just my job, is tied to written signs, to writing itself. That is likely part of my calling which I out of plain laziness always tries to resist for a long time.

Simply keep writing to feel my being existent, to fight back time’s erosion of my always faulty memories.

I’ll see how long this time my self-logging will keep going.

Regain

Almost a year from the time I created the blog, now I finally have time to get its template done and am ready to start writing my blog. Maybe this postponement is not entirely meaningless. I was at NDHU when creating my first blog account along with a course blog. My time then was all spent maintaining the course blog at the cost of my personal blog. Yet now I am transferred to NCTU and start a new teaching job and academic life at a new place. Here I start thinking of going back to my personal blog as my life here is for the most time in solitude which, interestingly, does not look repulsive to me. I almost welcome this new solitude of mine as my age is approaching to the mid-point of a general life span. It is at this time and in this solitude that I feel the urge to keep a record of my thinking and feeling that catch me by surprise from time to time. I would like to imagine that one or two decades after I can have a chance to look back at my life in this period. I am writing here, maybe, for a future unknown to me. And by this writing gesture I might want to render that unknowable-ness foreseeable at least a bit.

Origin

This is the time when I first set up my blog. After that, I did not have time to maintain it. The post is kept here to witness the start of this personal weblog.

Trap

S talked me out of my long-time self-trap. She was right. I have to escape from the very moment that has trapped my soul in the earthquake that night.

I seemed to see myself who keep sitting alone helplessly in the dark.

From this day on, I swear to myself I have to escape from that I at that moment, nay, not only so, but also to transform and transcend the former self to become tougher and stronger in soul and body.

Learn to be a man and a father. Only thus can I fight against the destiny to protect and support those whom I love most.

May I be given and granted the strength needed, to love S for the rest of my life because she’s always by my side whenever I need her.