Tags: blogging, chinese, google, hiatus, history.
Categores: Daily Life, Opinion, Site Updates.
EDIT: To read the post above, please request for password, as the post may be sensitive to certain people. All requests from regular commenters will be accepted. The rest will be based on my discretion. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I was reading Mr. Javo’s post on why blogs have taken over the internet, and it suddenly provoked many questions… Why is it that I blog? How did I start blogging? Why am I still blogging?
Come to think of it, I started blogging in 1999 with the advent of blogger.com. I joined primarily out of peer pressure. Everyone who owned a domain at that time started this new thing called blogging. I was never comfortable about publishing my life to the public. And I thought…who could possibly care about the adventures of some 13 year old living in Asia. But I gave in. And I have to admit… I really didn’t like it.
Yet, as much as I didn’t like it, I continued to blog, domain after domain, year after year. Then came Mezza-9.net. The blog was mainly an excuse to learn how to design layouts - to design at the caliber of the best cream of blogger-designers of that day. All my posts were about updates I have made. Nothing from my life was ever revealed. I received insane amount of comments - close to 100 comments per post. I received fan mail. Had insane amounts of visitors. And I was the 6th most important Ivy in the world according to Google and the #1 on Yahoo, beating out the band Operation Ivy and even Ivy League. But I wasn’t happy. What started as a road to be a good designer, ended up as a slave to more comments, more fanmail, more everything to please my visitors - at the expense of myself.
So I reluctantly closed Mezza-9.net. And blogged in low-profile until Nanyate.Com.
Even now, I still don’t fully understand why I blog. And much like Mezza-9.Net, I put my entire soul into Nanyate?!. I spend so much time thinking about what to write so that my entries are entertaining enough for you. I spend almost an hour on longer posts sweeping for errors, so that it will be easily understood by most of you.
Then I would smile when I see my subscriber count hit 50, and frown - even if its for a micro-second - when plummets to 30. I would smile when people leave me comments. Not for the number of comments but for the quality of comments. I would get so happy to see that people actually read my entries and notice the insignificant details I add on. Each and every comment means a lot to me, and as such I try to answer to most of them. Some of these great comments even set the precedence for future entries - Melle’s question about me leaving Canada for good and Soyuzno’s request for my Korean kimchee pork recipe. (Both that I will answer next month, btw.)
Not to mention, I would get especially happy when I see my visitors visit each others’ sites and leave comments on each others’ sites. I feel like I’m part of a circle of people.
Maybe that’s precisely why I blog - to be part of a circle of people; people who want to be heard, people who dare to be heard. But most of all - people who yearn to be recognized from the faceless crowd we call society. Because I too want to be heard.
So, why do you blog? How did you start blogging?
Sudden Hiatus until April 10
As much as I love blogging, I have to go to another hiatus. My Chinese professor just told us that the final ‘test’ will include material from all 20 chapters of the textbook, instead the 8 he promised a couple months ago. I can’t believe he changed the exam two weeks before the final exam. So now all my free time is going to be devoted to that stupid exam, as well as a research paper I have due on the same day.
I know I shouldn’t complain, because I will be done with my undergraduate degree in two weeks. But I just can’t wait to see the real world.
Edited: Updated to Wordpress 2.5
I found no errors when I updated my new blog at LanguageDiary.Com (surprise! I released the URL, though there’s nothing there just a placeholding theme), so I updated Nanyate.com. Please let me know if there are any errors as Nanyate uses a lot more plugins. Thanks!
Tags: chinese, language, school.
Categores: Daily Life.
Disclaimer: This entry is my first entry written in Chinese. The English translation is kinda awkward and contrived, akin to a second-language English speaker. It’s because I wrote the entry in Chinese first, then translated it back to English. I purposefully did so to show non-Chinese speakers the level of my Chinese. And yes, that means my Chinese is awkward and unnatural. But you know, effort must count for something! 
Chinese
大多数的人每天都在拼命地赚血汗钱，我这三天来在拼命地写一千两百的血汗字。我学汉语才学了三年， 认的汉字也不多 － 最多有3000吧。对我来说，写文章是一个非常痛苦的事。英语的文章就够痛苦了，现在还要写中文的文章。真是很麻烦。每个句子都要用到没学过的字。即使我现在在抱怨，但我很高兴在三年来能写出那么长那么复杂的文章。三年前，我只能认“陈爱薇”这三个字 。别的字一个也认不出，甚至于“名字”这两个字也不认识。现在，写了1200字的文章给我一个成就感。虽然认识的字比中国人还少，口音还想老外那样，这1200的血汗字表示我这三年来的痛苦，这三年来的承诺。由于这1200的血汗字，我会继续学汉语…直到能流利地讲，写，听，读汉语的那一天。
English Translation
While most people spend their lives toiling over blood-sweat (hard-earned) money, I spent these three days slogging over 1,200 blood-sweat Chinese words. I’ve only learned Chinese for three years; I still can’t read much Chinese - probably only about a maximum of 3000 words.
Writing essays have always been a pain to me. It’s already quite the pain to write essays in English, now I have to write an essay in Chinese. Jeez. I have to check the dictionary every sentence because there are so many words that I haven’t learned. Although I’m complaining right now, I’m actually quite happy that I managed to write such a long and complex paper.
Three years ago, I was only able to write three words: Chen Ai Wei (my Chinese name). I couldn’t read any other words; not even the word “name”! So writing a 1,200-word essay today has left me with a feeling of accomplishment. And although I still don’t read as many words as mainland Chinese and my accent still sounds like a white man speaking Chinese, this 1,200 blood-sweat words symbolizes my three years of pain and effort.
So with this 1,200 blood-sweat words, I will continue to learn Chinese…until the day I can speak, write, understand and read Chinese fluently.