I hated writing in the primary school. The negative feeling lasted through my years of middle and high schools, college, and beyond. Writing was such a struggle. Luckily my engineering career didn’t require much serious writing. Just some Powerpoint slides with bullet points would do the trick. The truth is that, most of my colleagues had similar attitudes toward writing. We were good at numbers, and horrible at...
I’m a homebody. In the end of February this year, out of the blue, I wanted to see Taipei. 12 days later, I packed my stuff, and flew to Taipei. I toured the city and the nearby places for close to two weeks. This is one of the beauties of retiring early. Not only the work-related stress is gone, an impromptu trip becomes possible. No more need to...
2017 is almost done. Did you have a great year? I look forward to 2018. The New Year always brings me hope and excitement. Part of the reason is that, I love spring. It’s the season when it gets warmer, flowers start blooming, and trees and grass become green. I have retired for 2.5+ years. Life has been very good. One day I was at a doctor’s office. ...
After retiring in 2015, I always wanted to write something about the place I grew up. I wanted the world to know about that remote village in northern China, as that’s part of who I am. Finally my mini-memoir “Dad’s Bicycle” was published on Amazon last year. The village I grew up is totally different from Beijing or Shanghai. The life there is still primitive. There is no...
Have you watched the UniVision on TV? It’s a Spanish channel in US, and is carried by some cable providers. I’m always fascinated and curious: why the people in those programs are so happy? What are they laughing about? Why are they talking so fast? Are they in a hurry? This is the start point I decided to learn Spanish. I started four years ago after leaving the...
