Blog Renaissance

I decide to revitalize my blog.

It is easy to abandon a blog, especially when no one reads it.

It is even easier to live a life without any trace, when you seem to be the only one who cares, or doesn't.

We can readily remain alive by keeping breathing, eating, sleeping,and doing whatever animals do to maintain the status of a living creature. Only thing is, time elaspes and evaporates into eternity behind us. If you can't tell the difference between the you of today, and the you of, say, two months ago, you really can't declare that you have LIVED two months. It's just another two-month pass you by.

Human beings need to experience, observe and think, consciously. This is the only way to differentiate ourselves from a machine that is fed on foods and air. A life path is not only a geographical route of where you have been, nor a chronological documentary of what you have done, but a rather a spiritual journey of what you have understood.

Ok, end of my sermon today.

There are many things have happened when my blog was in hibernation during the last couple months. In fact, it's been quite a dramatic period of time. There are sources you can easily get to know what the world has been through. So I will just briefly go through what I have been through:

1. I took part in two catalyst characterization projects. Meantime, by reading and exchanging ideas with colleagues, I learned quite a lot about heterogeneous catalysis, XPS and EXAFS. Concepts of Modern Catalysis and Kinetics by Chorkendorff and Niemantsverdriet is a great book on these topics.

2. I have also got myself involved several other projects, including synthesizing so anisotropical nanostructures and nanocomposites for water filtration applications.

3. I started to pick up organic chemistry left behind long time ago.

4. I started reading economy systematically. Reading the Op-Ed sections in New York Times becomes my daily ritual. Columists like Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Thomas Friedman become familiar to me and actually grow on me. Under their influences, I got more and more interested in thinking about how the world can be explained by simple economic principles. The Economist magazine also becomes my econ-tutor. From having no idea of what the articles on it, to slowly making sense of them, I feel that I am seeing the world in a gradually different perspective. Currently I am reading "Economics-making sense of the modern economy" from The Economist Press. I understood the process of globalization, the rise of china and india, and the working of Finance. This is an interesting intellectual arena that I definitely will keep exploring.

5. I started to buy stocks and invest in mutual funds.

6. Like many others, I experienced the economic recession in 2008 (ongoing in 2009). My company has laid off 11% workforce, including some of the folks I know and work with. More layoffs are expected to come. All we can do is, understand that, like the economy, life has ups and downs. We are flexible enough to weather through the crsis.

7. Yes, I am getting married in Feburary, 2009 :)