星期二走了两万两千步，星期三走了两万步。今天，星期四，也该休息休息，没走那么多。今天去了海淀区人事局，才发现招聘会今天没开。我在展厅看了一些公司的广告，就看了周围的地方。即使人不算很多，但我感受到什么是＂北漂＂了。

星期二，去了北理工，北航和北交大，星期三，去了北大和清华。我真喜欢中国大学的气氛。又漂亮又有文化氛围。华师大的丽娃河、厦大的芙蓉湖、厦大的情人谷、北航的绿园、北大的未名湖，都给我留下了很多美好的回忆。在这些地方，我可以掏出我的日记本，享受充满意境的环境，录下我脑海中的想法。

即使我在09年在上海生活过一年，这次来了北京还是感觉有点难适应。连简单问路都会听不懂对方说的话。或许因为没有归属，没有朋友，心里有点陌生、孤独。走了那么多的地方，交过那么多的朋友，期盼着我梦想的开端，那为什么我来到我最喜欢的国家的首都，我真没料到会这么不自在。但说句实话，我这次来中国，从签证申请处，到这次在北京所遇见的人，自己感觉他们都挺亲切，挺友好。

这几天都没到海淀外面，觉得这里的人没我想象中多。可能我逛大学的时候学生们都在教室里？

我发一些照片前，对于各个多多少少帮助过我的朋友，我想表示感谢。无论是新加坡的或者中国的，谢谢你们提我一把。在我天黑暗的时刻，给我点了一盏灯。

Looking at Adoniram Judson’s letter of courting to his first wife’s father tells a fair bit about him. I’m not sure I would have the guts to ask this of the father of a woman I’m interested in.

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life; whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left is heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteous, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

No doubt the world today is a very different place. The most remote places of the earth can now be reached in a maximum of days. Health standards have risen globally, and most of us shield ourselves from harsh climates by staying indoors.

Yet some things have not changed. He who gave his all for me, still expects me to give my all. Not 99%, not 101%, but 100%. How does that work? I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. – Galatians 2:20.

Recently I considered the option of teaching English. It’s not actually a new option, as I had contemplated it before and looked at numerous teaching opportunities. However what threw me off course this time was trying to evaluate the decision by myself. I thought about it for a few days, weighing the pros and cons. I eventually decided not to take it, as I felt it wasn’t the right time to move into teaching English. Teaching English is something that I will be able to do later, but it will be hard to pick up IT again if I put it down. Fair enough.

Along the way, I had a thought. IF God calls me right now to put my IT background and skills on the shelf; if he calls me to go to a remote village to teach the kids English; if it means taking a salary that will never buy me a return ticket to Singapore, am I willing to go? Have I truly laid down all of me? To laying down my IT career of 14 years, I’m willing.

It is one thing to be a martyr; quite another to be a living sacrifice. To lay still on the altar in the face of adversity and persecution when the main thought on my mind is to flee to my comfort zone.

Tonight I place myself on the altar again. Take all of me in exchange of all of you. Anywhere, anytime, I’m willing. One life to live, poured out at your feet.

It wasn’t too many years ago that I lived as though I had all the time in the world and that the future was wide open to me. The steps I took didn’t seem to matter, and many around me affirmed my youth and opportunity to experience the world and make mistakes. But now here I stand, and flashbacks of great experiences and big mistakes fill my mind. Some around me still try to tell me that I’m young. I do not dispute that, but we should also realize that young is a relative term.

Do I regret the life I’ve lived? Some parts yes, some parts no. There are things I wish I didn’t do, places I wish I didn’t go, friendships I wish I didn’t make. Yet in all things I know that it has been a rich journey, and that the vicissitudes of the the seasons will only serve to prepare me for what is to come.

However as I enter my late twenties, I am reminded that every step I take can either limit my future or be a stepping stone to the road ahead, and this can happen both in terms of actions I take and actions I do not take. If I decide to do A instead of B, the opportunity cost in the long term can be potentially huge, and with a limited lifespan, every endeavor should be considered.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the Lord upholds him with His hand. – Psalm 37:23-24

Amen.

我一直以来觉得自己是个比较内向的人，不是很善于跟别人沟通。这段时间看到很多周围甚至没见过面的朋友鼓励我，我十分感恩。

这挫折让我再次考虑我生命的根基。男性对自己的价值判断很多时候是与事业表现有关。在此刻，我该如何面对自己，往前走？我还有力量往前走吗？

我的心哪，你为何忧闷？为何在我里面烦躁？应当仰望神，因我还要称赞他。他是我脸上的光荣，是我的神。－－诗篇 42:11

我昨晚问了我自己三个问题：
一、我还相信我生活在一个充满机会的世界吗？这让我想起昨晚一位朋友教了我“天涯何处无芳草”这句话。不知道在这情况下适合用不。
二、我还相信神具有主权吗？
三、我还相信神向我所怀的意念是赐平安的意念，不是降灾祸的意念，而要叫我末后有指望吗？
我对这三道问题的答案是个很明确的“是”。跟神走了这十多年，经历了这么多，我怎么可以不认他呢？即使路有多坎坷，我知道他的话语还是正确的，有他与我同行，明天总是亮的。

我心里发昏的时候，我要从地极求告你。求你领我到那比我更高的磐石！－－诗篇 61:2

我会如何面对这次的挫折？就像我之前面对挫折一样，不绝望，不断一步一步往前走。

我不知道明天会带来什么，但我知道谁掌管一切。

If the sum of my relationships is who I am, we can see that church forms a critical part of my identity. Though I do not have any concrete data of this at the moment, I can testify that the depth of the relationships with people in the church would definitely be deeper than those formed outside. The church to some may just be a gathering of individuals, but to me it is truly a family. It is my church, my life.

The yellow portion of the chart consists of people whom I met through other structures of society. Stephen Covey talks about this in his book The Speed of Trust as Organizational and Societal trust. Most of these people I met in school, university, through social meetings (e.g. with the Cambodian community in Canberra), and through other friends.

The red portion is something I’ve been thinking about since yesterday. It consists of people whom I wouldn’t know if not for the internet. These include friends made on Couchsurfing during my time in China whose contact I’ve chosen to retain, people from meetup groups that I’ve attended, and even a friend whom I met in an online game and eventually met up with when I visited that city. The longest friendship in this category spans about 10 years—a friend whom I met on IRC.

The purple group of friends are probably the most interesting, as they were made in the most natural of situations, though requiring me to take a step out of my comfort zone to talk with them. These include a solar engineer I chatted with while on a bus in Canberra 5+ years ago, a Spanish family I helped navigate the train in Singapore, people I sat nearby in restaurants, etc. It is a pity that I didn’t maintain contact with some of the people I chatted with in parks in China.

Of course, family will always be family, and as the saying goes, blood is thicker than water.

This is the first time I’ve done an analysis on the relationships in my life, and I think the only surprising thing was the last segment of seemingly “random” friends whom I made. What surprised me was the number of such friends, given my inherently introverted nature. I guess I’ve come a long way :). What I love most about this way of making friends is that chances are that these people are from a different circle compared to the people whom I already know. These people have given me diverse windows to the big world out there.

It would definitely be great if I could reach into the recesses of my memory and increase the data set to include people whom I’ve stopped contact with, and more data such as date of first contact, venue, specific context, depth of relationship, frequency of contact, length of each contact, etc.

All in all, I am thankful for everyone in my life. Whether you are here for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, every single person I had the privilege of knowing is special in my eyes. There will always be those who I passed by, people I may never have a chance to meet again, such as an elderly man scavenging for food in a dustbin near a bus stop in Xiamen, or a middle school teacher I talked with at People’s Park, Chengdu. Perhaps one day I may see a reason for meeting these people.

我一直以来知道明天总是未知数，但觉得这几个星期我对未来的心态有所改变。或许是跟着时间的改变而变了；或许是长大了，对世界的看法也改变了。

不同的时节带来不同的特征。我相信我目前活在黎明时节里。即使心里有时会忐忑，有时会为明天操心，我相信我当前活在最好的季节里。这黎明时节会有多长，接下去的早晨、中午、下午、晚上有多长，我不知道。但我知道的是生命是短暂，是宝贵的。今天就是我唯一可以选择怎么过的日子。

1. Finding People
   How you go about this will largely depend on the place that you are in. In this day and age a number of online communities have sprung up catering to this need. Examples include Lang-8 and Livemocha. I helped a friend on Lang-8 translate her resume, which gave me the opportunity to come in contact with business vocabulary that will be useful when I look for work in China next time. Livemocha looks like it has quite a vibrant community as well, which I just joined last night, and will be able to share my results in the future. While I have met up with over 50 internet friends over many years in real life, I cannot over stress the importance of exercising caution if you meet up with someone you know over the internet.

   Many universities and colleges tend to have their own internet forums as well which allow students to post ads.

   Lastly, there are always real world methods such as posting ads in specified places, asking around your friends, etc.

2. Finding the Right People
   This is where you, as a learner, need to exercise your own discretion to decide who you want to learn from. While I know basic Vietnamese, you probably wouldn’t want to learn it from me. As a partnership, you will want to ensure that you have a sufficient level of proficiency to help your partner as well. It also seems to me that language standards have dropped in places that I have been to. I believe this can be attributed to the increased use of typing over writing, among other factors. This is important to note once you get past the intermediate level.

   Another point to note is to find someone who is equally committed. However with the nature of the internet, there is no straightforward way to find someone who is committed. My suggestion is to just give it a shot, make contact, and you will soon find out how committed that person is.

   Common interests are also very helpful to fueling the friendship and conversations though it is not compulsory.

   Even if you’re too serious about improving your language, thinking through these steps will help you gain a clearer picture of where you are headed. As an upper-intermediate learner of Chinese, these are points that I look for in a language partner, and am not recommending that you use the same criteria.

   • Native mainland Chinese. Though I do love Taiwanese people and their music, my long term goal is to go to China and therefore I do not wish to expend brain juice on using traditional Chinese.
   • Someone who is serious about his own use of language and considers himself a proficient user of Chinese. As I understand, there is a rising number of people in my generation who do not pay attention to the words the use when typing in pinyin, resulting in text that is still understandable. However that is bad for me as a language student, especially if it is material that is new to me. That person should likewise be serious about learning English.
   • Lastly, I am looking for someone with a heart. This is not a business partnership. I have interest in technology (particularly IT), personal growth, finance, music, photography, belief systems, community work, and all things China. If someone has interests that exceed this scope, I am happy to read up on something that I’m not familiar with so that we can use it as material for discussion.
3. Meeting Up
   While meeting up is not compulsory, I feel that I learn much better when I am with my language partner. I will repeat myself: exercise caution when meeting someone for the first time. Meet in a crowded place, don’t carry too much cash with you, and be vigilant.

   I usually try to bring some material along, whether it be some books, magazines or articles of interest. In fact it could just be some mentally prepared discussion topics, with a list of associated vocabulary. The reason I strongly suggest this is because I have seen too many people repeating the same conversations of weather talk or staring at one another. It also provides a structure which enables the exchange to be more effective and meaningful.

   The other thing I bring is a notepad to jot down new words, phrases, and other interesting (or boring but important) bits of Chinese that I learn. This also aids in later revision and becomes material that your language partner can test you on again at the next session if need be.

   Lastly, bring an expectant attitude with you and come prepared to help your language partner. Remember, perfecting your craft is just one part of life. Enjoy the meeting and learn as much as you can. It is very likely that your language partner will have much more to share with you than just his/her language. If you are able to meet me, I will be happy to topics about cutting edge technology that I read on scientific blogs, simple things I do to make life easier, how the internet works, or even my views on a whole range of topics.

While I started writing this post for my own memory, I hope that you will find it helpful in your quest to learn a foreign language effectively. If you feel that this article has helped you or if you feel that there are other things to take note of, please feel free to post in the comments or to contact me!

Little did I realize that that in itself is no mean feat. Once we get past the easily programmable rules such as:

• The word I
• The first letter of each sentence

things get pretty messy. We run into proper nouns, which are a nightmare. If we delve into this realm, is it possible to continue to keep Textsmith lightweight and purely Javascript based? Let’s assume not for starters. My first thought was to dip into Wikipedia, and perform text analysis on that. This is what I thought of:

1. For each article, take the title of the article
2. If it is a single word, look for all instances of the word in that article where it is not used at the beginning of a sentence. If it is capitalized, it is a proper noun.
3. If it is a phrase, it is a proper noun if the phrased is used in the exact same caps throughout the article. An example of a multi-word proper noun on Wikipedia is New York University while a non-proper noun would be data mining.
4. We may possibly analyze related articles, but I didn’t think about what method of identifying related documents to use.

However there are still problems to be addressed:

• What about odd words like jQuery?
• While Wikipedia would provide fairly good coverage, it is definitely not an exhaustive representation of the text available online. The algorithm above would not be able to parse unstructured text too.

Assuming we establish a sufficiently comprehensive database of proper nouns, including names of people, products, etc., the next question is how can we efficiently and correctly identify proper nouns in a body of text? We start to run into problems such as:

• Context awareness. The word dell is both a common noun and a proper noun, depending on the context. There is some nice (unpublished?) work done by Google as demonstrated on this Google Wave video.
• There are approximately 3,892,495 articles on Wikipedia as of this writing. How many proper nouns would there be in here, and how many more are we missing?

Thankfully there is a project OpenCalais that works on semantically tagging text. It is free to use via an API but not completely open, which is a little of a bummer from a philosophical point of view.

I didn’t realize that just thinking about capitalization could make my brain hurt so much. There was some other nifty stuff that I read up on the topics of text analysis and how people are deriving information from unstructured text. There’s this interesting project by the AP called Overview that looks like it’s doing a pretty decent job of giving the user a high level overview of a large (hundreds of thousands) corpus of documents, it actually feels tempting to me to deviate from the original goal of Textsmith.

So where do we go from here?

There is an overwhelming amount of hard problems in the world. I’m not saying that to put undue pressure on myself, or to use it as an excuse to give up. I think problems matter differently to different people, and that is a contributing factor to the diversity that we get to enjoy. If everyone was an electrical engineer, or everyone was a writer, the world would be a lot poorer.

For myself, I’m probably going to stick to the lightweight Javascript powered version of Textsmith, and any gnarly science will go into another project. What are your thoughts on what language cleaning/processing should Textsmith do?

One day while having a discussion with a friend brainstorming for a new project we could work on together, I thought it would be a good opportunity to further develop lyricfixer, as I didn’t know of anything similar in the market, or at least not something that is free and accessible. I wanted to keep the ease of use, but to extend it to fix up other forms of broken text, such as lack of spacing after periods and commas. Too many a time I’ve seen people learning English as their second language get such things wrong, and I felt that such a tool could at least help them to make their text visually correct, without looking at their language.

And thus the Textsmith project was started on github. Over our next few conversations we had some discussions about what we see Textsmith becoming, and listed some run of the mill text manipulation operations that we hoped Textsmith would be able to help us with (Features). At present Textsmith still has no interface, and while surfing around and looking at related topics of text manipulation, text analysis, data mining, etc., I realized how this could snowball into an unmanageable project.

In line with this I am thinking of defining a qualifying statement of “What you wished your text editor did…”, which means that IP netmask conversions and other such calculators will not go into this. Later on we would ideally be able to support a plugin system though I’m not sure how that will pan out later. By this guiding thought, we may include simple, surface-level analytics, but nothing like sentiment analysis.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on Textsmith either in the comments or via email at lijie@eccentri.cc!