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25 October TV SeriesIt was until recent did I realize that watching TV series for the hearing's sake is as highly exemplary a thing as it is held to be by those who practice it. Though it is not in a systematic way, it is helpful and in some way enjoyable. I have watched several TV series during the past two weeks, including Prison Break, Friends (an aged sitcom) and The Office. The Office is a BBC academic comedy and it is boring. Comparing to Prison Break, Friends is much easier and funnier. As to Prison Break, unfortunately I was too busy catching up with the plot to focus on hearing. 22 October Do It Step by StepI had the first class with my personal tutor this afternoon and started to pick up my oral things, struggling to express feelings and convey information. Though my tutor said my spoken English is pretty good, I wanted to kill myself during the class. I have to say that my spoken English is awful and I am worrying about the impending TOEFL. Last time I take TOEFL is six years ago and I scored 613. But at that time the test, though hard, was relatively simple because it did not have the speaking part. With the coming of the speaking part, the difficulty of TOEFL was suddenly raised as far as I am concerned. What I can do now is to continue to work hard and submit to the will of Heaven. 15 October TractabilityThe programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. The above paragraph is excerpted from The Mythical Man-Month, a famous book about software engineering. This might be plausible were it not for two factors. First the whole life cycle of software development consists of several phases, such as developing and maintaining. Developing a program is different in every respect from maintaining a program, as different as butter from bread. Developing a program is creative and exciting. On the contrary, maintaining a program involves almost no creativity, fearing that modifications can cause more bugs. The second is more frustrating. Not only the programmers but also the software users enjoy the tractability of software development. Software users always have no conception of what they exactly want, but they are good at describing requirements without giving any consideration to the feasibility of implementation, and good at pinpointing the shortcomings of a prototype. It is not fun for programmers to listen to their customers' complaint about this or that not working or how they wish the program could solve world hunger. 12 October Software EngineeringThe fact that we are not sure what "Software Engineering" actually is does not prevent us from placing a certain amount of reliance on it. 11 October My First Day offDawei came back from US on holiday the other day and we had a talk at Amici Café in the morning. I am glad to see he is so energetic and ambitious. After that I should have studied at webi but I went home instead, because it is too heavy a burden for me to think about his suggestion. Then I watched the movie Dance with Wolves" again just for practicing English. No sooner than I finished my supper than I got a call from Dino around 8:45 in the evening, and we had talked about Dino 's big plan for more than 20 minutes. God bless me, I have to say Dino is very ambitious as well. Then I began to make preparations for the salon class this Sunday which topic is —"Have you ever had to take a big risk in your life? What was the biggest risk you ever took in your life?" This topic sounds pretty heavy, and it recalled some dialogues of the movie "Dance with Wolves" to me —"I was just thinking that of all trails in this life, there is one that matters most. It is the trail of a true human being". I came up with the thought that my next step would probably be the biggest risk, anyway who knows. Success only comes to those who, however intelligent they may be, are willing to take big risks. Here are some more dialogues which I love so much—"Dance with wolves. I am wind in his hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend? " 07 October Restrain MyselfIt might have been thought that having a well-paid job would be satisfiable. That this has not happened to me may be my fault. While I enjoyed the comfort and banal vainglory of my existence for a time, I did not realize that money is just a redeeming feature of the job and I am deprived of the necessities of my career. My daily routine consists of ceaseless tasks which always keep me busy and offer me a perfect excuse for abandoning myself to meaningless things such as pc games when I can spare a moment. Whatever the fault may lie in, the fact remains that I have no plan for my future. I hope I could set me a goal which can make me feel the eager to work whenever I get up in the morning. 06 October How to Grow OldSome old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it - so at least it seems to me - is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river - small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
Bertrand Russell
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