All about Betty Wu

"Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."  Nice words by Mark Twain.

Yesterday I saw a movie called "The Illusionist". A romantic movie with some optical tricks as entertainment.

Maybe Dandan is right: Life itself is merely an illusion, albeit a stubbornly persistent one. But...so what? Illusions can turn into facts as long as you are willing to believe. Even illusion can provide you with enormous resolution and courage, and this is the most beautiful part about illusion.

Yes, I want to believe.

Introduction of the song:  Somewhere My Love(Lara's Theme) ;  From the Movie Doctor Zivago;  by The Ray Conniff Singers.

Somewhere, my love
There will be songs to sing
Although the snow
Covers the hope of spring
Somewhere a hill
Blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams
All that your heart can hold

Someday we'll meet again, my love
Someday whenever the spring breaks through

You'll come to me out of the long ago
Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow
Till then my sweet
Think of me now and then
God speed my love till you are mine again

Now on my own, think of me now and then
God speed my love till you are mine again

This is a very sweet song I heard from a beautiful music box. Special thanks to Teacher Xiaoming Zhang, without whom I'll never know what the origin is. Also thanks to Dudu, ATP, Uncle Ni, Sophie, Silence.

Dear Bean told me about a wicked web service called Omegle today. So I tried using it for 20 minutes or so and there are some questions popping into my mind.

As introduced on the Official Omegle Website, this chatroom was launched on Mar. 25, 2009 by an 18-year-old student Leif K-Brooks from Vermont, USA. This website is designed for people to talk to utterly random strangers on the Internet. You don't have to sign in or provide any personal information. A completely new conversation is always a click away on Omegle.

Omegle have been gaining exponentially increasing popularity ever since the time it was launched. I have no doubt that the number of online users will soon reach 5 digits before June.  Though there are inevitably some vulgar contents in the conversations from time to time, people, especially students, seem having fun making new friends, even love, in the case of 18-year-old Mississippi student called Brittany.

I also look "Omegle" up in Google Trends and found the result very intriguing: the top 4 cities that search Omegle most are from Finland. Following in the fifth place is Shanghai, China. Beijing is in the tenth place. Maybe this has something to do with the languages that people use to blog about Omegle. Or maybe just people in Finland enjoy talking to strangers most XD Among the 6 people I had talked to this afternoon, 3 of them speak Chinese. One of the "Strangers" from Beijing said it might be because this was the prime time for Asian Internet users. However I do believe soon enough Omegle will spread like fire among Chinese Internet users, majorly due to its completely anonymity. (Er... actually there are already some local websites, see "Omegle 和它的四个中国山寨兄弟们")

Omegle reminds me of Skype somehow immediately. I've got strangers on Skype starting conversation with me. To tell the truth, it felt really odd talking to some Yemen guy about some Pakistanian pop star. Yet unlike Skype or anything else, Omegle provide only one chance for "you" and the "stranger" to see if you go well(yeah you can be totally shameless and blameless). It leaves a great chance for people to exchange contact information. I really have no idea how far will people like the 16 years old Vietnamese girl I just talked to will go out of curiosity and the desire for friendship. Personally I would rather go to deviantart for friendship because at least I'll be facing a creative people whose works inspired me.

Other thoughts about Omegle is that it could be a very good place for social research. You can pop your own questions such as "do you speak Chinese" or "do you believe in God" on Omegle and get some interesting results--of course when the number of Omegle users is big enough the result could be more reliable. Omegle could well be utilized as a convenient tool for marketing (could be the topic of a successful dissertation, too).

So far that's what I think about Omegle. Let's wait and see what happens.

http://classes.dma.ucla.edu/Winter09/9-1/blog/b/

Of course the sections of A, C, and D are the same splendid.

Meebo(米博).com 
I like it.
I believe one day a browser can replace all softwares.

Today Wendy, Chong and I went to the Getty Museum, one of the four Getty programs--the Museum, Research Institute, Conservation Institute, and Foundation.

"Located on a dramatic hilltop in Los Angeles' Santa Monica Mountains, the Getty Center presents the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection of western art (drawings, paintings, sculptures, tapestries, decorations, photographs)from the Middle Ages to the present (mostly before 1800) against a backdrop of spectacular architecture, tranquil gardens, and breathtaking views. "

This is a nice place for families because the collection are mostly classical art works and easier to understand than modern arts. There are also places and materials for young art students or anyone feel interested to practice drawing and skeching. I was inspired by Prud'hon's work( I never expected I will one day see the real work )and I drew a picture in the West Pavilion and later a little boy took it home because he was impressed by my work. But I know actually I'm still at a very low stage of drawing. 

Keep your eyes and mind open, Betty.