The Diary
of
Anne Ku

15 March 2001 Thursday

dry

SECOND ANNIVERSARY

Today is the second anniversary of analyticalQ in cyberspace. I had chosen the ides of March to launch this website in 1999. Only two years before, I had composed a song entitled the Ides of March, an expression of frustration at being trapped in the flooded Allen Parkway in Houston in 1997.

It's time to reflect what I've achieved and learned from putting this website together. Initially, I just wanted a forum to express myself. I needed a repository for my written work, my compositions, and my photos. I had also wanted to experiment and learn about what it took to put a website together.

Almost year ago, I decided to start an online diary to force myself to write in public everyday. Not only did this exercise help my writing, but it also gave me a new platform for self-expression. I had so many things to say, and I wanted to be heard. It also gave me a way to deliver subtle messages. This personal touch paid off. The diary entries provide access to the content that's buried deep beneath.

This website provides a medium to share my interests and life stories with my friends, family, colleagues, and new people I meet in my travels. Rather than telling someone about myself, I can show them.

As many of my visitors have observed, I am spending too much time updating and maintaining this website. My next task is to automate much of this site. I get so many suggestions for new links, but I don't have the time to visit and assess the sites and then put them in the right places. This could easily be automated. Similarly, I get lots of questions about music, immigration, travel, work, and web design. Some of these questions I've put in the ASK section. But others are lost in the correspondence.

Recently I switched to a new web host. With more space and administrative capabilities, I am propelled to a new level of possibilities. I checked my log statistics the other day. Wow! The previous web host logs had malfunctioned and totally underestimated the number of visitors. It seems that Google and other search engines are regularly indexing my site. So I don't have to promote it at all.

Probably the most important thing I learned in these two years is that I was right about human beings needing to create in order to nourish or even keep the soul. It's been a rewarding and fulfilling experience.

Yesterday

Tomorrow

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