So when did I/we start blogging? Well, the truth is that I started blogging as early as 2001, when I became pregnant with Aya. Only at that time, blogging wasn’t as hot as it is nowadays. You can still access my pregnancy blogs in our website. We didn’t have a domain name then, and we were not even familiar with blogging softwares yet. The original entries were posted at geocities.com – and this was prior to Geocities being acquired by Yahoo! When we finally had our own domain and website hosting sometime in 2004, we created a subdomain for Aya and posted the pregnancy blogs there.

Ok, so that was then. After Aya was born, I found myself inevitably thrusted into the juggling act of caring for a baby and getting back to the treadmill of work, so I just became too busy to blog anymore. After about three years, though, I found my way back to blogging after my Dad died. Now that I think of it, it does seem as if personal circumstances have profoundly influenced my blogging activity!

My blog entries then were sporadic. I only wrote when I felt like writing. I would write maybe two or three entries a month. Sometimes even fewer. And then, just recently, after some accidental (or maybe fateful?) visits to some blogging sites, I found my inspiration again. I didn’t realize until now that whilst I was taking my blogging for granted, other people are blogging like crazy addicts. Some blog for profit, others for the mere fun of it, others for sharing their interests and connecting with other people who share the same interests – well, all sorts of reasons for blogging.

I got hooked. And maybe some of you have noticed the recent regularity of our entries. We have also found ways of increasing the exposure of our site to fellow bloggers, mostly Filipinos. Slowly but surely, we are establishing our connections in the blogosphere. It is such a thrill. I’ve even convinced Baggy to start contributing to this joint blog online. We both realized, much to our chagrin, that our writing skills have become poor because we haven’t had enough practice in years. Too busy learning Japanese, our English has stagnated! Sure, we write technical papers all the time, but it is still different from creative writing. Blogging, for us, has therefore become a tool to help us hone our writing skills once more, as well as to force us to think and reflect on life and other issues besides our research. And I tell you, it is so refreshing and liberating to write about things not related to work!

And so for now, this blogging binge will continue. We just hope that you guys would find something useful and thought-provoking among these posts. And thanks a lot for dropping by and posting your comments! 🙂

This is the title of an article I came across at CNNMoney.com written by Geoffrey Colvin, Fortune Magazine’s senior editor-at-large. According to the article, hard work and not natural talent is what will propel you to great success! "Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work," proclaims the summary.

It is good to be reminded that greatness is not something endowed at birth or reserved to a preordained few but something you can earn if you have the will. For an "ordinary" researcher like me, it’s encouraging to know that I don’t have to be an Einstein to become a great scientist. I only need to work hard, really hard, and do more "deliberate practice." In research, this translates to several extra hours in the lab, working on a challenging and important research problem, and publishing more quality scientific papers. Publish or perish, as Kathy wrote once. Although recently, it is shifting to "patents and profits." But this will be in another entry.

I believe important research findings do not just popup from nowhere. They are products of persevering minds working even at sleep, and relentless and passionate laboratory works. I read somewhere that Einstein started thinking about the effect of traveling close to the speed of light at 14 and was able to complete his theory of relativity only after several years. Edison tested thousands and thousands of different materials to improve the filament of his incandescent electric light bulb before he could make the filament’s life span last longer. As his famous saying goes, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." This has been my favorite quotation since high school and it still inspires me until now. 

When it comes to lessons on hard work, I don’t have to look very far. My father used to tell us to study very hard, give our best, and strive to excel. For him, education is the only way out of our difficulties and the only "wealth" he could leave behind. As I came to realize, education is indeed a treasure worth more than any material things on earth.

Still on greatness, Kathy shared with me once an advice she got from someone she admires. According to this person, "If you want to be great, don’t settle for the number 2 position. Either you are number one or you are nobody!"

For me, I have a Nobel prize to win! 🙂  What about you?