10,000 page views later, it is time for me to come clean.

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Warning: This post is actually not gonna be as dramatic as the title may suggest. No lies will be uncovered. No secrets will be revealed. You will, however, get a better sense of what this website is truly about.

I woke up this morning to two pieces of shocking news:

1. Paul the Octopus was murdered by the Germans passed away.
2. This website has garnered more than 10, 000 page views in 40 days.

Random stuff from Wikipedia:

Octopuses have a relatively short life expectancy, and some species live for as little as six months. Larger species, such as the North Pacific Giant Octopus, may live for up to five years under suitable circumstances. However, reproduction is a cause of death: males can only live for a few months after mating, and females die shortly after their eggs hatch. They neglect to eat during the (roughly) one month period spent taking care of their unhatched eggs, but they do not die of starvation. Endocrine secretions from the two optic glands are the cause of genetically programmed death (and if these glands are surgically removed, the octopus may live many months beyond reproduction, until she finally starves).^{[citation needed]}

I love the “[citation needed]” part at the end. I am sure many people, such as me, have been Googling (with or without an “e” ?) “How long do octopuses live” after learning the unfortunate news about Paul, and someone must have felt the obligation to include such information on the Wikipedia page of “Octopus”.

But I digressed.

The purpose of this post is to talk about the second piece of news (recap: “2. This website has garnered more than 10, 000 page views in 40 days”). As promised in one of my previous posts, I would write a blog post “explaining” this website once the page views hit 10, 000. That day has come (much sooner than I expected) and that promised blog post is what you are reading now.

Before I get started, I just want to take a moment to thank everybody who has been part of this amazing journey of mine. This post is definitely not a self-congratulatory letter to myself, but a sincere and heartfelt note of gratitude that I would like to send to everyone who has set their virtual foot on this website. Nothing brings more warmth to my heart during these cold rainy days at upstate New York than seeing visitors from UK, Singapore and China who spend as long as half an hour on this site. These are my old friends from high school who, despite being so far away, still care so much about me and want to know that’s going on in my life. And then there is the other large group of visitors – the Colgate visitors. On a campus where it is so easy for people to walk past each other, when somebody does stop to say “Hey, I read on your website …” , you can’t help but feel surprised and touched. So to each and every one of you, I want to say a big Thank You.

Sentimentality aside, I can now use this post to finally answer some of the questions that I have been getting ever since this website was unveiled 40 days ago. Hopefully by the end of this post, you will know even more about the website and be convinced to keep coming back.

1. “Why do you start this website?”

This is the question that I get asked a lot. A LOT. And I am going to give the “official” answer here.

There are two main reasons why this website was created:

1) To share what’s going on in my life with friends – friends who live in another part of the campus, friends who live in another part of the country, friends who live in another part of the world, friends who otherwise would not have been able to know what’s going on in my life. One of the greatest ironies of our time is that the Internet has made it so easy for us to share everything with the world that in the process, we have forgotten or become too lazy to share the important things with the important people. And I want to turn that around to actually use the digital tools to share my life with friends. (This kinda echoes what I was talking about in my review of The Social Network. On well…)

2) To facilitate people who want to do background checks on me, mainly my future employers and assassins. I think it is no longer a secret that most companies check their job applicants on Google. So this website will serve as a “hub of information” about me, a showcase of my life that cannot be captured by a 1-page resume. If my future employers find this site (which they will, if they just Google “Zachary Lin Zhao”), they will be able to see an actual person with bones, blood and flesh – figuratively speaking, of course. Why not just use Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter? Well. Facebook is too casual and has very few meaningful content curation apart from some occasional smart-sounding status updates and random wall-to-wall conversations. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is too serious and rigid, and leaves very little room for individual expression. Twitter…well…only allows for 140-character updates. That’s not to say I do no use those social networks. In fact, I am very active on all of them as well as some other social networks. But none of them can represent me as fully and accurately as this website can, which leads me to the next question.

2. “Are things written on this website real? Or are they just for show?”

Yes, things are real on this website. No lies are told. Nothing is fabricated. And things are not written with the intention of showing off or presenting a false image of myself. Instead, the main reasons for everything written on this website are … (refer to Question 1 above. ).

3. “You sound so serious here. I don’t think it is the actual you.”

I have only heard this question from one person, actually. But I think it still is a concern worth addressing. First of all, I do not sound serious here. I try my best to sound funny on this website (a couple of times in this post alone). Yes, I fail most of the times. But at least I tried. So there is absolute no basis to the accusation that I sound serious. (<—see, I even use smiley faces!) Second, I try my best to present the “actual me” (whatever that means) on this website as accurately and more important, as completely as possible. That’s why I have been writing blog posts about my volunteer work, my summer internship, my family, my happiness, my obsession with X Factor, my taste in music, movies, interesting articles I find on the Internet. And of course, these do not cover every single aspect of my life – I am glad they don’t, but at the same time, what does? The purpose of this site is not to show everything about myself, but as many things as possible.

4. “How do you host your website? Do you actually pay money for this?”

I host my website with DreamHost and pay slightly more than $100 a year for the domain and the server. I guess that also helps to keep me motivated to continue writing blog posts of highest quality. Your love and feedback definitely make all the investment worthwhile. This may sound extremely cheesy, but your support is priceless.

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That’s about it. Thank you once again for visiting this website. If there is any question that is not answered in this post, you can always just leave a comment below. If I don’t like your comment, I will simply censor it. Just kidding. I won’t. See, I am funny.

P.S. It’s “Googling” without an “e”.