A Boomer's Life with AI - and English

Keeping a personal blog was never part of my plan, but two years into my retirement, I started one just now as another milestone of my lifetime learning journey.

This is my second blog, and I'd better mention it, or I may forget it forever: as a Taiwan national, I learned English as a second language, yet I fell in love with it in my late twenties, and English reading has become my major hobby ever since.

Thus, when composing my first blog yesterday, it occurred to me like this: why not keep my blog in English instead of Chinese? So, here it is - I'll keep my blog in English, while using Chinese only on a needs basis.

Incidentally, as a member of the renowned public speaking club, Toastmasters International, I delivered a prepared speech on Thursday 7/11 to my fellow Toastmasters, featuring my learning journey, as a Boomer and as a retiree, in connection with AI (and modern technology in general).

Then, another idea came to me this morning: my newly established blog may as well be an ideal "home" for my speech scripts and other learning logs!

So, here it is, my speech titled A Boomer’s Life with AI.๐Ÿ˜Š

"Good evening everyone! 

I'm honored to join you tonight to share with you some of my stories.


To start with, a brief introduction about myself. I retired two years ago, after a rewarding career of 38 years. I belong to the so called Babyboomers, or simply the Boomers, a generation of people born after WW2, or the years between 1946 and 1964, to be exact.

That’s why I used the word Boomer in my speech title. 

My generation, however, is by no means tech-savvy or digital native. In fact, when I retired 2 years ago, I didn’t even know how to use QR codes, or how to add a friend to my Line App.


Luckily, as a retiree I had plenty of time to learn new things, and I also have people of different generations surrounding me; my wife is gen X, my daughter is gen Y, and my son is gen Z, and they’re all far better than me at new technologies.  So, along the way I have self-learned, and also learned from my wife, my daughter and my son. Now, two years on, I have adapted to my modern life in this digital age - "with the AI revolution upcoming" as Jenson Huang of Nvidia ่ผ้”้ปƒไปๅ‹ณ famously said, and that’s how I came up with my speech title: A Boomer’s Life with AI.

In fact, what I have learned to use so far are all free apps like Google map, Google translate, Google lens and ChatGPT, among others. 

However, by using these popular and powerful tools, I was able to take my hobbies to the next level, and with that my life has been much enriched.

So, in the rest of my speech, I’m going to share with you how I live my hobbies these days with AI and modern technology in general. 

I have several hobbies that are now the center of my life, but in the interest of time, tonight I’ll focus on just one, which is English reading. 

English reading has been my major hobby for 35 years. During my career time I read countless articles in various fields: management, leadership, commerce,  economics, science, politics, history, sports, arts and almost everything else, but except literature: for I knew well that literature was something interesting, yet was then too difficult and time-consuming for me to appreciate.

Then, came my retirement, I was "freed" and started embarking on my self-learning journey in English literature. Equipped with my newly acquired digital power, plus abundant on-line study guides, which are also free, by the way, I’ve read more than 30 classic works of world literature in English, authored by great writers including Charles Dickens of UK, Ernest Hemingway of USA, Leo Tolstoy of Russia, Voltaire of France, James Joyce of Ireland, Kafka of Czechia, Cervantes of Spain, Dante Alighieri of Italy, to just name a few. 


And, just last month, I started reading and appreciating William Shakespeare’s works, and watched my first ever Shakespeare play: The Tragedy of Macbeth. The experience was extraordinary and simply indescribable. 

Through the process which was virtually "powered by AI", my imagination has been expanded indefinitely, with invaluable new insights and wisdom acquired. I’m sure there’ll be more to come in my self-learning journey ahead.

To conclude, I just shared my recent learning about AI and technology in general, that has enabled me to take my hobby to the next level, with that my life has subsequently been enriched, and I’m sure that in my journey ahead, my horizon will be broadened continuously.

But I hope what I just shared is not too boring as I know not everyone’s fond of English Literature - at least I know Eugene, my Sandwich folk who’s sitting there,  is not -  because he switched from English Literature to AI just recently.๐Ÿ˜„

With that, my speech is done and thank you for your attention. 

TME!"

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