hoo-hoo, one more chapter

I finally put my ass together and got one more chapter done. Shame on me, because I had promised to get it done 35 days ago. Hope my advisor wouldn't be pissed.
On a side note, I am going to choreograph a modern dance piece for bent spoon company. I am going to collect vocabulary of movement in the coming week. The title of the dance is "bean on the floor", refering to a story in my blog "Niang-Niang".

About hugging

These days I am receiving a fair amount of huggings. And to be honest, I like it. Biological studies have shown the benefits of huggings and cuddlings, and I am hoping I am actually reducing my future risks of heart attack or stupid cancors.
My Chinese friends tend to think I am selling out for American culture, and I am sorry they think this way. Deep down, I am even regarding them as cowards, hiding behind a cultural shell that allows them to be safe but limited. To my defense, I do not prefer American cultural just because it is foreign. For example, I was in a renaissance faire yesterday, and I think that culture is so creepy and pervert: everyone dressed like a noble but talked like a whore. I could feel sexual tension in the faire. I believe some people must be turned on by the victorian era's style. Well, renaissance culture is as western as you can get, but I hate it.
The same for my home culture: hugging is so reserved for the most intimate relatonship, so people now tend to think hugging with a sexual undertone. This culture makes me very uncomfortable to be around with my American friends, as I observed their bodies are free to make any contact, while I am as rigid as a block of wood.

rolled out

I had a very weird dream last night. I cannot remember exact, but I know that I was in a movie or some dramatic event. A kid was sent to a orphanage, but he told the administrators that he took a wrong turn on the street and that's why he ended up in the orphanage. The administrators let him go. I am the one to take the kid with me. Along the way we saw a group of kneights chasing a girl who carries a dog. I told the kid, "something bad is going to happen."

Well, that's all i can remember. Then all of a sudden, I was waken by heavy door knocking. I thought to myself, "it might be my neighbor's birthday." My roommate got up, openned the door, and then let me get up, "you just got rolled out by Bent Spoon Company." I dressed myself, hugged three girls in the hallway, and was let to a nearby dorm where we had a small meeting and some nice coffee cake.

To certain extent, I have to say I am lucky. I had some serious doubts about my approach to my life here for some time. I felt I lost touch with Chinese student community, while at the same time I could be melt into the American community. I often had feelings that i am the one who is stuck in the middle, like an isolated island surrounded by several continents which i do not have bridge to access. But recently, things began to change. I made some effort to reconnect myself with other Chinese friends while still being myself. At the same time, my big gamble of trying to dive into american culture finally seems to pay off. by "pay off", I do not intend the dirty way, as if my master plan is always to access the culture regarded as "superior". Not at all (although readers, i am not mad if you think this way). Rather, I am finally enjoying myself in a crowd that i feel that I belong to. It is like the island finally drifting toward and reconnect to the land mass, and I am not alone any more.

So that's a lot of thought for a single roll-out. Thank you, Nicole, Marcela and Melanie. You guys rock. I am going to give my best in the company.

after a long hiatus

Haha, a new quarter finally starts, and I am as happy as hell. Allow me here to laugh out loud before I dig into petty details. Hahaha.

So what s happening? Well, a lot to catch up. First of all, remember in one of the older blogs in which I said I had kept some secrets for a long time? Well, it is finally the time. I took LSAT test three days ago. I did well. The whole plan is that while applying for a academic job in sociology, I will also set my eyes on top laws school. The possible outcomes of either choice make any speculation impossible, but my bottom line is: whichever path gives me a “top” choice, I will go for it. It has been awful to keep this secret away from even my closest friends for so long, and it really made me feel like a bad person and a liar. And now I am ready to put every bit of the secret behind and enjoy life and enjoy friendship guilt-free.

For those of you who are still interested in my “friend series”, sorry about the long hiatus. I have to admit that I ran out of materials for a while. Now the school starts again, and I am making new friends and reconnect with some old folks, the series is poised to continue. Actually, I have had some great ideas about the next several blogs. Please stay tuned. But for the next couple of weeks, I will need to finish another chapter of my dissertation in order to do well on the job market, regardless whether I am going to take it.

Start a Spanish class. Me lloma Songhua. Y tu? Did I just get you off guard? Anyway, sometimes I do not understand myself on this: Why I am okey with spending time in learning new skills, but have no desire to get to know the real world at all? Upon knowing my law school plan, one friend asked, “oh, my, how long you plan to stay in school?” Well, it might just be my inertia. Since learning things from books gave me so much advantages throughout my school career, I am now locked in this learning mode. The illusion is that learning from books will hone my skills of learning from real world in the future. True or false I do not know, and only thing I know is to get my finger crossed.

I get much done recently. Amazingly I am sleeping 6-7 hours a day, and I am just doing fine without dozing off in classes. I guess that’s an indication of my getting of the “depression” list. Last year I think I need 8 hours of sleep but still feel tired. Some days I am still feeling not super good, but I guess it is just like most other people. That girl and I sorta re-establish our friendship. We had some good time chatting, and I do not really care about the incidents at all, and I hope she forgot about it too. But on a side note, if I am not attractive to her (who seems to share so much with me), what kind of hope I have to attract any girls? For now, I accept this as a settled fact but than trying hard to disprove it, but it makes myself sad no less. Really, it only needs one girl to change my over-sweeping statement, and I hope it is going to happen soon.

I am a person with prejudice. For example, I think a lot of people around are stupid or lazy. However, is it okey to be fake and not hurtful? Or it is better to tell the truth, be sharp but offend people? Or I really need to change myself into a less prejudicing version? If possible, I want to pick the last path, but it is so impossible, so usually I will pick the second when I began to get comfortable around people. I will tell person A, “Hey, I think person B is stupid.” And then person A will try to educate me, saying it is an awful thing to say. So I have two choices again. One, next time be fake. Or two, stopping talking this way to A (maybe say “f*** you” along the way) while maintaining my sharp criticism against everyone else. The second path makes me a lesser person, but really, that is me.