Continue on friend Mayne

I finally went to meet again with my friend Mayne. It was a charity event, so I brought some binders and an internet router for "Homeless Network". Mayne and other organized the event, so she celebrated her 50th birthday while doing something good for the society.

She looked alright. Her friend Susan said she was crying the whole day, barely wiped her tears for the event. I did not ask why? Maybe too much stress for organizing the event? Worrying about too few people would eventually show up? Thinking about she is 50 and still single? I do not know. Sometimes I have to admit that either I am crazy or the rest of the world. What is on earth that I am thinking about those things? Am I supposed to live my own life? Anyway, I did not feel fit in for the event. They were mostly middle-aged women. I could spot that there were some homosexuals, which sorta confirm my suspision all along.

Anyway, what's the deal with the event anyway? In my judgmental mind, Mayne was a failure. No traditional family and no conventional career. However, she was happy during the event, even though the event did not really make a difference for the society. People were still homeless even with those binders and other stuff, hello. However, I hope that she would never know about this. Rather, she could boast about her wonderful 50th birthday when she is 70 years old. Surrounded by all the illusions, she would still be a happy person, crying sometime, but happy eventually.

She said she would call me again, since we did not spend too much time chatting that night. She was a busy person that night, you bet. But I do not think she will. That's really ok with me though. Sometimes people just get across each other in the intersection, stopping and chatting just because the traffic light happened to be red. Then people moved on. Hopefully, I had learned something from diverse life of people. No master design, maybe failuer in judgmental mind, but so what? I only hope I would be that cool in my real life as what I tried to convey in this blog.

Some wrap up for today. I fixed two bikes today. I think I enjoyed these manual laborings. However, my rationality told me I should read or write so that I would seem more intellegent and get better job and higher pays. I wonder whether being a failure could eventually make me happy, for example, fixing bike the whole day for a living.

I also finished a book called "Massachusetts, California, Timbuktu", by Stephanie Rosenfeld, today. I got this book in Mars during a tutoring session for Upward Bound. I was bored and accidentally picked up the book from the bookshelf. And I just loved it. For some reason, this book just provoked so many thoughts, about my mom and myself. The ending was a little disappointing, because nothing seemed to be resolved. However, when I really think about it, it is so true. I thought I was moving forward, but actually I was just stepping on the same spot.

Talking to people calmed me down. Really, my internal thoughts sometimes could overwhelm me, and talking to people or doing sports give me a break from that. So that's it.

My Grandpa: Yiayia

I am going to finish off my family series by blogging about my grandpa. Although there is another candidate, my sister, to blog about, I find I have nothing to say about her. She is a good person, but beyond that, I just do not know her at all. I do not want to do injustice to who she is, so I just skip her altogether.

Just like my Grandma, whom I call "Niangniang", my grandpa is also not my real grandpa. To be precise, he is my real grandma's brother-in-law. I call him "Yiayia". If I have to summarize with one long phrase, I will say "Yiayia" is a person I used to hate when he was alive and now began to understand the appreciate, although a little bit too late.

Why I hated Yiayia is a little unclear now. When time passes by, people tend to selectively remember all the good memories while tossing away the bad ones. This presents a delimma to me. Shall I "objectively" reconstruct my memories? If yes, how much is doing just to the reality? Well, I have to give up on pursuing a pure objectivity in order to write the following blog. It is up to my readers to selectively believe or discount my memories.

Yiayia was an able person. Before the Communist Party took the power, he owned several texitle factories and had a couple of real estate properties. He should be labelled as "capitalist" after 1949, but somehow he "voluntarily" surrender his properties to the government and became a small official of "United Front". I guess he must be smart, otherwise how did he know to swing with political wings and emerge intact. Of course, Yiayia had some hard time during the Cultural Revolution, a fate you would not be able to escape if you were a capitalist in some part of your life. But he was all right in the end and retired honorably in the 1980s.

Yiayia was tall and handsome. He dressed in suit, though cheap, most of the time when he was healthy. I believe he knew that he was good-looking and very confident about it. Even when he was old, he still had black hairs well combed, a rarity in China. This must have facilitate him in business earlier, but it also helped him with a personable style in social interactions. People liked him, probably a lot. When I was a little kid, I liked him too. He would walk me in the street, go to parade, have a sun-bath in the colding morning, watch a movie, buy comic books. At a time when my parents were either too poor or too stingy to spend much on children, Yiayia was my refuge. When I was too little to understand how hard the money was earned in my town, Yiayia protected me from learning the hard reality too early. He had the magic of fulfilling all my requests, although I believed my requests were probably modest. By the way, one historical moment was that Yiayia had the first TV in the neighborhood. It was a 9-inch black-and-white. I remember the first night, we took the tv in the frontyard and it was packed like a small movie theatre. Yiayia got an amplifier for the TV, which made the screen look bigger but distort the picture.

I have blogged about my parents. No bad feelings, but my parents were timid and conservative. In comparison, Yiayia was everything my parents weren't. Yiayia was adventurous and did not fear about anything. I did not learn much from him, sadly, but his presence made a HUGE different in my life, a conclusion becoming clearer and clearer as I grow up. He isolated me from all the stresses typical in Chinese households. (Look at my sister, who lived with my parents. She was also timid and conservative, afraid of negative comments and always complaining. For her, dreams were a luxury that never comes true. For me, I am still dreaming even now.) Yiayia must loved me. He and Niangniang never had their own children. This probably made me receive a disproporationately large share from motherly and fatherly treatment from them.

Then I began to grow up. Everything changed. I became very critical of everything. I viewed Yiayia as an oppressive figure in the household. He always bossed Niangniang around. Niangniang was to go shopping, cook, clean and decorate the house, and he just sat there reading newspapers and watching TVs. Niangniang believed that's her fate of the marriage, and I tried to "educate" her to believe otherwise. In retrospect, Yiayia probably lifted Niangniang out of a hard life and offered her a life of middle class for the rest of her life. It might be justified to say that Niangniang was graceful and wanted to return the favor. People were limited by their times, as now i know. When when I just began to rebel, I hate that so much that I began to hate Yiayia. I thought he was just lazy and fool Niangniang into a subordinate position. An selfish reason also emerged. I wanted Niangniang's attention, but Yiayia was my competitor. I wanted to watch TV, but Yiayia often wanted to watch another channel.... Ok, that's all the reasons I have about why I hated him. I admit that they were so insignificant, but I surely did not give them a thought. As I would say, I was also trapped by my times.

The situation deteriorated. After I went to middle schools, I became more firm about my world view and tried to debate with Yiayia, unsuccessfully of course. Then I stopped talking to him altogether. I feel I want to cry now. If you want me to name one of the biggest regrets in my whole life, it is not about my unfruitful love episodes or waving decisions about my futures, it is this. If my life could be repeated again and that I am allow to change one thing, that is it. I should've talked to Yiayia. I am so sorry, Yiayia.

Yiayia passed away in 1998. It was a winter morning, when I was at home during my sophomore winter break. He was sick for a while and had several surgeries. While I was doing something, Niangniang shouted, "Songhua, your Yiayia passed away." I did not feel anything that time. I just followed Niangniang's instruction to approach his bed, held him up and change this funeral clothes. He was a stiff as a piece of wood. I hadn't look at him closely for a while, but now I noticed that he was so skinny. His face contained little muscle or fat. I could see the structure of bones underneath the skin. All the ailments took his livelihood away for a while, and now he finally was gone. I did not cry then, and did not cry for several days. I guess people must've thought I was weird. I thought so too. The funeral came. I dressed up in the line, looked down to his dead body. Memories began to come back and I realized that's the last time I saw him, dead or alive. I started to cry so hard, as if I had never cried for a person dear to me before.

As like my dad, I believe Yiayia was also trapped in a wrong era or place. Without the context, you can easily believe he was a middle-class person in the US. He was cool, at least when he was young. He liked to socialize and nice to neighbors. He grew a large variety of flowers and his knowledge about them were not common for an urban resident. During the spring festival, he liked to try different types of fireworks, even the most dangerous ones.

I am writing this blog on a mission: to finish the family series and to understand myself better by digging on the family history. The finish on Yiayia sounds perfect, because it persents many ironies to me. He was the role model that I should've grow up to be, but I never managed to learn much from him. He was the one I hated and loved in an alternate fashion, the reason of which was still elusive to comprehend. When he was alive, I was at a battle with him; and when he was gone, I realized that I was the biggest loser in the battle.

My life is full of irony; compared to the ironies with Yiayia, however, everything else is insignificant. If I really learn something from the relationship with Yiayia, it is this. Taking care of the people who care about me. Human being is lonely in the root, and that's why friendship or love is overvalued, for a good reason. I used to take the caring for granted, as if I deserved all the attention simply because I am smart or I achieve things. That's all bullshits. Being lonely for quite a while, I realize that, only too late. Just think about the time when I stopped to talk to Yiayia. How did he feel? Did he feel betrayed, disappointed, or depressed?

This is the first blog ever that makes me cry when I am writing it. I know, I know. It did not help to change what I did and how hurtful it was to him. When I am writing it, the firework came. it was the eve of Independence day. I watched the firework, thinking it might be your shining smiles up there. it is as colorful as your life, as briliant as your mind, quickly disappearing in the sky, as if reminding me that you were gone, probably too quick for me to appreciate your existence. Well, that's life. Blogging will not send a message to an Internet God who deliver news to all souls, and my regret is just like a sigh in a sea of shoutings, soon to be forget without a trace. But does it make a difference to me? Yes. I never realize that I am so regretable about not talking to you until I wrote it down here. I hope you had forgiven me before or would forgive me now. But it does not matter any more. It follows with the biggest irony of tonight: My regret does not change a damn thing for him, but it did make me feel better, as if I was sorting through the jungle of my life. Is it selfish after all? That's a million-dollar questions without an answer. Maybe it is, but Yiayia, I hope you will forgive me again on this. Inreturn, I want to be a person like you: adventurous, generous and unfearful. That way, your gifts would live on, and I would be a better person too. A better person, indeed. This is probably what you saw in me when I was little anyway. After some unnecessary detour, I hope I am finally back on track.

a short notice

I have been weirded out by some recent events, so I just want to set the record straight. Remember in one of the blogs I said that I had my love interest? Well, it is no longer the case, a feeling that probably emerged since June 8th, and comes to full formation in my mind in the past several days. Just in case that I have not make it clear in my behaviors. I tried to tell it today, but never found a right moment.
To explain it might take some pages, so I opt not to write them here. However, one thing is sure: Expectation for a return of love affection is gone for good, but nothing else is changed. I like the way it is right now. Meeting new people, indeed.

Father's Day

My Dad is a difficult person to blog about, because he always has a mask so thick that I do not know how he feels most of the time. His name is Decheng by the way. If I have to use one phrase to summarize him, it would be “wasted genius”. If I can be regarded as smart, my dad’s gene must contribute 90% (sorry, mom, but it is the truth). However, my dad was born in a very different era, when jobs were assigned, when marriage was not based on love but on economic calculation, when family responsibility overtook personal freedom. In that time, genius was easily wasted. The reason? Well, it is hard to say, but my theory is that when you are smart intellectually, you are retarded socially. When a society focused on family/community rather than individual development, smart people are screwed. My dad numbed his feeling as a self protection, so that he would escape the boring secular life and breathe a fresh air in intelligence on his own. I am lucky that I am out of there.

So from early on, my dad became my role model with a strange twist: I want to be as smart as my dad as well as anything that he is not. My dad used to give me question set beyond my grade, and I took on it without a sweat. But after a while, I began to question, “what’s the point?” If everything would lead to a life just like my dad’s, I would go crazy. So even I was so good at math, physics and chemistry, I hated the prospect of a life that just repeats my dad’s. That’s part of the reason why I tried to switch to sociology. I did not know what sociology was that time, but it was a rational choice for me that time. I thought taking a risk was at least better than to have my life following a boring blueprint. I am still not sure whether my choice is a good one, until today. Sometimes I miss the time when my dad asked to solve a complicated math problem. It was my golden age, when intellectual pursue does not attach to material gain, and I had fun just out of solving the question, rather than expecting the tangible benefit that might come along. And I do not know what my dad would think of my choice: a betrayal of family tradition or a fulfillment of a path that he himself never got a chance to follow?

Anyway, I took joy of beating my dad in any possible way. He is so good at chess that I never had a chance to beat him, so I gave up trying. He taught me to play “go”, which I later got so good at that I could beat him easily. Then I gave up “go”. I guess beating my dad is one of the main goals why I perfected my “go” skills in the first place. For math (my dad was a math teacher), I began to feel bored only after I felt I could solve the questions that my dad could not. Only after beating my dad I would question, “What’s the point? What else is possible?” That’s when I tried to pursue a life beyond my dad’s shadow. However, I am still somehow in his shadow. He goes to library a lot, just to read random books and magazines. I am a same nerd. I do not know why I go to library so often, but when I have nothing to do in the end of the day, library is the default. I just do not know why, and I want to contribute that to my dad.

My dad never felt comfortable in social interactions. He is book-smart without any street wisdom. He does not understand that people should act differently in different social situations. He would approach an informal conversation in an extended family gathering the same way that he would engage to an academic conference. For that, he would be laughed at. The laughing is never in a bad way, but it makes me feel uneasy. It taught me two important lessons. One, I would try my best to be socially effective. Two, I would respect people who are just different from the mainstream society. Behind an awkward conversation is usually an amazing personality. I hope that I have taken that to heart.

Some snapshot of my moments with my dad. The first thing emerges is that time when my dad taught me to ride a bike. We were in the big block of grass, and my dad would tell me that he was holding the back seat to stabilize the bike. But sometime he would just let it go without my noticing. But when I noticed, I would be scared to fall. After a while, I got much better. But for some weird reason, I always fell after one circle on the grass. I guess we shared some laugh together that time. He called me as too “Jiao Yao”, a reason why I fell after one good circle, and I was amused by the different ways that I can fell and by his strange explanation.

Moments like this were scarce though. Most of my interaction with my dad happened in the small apartment, where everyone was uptight. The small space led to more friction than physical intimacy. Both my dad and I had a tendency to go out for a brief escape. He goes to library. And I went to Beijing and then the US. I wonder whether he had a legitimate reason to blame me to escaping from a dysfunctional household, pursuing a bright future while leaving behind a mess which ironically nurtured me before.

Well, this blog is supposed to be about my dad, but I ended up talking about me. As usual, you would say. But this one really comes with a reason. Although from the beginning I want to be unlike my dad, the premise is that I am must alike him. I am so scared of being like him in the future so I escape from everything he is, intellectually and physically. In some way, my dad and I embody two different possibilities of the same story. We probably had the same genetic endowment, but I was born in a very different time with new opportunities, and I could look up to my dad to take whatever I like and avoid the pitfalls that he experienced. I hope he is proud of me now.

My dad is getting old. His white hair is dominating his head now. He is not as quick as before. He began to have bad memories. He wants to learn English and computers, but he is no longer a quick learner as he wants to believe. He is also a little overwhelmed by all the changes after reforms, probably a little easy about how young people could disregard families and communities to pursue personal development. Maybe I can eventually beat him in chess some day. Happy father’s day, dad. Thanks for your genetic contribution, and please be proud how far I can go with it.

Healthy

I checked my blood pressure and Cholesterol today, just before my cardinal care expires for the summer. Before I went, I was a little wary about how much my health might have worsen since I ate so much fast food. But it turns out my result is great. Blood pressure is still a little bit high, but doctor said nothing to worry about. I guess exercise does pay off.
I went to a master swimming class today. It is so much fun. I might just pay a monthly due to join the club and then I will have more flexible time swimming. I especially like mornign time now.

One year anniversary

I have been blogging for exactly one year today. Life is a circle. I started the blog when I moved out of the co-op last year. Now I am out again, feeling unsettled again. The new co-op I am living this summer is much different from the previous one, and I again feel uncomfortable since I have to make new friends and get used to the unusual dirtiness all over again.

Identity

First, I want to post something written on May 28th.

"This blog is created on May 28th, but I intend to publish it after June 8th.

Just finished a nice walk and conversation with D. I do not know what get into me, but I feel sad now. I might just get an unofficial rejection. I guess that's the reason. She also asked me why I hadn't initiated phone calls recently, and I gave her a selfless reason like that, "I did not call you because I did not interrupt from your work."

But now I find I actually have a more selfish reason. I began to get a feeling that things wouldn't work out between us in the end. If I do not initiate phone calls, I could rationalize the eventual rejection by thinking, "hey, I've never tried hard in the first place." I do not know whether it is gonna make me feel hurt less by intentionally cheating myself. But if I really think about it, that's my only chance to keep my own well-being intact. So as selfish as it could be, I tolerate my selfish behavior."

So here I go again. These days I couldn't be happier, I have to admit. But I also know there is something still bothering me. I do not think May 28th's blog really gets to the core, so I here will try again. Two issues, in general:

1. D. would sometimes say, "why are you so nice?" The correct answer probably is "I cannot help." Despite my effort of presenting the real me, I have to say that D. still brings about the best out of me, a rather rationally selfish person. I do not the reason though. Maybe I do not want to disappoint her expectations...... But you know what? Being able to be a good person makes me feel good, but I just do not know how much of it is my nature, and how much of it is my intentional effort.

2. Identity. I guess now I really do not care how to categorize my relationship with D. Whatwever it is, I have a good time with her (Today, we just played some sort of kid toy to build an airplane and a car before she took off. I like to be physically close to her and talking about nothing serious). However, it weirds me out when I was in her dorm earlier today. When I saw her dorm mates, I just did not know how to act any more. Who am I in relationship to her? I guess if I can put it in a category, it would be easier to act it out. But I just cannot. I used to act as "friend", but today I saw the guy across the hall for the fourth time in a month, the guy who almost dialed 911 when he saw me the first time wandering in the hallway. The guy looked at me, not saying anything, but I could tell his unwelcoming attitude.
All of a sudden, I felt much out of place. I told myself, I do not belong to here, and I know no other friends here, and I want to get out of here as soon as possible. All of a sudden, I questioned why I want to date an undergrad to begin with. It is quite stupid if I cannot handle these trivial but awkward social interaction.

So these are the things bothering me right now. I thought it diffucult to sort them out, but after reading the draft, I know I know exactly what these issues are.

Fridge Clean-up Dude-elected

Let me get back to the blog. I haven't seriously blogged for a while. I expected to continue on my friend Mayre, but she never called me back. So the sequel would be a little delayed. But I have something else to say.
First, I am re-elected as Fridge Clean-up Dude for soc department. People do not like even to run for it, but I do. It only takes an hour a quarter to clean the fridge, but you get name recognition. The best part: you can legitimately send an email to the whole soc list and bug everyone to take care of their food in the fridge. I just love it. Besides, as you will see in the following, I am having fun along the way. The whole email is drafted during my run today. I guess I am a funny man after all.

"Hi:

So, the main idea is: please take care of your food before you leave for summer vacation. Because, you know what, I am again your fridge clean-up dude! It's time for summer cleaning.

If you want to kill some time other than taking care of your food, please read on my acceptance speech.

**********************************

After getting an imaginary concession phone call from my solo competitor, I accept to be your fridge clean-up dude-elect. I want to say to you,"The voice of sociology is heard today. Now I have earned the capital, and it is my style to spend it right away.

It was a rough year. After the hunt for weapon of mass decomposition went nowhere, several food-stealing scandels rocked my administration, and several of my old friends pointed out that I went to bars drinking instead of showing up for my TA service, I am elected again. I cannot think of any person in recent history who pulled out such a giant victory.

Some of you already asked me about my secrets for success. Well, let me answer it here once and for all. As my strategy guru Victor Thompson put it, it is all about turning out the "sunless belt" votes (that is, the basement block). No clean-up dudes in my memory won election without carrying the sunless belt. Deep down, it is all about value. Whether you value a windowless office, or prefer an office with a window, a view, or even a balcony (I mean you, the elitists up there!)

I am planning a summer offensive right now. With no pressure for re-election next year, I am going to do something radical. I know some of you are planning to read your dissertation non-stop in the kitchen to filibuster my action. Well, you have had your days before. This time, I
won't allow that. My nuclear option right now is to get rid of it altogether.

So label your food or throw it away. I am planning to inch in block by block in the fridge, even in lack of heavy armor on my face to fend off food odor. And by the way, you do not want your food to show up on the cover of an obscure English magazine, do you?

God bless.

Songhua"

unexpected email

I got an unexpected email yesterday. I was totally taken off-guard. Damn, now I realize that I do not really understand human beings, including myself, at all. I was so stressed. This blog is not supposed to make sense, because I am not willing to put anything concrete here.
But tonight, we are going to Hope's house in SF!

My friend: Mayre

Hey, now I am here to blog a new friend. Actually, it is a very old friend. Let me call her Mayre, which is not so different from her real name. I met Mayre five years ago when I just arrived here. She was a volenteer for International student center. By chance, we became English partners.

She is a woman in 40s or 50s. I never asked for her real age though. Never married. Some traits of her made me think she might be homosextual, but again, I do not have any substantial evidence to back it up. She was a strong woman, no doubt about it. She told me that she took a bus to travel around the country with little money in her pocket after high school. She did not seem to be employed for a long time. She worked by herself as a professional organizer (whatever it means). Ironically, her room was always in a mess. And smelt bad, probably from burning too many candles. She had a big car, so I guess that she was quite independent (at least she can move herself). Last time she moved, she actually asked for my help.

Of course, she gave me more help than I did to her. We met maybe once a week during my first year or so. She showed me around nearby towns. I sincerely appreciated it, as much as I appreciated all the English classes offered by EFS. When I needed a big car to move, her car was always available.

Hey, you might ask, why I think of blogging her now? Here is the reason. We have lost contact for three years. The other day I was randomly googling a lot of people, and got some hit with her name. It turned out she had a presentation in a nearby town today. So after dropping a friend off the airport, I showed up before her presentation. She did not age too much, probably because she was old when i first met her. She is still in her usual colorful clothes. I went forward and asked her whether she still remembered me. It only took her a second. She first looked puzzled, then shouted, "Oh, Cheeky Monkey! How can I forget?" You know, one day four years ago, when we were walking aroung Los Altos downtown, we passed a shop with a cheeky monkey logo on the window. So I asked what it was all about, and I guessed she had a hard time explaining to me. I was surprised that she remembered this one. But again, hey, I remember it too. She then introduced me to one of her friends. I can tell that she had mentioned me to the friend before. I had to leave early, so I gave her my name card, and got one from her. She name card still looked cheap, exactly like the one she gave me before, except with a new cellphone number. I promised to take her out for dinner some time and catch up with life. This blog about Mayre will be continued after our meeting.

I do not often use negative words describing my friends in my blogs. But you may have noticed that I have used words like "weird", "cheap". I want to make a point here. She is the last one I will make friends with if I had alternative options when I just arrived. My selection of friends are very judgmental, trying to achieve maximal returns with minimal investment of time. However, I am happy to know Mayre, maybe just because she had helped me out before, or maybe she gave me an example of what it is like to be lowly-educated, to be single in the 50s, to have no mainstream career whatsoever, to be poor. To be honest, I care about her and hope she does well. I do not think there is much I can do to return the help she gave me, but my showing up in her presentation is one other thing she will remember for a long time besides "cheeky monkey". (To be continued after I had dinner with Mayre).

Another short one

I want to dedicate this blog to a great history professor: David Kennedy. I sit through his class on and off this quarter: American History in 20th Century. Today is his last lecture. I noticed there were a lot of old people in the back of the classroom. They later turned out to be professors from history department. In the end of the lecture, the chair of history department went forward and announced that we were David's last group of students because he is retiring. I am so honored.
For me, his lectures are the best lectures Stanford has ever offered me. He embodied my ideal of an intellectual: smart, reserved, confident, and with excellent abilities of communicating ideas with lay people. For a while, I thought he might descent from the famous Kennedy family. After a couple of googling, that might not be true. But whatever, thanks for a great class, David.

Damn. There is nothing I can do about it!

Ok, I did not expect that i will blog that soon, but I have to. Here is the reason.
Remember that girl that started all my troubles two quarters ago? I met her today in the library. I took a seat, and found some papers about China's politics sitting next to me. It turned out to be her seat an hour later. She was surprised too. Then She found an excuse to move her seat to somewhere else.
Damn, it really pissed me off. I put up my best smily face when I talked to her, and I do not think the previous episode still matter even slightly for me. But in her mind, I am still the old sketchy grad student. Most frustrating is that there is nothing I can do about it! I admit that I had my mistakes dealing with the whole thing before. That's the price I am paying for them right now. Sigh......

Blog

I have to admit that I haven't done much work since the defense. But, hey, maybe I deserve the break. I feel quite busy every day, but I also feel I am doing a lot of random things without a clear direction. If life is supposed to be built up towards a goal with every day as a building brick, I do not know what I am after.
Anyway, happy birthday to my friend who I know is reading my blog. Originally I thought of mailing a surprise gift (a gift not stolen from Universal Studio shop, if you know what I mean), but then I found I lost your address. An email of "happy birthday" struck me as too cheap. You know I am sincere in blogs.
I just attended a wedding this afternoon. I am so happy for the groom, a nice guy indeed. The best moment is when he hug his parents, who flew in from China two weeks ago. He cried, and I found my eyes were wet too. I was thinking, "What was the last time I hug my parents, or my grandma? Will I cry the next time I hug them?" They are getting old so fast, and I am living so far away. I do not really know how many hugs have left. I do not even know what's the next time I am going to visit them.
There is a lot of bullshits in church. First, the things pastor said are condescending (I do not even want to mention his sexist comments). Why everyone should live the life under god's instruction? That's the irony of America. The strange bedfellow of individualism and religiousness. The improbable combination of rebelling against authority and obeying an imaginary god. Second, I read half of the first page of bible today. It is well written and deserve to be on new york times best-seller list based on its literary quality. But, man, the content is such stupid nonsense!
But I have to say I like other aspects of church. The best part of church is singing with other people. The second best is its space and architecture. The third best? Well, hard to come up with another one. I guess church does not impress me too much after all.

pass my defense!

yeah, I've passed my defense.

Spring Migration!

All of a sudden, the performance is finished. My brain is blank right now, and I do not know what I am supposed to feel. I know so many amazing people through dancing, although none of them would make the list of my 26 blogged friends. I just know them too little. While I was stretching today, I asked Sophie, "Hey, Sophie, I have a question for you. Why are you so happy all the time?" It is my favorite question for now.
Excitement aside, I feel tired. I think three days of dancing really hit my limit. Now I only want to lying on the bed, letting every inch of my muscles and bones touch the surface of the mattress. My butt hurt too.
I decided to put a break on my blog. The blogs of May are all great, but they are very emotionally draining to write, especially the mother's day piece. I felt great that I finished it, but now I also know I need some time to put myself together in post-spring-migration life. Blogs wouldn't help in this. See ya!

Mother's day

Ok, I have to say I have hyped up this blog of my mom, and I am afraid that it wouldn't match the expectation any more. But I will try.

I just called home. My mom is out and my dad is in a spring trip with his colleagues. So I talked to the nanny for 1 minute and then hang up. Really, nothing to say to my mom anyway. I wouldn't even mention "Mother's Day" at all, because she just does not care.

Let's start to describe my mom. My mom is Meiying Bao (Oh, I just revealed the answer of my secret question for my banking account. If you dare, please steal my identity:-). She was a doctor in a state-owned factory before a stroke forced her into retirement. Although I am never close to my parents, I have to admit that my mom is a nice and warm person, at least before the stroke. I was very weak when I was a kid, so my mom always brought medicine from the factory for me, free of charge. One medicine made my teeth yellow. I often played with the medicine and her equipment when I got a chance. But to be honest, since I grew up with my grandma, I never got too much chance with my parents, so my memory about them was very very vague.

I think my parents were very traditional. They probably followed the crowd all the time and expected their children to do the same. They were not socially capable. When all relatives got together during festivals, I felt they were taken advantage of in various occations. My relatives were not evil, but they would laugh at my dad's booksmart and my mom's low capability of getting things done. My parents seemed getting used to it, and I do not think it really hurt them. But it is the reason why I never enjoyed the get-together of my big family. I do not know when it all started, but from very early on, I told myself, when I grow up, I want to stand up for my parents, so nobody would laugh at them for them minor flaws. Well, I guess it sows the seed for all my ambitions of upward mobility.

One story: It happened when I was about junior high school student, and my sister was high school student. We were horsing about the apartment, and we found some thick "balloons". We put a lot of water in them. They looked like rubber balls that were able to change shape freely. We threw them around, and I forgot whether we broke one or two. But we had a lot of fun playing with them, thinking they were the best balloon ever. When my parents came back, they were sorta mad, but did not say anything more. Several points: 1) these balloons were actually condoms. I realized that when I relived those old memories a couple of years ago. 2) My sister was a high school student, but she did not know that. I did not know either. You can see the sex education in my family, or in most Chinese families, sucks. 3) My parents were having sex back then. I do not think they are any more. They were in a stage of de facto seperation for quite some time, probably since my mom's unexpected stroke back in 1995. Somehow, I always had fear that they would get divorce, but amazingly they got through for so many years. I wonder whether they really thought of this option before. Maybe not, maybe yes. But on the other hand, maybe there was something I was never able to understand. For example, my mom liked to complain and was stingy, and my dad was impatient and tried to escape from the real world. Were these traits just perfect for each other? I do not know. Here is the best explanation I can come up with: they tolerate this loveless marriage, because love is never in their expectation when they got married. Years of frictions just made them to take for granted that it is the life all about, and they convinced themselves that they would have to make it through because there is no alternatives.

I would stop psycho-analyse my parents here. The least I can say is that I do not really understand them. Maybe I've never tried. But do I love them? That is a tough tough question. Obviously, I do not want to stay with them for more than 1 month. That's for sure. But do I love them? I do not know how to answer them. Let me start with a story. Back in 1995. One day, I suddenly got to know that my mom had a stroke when she was writing a prescription for a worker in the factory. She was hauled to the emergency room. I biked like crazy to home, only seeing my dad biking like crazy to the hospital, carrying all the daily necessities for my mom. I kept biking. Something choatic ran through my mind, but I cannot remember what any more. Some sort of music, I think. I then biked to the hospital, seeing my mom lying on the bed lifeless. I cried. I was so used to see my mom walking like a bull, carrying big shopping bags from the farmer market to home. Now she was just helplessly lying in the bed, calm like a baby. My dad talked to me, and I cried more, but tried to stop, tried to show my dad that I was a big boy and could handle anything. My tear just kept coming out. For the first couple of days, my mom couldn't even recognize the most familiar faces. I asked one of my good friends to read some of my favorite stories (Maybe it is only one story) and I recorded them. I believed that these stories would stimulate her brain so her intellegence would get back to normal. Of course, nobody really appreciated my effort (except my friend who recorded it). Sadly, my mom never got back to normal. I could feel that she was quite a different person completely. To say the least, her self-esteem was evaperated. She used to be so proud of being independent; but now she had to rely on all the medicine to bring down the blood pressure and other people to take care of her. I was so sorry for her.

I do not know whether the above story tells anything to answer the question of "whether I love my mom". But on the flip side, who cares about these big questions? Details of the life are much more subtle and interesting than any "yes"/"no". So please allow me to be vague on this question, even on the Mother's Day. Sorry, mom, I cannot put up with an half-assed "I love you" even on a Mother's Day. But here is some thing I can say: I remember so many things about you. I remember your awkwardness towards me: you wanted to be close to me, but since I grew up with my grandparents, you never succeeded. I remember your harsh criticism towards my sister. I remember you picked on my dad over small errors. I remember your bad cooking skills, but you tried. I remember your able body before the stroke. I remember your self-depreciation after the stroke, a strategy to make your self-esteem hurt less. I remember you still worked after retirement with your sick body, earning 6 dollars for half a day, touring different middle schools to carry out medical examinations. I remember sometimes I worried about your safety, because I know sometimes you just walked out of the apartment unannounced, making other people worrying about you. Maybe you tried to reclaim your independence, anouncing to the world that you still had an able body. You just never gave up, a real fighter. If I inherited any thing from you, I think that's it.

I guess I lost myself in all these details, and no conclusions can be drawn today. My mom is just a good person with numerous flaws, and I am not sure how I really feel about her, in the past, in the present or in the futre. But if I keep exploring the life as it comes, I will figure it out eventually. In the meanwhile, Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I know you do not care, but I just want to say that, and there is nothing you can do about it, just like the tape of stories I gave you ten years ago.

O.K. and a friend (Limela)

O.K.....

Let me blog another friend today. First, I feel like blogging tonight. Second, I got an email from her this morning. Third, I wrote back to her tonight, feeling that is a perfect time to blog about her.

For anyone who follows my personal narratives, you have already encountered Limela in Jan 25th blog. But here is more history. She is a high school classmate of mine. We did not talk much during high school at all. As you all know by know, I was quite nerdy back then, trying hard to get ahead in exams while rarely looked at girls with straight eyes. She was quiet, smart and had an appealing personality, seemingly well-liked by those boys who were good at sports but not academics, but no scandelous rumors as far as I know.

We did not become friends until our senior year in college, when she came to Beijing for a language school. Since she knew only few people in Beijing, the nerd-back-in-school became her helper in finding a cheap apartment. My serior year was sorta crazy, since I knew I would go to the USA and tried to find multiple jobs to pay my way across the Pacific Ocean. I took two jobs and one time I went sleepless for 48 hours because the day shift and night shift went together. It was really nice to have a person from home to talk to, recounting whereabout of our old friends. That time I was also acting in a play, and she came to see my rehearsal. After the real performance, we sat on grass in the university. She brought a bottle of wine for celebration. I guess we got quite close during my last summer in China. One day before I departed for the US, we celebrated her birthday. Sorry, I even forgot whether I gave her a gift or if yes, what gift. But I remember she gave me a gift: a bottle of soil. She said it is to let me remember my root is in China no matter where I go. The next day, I left.

Sometimes I have to think about a lot of "what if"s. What if she came to Beijing in her Junior year? what if I did not have to be admitted into a US university? Is it possible to have a romantic relationship with her? Of course, history has no alternative. I moved on to pursue my study in US, without being bothered by any hypothetical world (I guess that's why I had the feeling as recorded on Jan 25th. Some buried memory probably found its way to sneak by). However, we still communicated with emails, probably 3-4 emails a year. I know she first got a job in our homtown, then quit the job and went to France to study for one year, and now she is back and find a new job in our hometown. I am quite impressed by her decision of going to France, because most people would never have made this kind of decision. Anyway, in the last email I got from her yesterday, she seems happy with her current job and her friends. I am happy for her too.

I know blogger.com is blocked in China. That's why I blogged about her on Jan 25th. I have numerous crushes on girls since my puberty, but I rarely proceed to puruse, because I know sometimes it is just impossible, sometimes just for fear of rejection. Well, tonight, I emailed her a zip file of my this year's blog, asking her to read it matter-of-factly if she want to. Two major reasons stands out: 1. I have my love interest now, and she knows that. So my blog wouldn't be misunderstood, I believe. 2. My friend's comment one day really hit me. I think she is right all along. Of course, I gave a half-assed "thank-you" a couple of blogs before. Now my action is a real "thank-you" to her. Oh, maybe there is a third reason. 3. My recent experiences really taught me the value of being honest and being a straighter talker. I want her to be a remote friend back home, for as long as I can, and I guess I try to be honest to her, from now.

Ok, that's my blog today. I need to have a good sleep tonight, because tomorrow, it is my performance night. Next blog is about my mom on May 8th. Happy Mother's Day, mom. I know you are gonna say:"What is the heck with Mother's Day. Get real, son!" Ok, ok, but I am still going to blog you, and there is nothing you can do about it:-)

Dance and others

It has passed midnight already, but I am so happy today that I have to write this post.
I nailed a practice presentation of my dissertation proposal this afternoon. And then I went to a dance rehearsal. Since our piece is the last, we waited until the very end. Eight of us agreed on a joke to "Irisa". That is, in a section of "unison fall" (in which we supposed to run with a falling feeling), we really fell to the ground at the same time. We danced through the rest of piece all smiling, thinking we must have scared "Irisa", who is always asked us not to get injured before the performance. Well, while I am typing this blog, I am still laughing. This joke is THAT good.

Recently my favorite music is "My Immortal" by Evanescence. I put my ipod on "repeat one" and listen to the song everywhere, with the sound almost hitting the maximum. I love the background piano and the female voice, both of which are tragically beautiful.

I decided to give my life a summary today, so I counted the items in my "running box". Into the box I put a random item every time I ran the campus drive. Recently I got a bunch of sea shells from the beach. When the supply lasts, it will all be sea shells now to put in the box. There are 39 items, which means I have run about 156 miles in the past 5 month. It is 6 marathons. I felt I actually ran more than that, and sometimes I must forgot to keep track of it. However, 6 marathons are something I am really proud right now, although they took me 5 months. Thinking about how I started running, I feel how life can be turning around in any unexpected ways. Now I am all happy and feel connected to the people around me all the time. Somehow I feel that my running might be inspired by "Forrest Gump". Maybe it was not how I started, but my experience does fit into Gump's idea: life is a box of chocolate, and I never know what's gonna happen next.

Finished!

I thought I would write this blog on the night when I finished the draft of my paper, but it delayed it until now.

This past week is quite a roller-coaster. I was extremely stressed out until Friday, and then "Boo", I am a happy person again. Though still not a good dancer though. This rehearsal of the past several days felt wierd.

I was helping "Kiery" moved on Saturday. He tried to make the best out of the breakup, so he was joking that he would hook up a hub so Amsol, he and I could play "red alert" again. We had a good time playing the game last summer. (I am not a big game fan, but playing in Amsol's house and ganged up on Kiery was fun:-) Without a girlfriend, he would definitely commit more time in the future. I hope he wouldn't sink too low, but I worried he would.

Next week is a big week for me. First, I have a practice talk tomorrow in the workshop, and I haven't prepared for it yet! well, tomorrow morning should be enough. And then, all the dancing things come. I am hyped for it, believing I would do better than last year. Not that my technique improved. No, not at all, probably. But I definitely feel that my body is more in sync with my mind, which makes dancing a much better experience than before.

Have a good conversation with D. At one moment, she asked me why I haven't blogged her yet. Well, I do not know. Her reading this blog might be one reason. But also, I am not willing to analyze her in the way that I did to other people and then put them into a stereotypical description. Anyway, just a minute ago, I got her email saying that she also enjoyed it. Cool. Afterwards I called my parents and sister. All of them were at home, for the May 1st holiday. I can even heard my sister's baby crying. They handed over the phone receiver to each other, as if my voice is just a scarce commodity that they all want a fair share of it.

They told me a person from my high school died in Yale. He was a good student in high school and then was sent to Yale for computer science. He stressed himself out and died one night in sleep. Poor guy. When my parents' description indicated that they did not really understand why he died, but I believe I do. I see many Chinese students on the same track with less severity, some of whom were still in denial. Recently I am extremely worried about a friend who would probably dropped out of school.

Anyway, tonight's blog is very unorganized. I feel I have much to say, but does not seem to say anything well. But you get the picture.

Crunch time

I guess I hitting a point that I have to get through as a piece. My defense is near, and I still need one last revision on the paper. I plan to do it before Friday. This means the whole week will be pretty much dead. I am putting a halt on blog until I accomplish this. But I will survive in the end.

Yesterday I was so forgetable because of all the paper ideas. I forgot my keys, ipod, everything. Even today I thought I lost my watch until I found it safely in my bag. But I did manage to get some exercise, for the sake of my own sanity. I went to swimming yesterday. I hadn't done any serious swimming since last August, so I set out a goal of 2000 meters for myself. The most difficult is around 500-1000 meters, when I felt I ran out of gas. But I persisted, and eventually hit a "high" point that lasted throughout the whole distance. I really enjoyed the feeling of water whooshing by my body. It is as if I was a fish, and fish does not need to write dissertation.

So here you go. I know I am a fighter and survivor. Despite a dim week before Friday, I know the weekend will be much brighter. BYe for now....

Some thoughts and my friend: Kiery

I sort of hate yesterday's blog. It is as if by social norm I have to do something when I know people are paying attention......
A small detour though. Now I am going to blog on.
Jegal got my birthday gift from Amazon.com. It is easy on my part, but he seems to be very happy. Oh, well, put me on the same shoes, if my friends give me gifts, I will be happy no matter what. Think about it, even if people pretend to like me, I am at least the winner among the candidates whom they can pretend to like.
Yesterday we had a surprise birthday party for my friend "Dermon". I could not participate because I had the dance performance to watch. However, I did run to safeway and get a watermelon. I put candles on watermelon and the plan was to replace it over a conventional cake. People could sign their names on the watermelon skins. Again, this is a cheap idea. But again, if I were him, I would be touched, simply because people put some thoughts on it.
Last night I had a great conversation with D. I began to think of blogging about my dad and mom. I want to use their real names, so they will be extra besides the 26 "friend blogs". The funny thing is that I do not regards them as friends. So it fits. I will write these two blogs when I feel ready.
Now it is time to blog another friend, Kiery. Kiery is an activist, probably for anything with a liberal cause. For that, he is a great friend with "Amsol". When they talk, I feel left out, probably because I envy how they can share so many common thoughts. Sometimes their conversation also makes me feel I am a conservative wolf in a liberal sheep skin.
Oh, well, I guess Kiery never think of as a good friend, but why I am blogging him. Because he confided me that he broke up with him 4-year girlfriend. I asked him whether he is all right, and he told me, "it is tough, but I am all right". It is very hard for me to decode the message. But then I promised to help him to move out from the girl's place.
I met his girlfriend a couple of time. She is small, sweet and smart. An activist too. One-time president of university student body. Powerful powerful lady. I really see them as a fitting couple, as Kiery's great ambition and his girl's street smart compensate each other. I heard they were even planning to buy a house. Sorry to hear that, Kiery. Surprisingly, I was the third person in the department to know (one is his office mate, and the other is of course Amsol). Maybe it is just an accident, or that's the plan from god all along. Ok, no more atheist cynicism.
Kiery was in the same year with me. He likes to debate on big theoretical issues, which bore me easily. His dissertation would attempt to build a grand theory. That's for sure. Sometimes I think he is a little unrealistic in imaging the whole world as composed of intellectual exchanges. Well, 90% of the world is bullshit, and I do not feel Kiery is ready to take that. On the other hand, his ideal view about the world drives him into activism. I wonder whether he would be tired, when all the bullshits about dissertation, looking for a job, network with the academic community finally hits him.
Well, shamefully, that's all I know about him. Although we saw each other a lot in the department basement, I barely know him. I guess that's also part of the reasons why I promised to help him to move. It is a golden opportunity to know a person when they were wounded, because they would be more honest to themselves and other people with masks down. Do not take me wrong as if I will take advantage of the situation. I am thinking that he must be in much need of companies to help with moving-out process, which is a painful, symbolic but permenant "good-bye". In the meanwhile, we might become good friends.

Comments!

I just found out some comments from my friends on my blog today. I did not know when they went written, but thank you so much, and sorry for ingoring it for so long. I do not think I am going to respond to each of the comments, because it will be too sentimental. (By the way, I've also kept reading your blogs, although I never happen to input my comment on yours, friend). Besides, I am afraid that I will be too attached to my blog that one day it will take over my real life.
Replying to comments of my blog is hard. Shall I give half-ass "thank you"s? Shall I adopt all the advice? Shall I just justify everything I've done and then say that no changes are necessary? I sorta want to answer "yes" to every question, but they are all so cliche. So as a compromise here, I leave all these questions open.
If everyone has his/her own narratives in comfortably talking about things, blog is mine. Especially the "blogging about my friends" series, which seems to grow on its own now and I am happen to be the one to type them in. I am happy that they provide a window for my friends to know me. In fact, sometimes I am surprised by myself how I wrote about a person significant in my life. I am going to keep on that.
BUt tonight I have no plan to blog about friends. I want to talk about Emio Greco. I loved their performance tonight. I was sitting there overwhelmed by their movement. I forgot to analyze it as a dance piece. I was just observing a group of people moving gracefully. Even Merce Commingham company did not stunt me in that level.

A dream and Happy Birthday to my friend Jegal

I usually do not write about my dreams, not because I do not want, but because I usually forget them all, despite the facts I know I had a lot of dreams.
Last night is the same. A lot of dreams, and I can remember one very well. It was in an elevator of a very tall building. No walls around the elevator, so I could look down to see how high it went. I was with a group of people, but I forgot who they were. Anyway, the elevator brought us very high, and I began to realize the steel chain holding the elevator was cracking. I had to use my hands to hold it, while thinking, "oh, shit.".... Well, that's the dream.
Happy birthday to my friend Jegal today. Now it is perfect time to blog about you, Jegal, and sorry for this strange name, but "J" does not go along with anything.
I met Jegal while in college. He was sensitive and intelligent. Maybe we are friends just because they were similar to some extent. Our conversation sorta have a formula, starting from our college experience but soon it would upgrade into very abstract talks about life phylosophy. Well, I no longer like this kind of bullshiting conversation. However, looking back, it was nice to have someone to resonate my thoughts. Maybe he hated it that time already, but he was one of the few that tolerated it and kept me unnoticed. He came to the US last year, to study sociology in a small town of Indiana. His wife just got pragnent. I visited them during the spring break.
But besides that, I hardly can think of any reasons why we get that close as we did. Yes, I directed a short play casting him with a small role. Yes, he consulted me a lot about going abroad. Yes, he helped me to deal with my university while I was in the US. But all these are quite trivial, and I will say the friendship might just a good accident. By this, I am not diminishing our friendship. Not at all, I value that very much. Jegal is one of first few who knew my depressing quarter and sincerely invited me to his small town for a vacation to shaking off all the bad things happened to me. I confided him with things I usually kept from my other friends. The mystery of the forming of the friendship made me feel lucky.
I think Jagel might be one of the readers of the blog, but I am still going to write the following to keep my blog's honesty. He has an ideal image about me (Sometimes I feel that's the reason why he valued the friendship so much). He might think I am smart, cynical, ambitious, adventuous, and open-minded. I feel a lot of times he looked up to me. It put me in an awkward position because I was led to act in a way to confirm the expectation. Maybe he is right, but chances are he is wrong. So some day he might be disappointed by my imperfections, lots of it.
Well, that's a problem I had with a lot of my old friends. I liked to perform in a way to present the best of me in the past. Now I am a more honest person in showing who I am, but my old friends, you will know I am just one of the "little people", just like you. No aura, no capacity of teleporting, no solutions for every problem, having strange dreams sometimes, confused about life sometimes, afraid of being alone, and not able to achieve as high as I want. One day you all will know.......

Some thoughts and My Friend: Irisa

Hi, it is Friday, April 15, 2005. I am at the Starbucks, trying to get some work done. I need to present my dissertation proposal to the workshop next next Monday, by which date I also need to finish a paper, which will be presented on early May. You can say I am leading a busy life. But I want to procrastinate first, as a reward for my hard work earlier this week. So I am writing this post, later to be published in my dear blog.

I began to feel my knee pain after today’s dance class. Not real pain, but just began to feel I can no longer do some movement effortlessly. I know I am near the point that I have to begin to think of alternatives to dance performance in the near future. Of course, I will do it when I am still able to, with my high spirit as always.

I saw Brey (still remember him, everyone?) today outside of education school library. He was eating a sandwich during his work break. He looked very tired, and later I found his girlfriend had broken up with him. I insisted to hang out with him sometime this weekend. He was so depressed and so afraid of being alone that he took a ride with his friend to LA last night and then flew back this morning. He also told me that he tried to make an appointment with the medical clinic. The clinic told him to call back next week. Well, I have to say that the relationship is unrealistic to begin with. Maybe I am too realistic and un-matching to his passionate pursue, but in his case, it is as if he wants to play tennis by himself but still wants to make it a good game. How possible? For me, I want to be with someone to whom I feel comfortable and from whom I feel I am needed. If I feel that I am crushed by her beauty, cannot live when she is away and cannot breathe when she is present, that is a luxury I will surely treasure, but I can definitely live without. So Brey, I guess I will try to check upon you this weekend to make sure you won’t be left by yourself for so long to play out those crazy “what if” scenarios. Maybe you are stronger that I think, but I bet you not.

I went to art gallery today. One of my housemate has an exhibition, so I have to go see. She is one of the cool bunch, but I seem to have troubles even talking to her, because, of course, I am uncool. What’s why I am curious about her art. Well, how should I say? Her art of painting was so depressing that I could sense the air of death. She “little people” are very lonely in the painting. Even if they were together in the same frame, they were surrounded by different shades colors, as if they were living in different worlds, communicating but never touching, talking but never caring. This world is so intolerable that death almost seems to be a very peaceful thought. Well, at least that is my interpretation. It could be wrong, but at least her art is thought-provoking.

Ok, it is time to bring another installment of “my friends”. Irisa, okey, that’s her name. She has been my modern dance teacher for at least 3-4 years. How should I describe her? “A warm heart beneath cold appearance”, it is. If you just started to take her class, either you like her professionalism, or you hate her to be so impersonal. Some inside-information: One girl told me that after the first class last quarter, some girls were crying in the locker room because of Irisa’s toughness. As a guy, I never felt I was crushed like that, but I did feel uncomfortable sometimes. Irisa, why cannot you smile more?

Well, I guess a person is like a product. When it is extraordinary, it must come with some flaws to make it unique. I believe that’s what happened to Irisa. When you begin to know her, you have to believe she is extraordinary. I never see any faculty members so devoted the way she did. She tried very hard to reach out to students and tell them all the performance opportunities. Twice, she drove us to some dance festivals to participate performing. What’s more, she made the performance happen. When some lazy-ass choreographers cannot come, Irisa is always available to sub. Over the holidays, she will arrange to open the door of the studio. Of course, she used to dance with Merce’s company, which further put her in the cool bunch.

I doubted I would’ve gone that far in dancing without her. She always told me that I did a great performance, even though I was not. Ha, you know what, I loved her sincere lies. Typical human flaws, I know, but that’s my problem of being so superficial. She even told me that I did a great job in rolling the dice for Merce’s performance. Are you kidding me? How hard is it for a Ph.D. student to roll the dice and announce a sentence? But I love Irisa so much because of that!

Ok, up to day, it is 10 friends already. ABCDEFGHIN! Twenty-six more to go, Mmmmmhahahhaaa!

I will write more later...

Tonight is the night. I am going to finish the third draft of my dissertation proposal. I was so pre-occupied by the dissertation thing today. I couldn't get it off from my mind even when I went to bathroom, on the road, or while eating. Sometimes I appreciated this working style, very concentrating and very devoting, but sometimes it pissed me off, because it took all the joys of human interaction away from me. I felt my head had a different weight and my focus was loose..... Anyway, a dance rehearsal an hour ago gave back my sanity. I am going to finish the thing and write more in this blog tonight. Work my ass off please.
.....
It is three hours later, and I did it! Self-congratulation first, since nobody else hung out in the department that late. However, I still cannot figure out why some people find it fun to write a dissertation. For me, it is quite stressful. At the beginning, it is full of procrastination, as if the work will go away if I delay it again and again. In the middle, I began to worry how I am going to finish it, because so many good and trashy ideas floating around for revisions, but I cannot tell which is briliant and which is worthless ideas. Finally, I sensed the clock ticking, so settling down and gluing my ass to the chair. It proved to be totally doable. And now it is over, and I hope my self-confidence has been recovered by now. Now I only hope my advisor wouldn't say,"Such a crap. No defense this quarter!" Well, partly kidding, and I know it is not gonna happy. But thinking of this scenario is amusing, as if my life has degraded so that I am not the one in control any more.
Well, control, that is a topic unfinished in the last post. I blogged about the reason why I did random things is because I want the experience. Well, part of the whole answer. The other part is that I want to have a sense of control. You see, everyone needs to do something on their own will. Take the looking for example. Some people tried to lose weight and I tried to gain weight. the direction of the trial does not matter; what matters is that we want a sense that we can control how we look. By the same token, make-up does not necessarily make people more beautiful, but does give girls a sense of self-esteem because they can decide how they look.
So Why do I dance, take low-pay jobs, do painful jogging? Partly because I want to do that. It sorta tautological, but that's the whole point. I do what I want to do, and that's why I am not insane by now.
After writing down the above analysis, I decide to quit. Why always psycho-analyzing myself? Lighten up, dude. Ok, next blog will be about another friend of mine. Stay tuned.

The point is.....

Sometimes I will have the impulse to ask, "what's the point of doing this and that?" Very difficult question to answer, because if you dig deeper and deeper, nothing has a point, unless you have some religious or spiritual beliefs that can relieve you from pushing yourself too hard on reasoning. Days go by without this sort of question, but it hits me once a while. Why am I doing dance? Why I take the shitty job in Tressider Gym in 7-9am shift? Why I want to be House Manager for my co-op next year? Why I want to be the Safeway Runner? Why I go jogging once a while? Why I write this blog while I can do some required readings instead? Why I do small talks with my good friends? Why do I hang out with people who I am not fond of? Why I ..... have to be me?
I guess the only answer I can offer right now is that I want the experiences. I know, it is the last resort: if nothing has a point, then non-pointness itself has to have some meanings. For example, with dance, I experience my body in a unique way; with the shitty job, I feel i am experiencing college as those students from blue-collar families; With House Manager thing, i hope I can experience managing a big family, sort of; With jogging, I experience the great agony while running and great relief afterwards; with my friends or non-friends, I experience the mystery of being in a community-while everyone is alone deep-down, people interact to deny their ultimate loneliness; with being me, I experience joy and sadness just like I will experience.
I do know why I am writing this blog. Everything is triggered after I came back from the early morning shift in gym. I am tired and have to have some tea to keep me afloat (Still, I have been resisting coffee in the past half year since the autumn depression), and began to question whether it all worths it? I do not really care about the shitty salary, but what for? Well, my tentative answer is that it is, but for no reasons other than an unfalsifiable proposition that I need the experience. And that's the closest thing I can come up with to secure my self-esteem, adn I am happy I can shut out my rationality in answering this question.

That's all right. And Niangniang.

I feel like shit today. Something is messed up, and I guess I deserved that, except that I am not sorry about what I did. I finally planted the lavender on a big pot this noon. I want to see how amazing when the beautiful blue flowers blossom. I totally forgot the house job too, the first time in my two years of residence in the co-op. Fortunately, my mind did not totally lost so I remembered the House Meeting. Get a safeway runner job this quarter. Anyway, I have a good and busy week to look forward to, and I guess everything will be all right.
Last night I thought of my grandma, who is living currently in senior center. I am going to blog her right now. I call her Niangniang in Chinese, so she will be called so here. She is one of the most influential figures in my life.
I grew up with her since I was a baby. My parents were working class professionals, and they were not rich. So they did not have much time to spend with me. So I grew up with Niangniang. That's why I never had attachment to my parents, who I only felt a biological linkage conceptually.
With Niangniang, I felt safe. She is kind, generous to protective to me. When I was a kid, I was very easy to be intimidated. I still remember one day I broke the key to the classroom and totally freaked out. Niangniang just calmed me down and took charge of replacing the key for me. Until today, I am still not sure whether her protection really served me good or just spoiled me, but I would forever appreciate and never complain about her full-hearted love.
But I used to be anger about her protection, especially in my teenage years. She kept track on my friends and even had their phones number in case she wanted to know whereabout of me or what happened in school. She tried to especially monitor my female friends so I would not slip into romantic relationship in young age, which she thought would ruin me. One day I was so angry that I almost hit her (not really, but my palm did slightly slap on her face). I felt really bad afterward, but I never admitted to her because of my stupid teenage pride.
Niangniang is very proud of me, my strength or my flaws alike. She said I used to cry a lot in order to get what I wanted. Oh, my stubbornness. She said once I was eating beans. One bean was dropped into a pile of charcoal. And I insistently asked her to find it and wash it so that I can eat it. So she secretly took one bean from my bowl and pretended that's the one from the charcoal to stop from crying. I had very vague memory of that, so I guess I was about 4-5 years old that time. She is also proud of me now, even though I am thousands miles apart. She will appreciate every small things I do for her, even though they are no sweat on my part.
When the time flashed back, I would saw her aging, from an able body going shopping in farmer's market every morning to a thin body that even 30 meters of walking seems like a stretch for her. I am scared evry time I think of her incoming death. As an athiest, I get no comfort from an illusionory faith, which I wish I could have, so that I will be at peace with some inevitable life cycles.
I think of Niangniang today. I hope nothing is wrong. The last two times when I dreamed of her getting sick, she was actually sick when I later called her. There are some unexplanable connections between us. I wish today's thinking of you means nothing bad. Although you probably forgot of the incident when I almost hit, it was always here in my mind. I wouldn't mentioned that to you, so that you can maintain a perfect image of me and feel good of boasting my achievement among your senior center neighbors. But I want to say sorry here. And that's my entry for "N". Niangniang, you will the only one with a real meaningful name in my 26 blogs.

My friends (7): Hrend

Hrend is a decent guy. If I have to use one word to describe him, it will be "loyal", a virtue I value the most in friendship, and I myself try hard to live up to for my friends.
Hrend is so decent that he has a hard time to find a girlfriend, and for this he is always pissed off. Although he never said so, I want to complain in his name, "why girls like 'bad' guys?". Well, you can argue that guys also have the complex of saving whores. But from my point of view, I feel the former complex is worse, well, if you real want to push me hard, worse for me and Hrend. Anyway, back to Hrend. He had a bad love story two quarters ago. And one night, he was in such a bad mood, he drove out to a nearby hill to look at star (shall I say he is romantic here?). On the way, he totalled his beloved car. He told me he cried badly afterward, although he was lucky to be alright himself.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people. But good people also grow in bad events. Hrend does not emerge as a totally different person, but he is much more assured about himself after the event and even more decent to people. I always want to hug him or pat his back to let him know how amazing he is to pull that off, but I know it would be too condescenting. So as an alternative, I made a fake cake for his birthday of April 1st, and he really appreciated that by saying it is his best birthday ever. He actually cut the cake with a slow knife with much effort, and then tasted it before he realized the prank. Then we all laughed like babies. What a wonderful night!
Hrend is leaving the university this year for another California university. According to his words after druck last night, he was "stupid in dealing with relationships with his advisor" at this university and believed his life will move on by pursuing a degree in another institution. I know he will (here I pause about 5 minutes, trying to come up with some fancy words to conclude this blog. I failed. He is just so normal and humble that you can hardly spot him in a crowd, but there is something within him beyond typical talent sighting. His strength is silent and stay low, but he will reach high some day, with a loud appauld from below, probably me included). Good luck, Hrend.

The fake cake. Made out of foams. It is tasty! 

Finally, one week is over

Hi, Finally one week of no-blog is over. I guess I am a quite disciplined person in the end, just sticking with my promise, even though the promise might be a bad idea to start with.
So where do I start this blog since I have so much to say?
Ok, anyone remember my blog of "Honesty" a couple of weeks ago? Well, the two secrets are no longer secrets to one person (let me call her D. here). I am still not sure whether confiding her with the second one is a good idea. Before I hed out for the coffee place with her, it was still a big "maybe". I myself have so much confusion on that, and I was afraid that no explanation would help. All my selfish actions have selfless excuses, and all the selfless actions contain a selfish motives (This applies to my disclosing of the secret. Now my burden is lifted, while leaving D. to interpret what this all means). Anyway, if D. is reading, I hope you will just take it as its face value.
I almost cried today when I talked to D. I has been a while since the last time I feel safe or ok to cry. Too many half-assed comments in the real life. They are numbing my heart and increasing my cynicism. But once a while I will get touched by my own words, which resonated in my mouth and hit some vulnerable strings in my chest. Just for the record, I almost cried when I talked about something like that: "It hurts even when you expect it, as if human rationality is no rival to emotions. Sometimes caring starts with a half-assed commitment, then you are just taken by surprise." The words here are fancier, but the meaning is equivalent.
Having a good time with D., I know I did badly to another friend. He called during our conversation, and I prmised him that I would call back soon. But it happened very late, and in the meanwhile I missed several of his other calls. I wouldn't say he is my friend, because a lot of times I took pity on him. He is unpopular and sometimes weird, but he is sincere and a good guy. I say this in a condescenting way. Yes, I know. But that's the way it is. I went out with him for dinner today more out of sympathy than friendship, but hey, at least I made him believe we are friends. Anyway, he has the virtue of forgiving me immediately for not calling him back soon enough. Thank you.
D. asked me whether I always do things like that to make other people feel better. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I do. But a lot of my friends do the same things to me all the time, and I feel great when I can spread their virtues to the people least cared by the mainstream. I am in a good position for them be feel less condescenting, because of my natural advantage of being international, being minority and being a loser in love life (the last point is really important, I found, because they also tend to be losers).

Yesterday I made a fake cake for one of my friend birthday on April 1st. The photo of the cake will be uploaded soon, because I am so proud of it. He will be the friend with the initial H in his name next

Decide to take a break

Too many posts during the spring break, and I decide to take a break at least for a week. I suspect that blogging has become my new way of procrastination. But do not worry, the blog on "my friends" will match on, and I promise it will hit Z. Sometimes I am wondering who i should put into X,Y,Z. They should be the most important ones in my life, and with the most exotic fake names, I promise too:-) Bye for now.

My Friends (6): Glip

It is weird feeling now. I am in 24-hour library room, doing some readings. It is quite empty here, five persons in total: 3 Chinese, 1 Indian, and one black. It is a guetto, I believe, a very cold guetto because of the ratio of people against space. Also, other personal thoughts went through my mind, making me a little restless. So I am like, what the heck, just post one more blog before the spring break is over.
Just bump into some insightful argument, and I feel like I have a good idea of writing a paper. If my advisor does not write me back on my proposal soon, I will just make a start on this seperate paper then.
Funny thing, because I am ready to blog about my advisor now. Let's call him Glip. I am not sure whether I can do him just, but I will try.
Glip is probably one of the most intelligently cynical human beings I've ever met. I came to Stanford without any idea about him, only to find out how lucky that I've picked the right school. In our quarter workshop, when the discussion went to nowhere, I would shout with my silent internal voice:"shut up, everybody. Just let Glip talk!" I do not care if the workshop becomes Glip's solo lecture, because that's when the workshop provides me with the best stuff. With him, I find that studying sociology is bearable, intellectually challenging, and sometimes fun, although I am still struggling with the idea whether I would devote my career in sociology eventually. But that's another stody.
He is nice to students. Every spring festival we will be invited to his house to have new year dinner. He is well-versed in Chinese culture, so people feel comfortable. Other indidents involves confidential events of my friends, and I am not disclosing anything here. But needless to say, he has his own professional way to help out.
He has a dream-walking style. I believe that he is so deep in his thoughts that he would be surprised if I say hello to him in the middle of his path from home to school. But I never am able to decode his thoughts, because he is very impersonal. He cracks jokes, gives advise, and even selectively tells him own story, but you never know him. Maybe as his students, we are never supposed to, but somehow I wish I could, and somehow I take some efforts in guessing.
He never shows anger or frustration, makes self-depreciating jokes if facing personal questions. One time students asked a question about "Asian Fadish", and somehow he managed to answer the question without giving any information. I feel like he can be a perfect politician.
But he won't. His cynicism set him apart from all the other people. I believe, from small hints, he is frustrated by the recent American politics and department politics, but he never lets it shown. In academic conferences, I believe he hates his mediocre colleagues with only nonsense to say. It must be boring for him sitting through most conference, because his intelligence is rarely matched by others. But he never shows too. Sometimes I have an image of him like that: A soldier in the frontline taking all the shots, but telling his comrades behind that everything is all right.
Maybe I am trying too hard to find a hero in my life, so Glip just slips in as a substitute. But even that's just an illusion, so what? Though I only hope I can know him better.

My friends (5): Friggy

After a while, you know you begin to run out of friends to blog about. For me, the writing block might be approaching right now, although sometimes someone just came through my mind, and I would say "bingo!" and blog on.
Friggy was my roommate last year. An Asian American, he fit the stereotype perfectly: playing musical instrument (piano) and major in double-E. But he is cooler than most. I do not think he is ever happy with his major, because he is more into doing random things rather than focusing on a career after EE. He likes birds, so he put a feeding thing outside of the window and let the bird come and eat. Every morning, therefore, I can hear birds' very loud chirping. Friggy graduated last year from the university, and he is more proud of his kitchen inspection certificate (for a co-op) than the real diploma. So I guess he is one of the cool kids, don't you agree?
For one thing, I am not a cool kid. So it is quite hard for me or him to initiate a conversation with each other. It seems that we live in two different worlds although we actually lived one wall apart. Well, if you use "wall" metapherically, it all makes sense, right? Anyway, respect is plenty, but I never actually knew him. But I wish him good luck in the real world now. He will be quite vulnerable in the real world, accroding to my impression, but I wish he will have good friends to help him out, friends that are much cooler than his old roommate.
I just checked his blog, which I haven't opened for months. The old blog archives are gone, and new one started from last month. It might indicate that he want to start over? I do not know, but the old blog of his is pretty dark. He is either in Japan or Taiwan now, probably for a real job. He is not happy, obviously, but he will be all right.

My friends (IV): Elpen

Elpen is a crazy guy. Not because he is truly crazy, but because he is so opposite of me that I found some of his decisions incomprehensible. He would impulsively decide to buy something expensive or go somewhere without a small hint beforehand. Every movie he saw is a great movie, and he truly believes that. Hate most apartment he lived in for small flaws, "why the manager does not fixed the water tap in one day?". That's why he moved three or four times in a short span last year, and he thinks it all worth the hassle. If we go out to eat, chances are that he would pick up the tab, thinking that his money should do rather than sitting quietly in the banks.
Elpen is a straight talker though, and do not afraid of talking about gossips. So he is the last one you should trust with your secret, but on the other hand, he is the first one you should contact if you want to know what's going on of the people around you if you share the same social network with Elpen. He does bring a lot of fun into the conversation, but I can get irritated if I hang out with him for longer than half-day, by his non-stop talking style and "irrational" complaints.
The above is not about negative, it is about who he really is. I appreciate that he dear to show who is really is and be non-apologatic about it. His sincerity can be ranked as 12 in a scale from 1 to 10, and I am actually not exaggurating here. If you can be his best friend, you are lucky. Although I am not sure I will ever be. You know, I just called him "crazy" in the beginning. Sign.... But jokes aside, here is how I exactly feel: His life is so out of my comprehension that it sometimes fucking blows my mind. I will not imitate him, but I am in awe all the time. Salute, Elpen!

My friends (III)

I think I must be very happy about the blogging-friend things, so it should last a while. My plan is to go from A all the way to Z. Guess whether I can think of 26 friends to fill it up!

I still do not know why I picked Amsol, Brey and Chastina as my first three friends. Am I going down the list by the degree of how I like them? Probably, but that's definitely not what went through my mind. I wrote them first because they were the ones that went through my mind first. Maybe they are just the people who cared the most right now. And also, I know they are not the readers of my blog, so I am writing without inhibition.

Now I am going to tell something about one of my Chinese-speaking friends. To be honest, native Chinese-speaking friends are never my favorites. They are sorta back-up friends that I have to turn to when I run out of options. They are too uptight, stingy, and no fun. But this friend of mine is different: Dermon.

He came to the campus with me the same year. He is generous and very socialable. In comparison, I am the king of all nerds. He have many many friends. A kind of friendship that I never envy of, because it is very shallow. But he seems to enjoy it. Sometimes I even feel that he likes to show off with his broad network, like the ones that like to boast the number of their thefacebook friends. In that sense, we are very different, and that why the distance between us has been widening after a first-year "honeymoon" period. Now I have the co-op thing and begant to have other friends, and he also had his own family, so we barely talked any more.
I have no regrets about that. People just have different destinations in life. I think he is wasting too much time and not ambitious enough to come out on top, and he might be laughing at me for all the struggles I've been through with no foreseeable returns. "What's the point of life?" I guess we will have complete opposite answers.

Nonetheless, I am happy that I befriend with him. We are definitely not really caring or sharing or what conventional friendship is about. I see him more like a reference point to see myself: Am I taking the right path? His existence keeps me in check and prevents me from going to extreme. I want to lead a non-clique life, but not a weird life. Keeping a SHORT distance with Dermon reaffirms both.

My friends (II)

Now I have to admit that bloggin about my friends is a great idea, so I will have one more entry here. By the way, making up those non-existing name is fun: Amsol and Brey, what the heck are these names:-) Anyway, my next name is Chestina.
Chestina is a nice girl. She is smart, pretty, and sometimes flirtatious. She likes to act like the Dr. Phil, or so I feel that way. So I have few secrets to hide from her. In fact, sometimes I feel bad when I dump all my bad experiences on her, afraid that would ruin her day. I still regret that one day I debated with her on religions. As an atheist, I shouldn't argue about faith to my friends. It does no good to either of us.
She looks sad and stressed out sometimes, but I do not really know why. She looks fragile and easily get sick. Must be too much stress. She just told me a career choice last week. I am not disclose the choice here, but I support it fully. Not half-assed support as a friend, but I really feel it is for her own good. She like to ask questions, usually following the obsession for logics and reasonings. That's probably why she does not really fit with most social circles. Sometimes I feel I am the only one who understand her outcoming questions: where do they come from, and what logics they follow along from the last questions.
Since I have talked to her quite a lot this and the last quarter, "Amsol" sometimes teased about it. For him, no men need a Dr. Phil. but I guess I might be different. I am way too sensitive that I feel myself as a Dr. Phil. In this sense, Chestina and I befriend because of our sharing mentality. Oh, do not mistake. She is married for years, so never think about whether she should be my soul mate. Maybe she is, but then I am still lucky.
So much for Chestina. Next one will be Dermon. Until next time....

By the way, I am reading "In America" by Jon Stewart. I feel I get most of the jokes. This means two things: 1) I am quite knowledgeble about American politics and 2) I am cynical.

My friends

How many blogs you can write before you run out of ideas? I am so tired of blabbing about my personal issues that I have to find other sources to blog. So I decide to open an alternative thread to blog about my friend. All the names will be fake, as I create new names as I like, in an alphabetic order. So let me start with Amsol.
Amsol is one of my best friends. He is humorous and laid-back. He is one of the people I can easily talk to and never run out of topics and points. A total liberal himself, he transformed my worldview a lot in the past several years from a semi-conservative to a die-hard liberal. In my mind, he is a perfect dad type, adventurous and kind, open-minded and full of love. Looking at his son growing up to be a great kid, I am happy. Just like a magic, you see his family thriving, not in a way free of problem, but in a way that they are high-spirited and deal with everything with a smile. In comparison to those other couples in the department, who were most uptight and tried hard to fit into the stereotype of being a good husband and wife, I see Amsol and his wife as the model family I am striving to live in in the future. Too bad that I do not have their optimistic way facing the life, and I have admiration for them.
Brey is a very different type in comparison. He is still single, and still try to find ways to navigate through the river called life. Recently he got into some long-distance relationship that tired him out. I wonder it really worths the effort to begin with. But hey, who can blame the passion, which I lack due to too much rational calculation. He is a good cook, and often inviting me for dinner or lunch with luxurious ingredents, like New York Steak. When he paid for that, he never blinked eyes, even when he was in deep debt. Depressive sometime, but cheerful at others. If I have to use one word to describe him, I will say "good-natured". I say it in a value-neutral way, but I have to admit that his good nature sometimes put himself in a bad position because people would take advantage of it without him realizing it. Am I one of those? I tried not to be and always conscious about it, but I will let the time to judge.
One last thing I want to say before I close this blog and wait for another day to continue blogging about my friends. The difference between Amsol and Brey. If I told tham that i am depressed or had a bad experience, Amsol will give me some suggestions on how to deal with it or put it into perspective, but Brey would start blabbing his own problems, sometimes even worse than mine. Strange enough, both of them will put me at ease and go on to have a good day. My problem? What problem?

Honesty

I haven't blogged for a while. But each time I blog, I have to ask myself a tough question: Do I need to be all honest, especially now I know I have readers? The question tears me apart, because it is not good timing right now to disclose some of my secrets. Of course, I never lied on this blog, but I just do not mention certain things. At least two things in my mind right now fall into this category. They sorta bother me once a while. I will try to make an effort to say them out loud in the forum in the near future. But now I am not ready yet.

Just finish the last dance rehearsal this quarter. Now I am preparing for tomorrow's trip. Hoping that I am one of the people who actually make the world a better place. The above three thoughts are so not related, but they just got across my mind a minute before, so I have to write them down in their original piece. I watched the last piece of my public speeches. Some parts are quite amusing, and I think I could make some benign jokes about my public speech in the future. But for one thing, I seem to enjoy public speech now. I hope my personality will shine through my speech in the future, just like in my dance.

Got the House Manager job in terra next year. Quite excited. Partly by the job itself, but more importantly, I feel that I am getting a last piece of my youthful years. After that, I am leaving for the adult world for good. Being a professional, earning a living by myself or with somebody I love, no more stereotype of "sketchy graduate student", no more weekly dance rehearsal. Welcome to a more boring life though. To be honest, I am very much scared by the reality of leaving for the adult world. What would I do? How would I fit? Will I regret my past? Did I pick the right path? Will I go crazy by the pressures or by the feeling of non-achievements? Will my cynicism ruin all the funs in the life so that my future memoir will be full of internal struggle of thoughts but without real stories to tell (like I am doing in the blog most of the time). I do not know, for real. And I am scared.

Merce! Merce!

Ok, it is the same title with the last one. I have to admit that yesterday the title is for no good reasons, but today it is. Because I shaked Merce's hand twice!
It feels like I am touching the footprint of history. He is a dance legend, but it is so real in front of me, with the body bounded by a wheelchair. His hands are marked by deteriarating skin colors, his reactions to people's conversation was slow. I'm very sad for him, but at the same time I am proud for him, for doing something different, sometimes not understood by other people but still staying the course.
When the public speaking class planned the banquet, I really was hoping that I would get "testimonial" or "reading", so that I can pay some tribune to Merce. However, I got "speech of entertainment". Too bad. But blogger gives me another chance here. So this post.
And of course, I hope Merce to be healthy and happy. He probably would not remember me, but I will always remember that I have shaked hand with a giant.

Merce! Merce!

Merce Cummingham is one of my most respected choreographers. And I just got an email asking me to roll the dice on stage for their company's performance tomorrow night at stanford. Rolling dice? That does not make sense, you might say. Well, if you know Merce's work, it is no brainer. Anyway, I might see him in person tomorrow even, maybe get a signature or two, or a photo, or shake his hand before he dies. No ill meaning though. He is just VERY OLD.
It is sad for me to see those great dancers getting old. All the glamor surrendered to the natural rule of aging, making me wonder what life is all about. Do they have regret about a jump they missed or a turn they fumbled on stage? Now that they can no longer make those up because they can hardly standing up. What about my aging? It sounds like a very horrible idea to me. I do not care about winkles or other cosmatic things. But what if I can no longer dance, no longer run the campus loop, no longer swim, and even no longer walk from the one side to the other side of the campus. My current mentality would not be able to handle this nightmare. But you know what, time will change, and I will be fine.
I had a very busy day today, but happy day of course, after finishing the god-damn second draft. Working on a couple of different project for some extra cash, and I think I am over-stating the hours of work. But what the heck, bring down this evil capitalist empire is my duty as a communist party member.
I need to do tax tonight. I have put it off for a while.

new excitement

I am about to finish the second draft of dissertation proposal. So excited.

Sorry that I am still riding high in happiness

You must be bored about my recent threats all about my happiness. Sorry, here is one more. It only seems fair that I am going to exhaust it in multiple posts in order to make up the bad time last quarter. Don't you agree?
I wrote a letter to Gao Shen this morning. It is very awkward to write in Chinese all of a sudden, and a lot of my feelings are lost in the translation. But no shame about it. If she can get half of what I am trying to convey, that's good enough for me.
Talk about laugh. I was reading "the onions" online tonight. I was just a good night, as I was laughing loudly throughout. I do not think that this issue is much funnier than any others, it is just because I am more ready to laugh. the laugh reinforced my happiness, I guess.
Again, I stared at the flowers, and they are still blossoming. They are the witness of my life, the happier part.