Two things that kept me annoying me these days:
1. The tutoring job will not end. This morning is the last time this term. I thought it was finally over, and i can get out of that house like a bird set free forever, though it is more like an vacation. But they would not spare me! Tomorrow i will have to visit her in her office, and the time is not very good for me; I need to go and get her voice-recorder, take it in my dorm, and record in it some English! What? You can find native speakers' records anywhere on the Internet, and as to the textbook texts, you have the cassette recorder! And then i will have to find a time when my roommates are not in, for if they are in the room, they either make loud noises or are sleeping. And after all that, i will have to send it back to her, and again, I have to consider the time. The question is, when i am in school and still having lessons, I am not FREE! And she just takes so much trouble to me!
2. And then is the 400-word speech that will never ever be finished. I am weary and fed up. I swear that after this one, i will never attend speaking contest ever again. And the best way to get rid of it is to get as far as possible in this one.
The reading thing is not going really smoothly. And i am thinking about reading all the books at hand as a way of learning the English language. That way anything more than that will be a surprise for me. That way i won't get tired of any of the books. This is important since after several days when i go home, it is inconvenient to change the books i borrowed from the library. The books at hand right now:
1). The Castle by Franz Kafka.
Half way through and temporarily suspended because I am already convinced this is a worthy book and will finish the unfinished book in summer.
2). The Fall by Albert Camus
The only book by Camus in our library.
3). The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
I have just read The Happy Prince and Other Stories, which is great. And when i started reading the first chapter of Dorian Gray, I almost want to quote the whole book unto my notebook! So I have to suspend reading and put it off to summer and relish it little by little.
4). Republic by Plato
I don't yet know whether i will read it through, but...we'll see.
And 3 more books yet to take out from the library:
1). Brave New World Revisited.
This is the only book I can find in the libary with the key words "brave new world". But are they two different books? I haven't done any reserch into it yet.
2). Art and Illusion
Time to expand my mind, scope and consciousness.
3). The Magic Mountain
I am to make an adventure to the Jinyong Library to find this book! It begin to grow interesting when I imagine that it is a little angel trapped in a dark castle, and i am going to set off, find the castle and rescue it! I am the hero...ine!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Born to be a slave
For those who are disillusioned in college and are therefore extremely nostalgic:
In high school: "to toil for a master is bitter."
In college: "but to have no master to toil for is bitter still." (Oscar Wilde)
In high school: "to toil for a master is bitter."
In college: "but to have no master to toil for is bitter still." (Oscar Wilde)
The Remarkable Rocket
I read Oscar Wilde's short story The Remarkable Rocket this morning in the dim light that was largely filtered by the thick blue curtain in my dorm room. The morals of fairy tales like this are always hard to fully grasp because each time you read that you don't take it too seriously. But somehow when i finished the story and lay flat on my back in the lingering muggy heat of the morning, a little something surfaced from the back of my mind:
When i am reading a book that i choose, i automatically take the side of the author and see things as he sees it, laugh at and despise things that he laughs at or despises. Then i miss the point when that very character the author is laughing at is actually me!
"I often have long conversations all by myself, and i am so clever that sometimes i don't understand a single word of what i am saying." This is how i am, at least sometimes.
"I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that i am destined to make a sensation in the world." This is the prevailing mindset of mine when i was in high school and preparing for the Exam. I always told myself i was destined to do this, destined to do that, all big and fancy things, only for no specific reasons. If it could be called a reason, then this: I had been traumatized earlier in my life and i believed i was to be compensated by some divine spirit. As to why at that particular point, i didn't know, and didn't ever want to think about that. But since I had understood that, it become a great treasure of mine. Later i met someone who exactly mirrored the High School Me and kind of renewed my understanding to a clearer level.
[When i was writing this one, something went wrong on this webpage and the second part of the entry was missing! So i had to come up with a stream of thought. It was probably because of the Proxy server i was using in order to negotiate the Wall. When a country's effort to "protect" its citizen from "foreign porn and violence sites" is hampering the development of its good and innocent children from learning English, I don't know whether it is doing the right thing. But they might well be right, considering the dummer its citizens, the stabler the regime. OK, i will try to trace to my original thoughts and see if i can come up something new.]
A good book, or let me put it another way, a book good for me, should be one which tells me more about myself than about others, because with others I have little to do, while with myself, for better or for worse, I can at least do something about it. And i can only change until i have noticed what is wrong. Some of the most persistently stubborn habbits usually go unnoticed for a long time. And books like that are to help me see such characters.
When i am reading a book that i choose, i automatically take the side of the author and see things as he sees it, laugh at and despise things that he laughs at or despises. Then i miss the point when that very character the author is laughing at is actually me!
"I often have long conversations all by myself, and i am so clever that sometimes i don't understand a single word of what i am saying." This is how i am, at least sometimes.
"I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that i am destined to make a sensation in the world." This is the prevailing mindset of mine when i was in high school and preparing for the Exam. I always told myself i was destined to do this, destined to do that, all big and fancy things, only for no specific reasons. If it could be called a reason, then this: I had been traumatized earlier in my life and i believed i was to be compensated by some divine spirit. As to why at that particular point, i didn't know, and didn't ever want to think about that. But since I had understood that, it become a great treasure of mine. Later i met someone who exactly mirrored the High School Me and kind of renewed my understanding to a clearer level.
[When i was writing this one, something went wrong on this webpage and the second part of the entry was missing! So i had to come up with a stream of thought. It was probably because of the Proxy server i was using in order to negotiate the Wall. When a country's effort to "protect" its citizen from "foreign porn and violence sites" is hampering the development of its good and innocent children from learning English, I don't know whether it is doing the right thing. But they might well be right, considering the dummer its citizens, the stabler the regime. OK, i will try to trace to my original thoughts and see if i can come up something new.]
A good book, or let me put it another way, a book good for me, should be one which tells me more about myself than about others, because with others I have little to do, while with myself, for better or for worse, I can at least do something about it. And i can only change until i have noticed what is wrong. Some of the most persistently stubborn habbits usually go unnoticed for a long time. And books like that are to help me see such characters.
A summer for change
This summer is about breaking the rules and crossing the lines.
I am going to do things that i have never done before, out of laziness or lack of information and material that I previously suffered from. I am just so exciting I don't know how to speak in right grammar.
1. "You can do some exercise." Tao said when we parted in front of Foreign Language Teaching Building, him with a smile on his face. Yes, I do need some sports to strengthen both my body and confidence. Jogging is pretty much entry-level and I can do that. The only equipment i have now is a Pingpong bat and ball. If these two work out well, i may go ahead and buy myself a basketball! Sounds crazy! But it feels great! Cross the lines!
And that is not enough. I have to choose one sport. Maybe the most relevant is basketball. OK, i will try to do some research into NBA! Even if i don't end up an expert in it, I will at least pave myself the road and set off on it.
2. I am going to learn to cook, and drink tea.
3. Explore book stores in town. Sweep the school library.
4. Travel by myself. Go to the seaside alone.
5. The garden! It have been deserted for too long since Aunt got sick. I am to step in and make the more beautiful than ever. Like the ones out of Oscar Wilde's stories.
"The studio (my study, dining room or kitchen) was filled with rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the door the heavy scent of lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."
6. I am to eat things I have never eaten before. Wow, there are so many of them. Right now I am drinking from a steel cup the tea with jujubes. And the gray and ugly steel is just so out of place with the scent of the tea. I can't wait to swtich to a glass or porcelain cup and watch the colour of the tea change over minutes.
7. I will change anything at home into reading and learning facilities. (But I will never waste a single minute on the television. I will boycott the television. Sounds cool.) In cool weather, the divan is indisputably the best place for reading. Where there is a cool and pleasant summer wind in the corridor, i will stick to my favourite little chair. Night is no longer family television time, but reading time. In the daytime i will take care of the garden and practising speaking English.
8. Music. From classics to pops.
9. Read the book Art and Illusion and see whether i am into art and more.
For now i can only come up with this much. I will keep this up to date when i think of more.
This summer is about expanding my mind, scope and world!
I am going to do things that i have never done before, out of laziness or lack of information and material that I previously suffered from. I am just so exciting I don't know how to speak in right grammar.
1. "You can do some exercise." Tao said when we parted in front of Foreign Language Teaching Building, him with a smile on his face. Yes, I do need some sports to strengthen both my body and confidence. Jogging is pretty much entry-level and I can do that. The only equipment i have now is a Pingpong bat and ball. If these two work out well, i may go ahead and buy myself a basketball! Sounds crazy! But it feels great! Cross the lines!
And that is not enough. I have to choose one sport. Maybe the most relevant is basketball. OK, i will try to do some research into NBA! Even if i don't end up an expert in it, I will at least pave myself the road and set off on it.
2. I am going to learn to cook, and drink tea.
3. Explore book stores in town. Sweep the school library.
4. Travel by myself. Go to the seaside alone.
5. The garden! It have been deserted for too long since Aunt got sick. I am to step in and make the more beautiful than ever. Like the ones out of Oscar Wilde's stories.
"The studio (my study, dining room or kitchen) was filled with rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the door the heavy scent of lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."
6. I am to eat things I have never eaten before. Wow, there are so many of them. Right now I am drinking from a steel cup the tea with jujubes. And the gray and ugly steel is just so out of place with the scent of the tea. I can't wait to swtich to a glass or porcelain cup and watch the colour of the tea change over minutes.
7. I will change anything at home into reading and learning facilities. (But I will never waste a single minute on the television. I will boycott the television. Sounds cool.) In cool weather, the divan is indisputably the best place for reading. Where there is a cool and pleasant summer wind in the corridor, i will stick to my favourite little chair. Night is no longer family television time, but reading time. In the daytime i will take care of the garden and practising speaking English.
8. Music. From classics to pops.
9. Read the book Art and Illusion and see whether i am into art and more.
For now i can only come up with this much. I will keep this up to date when i think of more.
This summer is about expanding my mind, scope and world!
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