摇头电扇交替吹着电脑和我，我的眼睛交替扫视着两部关于两个城市的小说。
下午三点，决定停一下，去专心地吃一点东西，消耗一下家里的零食库存。于是冒着糟蹋电的危险开着冰箱相了好久，终于选中一支包装朴素的冰棍，洗了一个红苹果，回到电脑前面。
看着冰棍要拆的时候，我想，我是被这扑扑冒出来的冷气催促着才做出这个决定的，不要期望是什么好东西。当我把它的包装剥掉的时候，我想，也不赖，不就是快冰吗。然后我把它放进了嘴里……这时的理解终于全面了，这原来是一支盐水棒冰。当初我还是个被夏天的太阳晒得像非洲难民的小屁孩的时候，叫我去商店，我也是最后一个才会选这玩意儿。我把包装拿来仔细一看，上面印的两个小孩形容非常之怀旧，让我想起我小时候潜入爷爷奶奶房间看的二哥的小学课本上的人物形状，不禁再看了一下生产日期，我很怀疑它是1993年生产的。
吃得口里索然无味，想起苹果，拿来咬了一口。突然一种极为熟悉的味道涌来，这不是我上午吃的话梅么。
于是又拿来包装纸看了一下。冰棍的配料是白砂糖，淀粉，食盐，食用香精，柠檬酸，糖精钠。
话梅是：白砂糖，食盐，甘草，柠檬酸，甜蜜素，糖精钠，安赛蜜，二氧化钛，阿巴斯甜，食用香料，苯甲酸钠，山梨酸钾，日落黄，柠檬黄。
想来确是，冰棍的化学添加剂里面加以苹果的糖，有机酸，生物碱以及淀粉，不就是话梅了么。原来我从小到大一直所熟知的这种味道并不是话梅独有的，而是几种特定的化学添加剂搅拌在一起，融入一种像淀粉这样简单的载体里面就行了。于是胃口大减。嘬完棒冰，把苹果吃了是正经，顺便休息一下眼睛，背靠椅子向窗外望。
只见两只白纹依蚊一前一后从我的房门口赶集一样地朝我的方向飞来，我一手举着苹果，一手拿着纸巾，顿时不知如何是好。蚊子到底是被什么吸引过来的呢？甜味？汗液？恨我贪心，一下子吃两样东西，又不开电扇，现在分不清了。在我接通两个网络连接，登陆Blogger的时间里，又有若干中华按蚊也进来了，由于心疼刚买又所剩无几的从来不发生效用的Li字蚊香，我执意按兵不动。在打完这些文字的过程中，我主动离开座位追击了两个，但都铩羽而归；将连续工作了有24小时的电风扇加大马力，把身体瘦小的依蚊保持在一定的距离之外；无意中也碾死了两个，偶尔仍有几个从我屏幕前悠闲散漫地飞过，让我体验了什么叫投鼠忌器。
我对着电脑，读着电子书，心想为什么灿烂的华夏文明和先进的现代科学，以及我们千千万万爱民如子的父母官，以及全球经济危机时代7.9%的GDP，没有解决困扰我这个乡下人的蚊子问题？
Friday, August 21, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Reminder
It concerns the stance and identity problem. When i come across a problem where i am required to take a stand, firstly i will think who i am, am i in any of the camp, if not, from what stance i speak, for whose interest i stand up to.
是熟稔，不是智力
What we can learn mostly just stay at the level of the very thing we do.
So taking the contest will not improve my English. What will work has already been done along the time proceeding it. It is a process. I take advantage of it. I am on the right way. If my reading does not help, it was because i hadn't read enough for it to help. People blessed with various experience will not threaten me now, because without actual learning, all they've got is just false confidence. They probably got more chance talking, that is what make them fluent. That is what i need to put most of energy and catch up with them. Fluency of talking crap!
If you can't finish the paper in due time, it does not mean you doesn't arrange your time properly or that you are slow, it means you don't understand, you don't get it. People don't arrange their time, they just finish it as it should. Just imagine what the paper would be like in the eye of a native speaker, and try to make yourself move toward his level.
So it comes down to very simple questions- if you know it, everything is right, you seldom make a mistake, you are cocksure of the answer, you finish it with lightening speed, time will be abundant throughout the paper. If you didn't know it, you misunderstand the question, can't judge the intention of the tester, you got stuck and held up by it, time elapse without you knowing it, you wished you could have time to go back and redo it but you know in reality this is not likely, time became more and more tight and you can't focus on the rest of the questions- everything went wrong. But the question is you come back blaming the ramifications instead of the very reason of it. So the more you know, the quicker and accurate your understanding, the better the turn out.
One day in senior high, i asked ZKP about the skills of doing science papers, what he said about it i already forgot. Now that i think about it, maybe it was because i did not get what i wanted to hear, or in other words, which is helpful to me. Today i happened to be in the same situation as he was two years ago, i suddenly understood- it is not about skills, it is all about whether you know it or not. Why he is good at doing science paper and getting amazing scores? Because they just know, just know how to do it, to solve the questions. As long as they know it, they can just go for it, from the beginning to the end, thus no problem with any kind of "strategy", "time arrangement" or whatsoever. When you are worrying whether you can finish the paper on time or making some stupid mistakes along the way, it means there is something wrong with how much on earth do you know. If you are truly good, you take the challenge and enjoy it. You feel fulfilled by solving these problems, you take delight in doing the paper. And ultimately, which i have not reached yet, eager to know the result, or still higher, can calculate your score to the very exact.
So taking the contest will not improve my English. What will work has already been done along the time proceeding it. It is a process. I take advantage of it. I am on the right way. If my reading does not help, it was because i hadn't read enough for it to help. People blessed with various experience will not threaten me now, because without actual learning, all they've got is just false confidence. They probably got more chance talking, that is what make them fluent. That is what i need to put most of energy and catch up with them. Fluency of talking crap!
If you can't finish the paper in due time, it does not mean you doesn't arrange your time properly or that you are slow, it means you don't understand, you don't get it. People don't arrange their time, they just finish it as it should. Just imagine what the paper would be like in the eye of a native speaker, and try to make yourself move toward his level.
So it comes down to very simple questions- if you know it, everything is right, you seldom make a mistake, you are cocksure of the answer, you finish it with lightening speed, time will be abundant throughout the paper. If you didn't know it, you misunderstand the question, can't judge the intention of the tester, you got stuck and held up by it, time elapse without you knowing it, you wished you could have time to go back and redo it but you know in reality this is not likely, time became more and more tight and you can't focus on the rest of the questions- everything went wrong. But the question is you come back blaming the ramifications instead of the very reason of it. So the more you know, the quicker and accurate your understanding, the better the turn out.
One day in senior high, i asked ZKP about the skills of doing science papers, what he said about it i already forgot. Now that i think about it, maybe it was because i did not get what i wanted to hear, or in other words, which is helpful to me. Today i happened to be in the same situation as he was two years ago, i suddenly understood- it is not about skills, it is all about whether you know it or not. Why he is good at doing science paper and getting amazing scores? Because they just know, just know how to do it, to solve the questions. As long as they know it, they can just go for it, from the beginning to the end, thus no problem with any kind of "strategy", "time arrangement" or whatsoever. When you are worrying whether you can finish the paper on time or making some stupid mistakes along the way, it means there is something wrong with how much on earth do you know. If you are truly good, you take the challenge and enjoy it. You feel fulfilled by solving these problems, you take delight in doing the paper. And ultimately, which i have not reached yet, eager to know the result, or still higher, can calculate your score to the very exact.
It is Who I am that Matters
陈丹青：文章的张力，是人格的张力；写作的维度，是人格的维度。
At the end of the day, it is who I am that matters, not what i do or say at that particular moment.
They judge me according to my performance, but it is not performances they are choosing from, it is persons that they are choosing from.
The nature of what Prof. W is leading us to do is to prepare some limited range of topics, piecing together ideas from all sides, and merging them into one single perfect and dead piece of 3-min...stuff. If that is what everyone do for winning, there is something profoundly wrong with the education as a whole.
So my idea is in essence opposed to W's. I insist in being a better known and informed person, so that when i am in the competition, i can show them who i am, and how qualified i am in ways that best express myself.
What he is trying to stuffing into our brains are cliche topics, all-round opinions which are dead to me, and a form that i does not agree with.
But whatever i say is weak and can not stand a single blow, since i am far from being a specimen of success. So i am first of all go ahead with myself, fight the war inside my skulls, break the old and corrupted part of thinking into a chaos, and establish a new order. Until i am successful enough i can speak with confidence, assurance, and a clear-mind that HE IS WRONG.
It's NOT about Memory!
So i figured out today it is not about having a quick mind, a quick mouth whatsoever, it is about being familiar with the thing.
If i know the subject as well as i know my own objects, e.g., the favourite book i have read, the software or web tool i feel most at home with, the TV show i like the best, etc.
The idea is to create an information asymmetry. That is, if the judge know more about the subject than me, i have no chance of winning, but if otherwise, i will definitely control the whole thing. This is not that impossible, just see how i beat T on the reviews of the texts. With the same amount of information, i can be better than her, so if i know totally more about the subject than the judges, the game is mine.
If i don't know much about the subject, i feel insecure before i am confronted with it. I go through the whole process without confidence. When i meet with it, i draw a blank within my mind. Words rushing out without order and trigger words repeat themselves in every sentence. People think i can't speak English well, and my mind is in a shambles, i don't have logic, i am not "quick" enough, etc, etc. And before i realized the truth tonight, i would think that way, under their influence, and thought that is what i need to work on, say my memory, my "quickness" of the mind, but those things are among which that are already determined before birth.
Things are totally different outside the vicious circle. If i am familiar with enough things as to cover any questions the judges will come up with, i will walk up to the stage with confidence, self-belief. When the question is uttered, i will smile and think to myself all is under control. I see what the judge is thinking about, i can predict what he might want to say next, what he already has in mind, what i might say might inform him of something new...
All i need to do is to weigh them down with what i know and see.
Since i know these college professors to be mostly...lame, i can see myself reach that point within a short time. But it is not a time to drift and wait, but to hold on something essential and fight. Fight!
Possess the question, do not let the question possess me. Then i have to be bigger than the question. Don't let the stage, the crowd, the judges consume me.
So this is the idea behind the whole thing: i will figure out what the competition and every part of it is about, what is my ultimate perfection, and how can i reach that perfection.
Another lesson i drew from the competition was that a concise and witty answer which addresses right to the heart of the problem is 100 times better than a premeditated or calculated "theory" which fails to disguise itself. The former is much much harder than the latter because it requires an exhaustive thinking experience, while the latter is dealing mainly with...nonsense.
Rudiments of my Shallow Political Understanding: for Future Reference
One thing negative about dialectics is that it presupposes the end of all objects of evaluation are contradictions. This is so frustrating that it immediately dampens any attempt to probe into any questions like that. That is remotely true of why somewhere along the line i stopped being the child who by nature liked to think about all the things ranging from food to the universe, and suddenly joined the majority of the public who can't think and would not make any attempt in that direction. When i no longer trusted my own thinking ability, i stopped thinking and caught hold of anything that was crammed to me. I became stupid and highly suggestible.
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It is just that under the influence of decades of education which tells them fixed answers about what is right and wrong, they come out not calling it wrong. They tend to accept the society the way it is and think that it is the best result because they have not seen otherwise. What all the politics teacher do is to tell the students a modified and spun theory which is near perfect after all those remedies, and it appears that where we are now is out of history necessity and every decision the party make is right, and our time is best of all; the reality may not be perfect but it is the best outcome and we are getting better and better, so....
You want every student to live up to the fullest of their potentials and know about the truth, but the country or the party can't afford to allow that happen. And after so many years of modern education, there is plenty of fools in store. So they probably don't need to worry about that. The society would run out of time before it run out of well-meaning and patronizing citizens. He speaks out. And i would rather live my own life to the fullest.
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It is just that under the influence of decades of education which tells them fixed answers about what is right and wrong, they come out not calling it wrong. They tend to accept the society the way it is and think that it is the best result because they have not seen otherwise. What all the politics teacher do is to tell the students a modified and spun theory which is near perfect after all those remedies, and it appears that where we are now is out of history necessity and every decision the party make is right, and our time is best of all; the reality may not be perfect but it is the best outcome and we are getting better and better, so....
You want every student to live up to the fullest of their potentials and know about the truth, but the country or the party can't afford to allow that happen. And after so many years of modern education, there is plenty of fools in store. So they probably don't need to worry about that. The society would run out of time before it run out of well-meaning and patronizing citizens. He speaks out. And i would rather live my own life to the fullest.
Textbook Article Reviews
Class Review: Mountain Lion's Attack
Mountain Lion's Attack by Deborah Morris, was the text we had today, in our Integrated Course of English Language. I didn't preview it, so my first time of reading it was guided by Ms T. Under her instruction i came away with the general impression that the writing was effective and compelling, and the article was mainly about scout and gallantry. Now that i got out of her influence and looked at it myself, i realized that this article was neither about scout nor gallantry, it was about, and it concluded itself to a mystical experience.
Para 11. I know sometimes God gets your attention in mysterious way. So i decided to listen to that voice.
Para 21(the last one). I guess i did save him, but not without help. As a scout, i still live by the "Be prepared" motto. But now i understand that means more than wearing the right clothes and carrying the right gear. It means being prepared to really listen when somebody's giving me divine directions.
Somehow Ms T missed the point when she briefly addressed the last sentence. She didn't seem to give the word "divine" enough credit for its due weight in the wrapping up of the piece. She did for once mention the mystical experience though, where she used a telepathic incident between Jane Eyre and Rochester, which reminds me of a chap in Does the Center Hold concerning art and illusion.
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Class Review: Never Give In, Never, Never, Never (Oct. 1941)
The first time i read this speech, i was not impressed, probably because i did not like Miss Tao's interpretation of it. But a semester later, when i have to reread it in preparation of the finals, i was deeply, deeply impressed by its conciseness, effectiveness and timelessness.
"Never give in" is not that a platitude as i supposed it to be. It is like connecting the dots while looking backward, seeing something we fail to see while living forward, and drawing a valuable lesson for the time to come.
He extracts essence from the dry and elusive facts and gives them significance by shedding light upon the hidden side of it which the average people fail to conscious of.
"Do not let us speak of darker days: let speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark day, these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race."
This is the most powerful part of this speech, not the catchword "never, never, never" in that this bestows meaning, dignity and significance to what the people are doing, and the people themselves. No matter whether the situation of getting better or worse, if you just look at what you are suffering and say, "this doesn't make any sense", then nothing will make a difference on you. "Those who have to fight much find reasons for fighting."_Jean-paul Sartre. He first let people believe this whole thing is a noble cause, then they are fortunate and important to be a part of it.
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Class Review: The Discus Thrower (1983)
Somehow Miss Tao was misguided along the way to believe that most people believe literature must serve a "great" purpose, which is not the case and probably inherited its stamp from Marxism, together with the vagueness of the theory itself. So she just made a point that is already manifest among people who have ever ventured to think about the function of literature. And i am also suspicious that despite the justification of her point, she might have arrived at that only because she failed to figure out the purpose of the article.
I don't believe anyone can do anything well or worthwhile without a purpose to begin with.
And then he laughs. It's a sound you have never heard. It is something new under the sun. It could cure cancer.
Fyodor Dostoevsky: god gives women hysteria as a relief.
This is relief, kind of verging on hysteria.
Relief, laugh, hysteria, venting...but so far there is not a word fittest to describe the sound that the doctor has just heard. It is different because it is vicious, but vicious towards all the absurd, the pretentious, the hypocrisy.
Reading The Reprieve
A great writer can at the same time be a man and a woman, a professor and an illiterate, a parent and an adolescent...all at the same time. But how was he able to do that? And even if he had been all these, how aware and acute is he to have felt all these! And, not only could he get under their skin, he could even dig in their subconsciousness.
There are moments in this book while i think to myself, this is me, this is how i am, what i used to be, this is how i feel, what i want to be, and this is what is in other people that i loathe... There is every thing.
It is timeless, not confined to a single race or country either. It is a depiction of the permanent human mind.
Among them, swinging of the mind and the process of growth are also hard but good things to write.
Reading the dialogue between Czechs, German and French, i thought to myself, if it was in my country, this book would not have been allowed to be published. To avoid dissident thoughts of unorthodoxy inclinations, any kind of personal interpretation is banned, the party documentary being the only orthodox. That's why our recent history has not been and will not be adorned with any literature or art that can be called "great" or timeless.
Fragments: Words and the Mind (II)
Fancy Words
If something is not comprehensible to you, first, don't be afraid. Second, it is just disguised by fancy words put in place in order to make them seem...civil, orthodoxy or formal, but at the root it can be stripped down to very simple and silly facts, almost always recognizable human experiences and daily thoughts.
What i need to do to understand is to strip the fancy words down to the very root of its meaning, believe nothing is incomprehensible to me and relish each moment of comprehension.
"he understands anything that has happened to him, it is all that he has, his ultimate pride. "
If that will be my ultimate pride, then to discern any plain truth from a world of fancy words and the froth of nonsense will be my ultimate weapon.
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Metaphors
When I can't see something clearly enough, I use figurative methods.
But people who think clearly speak plainly. The closer we are to the truth, the more clearly we see, and the plainer our language can be. Plain language is more advanced than metaphors or similes.
Metaphors are a good way of demonstration, of course. But before we explain anything to other people, we should make sure that we know the very truth of the it already. While we are approaching the the mountaintop of truth, we should not be satisfied to stop at the clouds of metaphors.
当一个问题在我的脑子里没有成形的时候，我只能用比喻来描述他的抽象的面貌。
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When Words Fails Us
什么时候我们需要丰富的肢体语言？
1) 初掌握一门外语，不能明确表达出自己的意思；
2) 不善于表达，而刚好情绪喷涌或有一个复杂的思想要表达；
3) 这门语言本身学到极致的时候仍然缺乏表现力。
曾经新闻里看到一个畸形儿上下眼皮没有分开，他成天痛苦得将嘴巴张到最大。人的思想意识之于用于表达它的语言，就像浩瀚的宇宙之于人的感官。人所能运用的语言越丰富，他的思想表达就越充分，那些辅助的条件，如手势，表情，其它肢体语言，甚至于书面的感叹词，惊叹号等等就越没有必要。所以，我认为，肢体语言少是语言表达能力强的表现，而在演讲中，这个似乎没有被大家接受，人们还是喜欢那些充满flourish 的选手，不管是否生硬或恰当。
"When you're digging down deep to bring out emotion, there are a lot of places to dissipate, and the hands are one of them. No hand gestures. What can happen is, the power that were coming out of the fingers and the toes can come out of your eyes. "
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Language and Cognition
"We can only see the universe through the limited prism of our senses." our senses are more precisely windows through which we can have a limited view of the vast cosmos. And human consciousness collectively is almost as vast as the cosmos. Words are the limited means we can use to peer through and describe our thoughts.
"Class in America is like sex in Victorian times: people believe that if no one talks about it, it will just go away."
This is a part (the most widely ignored part) of information abuse, where people (with the power of information distribution, purposefully or out of mental laziness ) refuse to give some existing notion (thoughts, phenomena, differences, truth, etc.) a proper name or put them forward. Since "words are a lens to focus one's mind", if we don't give the thing a name, pin it down, define it and use it, it will be drifting in and out of our consciousness. When it's number is up, it will just vanish. Thus, escaping the consciousness and attention of people on the receiving end of information.
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Imagery and Mental Pictures
Up until I have known an amount of words, but what does it mean that i know them? A small portion of them are very familiar to me due to everyday usage: no problem about that. But among them are also words which are so overused, misused, misunderstood, neglected or worn-out that they almost mean nothing to either the speaker or the listener when uttered. A great deal more of words, less frequently appeared, produce the same effect, but due to different reasons, either i don't care about their meaning or their appearance now and then make a false impression that i already know what they mean. So when confronted, these words are the easiest to escape my consciousness, because without stirring up a vivid mental picture, they are nothing more than a word. A word without carrying a meaning is a nonsense.
As i mentioned before, words are windows to peer through our vast consciousness. The ultimate goal of using words is to achieve free exchange of man's consciousness. A passage, made up of hundreds or thousands of words, is a huge glass wall consists of such little windows. The core of the reading problem is to make sure that we actually see something through each of the windows, and the clearer the better. Thus coming to the accuracy issue.
When i was watching The Mentalist, the one with the casino, Patrick Jane showed how he remembers all the cards: he chooses his favourite and most familiar place, where his father used to take him to, something like a palace, and he imagined each cards to be some certain characters, each of them in one of the chambers in the palace...This is worth thinking about further, but here i will just mention the power of mental pictures and imagination, and in addition, the surprising feats of memory concerning something you really like.
As words can appear both on paper and by air wave, the mental picture thing is also applicable to listening.
Why we think it's OK to eat beef and pork, but not rabbits? Because we are so accustomed to eating beef and pork that these two words succeeded in cutting off their association with cattle and pig. We seldom have a picture of cattle in our mind when eating or talking about beef, do we? And as to rabbit, you know it's hard not to picture a lovely, tiny, red-eyed rabbit.
If something is not comprehensible to you, first, don't be afraid. Second, it is just disguised by fancy words put in place in order to make them seem...civil, orthodoxy or formal, but at the root it can be stripped down to very simple and silly facts, almost always recognizable human experiences and daily thoughts.
What i need to do to understand is to strip the fancy words down to the very root of its meaning, believe nothing is incomprehensible to me and relish each moment of comprehension.
"he understands anything that has happened to him, it is all that he has, his ultimate pride. "
If that will be my ultimate pride, then to discern any plain truth from a world of fancy words and the froth of nonsense will be my ultimate weapon.
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Metaphors
When I can't see something clearly enough, I use figurative methods.
But people who think clearly speak plainly. The closer we are to the truth, the more clearly we see, and the plainer our language can be. Plain language is more advanced than metaphors or similes.
Metaphors are a good way of demonstration, of course. But before we explain anything to other people, we should make sure that we know the very truth of the it already. While we are approaching the the mountaintop of truth, we should not be satisfied to stop at the clouds of metaphors.
当一个问题在我的脑子里没有成形的时候，我只能用比喻来描述他的抽象的面貌。
----------------------------
When Words Fails Us
什么时候我们需要丰富的肢体语言？
1) 初掌握一门外语，不能明确表达出自己的意思；
2) 不善于表达，而刚好情绪喷涌或有一个复杂的思想要表达；
3) 这门语言本身学到极致的时候仍然缺乏表现力。
曾经新闻里看到一个畸形儿上下眼皮没有分开，他成天痛苦得将嘴巴张到最大。人的思想意识之于用于表达它的语言，就像浩瀚的宇宙之于人的感官。人所能运用的语言越丰富，他的思想表达就越充分，那些辅助的条件，如手势，表情，其它肢体语言，甚至于书面的感叹词，惊叹号等等就越没有必要。所以，我认为，肢体语言少是语言表达能力强的表现，而在演讲中，这个似乎没有被大家接受，人们还是喜欢那些充满flourish 的选手，不管是否生硬或恰当。
"When you're digging down deep to bring out emotion, there are a lot of places to dissipate, and the hands are one of them. No hand gestures. What can happen is, the power that were coming out of the fingers and the toes can come out of your eyes. "
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Language and Cognition
"We can only see the universe through the limited prism of our senses." our senses are more precisely windows through which we can have a limited view of the vast cosmos. And human consciousness collectively is almost as vast as the cosmos. Words are the limited means we can use to peer through and describe our thoughts.
"Class in America is like sex in Victorian times: people believe that if no one talks about it, it will just go away."
This is a part (the most widely ignored part) of information abuse, where people (with the power of information distribution, purposefully or out of mental laziness ) refuse to give some existing notion (thoughts, phenomena, differences, truth, etc.) a proper name or put them forward. Since "words are a lens to focus one's mind", if we don't give the thing a name, pin it down, define it and use it, it will be drifting in and out of our consciousness. When it's number is up, it will just vanish. Thus, escaping the consciousness and attention of people on the receiving end of information.
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Imagery and Mental Pictures
Up until I have known an amount of words, but what does it mean that i know them? A small portion of them are very familiar to me due to everyday usage: no problem about that. But among them are also words which are so overused, misused, misunderstood, neglected or worn-out that they almost mean nothing to either the speaker or the listener when uttered. A great deal more of words, less frequently appeared, produce the same effect, but due to different reasons, either i don't care about their meaning or their appearance now and then make a false impression that i already know what they mean. So when confronted, these words are the easiest to escape my consciousness, because without stirring up a vivid mental picture, they are nothing more than a word. A word without carrying a meaning is a nonsense.
As i mentioned before, words are windows to peer through our vast consciousness. The ultimate goal of using words is to achieve free exchange of man's consciousness. A passage, made up of hundreds or thousands of words, is a huge glass wall consists of such little windows. The core of the reading problem is to make sure that we actually see something through each of the windows, and the clearer the better. Thus coming to the accuracy issue.
When i was watching The Mentalist, the one with the casino, Patrick Jane showed how he remembers all the cards: he chooses his favourite and most familiar place, where his father used to take him to, something like a palace, and he imagined each cards to be some certain characters, each of them in one of the chambers in the palace...This is worth thinking about further, but here i will just mention the power of mental pictures and imagination, and in addition, the surprising feats of memory concerning something you really like.
As words can appear both on paper and by air wave, the mental picture thing is also applicable to listening.
Why we think it's OK to eat beef and pork, but not rabbits? Because we are so accustomed to eating beef and pork that these two words succeeded in cutting off their association with cattle and pig. We seldom have a picture of cattle in our mind when eating or talking about beef, do we? And as to rabbit, you know it's hard not to picture a lovely, tiny, red-eyed rabbit.
From Dorian Gray to Infertility
How interesting life is, if you pay enough attention to it.
Yesterday i resumed reading The Picture of Dorian Gray since i dropped it off when i had some minor waist injuries. I was half way through and the stories went at the point of Dorian Gray's brief and heart-breaking love-affair with a lovely but pathetic young actress.
And today i was looking for a film by Julia Roberts and i settled for Notting Hill. That was how i spent this easy morning and a while after lunch. This was exactly another story about someone's
And after i finished watching this film, i turned on BBC Radio 4, and in the news casts it mentioned a woman who had an accident and was chained to the wheelchair, who was at the same time looking for treatment for infertility! That was same situation with the woman in Notting Hill, who was the protagonist's friend! I wondered if i kept on tracking the details i was going to make this chain indefinite. Interesting.
...
Just finished watching The Good Girl, and i thought, good, another story about a family messed up by infertility.
love affair with an actress!
Yesterday i resumed reading The Picture of Dorian Gray since i dropped it off when i had some minor waist injuries. I was half way through and the stories went at the point of Dorian Gray's brief and heart-breaking love-affair with a lovely but pathetic young actress.
And today i was looking for a film by Julia Roberts and i settled for Notting Hill. That was how i spent this easy morning and a while after lunch. This was exactly another story about someone's
And after i finished watching this film, i turned on BBC Radio 4, and in the news casts it mentioned a woman who had an accident and was chained to the wheelchair, who was at the same time looking for treatment for infertility! That was same situation with the woman in Notting Hill, who was the protagonist's friend! I wondered if i kept on tracking the details i was going to make this chain indefinite. Interesting.
...
Just finished watching The Good Girl, and i thought, good, another story about a family messed up by infertility.
love affair with an actress!
The Intensity
It is desperate, crazy but ecstatic.
I am clinging to any scratch of time i can use,
Learning anything within my reach,
Applying any knowledge i have learnt to the problems i deal with,
Eating and probably digesting anything that i gulp down my throat.
Life has never been more intense.
June 23, 2009
Review: The Pursuit of Happyness
When I was going though the film, the thing that struck me the most was the "pursuit"-in the literal sense of the word. In order of their appearance, he first of all pursued the hippy girl for his scanner without success, then caught her another day and got it back; then he was pursued by the cab driver, lost his second scanner in catching the subway; the third time, he got out of the detention house and made a mad run for his interview, then tried to catch the bum in vain but got hit by a car and lost a shoe; the fourth time, missed an appointment despite of the mad pursuit and at last, retrieved his device from the bum... Though sometimes it is not clear whether he is pursuing happiness or being pursued by life.
But when I look back and check all the pursuing scenes out, I find they don't really make up the bulk of the film as they appear to be, I have to skip long intervals to find out these clues, but they give me an impression much more stronger than the rest of the film partly because they constantly remind me that the road to happiness is a pursuit, not waiting, not casual searching, but a mad pursuit.
Sometimes life puts you on the verge of collapsing. You are on the fringe that if you let go, it hardly can get any worse, everything (dream, talent, honor, potential...) then drifts away like they never existed, and if you run and scramble and snatch and hang on long enough until hope looms from the horizon, miracles do happen.
What is in Chris Gardner that made him pull through is not some strongly manifested determination, or faith of any kind, nor do i think the word "optimism" is the highlight of his character. It is his underlying persistence in refusing to be blown into the mindset of sloth, of letting go. That is so strong that he never even shows any inclination of giving up. Otherwise none of the above listed pursuits will happen- he could just lie down and accept, saying "Good riddance", "that's life" or "tomorrow is another day." I believe this very character is the fountainhead of his life's pursuit of happiness and also one of the core messages that the film wants to get across.
Then there is the question as old as mankind-happiness. Though we all expect it to happen in the end-the typical rags-to-riches success- when the moment comes, it never fail to fill our eyes with tears. Somewhere near the end of the story Chris says "...my constant disappointment in my ten-gallon head...because when i was young and getting A in history tests or something, whatever, i got this good feeling about all the things that i would be, and then i never became any of them." And then fast forward to the ending - this is a story of a dream lost and found, and the very moment of reunion with our long-lost dream is the "little part" of happiness. We break in tears at this point because this is something we all share.
In addition, somehow I feel this film is partly inspired by another movie Lola Rennt, or Run Lola Run. One thing is about the running and rushing scenes. Another is that the bum in The Pursuit of Happiness very much resembles the one in that German film. And i come to the conclusion that if you lose something important in public place, it is almost always taken away by a lucky bum, and you can always take it back.
Review:《我的青春谁做主》
我的室友前阵子在寝室里看《我的青春谁做主》，全程外放，我是被逼着从头到尾“听”完这部电视的。后来我在家里看电视的时候开到这个，看了几眼，发现画面里面的美女帅哥和高楼豪宅确实可以使一部“不堪入耳”的电视剧变得还稍微可以忍受。以下是我在听完这部电视之后的感觉。
有一集里面的“经济基础决定上层建筑”这句话被重复了不知多少遍，到了让我抓狂的地步，我真想过去把我的室友一脚踢翻，然后砸了她的电脑。
在很多不同的情境中，我脑子里总是出现同样一幅画面：当小主人公们因为生活和工作而纠结时，慈祥的外公外婆伯伯婶婶就开始转身面对镜头，开始向电视机前的小朋友们教授“人生哲理”。
说教永远停留在态度层面，和我高中时肤浅而不切实际的自我鼓励没有任何区别。我一度觉得这些台词来自于思想政治教科书的前言寄语部分。
我的同龄人们之所以喜欢这部电视剧，觉得它有意义，可能是因为他们identify with the characters in it. 它让你感觉原来大家都是一样的，everyone feels like you. 从而当他们走出阴霾发奋向上的时候，你也精神为之一振。剧内剧外，大家都是那种dumb little kids who never question anything and are happy that way. In that surreal world conspired by youth idol drama and socialist culture, they believe to get things solved, nothing needs to be done except for a sudden change of attitude.
Caution! 当你在看《我的青春谁做主》的时候，你的青春已经被廉价偶像剧做主了。
June 5, 2009
有一集里面的“经济基础决定上层建筑”这句话被重复了不知多少遍，到了让我抓狂的地步，我真想过去把我的室友一脚踢翻，然后砸了她的电脑。
在很多不同的情境中，我脑子里总是出现同样一幅画面：当小主人公们因为生活和工作而纠结时，慈祥的外公外婆伯伯婶婶就开始转身面对镜头，开始向电视机前的小朋友们教授“人生哲理”。
说教永远停留在态度层面，和我高中时肤浅而不切实际的自我鼓励没有任何区别。我一度觉得这些台词来自于思想政治教科书的前言寄语部分。
我的同龄人们之所以喜欢这部电视剧，觉得它有意义，可能是因为他们identify with the characters in it. 它让你感觉原来大家都是一样的，everyone feels like you. 从而当他们走出阴霾发奋向上的时候，你也精神为之一振。剧内剧外，大家都是那种dumb little kids who never question anything and are happy that way. In that surreal world conspired by youth idol drama and socialist culture, they believe to get things solved, nothing needs to be done except for a sudden change of attitude.
Caution! 当你在看《我的青春谁做主》的时候，你的青春已经被廉价偶像剧做主了。
June 5, 2009
A Make-Believe Interview: They Want anything but the Truth
I don't know whether this is from the top down or from the bottom up. This whole scheme is like a miniature - well, interview.
First and foremost there is the student (the ill-informed mass) they are, stereotypically, in trouble, confused,and can hardly think for their own.
Then there is the student body leaders or the students affairs teachers acting as the government. They are the brain behind the scene. They dictate what the public needs to know, determine the tone and remote control the whole process.
In between is the platform which glues the two parts together. Media, they are called, or propaganda. (isn't all media propaganda?) then on the platform, we need some student representatives - the excellent part of the population is of no use here- they need the dumb ones so that they can truly represent the majority of the public.
Then there is the expert. The fact that the brain behind the scene dictates the subject and predetermines the tone before they go and find the right expert may have tipped you off already. They either find the expert who hold the view which happened to, or otherwise, coincide with their purpose, or find someone bearing a big name and who is at the same time so spineless as to sit through the whole process spilling out something exactly opposite of what to he believes. As a result, real experts who knows the truth are neglected, buried, silenced or in the worst case, bent. Those who appear on TV are only a mouthpiece of the behind-scenes boss. They are replaceable by anyone who can, you know, talk.
Of course a host or hostess is indispensable here. The whole group of people, made up by the representatives and an expert, are the puppets who is performing the boss's show. How do they know fully what the boss needs them to communicate to the public without a well played-out agenda? So the host person is there to guide the talk and keep it on the boss's predetermined track.
During the rehearsal, the "brain" was actively at work. They mince your original words, trimmed whatever might conflict with their purpose, and even went so far as to teach you what to tell.
When the actual show is on, they subsided and relished the outcome.
They knew, even though they evaded as well as they can, that this was not going to work - it never does, otherwise the CET problem would be solved a long long time ago.They nevertheless appeased themselves that they could at least enhance the confidence or work up the public morale.
They wanted anything but the truth. They believed as long as they did not utter the words of irreconcilable conflicts, such things just did not exist. Thus they went about their life and work with will power and relished the process of making arrangement of things of this kind- where anything is in play but the truth.
Now i understood why i led a much simpler life- i only accepted what is true. Yes, truth hurts but it hurts so good. It is a kind of sobering joy some people will never find out. In making a choice, i only asked one person- myself; and only one question- do i like to do it?
April 18, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
It is Not about Memory!
I dozed off the whole of the first period of the listening class. And the second period I was relatively lucid. When Ms Wang called me to answer again, she praised me for "good memory".
How many times have i said this is not about memory? What a pity you hear none of them. As a teacher you are misleading the students. And i hereby will reiterate to myself that if i can remember something better than anyone else to the extent that they began to praise my good memory, it is because i know more and deeper than that, this is too easy for me and i can easily see through it, not to say remember or analyse it.
The meaning of this awareness might not just be confined to the narrow and specific area of English Listening. It might be employed to explain anything i come across that i want to remember. I am reading the book Does the Center Hold? I really want to remember how Rene Decartes came up with the Cognito ergo sum thing. But it was really hard for me. I don't try too hard to memorize it because it will be futile. If the accounts in the book is easy for me, i would have remembered them immediately after the first sight. So what i need to work on is not to force myself memorizing them, but to understand.
But furthermore, if i can't understand them, it could be due to various reasons. First, i might not be focusing on the whole subject while reading. This also is due to the fact that i am not familiar with the words or concepts and therefore can't grasp the core of the meaning- what i manage to come by is some fuzzy image or nothing at all rather than its specific meaning. Second, i have not enough experience to refer to and ponder on. Thus my understanding or probing doesn't have enough room to exercise its power.
April 27, 2009
How many times have i said this is not about memory? What a pity you hear none of them. As a teacher you are misleading the students. And i hereby will reiterate to myself that if i can remember something better than anyone else to the extent that they began to praise my good memory, it is because i know more and deeper than that, this is too easy for me and i can easily see through it, not to say remember or analyse it.
The meaning of this awareness might not just be confined to the narrow and specific area of English Listening. It might be employed to explain anything i come across that i want to remember. I am reading the book Does the Center Hold? I really want to remember how Rene Decartes came up with the Cognito ergo sum thing. But it was really hard for me. I don't try too hard to memorize it because it will be futile. If the accounts in the book is easy for me, i would have remembered them immediately after the first sight. So what i need to work on is not to force myself memorizing them, but to understand.
But furthermore, if i can't understand them, it could be due to various reasons. First, i might not be focusing on the whole subject while reading. This also is due to the fact that i am not familiar with the words or concepts and therefore can't grasp the core of the meaning- what i manage to come by is some fuzzy image or nothing at all rather than its specific meaning. Second, i have not enough experience to refer to and ponder on. Thus my understanding or probing doesn't have enough room to exercise its power.
April 27, 2009
My Spectrum Theory
"The whole of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking."
When exactly did i started thinking i already forgot, but since i have started, i will never ever stop again. I can think about all kinds of things. And with the growing of experience in life, from reading and watching TV, the range of things i think about extends, and the depth of my meditation also grows. I think on all levels, sometimes like a child, sometimes might even be deeper than a scholar. It is a continuous spectrum. As long as i keep thinking, i will always hit some high notes, and these high points once refined, might compose a pretty good book, or let's say, blog.
Craig: "the no.1 rule in show business-promptness.""Just keeping on talking and something funny will come out."
My interpretation: the capability of people varies, but everyone don't stay on the same level all the time. I mean, David Letterman, John Leno, Steven Colbert or John Stuart, none of them, no matter how genius they are, they can't possibly keep audience laughing from the beginning to the end non-stop. They have a spectrum, and it fluctuates in between.
I can't ensure that i think everything straight and make right conclusions all the time, but i invest all my time thinking, just keep on doing that, something choice and classy will come out.
And it applies to many other aspects in my life.
April 26, 2009
回应面红耳赤者
面红耳赤者言：“最后，我想忠告您一句，言论不是作秀，不能为了吸引眼球就随意地抛出一些矫情、做作甚至是故意模仿的，根本经不起推敲的话语，新闻人更是如此。否则，您就是在玷污我们的职业，您也就成了新时代的网络暴民！”
回应：
“模仿”，就像前些阵子流行得进了政协会议的“山寨”，是一个人学习一样东西从无到有的必经阶段，他只是不太成熟，所以经不起推敲也是正常的，如果他显得矫情做作，那也是其本人最不愿看到的，一个人表达自己真实的想法，最终的目的不管是seek agreement，还是要与人切磋武艺，总之一般情况下不会是为了“作秀”或者是“吸引眼球”(就算是要吸引眼球，那也肯定是希望自己同时look damn good)，谁都不会随便搬来一些花哨的言论然后等着别人拿砖砸他吧。W将这些词加到小鸟的身上，也是欠考虑，用通用的大众的思维来解释事情而没有切实做一点思考。就像随便哪个人在网上一夜成名了，他做的所有事情就被冠以炒作之名。人们在这些事上不再多想了，放一个炒作就解释了一切，省了很多mental effort. 这有可能构成下意识的“模仿”，如果是那样，他就砸了自己的脚了。批判他人时如果正义和公理在手，可以不留情面，但是要谨防矫枉过正。
这一段话情感激荡，（想必现场是唾沫横飞的），“您”，“抛出”，以及“暴民”三个词感情十分强烈，可以说一点情面都没有留下。除了judgemental 以外，把这些词语放在记者的语境里，是很不妥的。因为他们在情感上有强烈的暗示意味，“暴民”这样的词就像“炮轰”一样，渲染意味十分之强。会使没有prejudgement 的受众的判断受到直接影响。这要跟advocacy journalism 区分开来。
另外，前文的批驳强大而不失冷静，就不用这一段情感的宣泄了。最理想的论战是平静的，锋利的，而不是面红耳赤的。
Dreams Tell a Truth
Sometimes we say I didn't get what i want, not even in the dream. Now that i think about it, if i had never experienced it in my real life, how can i dream about it? Dreams are a mixture and rearrangement of fragments of things happened, thought-about, feared, envisioned, flashed-by and called back. All they need is such actual materials.
Last year in the nights before several speech contests, big or small, i seldom dreamed those apprehending dreams which had a hangover even after i woke up and forced me to carry it around into the journey of the day, and then even influence the choices i made.
But this year i had plenty, long before the first contest loomed. In my dreams, i come back to the scenes of the stage, with rigorous judges, and time is invariably the most apprehending element. Turns out, the hidden anxiety suppressed in my lucid moments, consciously or otherwise, will ultimately break loose in one of my dreams that night, and even make presentation with much higher intensity.
So anxiety can't be suppressed and the only thing to annihilate it is to face it bravely and honestly, and get things done as soon as possible. Am i confident about it? If i am pretending so well that even myself can't tell, or events in life were just unintelligible, blurred, and elusive, just tap into my dream. Just it happened in my dreams doesn't mean that they aren't true. What dreams are made of determines that they are likely to be an diluded, transformed, intensified or extracted version of real life. The details might be bizarre, but the overall tone of it might be revealing of the truth.
No one is Looking out for Me
March 22, 2009
It is a long way which leads me to understand it: No one, not my parents, not the school, the teachers, the Party, nor the Motherland is looking out for me.
That means when i fail, there is no one I can blame, because they didn't claim the responsibility to begin with, they just give me that feeling and cause me to think so. It also means, if i fail, no one will be sadder than i do. I always thought before that i myself didn't matter. All i wanted was to make my parents proud and give them happiness. I was wrong.
This mere change in thought actually makes a big difference in that when i realize that i am the only person in responsibility and want to have a good life, the purpose and action gets into a unity. I will be responsible for everything i do. I will make the smartest choice instead of the right one. I will be freer in thinking for myself. I will run faster and travel further.
Furthermore, no one is keeping track of me and my choices. No one is out there to make sure that i choose the right, normal or safest way, again they just gave me that kind of feeling. They advised in all kinds of ways which they think is good for me just because they think i am like any others they have met before, hedged by their own limited experience. They haven't seen enough legends in daily life to believe that their normal eyes is to meet one.
I am just different. Father stifled his potentiality little by little by turning down any kind of opportunities by the standard that he will not be the object of other people's laughing matter or anything.
What am i afraid of? No one is looking out for me. This is what i say-and if this becomes what i actually do, i don't believe i am not going to succeed. My goal is not to make more money than my relatives or classmates. It is to find what i love to do and let people pay me for doing what i love. The stupidest choice is made by including any other people other than myself in the concerns, or simply throw myself out of the game.
If i don't do what i like to do now, i will not be able to do that for the rest of my life. If i tend to choose what is normal and secure over what i like, i am likely to make that choice any time i face the trade off. Then with time and choices piling on...If you don't know what is going to happen to you, just look at people around you, who spend a lifetime doing what most people are doing in order to stay secure and ending up in the prison of being secure. All they got is insecurity.
It is a long way which leads me to understand it: No one, not my parents, not the school, the teachers, the Party, nor the Motherland is looking out for me.
That means when i fail, there is no one I can blame, because they didn't claim the responsibility to begin with, they just give me that feeling and cause me to think so. It also means, if i fail, no one will be sadder than i do. I always thought before that i myself didn't matter. All i wanted was to make my parents proud and give them happiness. I was wrong.
This mere change in thought actually makes a big difference in that when i realize that i am the only person in responsibility and want to have a good life, the purpose and action gets into a unity. I will be responsible for everything i do. I will make the smartest choice instead of the right one. I will be freer in thinking for myself. I will run faster and travel further.
Furthermore, no one is keeping track of me and my choices. No one is out there to make sure that i choose the right, normal or safest way, again they just gave me that kind of feeling. They advised in all kinds of ways which they think is good for me just because they think i am like any others they have met before, hedged by their own limited experience. They haven't seen enough legends in daily life to believe that their normal eyes is to meet one.
I am just different. Father stifled his potentiality little by little by turning down any kind of opportunities by the standard that he will not be the object of other people's laughing matter or anything.
What am i afraid of? No one is looking out for me. This is what i say-and if this becomes what i actually do, i don't believe i am not going to succeed. My goal is not to make more money than my relatives or classmates. It is to find what i love to do and let people pay me for doing what i love. The stupidest choice is made by including any other people other than myself in the concerns, or simply throw myself out of the game.
If i don't do what i like to do now, i will not be able to do that for the rest of my life. If i tend to choose what is normal and secure over what i like, i am likely to make that choice any time i face the trade off. Then with time and choices piling on...If you don't know what is going to happen to you, just look at people around you, who spend a lifetime doing what most people are doing in order to stay secure and ending up in the prison of being secure. All they got is insecurity.
Film Review: Butterfly Effect II
今天看到迅雷看看上面有蝴蝶效应2，进去看了。过程中还断断续续想起几年前看1时的一些片段。虽然看了有很久了，我一直记着那部1，当初是在家里的电视机上看的。只记得很好看，就是不记得具体好看在哪里 了。今天又想起一些——特别是当时的结尾是相当震撼的。相比之下2的结尾就没有那么出人意料了，因为最大的噱头已经使过了。但是它还是在最后一个镜头留下一个聪明的悬念，让人觉得这还没完，这样也就从一种特殊的途径延伸了这部电影的生命。片尾字幕的效果也做得pertinent，恰到好处。
就是在电影刚开头的时候，两个男主角去捡木柴，不去山林里拣树枝，而是在海滩的乱石堆里捡均匀散落的明显是人力劈好的木柴，让我觉得有点——刚开始看电影正努力使自己沉浸到那种氛围里去，但是这个镜头硬生生把我抛到现实中去，想象着工作人员忙碌地进出片场，把这些木柴精心得摆放成随意散落的样子……过年的时候重温了一下罗拉快跑，有了一种先入为主的印象，就是从同一个节点出发，发散出若干种可能性。而在看蝴蝶效应的时候，却不是这样的。他可以按照生活的前进，按照需要回到某一点上，而前后两部电影的区别就是他们对路线和点的选择以及先后顺序。
做一次评委就知道
March 14, 2009
我特地放弃难得的回家的机会在今天去做了一个演讲比赛的评委，比赛本身是让人失望的，但是让我有了一次做评委的经历。我从而可以在必要时站在一个评委的角度上看问题。
首先，评委都有自己的事业，自己的追求，自己的爱好，他为被邀请来做judge的同时放弃了他本来在这段时间里可以进行的与家人共享天伦之乐或者沉浸在自己的爱好里的机会，就算他是人家花了钱请来的，他拿了钱以后仍然希望这些时间能过得有意义。所以他坐在那里最不希望看到的就是一群无知无能的人浪费他的时间。选手越出色，出色的选手越多，他对自己的付出的时间的满足感越高。当然这跟比赛本身没有什么联系，只是有时候，我们如果请很高级的老师或教授来做评委，那么至少得有几个让他们眼前一亮的选手。
其次，不管选手整体水平多么高，水平相差无几的一群人永远都会造成审美疲劳。如果30个选手里面有29个芮成钢，而其中插一个绝对高手， 那么那29个芮成钢也只能一个个被打入评委们记忆的死角了。比赛，从选手的视角看，是个人绝对实力的竞技场，而从评委的视角看，就完全是一个相对论的决战。一场比赛，不管奖项设置如何人性化，我们总是希望茫茫人海里能出现那么一个，不管第二阵营的多么穷追不舍，他总是遥遥领先的。这跟短跑是一个道理。三四个人一起冲过终点的比赛远没有Usian Bolt 一个人独领风骚那么让人印象深刻。
我有时候会按潜力给分。一个人身上散发出来的潜力之重要性有时甚至超过了他的赛场表现。这当然限制在一定的范围内，并且不可避免地有点虚，但是当一个人开始让我觉得“孺子可教”的时候，我往往不再注意他今天讲了些什么，有没有紧张之类的。
还有，我不在乎我对那些泛泛之辈的评分起伏是否consistent——前后一致，或者遵循不变的标准。像上文提到的，我最关注的是一个遥遥领先的选手，或者另一个与之不相上下的人，而剩下的人的命运对我而言就没有那么重要了。我也知道能否进入决赛的一根线将会在这群人中间画出，但是谁进谁不进对决赛而言又有多大意义呢？他们早已注定成为绿叶了，这只是谁做绿叶的问题，有什么大不了的呢。所以，你越靠前，你得到的分数就越公平。如果你已经在第二第三阵营里面了，那么就不要惊奇另一个片绿叶的表现不如你，得分却明显比你高了。评委是人不是机器。哪里出点误差他们第一个原谅自己。
不管你的表现多么出色，不管你与泛泛之辈的差距有多么大，永远不要期望评委记住你的名字。因为首先，我会想，如果你真的能在这条路上走下去并且到了我非认识你不可的地步，那么总有一天我会知道你的名字的。其次，只要你不是最后一个出场，在你的精彩表演之后，我会开始期待会有更好的选手出来，因为没有线索暗示你好，你就是唯一。而且我内心当然会希望还有更好的。既然我期待还有后来人，那么也就不会迫切地记住你是叫什么名字。因为也许再出来一个大巫，你就该被忘记了。分数会满，但水平没有上限。
比赛完后不用去问评委你有什么需要提高的。如果你真的好得一塌糊涂，评委又跟这个有另外的责任或利益联系，在哪里要用到你的，总一天他会主动联系你，提拔你，甚至培训你的。如果你是第二第三阵营里的，那么当你来到评委面前请教时，他脑子里跳出来的第一个反应就是——你给他印象最深的(因为比赛刚刚结束，趁热打铁，他还没把你彻底忘记)——你长得比较不一样啦，你有点口齿不清啦，你的口语没救啦等等等等，没有一样他能直接告诉你的，于是接下去他讲的无非就是搪塞，比如说你可以再自信一点啦(你不用解释说你没准备充分，当他努力在脑子里搜寻套话的时候根本没时间听你说话)，你的眼睛要看着观众啦，几乎是大家的通病，所以如果问了，也不要把他的建议当作金子一样看待，它们没有价值。更不要问他们应该怎么提高水平之类的，这样的问题不是三句话可以讲清楚的，所以你听到的基本还是搪塞。
综上你也许也看出我的基本观点了，那就是比赛是强者的游戏，要么你是冲着第一名去的，要么你做好思想工作坦白告诉自己你就是做绿叶去的。如果你觉得自信不够，水平牵强，潜力还有一点，期望抽到一个配你胃口的题目从而一跃成为第一二名，并偶尔允许你的白日梦再继续顺着这个云梯爬到北京城——运气不好一点按照经验可以保住一个二三等奖，给未来就业增加附加值……这时你已经是一片绿叶了，愿不愿意承认的问题。
I Caught Someone Lying on the Phone!
I Caught Someone Lying on the Phone!
March 13, 2009
It was almost 8 o'clock in the evening. My roommate X should have been in the gym an hour ago, since she had agreed to play badminton with her friends. Whether it was because she was not very willing to go, or her online game was undergoing a crucial time, she was still lingering in the dorm, unprepared.
Finally someone at the gym phoned in. She made a frenzy effort to get into her shoes and pick up at the phone at the same time.
"Where are you? Are you coming yet?" The other one asked.
"I'm already in the lobby." She said, grabbing her bag.
Yeah, right, you are in the lobby, I thought to myself.
Then the other one hesitated a little, telling her the guys in the gym had run out of badminton bats, she was calling her to get some from the room next door to ours, but since X was already in the lobby, it was okay, they could make shift with the not-so-good ones, and so on.
Out of some regrets for being so late, X readily responded that it was totally okay for her to "come upstairs" ("上来") and grab the bats for them.
Now you see what's wrong. If you are really in the lobby, you would say you will "go upstairs"("上去").
Her words sold her out but she didn't know. The other girl, being very grateful, didn't get it either. I was the only one who had seen this real-life drama directed by God.
大学目睹之怪现状
今天M做presentation的时候，主题是火星登陆，提到了一个water ice.老师问，water ice 和ice 有什么区别吗？她的意思就是一般人都说冰就完了，为什么要说是水冰，由此推出水冰一定不是一般的冰。M回答说不知道,可能没料到会半路杀出这么个问题，而“不知道”是最简洁的避开老师的为难的方法。老师于是说你应该当初到网上查一下water ice 和ice 的区别再来讲，这是她的长期的一个presentation建议的motif,今天又可以拿出来套一套了。上网查，她可能忘了，这世界上除了因特网，还有一个东西叫脑子。我当然不是蔑视网络，我是自由互联网的忠实拥护者。
You know sometimes people can be that entertaining. We don't need to look up for comics to get laughing matter. Little by little finding fault with the teachers and classmates has been a major activity in my life, given the time it takes to have all these trash courses going on in our curriculum.
“我是人民的巨眼，在我地窖的深处窥视一切。”
现在我旁边世界真是越来越好玩了，我以前一直没有能了看到。现在我还没有修炼到可以看清更复杂的事情，比如说经济和社会，还有我没有经历过的事情，但是至少眼前的学习生活已经不是什么高深或是神圣的东西了。大多时候都很滑稽。我以前总是莫名地愤世嫉俗，不知道是什么不对了，让我不满意了，并且我为什么不满了，干我什么事呢。
现在我不会生气了，我开始觉得原来那些让我做不进作业睡不着觉的东西都其实傻得可怜，有时候它们是那么可笑，明明不明就里还在做无谓的挣扎。很娱乐。而我按照一贯的风格，不参与，只做一个旁观者，从中得到最大的乐趣而丝毫不受损伤。我不相信如果我讲出真相世界就真会变得更美好，更可能的是没有听到的我的声音，因为我不像那种会懂得的人。所以不参与，结果也是一样的，还省了点力。
子曰：“吾与回言，终日不违，如愚。退而省其私，亦足以发。回也不愚。”
我在想，if i care, 我可以把每天那些傻傻的小东西记下来。到毕业我估计就可以出一本书，叫《大学目睹之怪现状》。
March 10, 2009
You know sometimes people can be that entertaining. We don't need to look up for comics to get laughing matter. Little by little finding fault with the teachers and classmates has been a major activity in my life, given the time it takes to have all these trash courses going on in our curriculum.
“我是人民的巨眼，在我地窖的深处窥视一切。”
现在我旁边世界真是越来越好玩了，我以前一直没有能了看到。现在我还没有修炼到可以看清更复杂的事情，比如说经济和社会，还有我没有经历过的事情，但是至少眼前的学习生活已经不是什么高深或是神圣的东西了。大多时候都很滑稽。我以前总是莫名地愤世嫉俗，不知道是什么不对了，让我不满意了，并且我为什么不满了，干我什么事呢。
现在我不会生气了，我开始觉得原来那些让我做不进作业睡不着觉的东西都其实傻得可怜，有时候它们是那么可笑，明明不明就里还在做无谓的挣扎。很娱乐。而我按照一贯的风格，不参与，只做一个旁观者，从中得到最大的乐趣而丝毫不受损伤。我不相信如果我讲出真相世界就真会变得更美好，更可能的是没有听到的我的声音，因为我不像那种会懂得的人。所以不参与，结果也是一样的，还省了点力。
子曰：“吾与回言，终日不违，如愚。退而省其私，亦足以发。回也不愚。”
我在想，if i care, 我可以把每天那些傻傻的小东西记下来。到毕业我估计就可以出一本书，叫《大学目睹之怪现状》。
March 10, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Bottom Lines of Making a Decision
March 8, 2009
While facing a trade-off, when i have to choose from A or B to do during a fixed period of time, the bottom line is to make sure that i have the largest control of my own time.
For example, i have a night at hand, i can choose whether to attend a lecture that might or might not be helpful to my further study, or to study in the dorm on my own. In making the choice, my first concern will be to ensure my largest as possible reign of my own time. If i went to the lecture and find it unworthy, i would still have to stay there, thus my time is "kidnapped". This will not happen to the other choice.
Along the way, no one can tell whether a choice is good or bad until I reached the end. The benefit and faults are in a dynamic process, which appear in turn and replace the latest outcome. In a word, i cannot see it through to the end. In this situation, i will make the choice which put me in the proactive position.
For example, yesterday morning, my roommates asked me to have lunch with them but i refused. Not a very thorough refusal though, because they made a little more attempt and i did not successfully wrap the conversation up. So the rest of the morning i was in the dilemma of whether to buy myself lunch or go back without. At last i went to the cafeteria and bought the lunch. When i go back to the room and told them so, they blamed me a little bit. I felt a little uneasy but did not regret. At least this will be the end of the problem. As long as i have my lunch secured, the rest did not concern me. Then they began the lunch and the five of them finished all the rice, leaving none for the two who was still purchasing food outside. If i had not bought the lunch, i would have to surrender my freedom of choice and obey whatever they will even if that means stupid leadership. That was a wise choice and it was wise for a reason.
While facing a trade-off, when i have to choose from A or B to do during a fixed period of time, the bottom line is to make sure that i have the largest control of my own time.
For example, i have a night at hand, i can choose whether to attend a lecture that might or might not be helpful to my further study, or to study in the dorm on my own. In making the choice, my first concern will be to ensure my largest as possible reign of my own time. If i went to the lecture and find it unworthy, i would still have to stay there, thus my time is "kidnapped". This will not happen to the other choice.
Along the way, no one can tell whether a choice is good or bad until I reached the end. The benefit and faults are in a dynamic process, which appear in turn and replace the latest outcome. In a word, i cannot see it through to the end. In this situation, i will make the choice which put me in the proactive position.
For example, yesterday morning, my roommates asked me to have lunch with them but i refused. Not a very thorough refusal though, because they made a little more attempt and i did not successfully wrap the conversation up. So the rest of the morning i was in the dilemma of whether to buy myself lunch or go back without. At last i went to the cafeteria and bought the lunch. When i go back to the room and told them so, they blamed me a little bit. I felt a little uneasy but did not regret. At least this will be the end of the problem. As long as i have my lunch secured, the rest did not concern me. Then they began the lunch and the five of them finished all the rice, leaving none for the two who was still purchasing food outside. If i had not bought the lunch, i would have to surrender my freedom of choice and obey whatever they will even if that means stupid leadership. That was a wise choice and it was wise for a reason.
Information Asymmetry
When we are in the hospital we are totally at the mercy of the doctors. No bargains. Why? Because the doctors have the sole access to the information of us. While we, most of the time, know nothing. There is a huge information gap at play here. That is why hospitals are among the places where a few people dictate over a majority. Our only way to fight against it is to know something about our health at least, and best if we can get to the point that the doctors will not be able to fool us. They sit behind the desks and look at us, reprimand us and pity us as helplessly foolish. What they don't see is the fact that they are not really so smart as they thought themselves to be. The reality is the result of information asymmetry.
All the suffering and exploitation of humanity are all because of information are not in the hands of the people who needs them most.
All the suffering and exploitation of humanity are all because of information are not in the hands of the people who needs them most.
从心所欲
March 4, 2009
高三的时候学校办过一个什么校十佳青年的评选，我没有拿到我们班级的名额，我们班里幸好也没人评上，要不然我一定眼红得要跳楼。那时真的很渴望，希望自己可以在全校面前上台领奖，拿到那个水晶的东西，最好还可以代表十个人讲话，那样我就有了唯一的“发言权”，展示我的普通话和sense...这真的是我高中天马行空的白日梦中的一个，而这个泡沫的破灭也是我高中时愤世嫉俗的原因之一。现实越不完满，目标越难以达到，随之而来的新的目标就越离谱。在那段 时间像河流一样向前狂奔到最后的深渊的日子里，我就是这样用越来越急迫激进狂想式的白日梦来填补现实生活中一个又一个泡沫破灭留下的越来越大的空洞。于是考验来临之时，冲下悬崖的一刹那，我背负的只是一个大大的空想，只能自由落地了。虽然降落的过程有点失去真实感，回头想想，两个字，活该。说出那两个字，我心里很爽，我想，我确实对自己的现在越发自信了，否则我怎么敢于否定过去呢。
大学之后，我明显改变了，我变得使自己越来越满意了。高考没有改变我，进入大学的新鲜感也没有改变我，读完大一，我还是原来的样子，大二之后，我终于找到了我想要的生活。内心生活。是读书改变了我。而现实生活从头倒脚都没有改变过，我甚至都没有做过头发，成绩人际学习whatsoever,什么都没有改变，但是对我都不重要了。
现在有了这么一个机会去争取一个什么榜样之星的，和平中的相同之处就是都有水晶的东西，都名额有限，很难拿到，机会又难得，唯一不同的就是就时间上而言，这个离就业更近，现实意义更大一点，而高中的荣誉更高。
但是我的想法已经改变了。
这只是一个荣誉。荣誉都是做给别人看的，如果我自己觉得自己不够优秀，那么拿到这个奖不会使我在实质上得到任何提高。如果一个人需要在别人的肯定中汲取肯定自己的勇气，那么他至少不会成为我的榜样。一个人，拥有自给自足的心灵，就不会需要，这样的荣誉。
如果是一笔奖金的话，倒可以改善我的生活，我会去很努力地争取。但是万一它是有奖金的呢？学校就是这样不透明，说不好。
我积极性不大也可能是由于我对将来很自信，觉得有更大的事情要去完成，这个白日梦做得比高中有过之而无不及，但是性质上有了点变化。我不知道我的自信出于何处，可能是由于离兑现的日子还有一定距离，可以随便狂想而没有现实羁绊和泼冷水，也可能是由于觉得天天向上，未来虽看不见却似乎无可限量。
以前我常想我要达到的理想境界是什么，比如做数学选择题两秒内反应出来，但是我不知道当下该做什么去达到它；现在呢，我很清楚今天此时此刻该干什么，我想干什么，但是不知道这样下去我会走到哪里。不知这是进步还是倒退，但至少我有事做了。没有那么多的时间做白日梦。
我几乎可以说现在的状态是：从心所欲，不逾矩。
高三的时候学校办过一个什么校十佳青年的评选，我没有拿到我们班级的名额，我们班里幸好也没人评上，要不然我一定眼红得要跳楼。那时真的很渴望，希望自己可以在全校面前上台领奖，拿到那个水晶的东西，最好还可以代表十个人讲话，那样我就有了唯一的“发言权”，展示我的普通话和sense...这真的是我高中天马行空的白日梦中的一个，而这个泡沫的破灭也是我高中时愤世嫉俗的原因之一。现实越不完满，目标越难以达到，随之而来的新的目标就越离谱。在那段 时间像河流一样向前狂奔到最后的深渊的日子里，我就是这样用越来越急迫激进狂想式的白日梦来填补现实生活中一个又一个泡沫破灭留下的越来越大的空洞。于是考验来临之时，冲下悬崖的一刹那，我背负的只是一个大大的空想，只能自由落地了。虽然降落的过程有点失去真实感，回头想想，两个字，活该。说出那两个字，我心里很爽，我想，我确实对自己的现在越发自信了，否则我怎么敢于否定过去呢。
大学之后，我明显改变了，我变得使自己越来越满意了。高考没有改变我，进入大学的新鲜感也没有改变我，读完大一，我还是原来的样子，大二之后，我终于找到了我想要的生活。内心生活。是读书改变了我。而现实生活从头倒脚都没有改变过，我甚至都没有做过头发，成绩人际学习whatsoever,什么都没有改变，但是对我都不重要了。
现在有了这么一个机会去争取一个什么榜样之星的，和平中的相同之处就是都有水晶的东西，都名额有限，很难拿到，机会又难得，唯一不同的就是就时间上而言，这个离就业更近，现实意义更大一点，而高中的荣誉更高。
但是我的想法已经改变了。
这只是一个荣誉。荣誉都是做给别人看的，如果我自己觉得自己不够优秀，那么拿到这个奖不会使我在实质上得到任何提高。如果一个人需要在别人的肯定中汲取肯定自己的勇气，那么他至少不会成为我的榜样。一个人，拥有自给自足的心灵，就不会需要，这样的荣誉。
如果是一笔奖金的话，倒可以改善我的生活，我会去很努力地争取。但是万一它是有奖金的呢？学校就是这样不透明，说不好。
我积极性不大也可能是由于我对将来很自信，觉得有更大的事情要去完成，这个白日梦做得比高中有过之而无不及，但是性质上有了点变化。我不知道我的自信出于何处，可能是由于离兑现的日子还有一定距离，可以随便狂想而没有现实羁绊和泼冷水，也可能是由于觉得天天向上，未来虽看不见却似乎无可限量。
以前我常想我要达到的理想境界是什么，比如做数学选择题两秒内反应出来，但是我不知道当下该做什么去达到它；现在呢，我很清楚今天此时此刻该干什么，我想干什么，但是不知道这样下去我会走到哪里。不知这是进步还是倒退，但至少我有事做了。没有那么多的时间做白日梦。
我几乎可以说现在的状态是：从心所欲，不逾矩。
Only Love can Focus
听力课上我在想，我总是被逼着做很多事，被逼得多了，自己也学会逼自己了。逼自己做各种不敢兴趣的事，到后来发展成为逼自己喜欢本来不喜欢的事。这样你逼我逼的，到后来就没有欲望去完成最初的梦想了，甚至连自己喜欢啥都分不清了。
生命的质量在于我们是不是一开始就做自己最喜欢的事，直到生命的最后。其间，那件事可以变化成为别的，只要兴趣是一致的就可34现自己更适合大提琴，一直到现在。我想他的生命质量是多么高啊。而韩寒从小就开始看书，思想在没有受到学校现实教育之前就大大地开阔了，这样就没有什么能在束缚住他了。而我呢，还没开窍，就被五花大绑了，快满20岁了，还在扎挣着挣脱这种禁锢。人说学校是象牙塔，我怎么看都不像。学校是一个很现实的地方。从小，它就教育你向现实屈服。并且，由于老师从来都是对着50多个人讲话，看平均分吃饭，他们说的也就是平均话了。没有分辨能力的人，再聪明，棱角也要被消去一些的。现实的人都永远不会吃亏的，你说他们短视，可他们也生活得潇洒快活，偶尔小忧郁一下，偶尔感叹一下生活的空虚，但别人要是表示同情，他一定誓死保卫自己生活的意义，他们会说，我生活得很满足，知足常乐吗，呵呵呵……短视的人永远都有很平稳的收入，他们占绝大多数。他们的生活空虚但是可靠，随波逐流的事情填充着他们的生活。
"真羡慕能专心的人，他们的一天或许比我的一生还精彩..."
一个高中同学在校内上说。我曾经也是那样，现在我相信，专心不是一种独立的能力，人们专心因为他们热爱。
"Find what's you are good at naturally, and then develop it, because if you don't and then you go into another business you don't like, you might make some money, but you are not gonna be happy. It's like you get up and think oh i have to to go to work. But when you go and do some work you really like to do, and everyday you get up, you know, i'm getting paid by something i like to do. That's the key, but they don't teach it at school unfortunately."
寻找书在生活的映射
我觉得不管做什么对自己来说有意义的事情，都是在寻找一种映射，或者说是交集。并不是每一本名著都是好看的，很多都看不下去，比如说纯粹描述爱情的。因为我没有实实在在地经历过，所有写实的描写在我看来都是苍白的，死的。如果那是某个同样没有恋爱经验的人将自己的白日梦写成一本书（我猜有很多都是这样的），也许我就可以从中找到共鸣了， 但是那样的书完全没有意义。我喜欢韩寒，很大一部分是因为他的作品和我的生活很近。比如说，对教育制度的批判，在农村长大的童年，上海的外围，只是我离得更加远一点。因为这么多的交集，我就可以在他的杂文和小说中找到无说的我的生活的映射，或者叫共鸣。共鸣是钟形曲线到达最高点的时候，两者相互加强，自然很难忘记了。我从书里寻找自己经历的映射，从一本书里寻找另外的一本书的映射。从一个人的思想里寻找另一个人的映射。当然现实生活到目前来说还是相当贫乏的，能经历的也大多是失败，所以极度的不均衡导致了贫乏，所以我希望，到了一定程度，我可以有足够的脑力看遍天下对我而言有趣的书，然后才在生活中寻找，或是等待相应映射的到来。当然，电影，歌曲，音乐，任何形式的作品都是一样的。映射——而生活经验则是前提条件。
现在我有信心用自己的眼光评判我将要做的抉择。我将有信心对简爱说不，因为它不合我的胃口，当然这只是一个例子，我还不知道到底怎么样。往往对名著的欲望不是很强烈，特别是那些图书馆里已经破旧不堪被无数人翻阅过的名著。总感觉好像在吃别人扔下的东西，心里不爽。又感觉好像它是所谓的“必读”，这辈子不读那就是枉生为人了一样。于是读着就像完成作业，并且赶别人早就完成了的作业。以后我如果从网上也找不到一本想看到小说，或者找好了去实地验证一下，那么我的评判标准就是——是否看得下去，相信自己的判断。别人说的不一定就是真的，再加上这个世界上本来就有很多傻子由于各种原因也骑到了我头上。而一本书是否值得买就应该看是不是我看10 遍都不会厌。
前几天借了一本《美国名校毕业演说集萃 》，名字一看就很俗了，全本就5篇演说，加上图片，背景介绍和翻译竟也成了一本书。我看在它是图书馆新近购置的，而且联想到自己4个月前的疯狂搜集这种commencement speeches 的经历，就顺便也来借了看一下。不过我看了不到两篇就放弃了。这些怎么看都像是这些名人的assignment(其实就是assignment)，绞尽脑汁像写定题作文一样写出来的。我以前借过很多次类似美国总统就职演说的书，从来都没有完整地看过一篇。毕竟政治是一时的，何况它的地域和受众的局限性是那么的大，难得留下来的几篇经典之作，一大半也是因为其无可比拟的历史意义撑的腰。一篇演讲稿，除去历史，政治和口头形式难以避免的重复啰嗦以后，剩下的可以“借鉴”的除了那种被抽空了的气势就很难再有其他东西了。而且，一篇演说的根就是其政治意义，土壤就是受众，没有了根和土壤，几十年前它就死在历史里了，更何况又漂洋过海来到中国呢。所以，对我来说，关键是要说真话，真话可以让作品长期保存而不至于腐朽，虚空的外表是没有用的。唉，演讲就是个短命的东西，我居然曾经企图说服自己我想成为一个演说家！真是幼稚得不行。而且那只是4个月前的事情。Commencement speech好在人对上了，都是大学生，而且形式更加丰富。但是要学着写一篇就很难了。像Steve Jobs 的那篇是难得的好文章，可是我不是名人，我不能写我生命里的小故事——没有说服力，而且我有什么故事能发人深省呢？如果有，我也早就出名了。所以这学不了。我想，关键还是想法。要多看书，多思考。
现在我有信心用自己的眼光评判我将要做的抉择。我将有信心对简爱说不，因为它不合我的胃口，当然这只是一个例子，我还不知道到底怎么样。往往对名著的欲望不是很强烈，特别是那些图书馆里已经破旧不堪被无数人翻阅过的名著。总感觉好像在吃别人扔下的东西，心里不爽。又感觉好像它是所谓的“必读”，这辈子不读那就是枉生为人了一样。于是读着就像完成作业，并且赶别人早就完成了的作业。以后我如果从网上也找不到一本想看到小说，或者找好了去实地验证一下，那么我的评判标准就是——是否看得下去，相信自己的判断。别人说的不一定就是真的，再加上这个世界上本来就有很多傻子由于各种原因也骑到了我头上。而一本书是否值得买就应该看是不是我看10 遍都不会厌。
前几天借了一本《美国名校毕业演说集萃 》，名字一看就很俗了，全本就5篇演说，加上图片，背景介绍和翻译竟也成了一本书。我看在它是图书馆新近购置的，而且联想到自己4个月前的疯狂搜集这种commencement speeches 的经历，就顺便也来借了看一下。不过我看了不到两篇就放弃了。这些怎么看都像是这些名人的assignment(其实就是assignment)，绞尽脑汁像写定题作文一样写出来的。我以前借过很多次类似美国总统就职演说的书，从来都没有完整地看过一篇。毕竟政治是一时的，何况它的地域和受众的局限性是那么的大，难得留下来的几篇经典之作，一大半也是因为其无可比拟的历史意义撑的腰。一篇演讲稿，除去历史，政治和口头形式难以避免的重复啰嗦以后，剩下的可以“借鉴”的除了那种被抽空了的气势就很难再有其他东西了。而且，一篇演说的根就是其政治意义，土壤就是受众，没有了根和土壤，几十年前它就死在历史里了，更何况又漂洋过海来到中国呢。所以，对我来说，关键是要说真话，真话可以让作品长期保存而不至于腐朽，虚空的外表是没有用的。唉，演讲就是个短命的东西，我居然曾经企图说服自己我想成为一个演说家！真是幼稚得不行。而且那只是4个月前的事情。Commencement speech好在人对上了，都是大学生，而且形式更加丰富。但是要学着写一篇就很难了。像Steve Jobs 的那篇是难得的好文章，可是我不是名人，我不能写我生命里的小故事——没有说服力，而且我有什么故事能发人深省呢？如果有，我也早就出名了。所以这学不了。我想，关键还是想法。要多看书，多思考。
躲猫猫——Tell the Truth or Get the Barney
我记得一次在一个教育频道上看到关于周汝昌老人的节目，他说了一句话，大意是他年岁越长，一个道理就越是清晰：很多事情，在一个真的周围，有很多假围绕着。当时我一点都没有头绪，很想从这位德高望重的老人口里学到受益一生的道理，可是我一点也不理解。但是一直记着。昨晚，我躺在床上想，想到tell the truth or get the barney, 凡是真的都是简单地一塌糊涂的，一句话可以讲清一个世纪的事，可是假的就不一样了，为了绕开一个真的，很多人不惜讲一千句假话，而且有人从事的职业以及一生的追求就是这样的实质是假的东西，但是永远都不会发现，如果别人加以揭穿，就像疯狗一样乱咬，誓死保卫自己所谓的尊严。我并没有特指什么，只是这样一种感觉。我希望以后会见识更多的事情，看到自己以前看不到的事情，并且将这个想法补充完善。
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Hide and Seek in the prision
When are people going to be enough with the Hide and Seek scandal? When, huh? The most ludicrous news i ever come across. I have to borrow Bill's slogan, which is really penetratingly smart: tell the truth or get the barney.
If they had told the truth to begin with, maybe they could put one single person into jail as the scapegoat, and compensate something afterwards if necessary, and learn the lesson. It would draw some attention from the media and they would be looking bad for some time, but as soon as two or three days the coverage would go elsewhere and they would be forgotten in the wind.
But they would chose to get the barney. So it was no longer surprising why they found themselves under the media microscope with interest growing everyday with more and more details revealed. When i firstly began to notice this, i thought to myself, it gets interesting, and after almost a week, interesting things are still revealing. I finally get tired, and i want to say, they get in the swamp because they are deadly stupid.
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Hide and Seek in the prision
When are people going to be enough with the Hide and Seek scandal? When, huh? The most ludicrous news i ever come across. I have to borrow Bill's slogan, which is really penetratingly smart: tell the truth or get the barney.
If they had told the truth to begin with, maybe they could put one single person into jail as the scapegoat, and compensate something afterwards if necessary, and learn the lesson. It would draw some attention from the media and they would be looking bad for some time, but as soon as two or three days the coverage would go elsewhere and they would be forgotten in the wind.
But they would chose to get the barney. So it was no longer surprising why they found themselves under the media microscope with interest growing everyday with more and more details revealed. When i firstly began to notice this, i thought to myself, it gets interesting, and after almost a week, interesting things are still revealing. I finally get tired, and i want to say, they get in the swamp because they are deadly stupid.
An Economic View of my Life
Feb. 15, 2009
Why people like routines?
We don't like to face the same trade-off everyday.
Sometimes people like routines and familiarities, as Katie said once, i guess it is because the pun-down life style can help me avoid the various trade-offs and ensuing choices i have to make everyday.
When i was faced with a trade-off, i need to weigh at least two things in my mind, experience the pain of giving up one of them i want, and make a choice that may not be my favourite.
But the scenario is totally different when i just have a fixed style on that issue. On the other hand, the familiarity of it, which usually lasts for at least one month, will stay in my memory for quite a lasting period, so that when i look back, the first thing i will recall is probably the routine i used to stick to and the added-up benefit that i enjoy over the period of time that is particular of that time.
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Why am i unhappy about the excessively high temperature at this time of year?
It felt almost like spring, suddenly. The wind is as warm and cozy as it could be, the unexpected heat (today's high is 26.5!) and overdressing causing a feeling of dizziness.
If i was 10 years old and just waiting to get rid of my heavy overcoat and run in the fields, i would have wished that the heat stay put and be there forever. But i was more irritated than ever and anyone. Why? I just purchased two relatively heavy overcoats, which will run out of use before i wear them for the first time. I will not only lose the chance to liquidate on the immediate interest of my purchase, but also find it hard again to find suitable clothing to wear on my way to school. The warming weather is totally against my short-time interest.
That may explain why people would dislike changes that in others' view might be a favorable one.
Everyday life is full of learning material.
Bill's attitude: i studied my Harvard classmates more intensely than in my political courses at Kennedy school.
Why people like routines?
We don't like to face the same trade-off everyday.
Sometimes people like routines and familiarities, as Katie said once, i guess it is because the pun-down life style can help me avoid the various trade-offs and ensuing choices i have to make everyday.
When i was faced with a trade-off, i need to weigh at least two things in my mind, experience the pain of giving up one of them i want, and make a choice that may not be my favourite.
But the scenario is totally different when i just have a fixed style on that issue. On the other hand, the familiarity of it, which usually lasts for at least one month, will stay in my memory for quite a lasting period, so that when i look back, the first thing i will recall is probably the routine i used to stick to and the added-up benefit that i enjoy over the period of time that is particular of that time.
------------------------
Why am i unhappy about the excessively high temperature at this time of year?
It felt almost like spring, suddenly. The wind is as warm and cozy as it could be, the unexpected heat (today's high is 26.5!) and overdressing causing a feeling of dizziness.
If i was 10 years old and just waiting to get rid of my heavy overcoat and run in the fields, i would have wished that the heat stay put and be there forever. But i was more irritated than ever and anyone. Why? I just purchased two relatively heavy overcoats, which will run out of use before i wear them for the first time. I will not only lose the chance to liquidate on the immediate interest of my purchase, but also find it hard again to find suitable clothing to wear on my way to school. The warming weather is totally against my short-time interest.
That may explain why people would dislike changes that in others' view might be a favorable one.
Everyday life is full of learning material.
Bill's attitude: i studied my Harvard classmates more intensely than in my political courses at Kennedy school.
Reading The Summer before the Dark
"Besides, she was still able to savour moments like this, without pressures of any kind, after the years living inside the timetable of other people's needs. She could still hug to herself the thought: If i don't go to bed until the sun rises it doesn't matter. I needn't get up till midday if i don't choose."
Till this moment i felt the struck of a note in my heart, finally. And i have already read 96 pages of the book of The Summer before the Dark. I am not criticizing the book, i just felt i still need more reading, living, thinking experience and enough proficiency of the English language to absorb literary works like that. Especially fictions about love, which are the easiest to find from the library.
After so many months of wondering, i got back to fictions again. I haven't a better choice. I have to make a decision. And now after days of persuading myself to follow the novel to the end, i finally have come to the willing and automatic decision to finish it.
It reminds me of the situation described by H. At first, the book has to be a good one, and on the other end, i need to be a cloth prone absorbing. Wide-ranged reading might be the only way to literature world, but if i read with a blank mind, if i don't actually learn anything. We are what we learn. Learn, not those we see and hear and forget.
But no matter how much fun those fiction will bring to me in the days to come, i still believe that non-fictions are a greater pull to me. I like to read for knowledge. While with fictions, it was ideas of experience. I see the words, make up some relevant imaginations, and put them in store in case one day i will actually come across a similar occasion and what sensation should that be. That's what i was reading novels for.
Variety is the spice of life, so is it the spice of novels. I don't like those which just tell the simple story of a women having a trip abroad, and all about the flashback of her life and thoughts about her life. Too much description of irrelevant things, however exquisite, will lost its pull if too much goes on. I like Chang'an Luan because it tell a story which goes not straight to the end, but with many details that make sense, and many relevant, witty and well-hidden and subtle thoughts about some current issues, the author's thoughts, and pertinent but low profile advices.
College life, Pivoting around Reading
I am trying very hard to shield all the nonsense that is going on in my life, which seems to be the main theme of it, like the trash courses of listening, Japanese and intensive reading, so trash that words cannot describe them, and make reading the pivoting point.
That is largely about my feels, but nonetheless counts a lot concerning how i will look back at my life. If i take the courses seriously and work on them really hard as i was supposed to, i would feel being carried away by a conveyor belt, and lose control of my life. Most of the people, even smart and successful people are really stupid because they are short-sighted and tend to make all the people so, especially their kids. I don't want to be like them, so i have to fight, even that means one against the world.
What i can do is to trim the time i spend on any of the trash and put all the time into reading, thinking and improving. That will give me a sense of having control over my life - every single day, not just on holidays.
What is hard about the reading project is that it is still hard to find the right book every step of the way. Now i have a little clue about the consistent pattern i would like: nonfiction, timeless, author of strong character, strong opinion, and it turns out most of them are with strong controversies. But i could say proudly that every book i read till is worthwhile except The Great Gatsby. I read each of them passionately, and they all more or less enriched my life and are making a difference.
That is largely about my feels, but nonetheless counts a lot concerning how i will look back at my life. If i take the courses seriously and work on them really hard as i was supposed to, i would feel being carried away by a conveyor belt, and lose control of my life. Most of the people, even smart and successful people are really stupid because they are short-sighted and tend to make all the people so, especially their kids. I don't want to be like them, so i have to fight, even that means one against the world.
What i can do is to trim the time i spend on any of the trash and put all the time into reading, thinking and improving. That will give me a sense of having control over my life - every single day, not just on holidays.
What is hard about the reading project is that it is still hard to find the right book every step of the way. Now i have a little clue about the consistent pattern i would like: nonfiction, timeless, author of strong character, strong opinion, and it turns out most of them are with strong controversies. But i could say proudly that every book i read till is worthwhile except The Great Gatsby. I read each of them passionately, and they all more or less enriched my life and are making a difference.
Moving on a Collison Course
I watched Wanted and The Reader today, and yesterday The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The recent films I watch, together with the British film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, rekindled my taste for films.
One of the reasons is that since my real life is so barren, films can cast a shade to it. And more piratically, there is always something I can learn, and by learning I mean something I like that therefore is copied to become my habits. I like the feeling of changing the way I live my life little by little towards the better, and enjoy the benefits that come to me rooted from these habits one day, if I could still identify the original form and trace it back to the root.
Secondly, films always remind me how shallow I am as to not understand some of them, and how poor my English is as to not understand the lines without the aid of subtitles.
Benjamin Button:
Sometimes we're on a collision course, and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she'd stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who'd stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn't been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot.
When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn't broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn't broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn't stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would've crossed the street, and the taxi would've driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.
Where are you?
There’s an inspiring truth told in the Kaplin University commercial:
I come across this idea when I was reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. Back then I just recovered from the Lin’an trip, back to the reality and began wondering about my future. I signed the Xiaonei, and began reaching people I didn’t even thought about meeting or hearing form ever again. And I saw Sy.
I suddenly felt that through the platform of the Internet, no one was unreachable unless he purposefully lives a life of a hermit as I do now. And by some dim wish and vague logic I told myself that because of the Internet, the world is flat now; less and less knowledge will be exclusive to the small amount of intelligent people within the realm of higher educational institutions; in this case I will have the same access to some resources of learning as the out-standing ones in say, P University, and if I tried really hard and acquire more expertise about the Internet use, I would even have more access to better resources. If that proves to be true, only a little amount of learning resources would be kept exclusive to those in the best of the universities and what I need to do is to reduce that amount to the least possible within my power.
But even though I can acquire exactly the same quantity and quality of resources and they do – that is hardly possible now considering the computer ability and study efficiency of mine and the current condition of Chinese higher education – the one thing I cannot grant myself is a highly competitive and inspiring crowd.
The reality is, in JU, I have no rival, no friend, no one I admire as my teacher, no one I respect whatsoever, not even potentials. Among them, what I need most is a teacher, and by that word I mean someone I admire and even love in the first place, who sets a living standard for me to reach, who will simply make me think every morning I wake up that “because of him existing in my life, I simply want to be better person”. I would not allow myself to waste a second on aimless pastimes before I think I have tried the hardest I can to reach or already reached the level of him so that I will talk to him without misunderstanding, or, understand each other without talking.
But, where are you and who are you?
“Where is it written that the old way is the right way? Where is it written that a traditional education is the only way to get an education, that classes only take place in a classroom?... That is the question – it is not written anywhere.”
I come across this idea when I was reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. Back then I just recovered from the Lin’an trip, back to the reality and began wondering about my future. I signed the Xiaonei, and began reaching people I didn’t even thought about meeting or hearing form ever again. And I saw Sy.
I suddenly felt that through the platform of the Internet, no one was unreachable unless he purposefully lives a life of a hermit as I do now. And by some dim wish and vague logic I told myself that because of the Internet, the world is flat now; less and less knowledge will be exclusive to the small amount of intelligent people within the realm of higher educational institutions; in this case I will have the same access to some resources of learning as the out-standing ones in say, P University, and if I tried really hard and acquire more expertise about the Internet use, I would even have more access to better resources. If that proves to be true, only a little amount of learning resources would be kept exclusive to those in the best of the universities and what I need to do is to reduce that amount to the least possible within my power.
But even though I can acquire exactly the same quantity and quality of resources and they do – that is hardly possible now considering the computer ability and study efficiency of mine and the current condition of Chinese higher education – the one thing I cannot grant myself is a highly competitive and inspiring crowd.
The reality is, in JU, I have no rival, no friend, no one I admire as my teacher, no one I respect whatsoever, not even potentials. Among them, what I need most is a teacher, and by that word I mean someone I admire and even love in the first place, who sets a living standard for me to reach, who will simply make me think every morning I wake up that “because of him existing in my life, I simply want to be better person”. I would not allow myself to waste a second on aimless pastimes before I think I have tried the hardest I can to reach or already reached the level of him so that I will talk to him without misunderstanding, or, understand each other without talking.
"It is my love for you that kept me from moving - my love and my hope to reach you and my wish to be worthy of you on the day when I would stand before you face to face. Even though I won't - I will fight for it, even if I had to fight against you."
But, where are you and who are you?
Individualism in Practice
2009.01.05
Today, I found another problem that had twisted me for the last ? years, because I didn’t know when it all started. I was not born to be a second-hander or second-rater. They just trickled in and soaked my thoughts and misled me to where I was several months ago. But it is not that strange because it’s really easy to destroy something good. While the hardest thing was to build, or rebuild.
Each time I was asked a question, such as "Would you like to join us in the karaoke tomorrow night? Please…what’s the point in sitting in the dorm all night?” or “We are eating out tomorrow, just the four of us. Would you please come along? Or you’ll be in the dorm alone.” My first reaction will always be: OK. And the subconscious reason is always- I don't want to disappoint her, she’s so enthusiastic, she really wants me to go...And almost every time, I found myself somewhere totally improper or uncomfortable for me later. I was not happy about the time had to be wasted in some meaningless activities- I never intended them to be.
The question here was: I didn't ask the right question. I should have asked myself whether this was something I needed or wanted. I didn’t need to care about any other’s feelings. If they couldn’t manage to think about themselves, it was their turn to grieve about time spent on meaning things without any fun, sometimes even with a lot of disputes and troubles. And in fact, no one really cares about me in the realm outside my house.
Tonight all my three roommates will go to the karaoke to spend the night- to celebrate C’s birthday. But firstly, she doesn’t know what it means to “celebrate birthday”. If it was me, I would first think back the past 365 days and ask whether there was something worthy of celebrating, and whether i grew. If I just spent the past year with nothing achieved and nothing unbetrayed, I would find a place to grieve- not to celebrate. They never think about it. Do they ever think by the way? They claimed that they went there to celebrate someone’s birthday- which served as the rightful motive. Then they were honest and admitted they went there to relax, to get depraved for a night. Actually, they had nothing to celebrate and they couldn’t be more depraved than they had always been.
I refused it for the reasons below.
First, I have nothing to celebrate. Your birthday is not mine to celebrate. Therefore there is no meaning in the activity itself. Its motive and fact does not match.
Second, once I agree to go, I surrender a whole night’s time at the mercy of these people who don’t know what they are there for. No one have the right to control what I do in an irreplaceable hour of mine.
Third, they have time to waste, I haven't. I have a goal to reach. I have something I have the passion to devote all my love to be after. Whatever choice I make, it is all for the sake of me, for the benefit and convenience of me, for the happiness of me, not for anyone else.
Now I see the evil rooted in my life and I am able to uproot it. In every choice I make, I have a specific purpose to reach. I will not waste a minute of mine just for the sake of others. My life is precious and every minute counts. Many people have preached to me that “ability” is of the hugest significance in my future career; therefore, I should have a position in the student body to train my “ability”. I believed it and wasted quite an amount of time running for the English Society. Now I have got over it, and I will not have nothing left if I confess that I have got nothing from it, I can say I don’t belong the group of people who have a fetish for the so-called “ability”.
I used to read a book with the sole desire to finish it. I thought, or by some dim wish-turned belief that when my eyes had brushed through enough words and books, I will automatically be smarter and have a better memory. Now I know it is futile no matter how many books I “read” that way. Whatever I do, I have to have a specific and well-defined purpose. The purpose is somewhere I want to reach. I will spend any time I have to reach that goal. And however small that is, the day I reached it will be my triumphal arch- that will be the day to celebrate. Here I need to make it clear to myself: that day exists, and I can reach it. Just I have never reached any goal or fulfilled any plan during high school does not make it impossible. High school is a time when I put my whole time and freedom at the mercy of some authority. I am free now. Now I believe it, I need to take it one step further and prove it.
Today, I found another problem that had twisted me for the last ? years, because I didn’t know when it all started. I was not born to be a second-hander or second-rater. They just trickled in and soaked my thoughts and misled me to where I was several months ago. But it is not that strange because it’s really easy to destroy something good. While the hardest thing was to build, or rebuild.
Each time I was asked a question, such as "Would you like to join us in the karaoke tomorrow night? Please…what’s the point in sitting in the dorm all night?” or “We are eating out tomorrow, just the four of us. Would you please come along? Or you’ll be in the dorm alone.” My first reaction will always be: OK. And the subconscious reason is always- I don't want to disappoint her, she’s so enthusiastic, she really wants me to go...And almost every time, I found myself somewhere totally improper or uncomfortable for me later. I was not happy about the time had to be wasted in some meaningless activities- I never intended them to be.
The question here was: I didn't ask the right question. I should have asked myself whether this was something I needed or wanted. I didn’t need to care about any other’s feelings. If they couldn’t manage to think about themselves, it was their turn to grieve about time spent on meaning things without any fun, sometimes even with a lot of disputes and troubles. And in fact, no one really cares about me in the realm outside my house.
Tonight all my three roommates will go to the karaoke to spend the night- to celebrate C’s birthday. But firstly, she doesn’t know what it means to “celebrate birthday”. If it was me, I would first think back the past 365 days and ask whether there was something worthy of celebrating, and whether i grew. If I just spent the past year with nothing achieved and nothing unbetrayed, I would find a place to grieve- not to celebrate. They never think about it. Do they ever think by the way? They claimed that they went there to celebrate someone’s birthday- which served as the rightful motive. Then they were honest and admitted they went there to relax, to get depraved for a night. Actually, they had nothing to celebrate and they couldn’t be more depraved than they had always been.
I refused it for the reasons below.
First, I have nothing to celebrate. Your birthday is not mine to celebrate. Therefore there is no meaning in the activity itself. Its motive and fact does not match.
Second, once I agree to go, I surrender a whole night’s time at the mercy of these people who don’t know what they are there for. No one have the right to control what I do in an irreplaceable hour of mine.
Third, they have time to waste, I haven't. I have a goal to reach. I have something I have the passion to devote all my love to be after. Whatever choice I make, it is all for the sake of me, for the benefit and convenience of me, for the happiness of me, not for anyone else.
Now I see the evil rooted in my life and I am able to uproot it. In every choice I make, I have a specific purpose to reach. I will not waste a minute of mine just for the sake of others. My life is precious and every minute counts. Many people have preached to me that “ability” is of the hugest significance in my future career; therefore, I should have a position in the student body to train my “ability”. I believed it and wasted quite an amount of time running for the English Society. Now I have got over it, and I will not have nothing left if I confess that I have got nothing from it, I can say I don’t belong the group of people who have a fetish for the so-called “ability”.
I used to read a book with the sole desire to finish it. I thought, or by some dim wish-turned belief that when my eyes had brushed through enough words and books, I will automatically be smarter and have a better memory. Now I know it is futile no matter how many books I “read” that way. Whatever I do, I have to have a specific and well-defined purpose. The purpose is somewhere I want to reach. I will spend any time I have to reach that goal. And however small that is, the day I reached it will be my triumphal arch- that will be the day to celebrate. Here I need to make it clear to myself: that day exists, and I can reach it. Just I have never reached any goal or fulfilled any plan during high school does not make it impossible. High school is a time when I put my whole time and freedom at the mercy of some authority. I am free now. Now I believe it, I need to take it one step further and prove it.
Transition from Rationalism to Empiricism
The stupidest things I’ve ever done that I can still remember:
The first time my computer couldn’t be connected to the Internet, I remembered that Sally had told me the connection software was going to update. By this single, vague memory without any evidence, which I heard from my roommate, I made a judgment that it was because my software needed to be updated.
(In fact, i cannot blame myself so much at least on my reasoning ability, in that i learned later on that without any experience, i cannot possibly imagine a problem and figure it out all by myself. I can ask others, and that is not a sign of dependent mind, it is just that when i do not have sufficient experience, i can relate to others'. There is nothing wrong about asking others for help. And in the meantime, i need to look out for more information that i might need in the future. Just like a skillful mother can't make a meal out of nothing, no reasoning is possible without former experience, which serves as the object, or material. The reasoning in fact, combine these together and give them sense. Only then am i able to use it to solve a new problem on my own. )
In this case, it was really because i have little experience, in fact, the only thing i could relate to is the previous words of Sally. So without a second thought, I uninstalled my Shanxun. Then I learned that it was the hardware- the broadband that was wrong. Several hours were wasted in installing and uninstalling the same software that had not at all changed.
It is OK to be wrong, the most important thing is to admit it and finish it as soon as possible. It seems like trite, but most of the time in the past i really feared to admit my fault so much that i would stuck to my wrong method for a longer time than it should, only to produce larger mistakes and make myself a bigger mess.
As long as i value the vision of truth higher than anything else, i will always do the right thing, instead of "what makes me feel good." and in most cases that is always poisonous. Keep my mind open and always be ready to see myself in the harshest condition as long as i can see the truth, and i will always be open to reason. That is the way to become a reasonable person.
The second time it went wrong, I knew it was because the broadband went wrong. Not knowing why, I recalled that recently I had kicked or touched the lower end with my foot for several times. With this vague memory and messed reason (is there reasoning at all?), I ventured to untag the lower end and intended to swap the two ends. Then something happened that was irreversible (isn’t that the thing you fear most all through your life, that you make a mistake with a consequence that is irreversible? Something lost and irretrievable, something damaged and can’t heal, some situation get in and never able )- the head in the lower end can’t be taken out, ever again.
I didn’t want to describe the pickle I was in any more. It would only add to my distress. No, not now.
I made the same mistake in these two things- I relied on some vague facts to make a rash judgment, without the process of reasoning, and then, acted upon it recklessly. Upon what? When I look back, I saw nothing. If it was called a thing, I would name it some emotion. Some irrational, rootless emotion.
What i really need is more experience.
The first time my computer couldn’t be connected to the Internet, I remembered that Sally had told me the connection software was going to update. By this single, vague memory without any evidence, which I heard from my roommate, I made a judgment that it was because my software needed to be updated.
(In fact, i cannot blame myself so much at least on my reasoning ability, in that i learned later on that without any experience, i cannot possibly imagine a problem and figure it out all by myself. I can ask others, and that is not a sign of dependent mind, it is just that when i do not have sufficient experience, i can relate to others'. There is nothing wrong about asking others for help. And in the meantime, i need to look out for more information that i might need in the future. Just like a skillful mother can't make a meal out of nothing, no reasoning is possible without former experience, which serves as the object, or material. The reasoning in fact, combine these together and give them sense. Only then am i able to use it to solve a new problem on my own. )
In this case, it was really because i have little experience, in fact, the only thing i could relate to is the previous words of Sally. So without a second thought, I uninstalled my Shanxun. Then I learned that it was the hardware- the broadband that was wrong. Several hours were wasted in installing and uninstalling the same software that had not at all changed.
It is OK to be wrong, the most important thing is to admit it and finish it as soon as possible. It seems like trite, but most of the time in the past i really feared to admit my fault so much that i would stuck to my wrong method for a longer time than it should, only to produce larger mistakes and make myself a bigger mess.
It is OK to fail, i just want you to fail quickly.
As long as i value the vision of truth higher than anything else, i will always do the right thing, instead of "what makes me feel good." and in most cases that is always poisonous. Keep my mind open and always be ready to see myself in the harshest condition as long as i can see the truth, and i will always be open to reason. That is the way to become a reasonable person.
The second time it went wrong, I knew it was because the broadband went wrong. Not knowing why, I recalled that recently I had kicked or touched the lower end with my foot for several times. With this vague memory and messed reason (is there reasoning at all?), I ventured to untag the lower end and intended to swap the two ends. Then something happened that was irreversible (isn’t that the thing you fear most all through your life, that you make a mistake with a consequence that is irreversible? Something lost and irretrievable, something damaged and can’t heal, some situation get in and never able )- the head in the lower end can’t be taken out, ever again.
I didn’t want to describe the pickle I was in any more. It would only add to my distress. No, not now.
I made the same mistake in these two things- I relied on some vague facts to make a rash judgment, without the process of reasoning, and then, acted upon it recklessly. Upon what? When I look back, I saw nothing. If it was called a thing, I would name it some emotion. Some irrational, rootless emotion.
What i really need is more experience.
Fragments: Words and the Mind
1. If something does not make sense, it is usually because it is not true.
2. Words are the lens to focus one’s mind.
Sometimes I write down my mind in order to know what i was thinking. And reversely, I refused to give voice to things I am afraid to admit.
3. Trim every word. Words have exact meanings and don’t make piles of meaningless things together without a specific, comprehensible purpose.
4. Change we into I.
5. Each word has a specific meaning and I use it for a specific purpose. Every sentence has its evidence. It exists because it is true, not because I want it to be true. It exists because the previous sentence with reason leads to it and the one after it needs it to fulfil the reasoning process.
6. Kevin Rudd still would use your tie “不全面”. I don’t know how many such mistakes I would make when I am to say something. Here is a goal to reach: one day I will feel totally at home with English and have the capability to detect any such mistakes in English just like I know it is totally funny to say someone’s tie is "不全面"。
7. It is not working – to track down all the new words on a notebook. I’ve done almost 5 note-books but they don’t make such big a difference as I expected. At least I never wanted to look back to brush up-that was too much, and most importantly, boring. This is the truth, no matter how unwilling I wanted to admit it. However much fun it was to take the words down to my notebooks, it is not working. Anything, not just words. Next time I use a notebook, I will not use it to take new words down without actually thinking about it-just for the purpose of future reference-something I never manage to do later. First of all, I will make it make sense to me. Then I will write down the brainchild of mine. If I am to track down something, it must be things I will always find happy seeing, something relevant and pertinent to thoughts, not some irrelevant piles a words in a chaos.
8.
No one who is really involved in the expressing of ideas ever noticed the language. If when i listen to a conversation, my focusing point is still the language, then i am not good enough with it. Of course that is a natural process and i can not bypass it. What i need to do is to get over that stage as fast as possible.
9. Why some language learners are rather blatant in using words that usually embarrass native speakers? In the language-learning point of view, i think it is because when someone is not very familiar with a word, he says it without calling up a mental picture, or even if he does, a rather vague one. We would be readier to say "fuck" than "cao", for the obvious reason that "cao" calls up a more vivid picture upon speaking.
2. Words are the lens to focus one’s mind.
Sometimes I write down my mind in order to know what i was thinking. And reversely, I refused to give voice to things I am afraid to admit.
3. Trim every word. Words have exact meanings and don’t make piles of meaningless things together without a specific, comprehensible purpose.
4. Change we into I.
5. Each word has a specific meaning and I use it for a specific purpose. Every sentence has its evidence. It exists because it is true, not because I want it to be true. It exists because the previous sentence with reason leads to it and the one after it needs it to fulfil the reasoning process.
6. Kevin Rudd still would use your tie “不全面”. I don’t know how many such mistakes I would make when I am to say something. Here is a goal to reach: one day I will feel totally at home with English and have the capability to detect any such mistakes in English just like I know it is totally funny to say someone’s tie is "不全面"。
7. It is not working – to track down all the new words on a notebook. I’ve done almost 5 note-books but they don’t make such big a difference as I expected. At least I never wanted to look back to brush up-that was too much, and most importantly, boring. This is the truth, no matter how unwilling I wanted to admit it. However much fun it was to take the words down to my notebooks, it is not working. Anything, not just words. Next time I use a notebook, I will not use it to take new words down without actually thinking about it-just for the purpose of future reference-something I never manage to do later. First of all, I will make it make sense to me. Then I will write down the brainchild of mine. If I am to track down something, it must be things I will always find happy seeing, something relevant and pertinent to thoughts, not some irrelevant piles a words in a chaos.
8.
"no one who is really involved in the landscape ever sees the landscape." George Orwell
No one who is really involved in the expressing of ideas ever noticed the language. If when i listen to a conversation, my focusing point is still the language, then i am not good enough with it. Of course that is a natural process and i can not bypass it. What i need to do is to get over that stage as fast as possible.
9. Why some language learners are rather blatant in using words that usually embarrass native speakers? In the language-learning point of view, i think it is because when someone is not very familiar with a word, he says it without calling up a mental picture, or even if he does, a rather vague one. We would be readier to say "fuck" than "cao", for the obvious reason that "cao" calls up a more vivid picture upon speaking.
Reading Atlas Shrugged
2008.12.25
I am reading Atlas Shrugged eagerly everyday recently, eager to find every sparkling line of wisdom to breed my mind and soul. But today when I was taking down her words from the computer to my notebook I suddenly realized what intensity of thought, what length of time, what wisdom of mind are needed to come up with these conclusions or philosophy! While what am I doing now? I am doing nothing beyond opening my mouth upward and waiting for her words dropping down to feed me. I am still like a little bird who cannot feed itself, much less to fly.
I am not depressed though. I know I am integrating those character into myself each and every day. I grow stronger and stronger with everyday that passes. AR healed my emotional swing and depression that has been striking me for the past two decades. I am stronger than ever.
I am reading Atlas Shrugged eagerly everyday recently, eager to find every sparkling line of wisdom to breed my mind and soul. But today when I was taking down her words from the computer to my notebook I suddenly realized what intensity of thought, what length of time, what wisdom of mind are needed to come up with these conclusions or philosophy! While what am I doing now? I am doing nothing beyond opening my mouth upward and waiting for her words dropping down to feed me. I am still like a little bird who cannot feed itself, much less to fly.
I am not depressed though. I know I am integrating those character into myself each and every day. I grow stronger and stronger with everyday that passes. AR healed my emotional swing and depression that has been striking me for the past two decades. I am stronger than ever.
冬至阳气起，君道长，故贺。
It is winter solstice today, at 8:03 pm.
For almost 20 years I lived unconsciously and helplessly as a sentimentalist, or precisely, a second-hander. I never enjoyed school though I tried everything to make my scores pretty enough to impress teachers and peers, and to make my parents proud. The strongest incentive I had was for my parents’ sake. I tried so hard, but happiness was always elusive. That is a system in chaos and is doomed to fail, yet I never found the truth by myself. I was stopped short every time I got a little nearer to the truth, and that was most because i was intimidated by practical people who appear to be successful and some deterring reality. I will never be deterred again, as i already have a relatively strong footing, the conviction of my own philosophy. I hope will not bend to necessity. I hope I live a life I am proud of . If I find that I am not, i hope I have the courage to start all over again. I never found out. Poor me. I deserved it. 20 years living as a second-hander. Probably not in the previous years in my life, where those rotten ideas and thoughts had not got into me. Everything had been primitive and pure. I had no any idea how unhappy I was going to be later in my life.
Now I am back. I am glad I find the right attitude towards life before I turn full twenty. I am still thin and deprived, but at least I have a frame of philosophy that I am going to benefit for the rest of my life.
What I want to say by writing this, is that through my just-built evaluating system, I begin to realize any kind of things people make, music, movies, news, literature, plays…should have the kind of quality that is timeless if they are going to be recognized as sublime or making sense. I appreciate the kind of music which sings the sound from my heart. I shall be honored if I ever will enter a creative profession in my life and create something that is unique of me and will live on with time and at the same time I can feed and dress my body and put a roof over my head.
I tried so hard with the wrong method yet still got so far. I think I will … wow! Nothing can stop me form growing now.
It is winter solstice at 20:03 just now. I set it as a brand new beginning for me. It is different from any new beginnings I found myself in. I have outgrown the time when resolutions and impulses made up the major beats of my conscious life. I am confident, secure and ready to challenge myself. I am getting better day by day.
2008.12.20
For almost 20 years I lived unconsciously and helplessly as a sentimentalist, or precisely, a second-hander. I never enjoyed school though I tried everything to make my scores pretty enough to impress teachers and peers, and to make my parents proud. The strongest incentive I had was for my parents’ sake. I tried so hard, but happiness was always elusive. That is a system in chaos and is doomed to fail, yet I never found the truth by myself. I was stopped short every time I got a little nearer to the truth, and that was most because i was intimidated by practical people who appear to be successful and some deterring reality. I will never be deterred again, as i already have a relatively strong footing, the conviction of my own philosophy. I hope will not bend to necessity. I hope I live a life I am proud of . If I find that I am not, i hope I have the courage to start all over again. I never found out. Poor me. I deserved it. 20 years living as a second-hander. Probably not in the previous years in my life, where those rotten ideas and thoughts had not got into me. Everything had been primitive and pure. I had no any idea how unhappy I was going to be later in my life.
Now I am back. I am glad I find the right attitude towards life before I turn full twenty. I am still thin and deprived, but at least I have a frame of philosophy that I am going to benefit for the rest of my life.
What I want to say by writing this, is that through my just-built evaluating system, I begin to realize any kind of things people make, music, movies, news, literature, plays…should have the kind of quality that is timeless if they are going to be recognized as sublime or making sense. I appreciate the kind of music which sings the sound from my heart. I shall be honored if I ever will enter a creative profession in my life and create something that is unique of me and will live on with time and at the same time I can feed and dress my body and put a roof over my head.
I tried so hard with the wrong method yet still got so far. I think I will … wow! Nothing can stop me form growing now.
It is winter solstice at 20:03 just now. I set it as a brand new beginning for me. It is different from any new beginnings I found myself in. I have outgrown the time when resolutions and impulses made up the major beats of my conscious life. I am confident, secure and ready to challenge myself. I am getting better day by day.
2008.12.20
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