A lesson

Sometimes you will find yourself awkwardly stuck in a situation where you can hardly justify yourself, even though you think you can be well justified. Looks I tasted what university politics was like through today's experience. Although I felt wrongly treated, I had to admit that a little more carefulness would have saved me from the embarrassment I experienced regarding our newsletter I was working on.

Basically, what happened was: There will be an academic conference to be held in town this weekend, and some of CommDev faculty and students will give their presentations. After reviewing my draft, I was told by my director to add all those CommDev faculty to present papers at the conference by checking its website. I swear I did so, quite a few times last night, yet its schedule then was still a very brief one, without the info I needed. However, it turned out they finally updated the schedule today, and I didn't make a last-minute check before sending out the newsletter, which resulted in that one faculty member sent a note to my director saying that his or her name was missing in the faculty presenter list, which is, in his words, a sensitive issue as people do read our newsletters.

I felt bad about all this. I should have been a bit more careful or should have found another way to make sure all the info needed had been acquired.

However, what I care more about is that I was mistakenly taken as not paying attention to what has been told by superiors. It is not the way I'm doing things, yet it turned out that I had bad luck this time. : (

Yet no worries. I will get over it. Next time, it won't happen again. No big deal. : )

Long hair

My personal hairdresser here in this town (so called imperial barber or Yu Yong Li Fa Shi in Chinese), who is also one of my best friends here, went to UK for an academic strip, and he won't get back until Nov. 20, the day when I fly back home. That means I wil have to keep my hair and let it grow so wildly that I probably will become unrecognizable at the airport. How terrible, yet please be prepared. : )

Good-night song

Now bed time, finally. Yet I just wanna send out this song for you. : )

Pimples break out

A few minor pimples began to break out on my face, after a long time of non-zit status which was thought as a best indicator of how I have been enjoying a life of good food, enough sleep and deliberately less burden of study since the surgery. Does that mean my recovery has been doing quite well that I have almost resumed my normal physical form? : )

Free flying feeling

I stepped out of the house to take a fresh breath. It was a windy and partly cloudy Sunday afternoon, with occasional sunshine that made one feel not so chilly. I looked up in the sky, suddenly saw a hawk soaring high up there. With its wings stretched wide, the hawk seemed to be sliding all the way across the blue-and-white sky, so gracefully and beautifully. I was amazed at the scene. Human will never taste how it feels when flying like a bird. Tools like airplanes and sliding parachute may be able to play a substitute role, yet that unbound feeling of flying freedom never belongs to human.

Time shortage?

Feeling that a day passes so quickly and time is not enough, with so many things to deal with. It's not that I'm feeling bad for being unable to handle those things; it's just that feeling of shortage of time to get things done well burns me. Well, I admit I exaggerated a bit. Doesn't burn me. Just makes me feel a bit anxious, though I know things will eventually turn out to be fine. ~~

Friendship

How connected should I be to my friends? Sometimes I ask myself such a question. Because friendship is certainly a big part of my life, however, my personal inclination tells me that I need a certain distance from many of those friends. They are of course nice, yet being nice doesn't mean being intimate, being so close enough that you can share almost everything with them. On the other hand, you can't expect me, a guy, to develop a confidant-type relationship with other female friends like many girls do. Nor am I so interested in those women's talk in shopping, fashion and those kinds of stuff. And I don't think I'm a gossiper.

So basically, I feel kind of keeping myself a bit away from many pals, when I'm not in school and prefer some kind of being alone in my private life. Sometimes I may start a call to my out-of-town friends to get their updates. That's something I'd like to do. Yet for those in-town ones, for most of the time, I may not be the one who is qurious enough to initiate such a call. Sometimes I'd opt to online chat instead. Maybe subconsciously I think, as long as we are still here in town, we will get chance to learn about what's going on on friends' end.

I don't whether my such choice is good or not because sometimes I fear this might result in losing some friends. Yet I can't do something that is against my mind. To bend my willingness in order to court so-called friendship isn't what I'm looking for, though I always appreicate what my friends have done for me and am always prepared to repay them as much as I can.

Home

This song is for today, and tomorrow. : )

Cheap CD buy spree

My long-supressed CD-buying desire erupted this afternoon at our town's only music record store, though my enthusiasm's target was only those on-sale discs that sold for $1-3. Really cheap, yet fairly good stuff, thanks to my lengthy sampling listening time. I did some maths afterwards: 15 CDs for less than $38, which equals to about RMB 15 yuan for each CD. Quite a good deal, and the more important thing is: I like my choice.

OK, here is the list:

Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman
Kenny G - Breathless
Kitaro - Tenku
Suzanne Vega - Days of Open Hand
Coldplay- X&Y
Nestor Torres - Burning Whispers
Crystal Gayle - Ain't Gonna Worry
R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant
Sade - Stronger Than Pride (depulicate, gotta replace it)
Robert James Waller - The Ballads of Madison County
Bouquet of Film Classics
Marilyn Scott - Avenues of Love
A Winter's Solstice IV
Paul Simon - Negotiations and Love Songs 1976-1986
Gary LeMel - The Best of Times (The only one I wanna return)

Prejudice

OK, I admit it is my prejudice: Whenever I see someone typing Chinese characters and making an obvious mistake between "zai (在)" and “zai (再）" which in most cases is not a typo, I would think that is a demonstration of lack of good education, a so-called low-level indicator. Every time I see them write that way, it almost drives me crazy, especially when it comes to cases involving my good pals. I don't know why I've formed such a notion. I just think that is something very basic that everyone should learn well in his or her maybe kindergarten days, though I admit there are a lot of Chinese characters I can't name or tell the difference correctly.

First post-op check

Tomorrow will be my first post-op check. Feeling not bad these several days. I guess the doctor won't say anything negative. Well, perhaps I just need more suggestions on how to better and sooner recover instead of giving me a list of pills to take after seeing my status.

In fact, after last time's lesson, I've been much more careful to keep me from straining my body too much in order to at least stablize my status. Any some minor physical exercises will do me good, like the Yoga practice Nian taught me.

Well, I'm determined everything will be fine, and just like what I told the Internews friend today: I will be patient and I will be OK.

A song for mama

Happy birthday, mom! How I wish I could be at home celebrating this big day with you and singing this song to you...

The end of year

Almost missed a good movie. It is definitely a non-blockbuster film, with limited budget and no-star-studded cast, yet it won my heart (and tears) with its poinant realism, sometimes camouflaged in well-arranged humorous spicies that only Chinese can understand.

The film is entitled: The End of Year (Yi Nian Dao Tou). In press reports, it was billed the first Chinese movie that sets the plot around the annual massive homebound passenger flood during the Spring Festival period. Yet I'd rather take it as, behind the forever theme of "going home" for the holiday, a true panorama of the current Chinese society, all its joys, tears and helplessnesses. Thank God it's not all a hopeless picture.

Just look at how many viewer comments at Douban. Most of them saluted such a small-budget domestic production instead of those big-budget and big-cast counterparts. I believe there is a strong demand in the domestic audience for something that truly reflects THE life they are experiencing.

At the end of the movie, Xu Wei's Blue Lotus (Lan Lian Hua) floated up with the scenes of what we Chinese are all familiar with. Tears came to my eyes. I miss home.

Guess guess guess

I don't wanna guess, though Daniel Chan's song is so nice.

Obama set to win

Watched the debate tonight. More and more I'm inclined to Obama. To me, an outsider, McCain is too old and too canny to take the position. The way he talked during the debate was like an old man trying to talk sweet to lure people, to get them rise to a bait. It isn't a way that a big country's leader should communicate his message to a national audience. In sharp contrast, Obama looked much more firm, clear and candid in his tonight's performance. He deserves a win. Just like what the ISFS advisor joked to me when we were about to finish our meeting this afternoon: "Let's see how McCain got beaten again!" I think she saw that happen, like millions of other Americans did tonight.

Rolling Stone story

Just finished reading the long story on McCain entitled Make-Believe Maverick. An very interesting piece. Politicians are politicians, no matter whether they are in a capitalist country or a socialist one. NPR also talked about some of McCain's anecdotes mentioned in the story. Should be a good guide before the unveiling of tomorrow's debate between McCain and Obama.

A bit tired. Bed time.

Creative vs. wild

Last night lying on bed, an interesting idea struck me. It was for my environmental planning class' final project. Yet if done well, it can even be reshaped into a good marketing plan. Sometimes I think I'm good at creative thinking, yet it's not enough. Or I should say I'm not good at wild thinking. :)

Feeling good

Once again, I woke up quite early. Still, I tuned in NPR for a morning radio shower. Good thing is, with these days' such kind of intensive English input, I kind of have a better "feel" of English. It is a good feeling, of course. Similar to that I had last year when I finished that nearly two-month home stay in an American family due to my internship then.

The effect? I guess it showed right away. I mean today. This afternoon, we had a kind of video screening meeting among us CommDevers. The preview was for selecting the final films to be shown in late October at our first ever CommDev Film Festival (well, its scale is hardly that festival-type, yet we haven't come up with a right name so far) organized by the Communication and Development Association (CDA) in which I take up the role of vice president. Since our president was out of town for personal emergency this afternoon, I then took the role of presiding over the event. I felt quite nice with the whole process that was quite smooth, including my use of English. It's not that I don't have chance to use English at other daily times or activites, yet I would more like to regard this afternoon's meeting as a confidence resurge touchstone for using English appropriately, naturally and smoothly at whatever occasions. I can't say I have achieved that, but I'm feeling good to make that happen in the near future.

Mmm, many thanks to NPR, to my Creative player, to this blog, and to you. :)

Yeah, another good-feeling thing to thank you, hon. This morning's over-the-phone CD buying spree was quite successful and exciting. I hope that will also bring a rich treasurehouse for your musical enjoyment, at least for the two months. ^_^

Sunshine Otaku

After missing out tonight's lecture by Jeff Corwin (Animal Planet host and leading conservationist) because the tickets were sold out (once again, it proves that free events in most cases sell better than those charging money) when I rushed to the venue around its opening time, I've decided to quit being a post-op otaku (a Japanese word meaning home geek). I will go to school every day to stay tuned in with the latest happenings in town, even though I may not have class on certain days. In that way, at least, I should be what Jay sings as "Sunshine Otaku"! : )