Michael Ondaatje's _The English Patient_

Saw the movie years ago, but forgot most of the plot. Somehow my chair likes the book very much and referred to it several times during our discussions of my diss. in the past few years, which made me decide to read it. (ft-- why can't i stop following what she said-- already a compulsive reaction to her words?)

Surprisingly, the language isn't quite my type. Guess the multi plot line/non-linear narrative is truly the strong point here. There's something about its colonialism-war-torture-sexuality-psychoanalysis stuff that I don't like--probably the underlying / unconscious pro-British stance (and in this sense, is Kip the Sikh the character that the author identify with the most)?

Different than Eugenides's (or some of Ishiguro's) books, of which just a few pages make me sure about my love for them, this book upsets me and exhausts me and makes it very hard for me to really "like" it. I quickly finished it over the weekend and returned it to the library on Monday, in an extreme hurry as if keeping it one more minute would leave some irreversible damage to me.

So, here's one more kind of "good" books: it is "good" in such a way that you don't like it completely but at the same time you know you will never ever forget it. (Other kinds: that makes you simply love it and want to read it again and again; that makes you want to write too; that makes you forever miss your experience of reading it for the first time...)

Dear Water,

我想，还是不再开一个了。 以前试过MSNspace, 几次都不习惯，国内的豆瓣我好象也有个账户呢，也懒得用了。看了看MySpace，也是厌倦，再一套个人信息登记，真真假假重新来过，好麻烦。就给你写邮件吧。或者FaceBook上长长留言。这里就留着回头再来吧，你说呢？

从很小时候因为搬家转学就开始有写信的朋友，活到现在，你是最近一段时间最可亲可爱的对话朋友。不管记点什么总有你听和回应，是我何等幸运。前阵子，有一天，翻以前的邮件，看到我07年夏回国时和你还有hualing的信，重读了半天，又感动于你们的关心，心里暖暖的。还有一天，我在华人店买了包瓜子儿给爸妈解闷，就想起你，还是在AA时在你们家聊天时总吃，这几年都没吃过瓜子儿。上个星期我在网上找电影看，又想到你说的《一一》，打开看了，却发现，所有重点早已因为你告诉过我的细节烂熟于心，再没有看的必要，索性关掉。

你论文如何了？交稿时告诉我啊，要替你在心里庆祝。

今天给hualing电话，谈了一会，我的电话死了，作罢。也不想长聊打扰你，就这样写信给你吧。我大约在八月二十一日走，先去教ＥＳＬ，机票仍待定。有太多关于这个工作决定的阴差阳错、争执犹疑，想讲给你听，但太多痛苦琐碎，也没办法电话里说，烦闷里，只觉我这八年每一步都是错。以后慢慢解释，还盼着听你劝慰。

论文加油，祝早日完成计划大功告成！

家长里短的故事电影，我耽溺的不过是变了味的自己的理想。
我在报上的文章后写两句读者评论，却发现编辑根本不会刊登。
有日子没好好念诗了，更担心若再一次学术市场受挫，我究竟该干什么？

看多日不碰的通俗小说，好象不去想，所有烦恼就可以无需过问自行解决。
导师的信，依然是略带不满的催促，是，我仍然不够努力，要改的信，要投的稿，拖得不象话。

跟E说我们下面几个月的安排，他一副理解的让人心酸模样。
抱歉的我，怎么弥补所有过错。

夜晚，对牢一室微光，为自己一路追到三十五岁的文学研究不知所措。隔着海，二十年的好朋友还是那句问话，今年回来吗？我说终于念完了，她说恭喜恭喜。向收到所有其他“Congrats"时一样，我感动于她的关心，却同时意识到我还是无法真正为自己庆祝。虽然饭也吃了，香槟也开过，但，我知道，我仍然没有正视这个八年的结果，这个真正过程远重于结果的东西。这个过程让生活彻底翻转，把自己最不堪的的一面暴露在自己和生活面前。

其实，大概，也没必要想那么多了。

_Harvie Krumpet_

Saw Adam Elliot's short film _Harvie Krumpet_ while E was napping.

The story of Harvie reminded me of what Prof B once said in a class on _Ulysses_ in 2003. Bloom has every reason to give up, to feel depressed or even suicidal, yet he carried on, in spite of all the ugly business of living... Somehow I've always remembered that little comment, the only thing that I really learned from all those painful hours spent on Modernism.

Harvie's life is marked by illness, displacement, and a lot of bad luck. He's never defeated though-- no, it's not precise to comment this way, because for him life is not a question of fighting. Instead, it is simply a journey you go on naturally no matter what. His "carp diem" and naturalist philosophy, which comes as much from the "Horace" epiphany as from a residual memory about his parents, is perhaps just a little effort to make the journey a bit more pleasant.

[Reading the above paragraph again I realized the over use of "to be" sentences -- a problem Prof B pointed out in my term papers that same year. My writing still sucks.]

In the dream, I was reading the book my chair recommended, one on psychoanalysis. I remember leafing through the book in the dream, trying to find the key word with which I was most concerned: shame. Did I find it at all? Only the image of black prints on white pages vaguely stayed in my mind.

We woke up to a day much cooler than yesterday. All our hysteric screams last night faded away, and the apartment seemed oddly empty.

Summer seemed to have forgotten the Seattle area entirely, until today.

Because of E, we "celebrated" the 4th of July seriously like never before. Went to a parade, in spite of the impossibly terrible weather-- there were people in wintry coats everywhere. And E had his raincoat hood on the whole time. He came across the word/concept "parade" multiple times in the past year and finally got to see what it really meant (although he has been to one before--the awesome and famous one of the Davis' Picnic Day--he was too young at the time to remember it). More exciting were the fireworks, which followed a pretty nice concert of the Bellevue Philharmonic. E's interest in the music and the various instruments in the orchestra seemed genuine and made us happy. The fireworks didn't start until 10:05pm, and he was already tired and sleepy by then. Yet the splendid light and color attracted him, and he said his favorite fireworks were those of the golden color. I remember last fall, he often said he liked golden and yellow leaves better than those red red ones...

We're still working on temper control.

天水围的日与夜

很久没看过这么好的电影了。
或者，“好”根本无法表达出我的感觉。白描，几乎没有情节的叙事，却感动无处不在。普罗大众的柴米油盐可以这样近乎纪录片式地记录，但同时显露艺术安排的熨贴巧妙。表现伤感，但丝毫不过多渲染滥情，影片结束真真是余味无穷。

许鞍华在这里的白描，让我想到看贾樟柯时的遗憾。我看过贾的三部片，明白他的社会关怀意图和记录目的，但总觉得缺点什么让我真正喜欢。回味许的手法和取材让我看清自己的偏好：天水围这样的白描是温情的，“美”通过生活真实细节里彰显的“善”表现，即便时有难以承受的人情冷暖，但希望不会破灭。贾的作品，想来想去竟是绝望的。

忽然就真的绝望起来：原因在他描述的社会吧。那形式呢？我还是应该仔细分析一下。

近期新目标：把许鞍华全部电影看一遍。

原来，我不是对电影整个没了兴趣，　哈哈。

"Certificate of Completion"

Chair's final approval came on the 22th night, and L printed and sent my diss. via Fedex overnight early yesterday morning-- the morning of E's birthday.

Got the approval from OARD this morning-- they are obviously way more efficient than they would want you to believe--and around noon time, got everything done, finally.

The moment I uploaded the pdf file, the panic came back again, as it always did-- what if there're still countless typos? what if the abstract and Intro still suck? -- but i knew it was the end, no matter what, and i had to stop and click the "submit" button.

So that's it-- The End.

最后一个deadline 终于没办法赶，
我还在为Intro伤神，不知老师们几时满意。最后最后一段路总是最难走吧。

--６．２２。前晚收到SS信，说我改得很棒，我实在不知该哭该笑了，就是因等她，Chair刚又给了一堆意见，这下真是进也不是退也不是。昨天上午终于还是把最后又改了的Intro发给了Chair. 不知她什么时候能最后点头？

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Eugene快过生日了。学校学的歌不用再要妈咪查资料来猜，能一句一句歌词讲给妈咪听了。那天，很久没玩幻想游戏的他，又来了灵感，居然把剧情从以往的具体叙述上升到了概念的抽象表演境界：要我们一个人作“晚上”， 一个人作“彩灯”，他是开灯的人，大家来演天黑了，灯亮起来五颜六色的情景，我们笑到喷饭。这人以后真可以去作导演唉！半年前那个淋浴时转圈，说自己是洗衣机的妙喻很是impress了一家人，现在的小创意更随意，拿个什么长东西放在鼻子前就开始作大象。一小块长条扁积木放在嘴边说他在吹口琴，倒真是惟妙惟肖。两块积木一横一竖搭起来，举起来就成了蛋筒冰淇淋，满屋子吆喝开他的冰店。我还真没想到过积木可以这么玩呢。

这么多年不敢想象的结束后的现在
我穿过整个中校园，关银行账户，还掉图书馆的书，最后印了些东西，
最后去了一次英语系，把Chair前些天拿给我的一本书放回她的信箱
在心里跟一切说再见
很多天的阴雨，
说晴就晴了
好热好亮的中校园
已经没有Shaman Drum了
不知道
还有没有机会再回来
其实，我总共只在这里待过七个学期
他们笑我从没看过夏天的Art Fair
其实我没看过的东西好多

好了，Sentimentality is bad
别过，Ann Arbor

I want to laugh--isn't this funny--
My chair really really really becomes a therapist for me, for which i like and hate her at the same time. she wouldn't stop driving me to explore the deepest secret behind my intellectual pursuit. Our meeting today, the very last one before my defense, lasted a bit more than two hours-- shorter than usual. By the end of it, she became sooooo happy and excited and relieved when she saw me bewildered at presumably the very original motivation of mine .
She found an ultimate explanation for the simultaneous vagueness and pervasiveness of "power" and "other" in my writing, my obsession with the "personal"/"political" dichotomy, and numerous other unsolvable problems. The direction she pointed to was enlightening. Perhaps, I am, ironically, dealing with my relation to the home, via texts in language other than mine own.
According to her, it's absolutely necessary for me to think about and write about this relation to the home. Only in so doing, said she, could I clearly show what I can contribute to the study form my liminal in-between position, which is potentially different from all those old exilic-writing / America-validating models...
So-- i'm going to write a "story" of my own, seriously, for the sake of the dissertation?

最后一星期

可以去EspressoRoyale会朋友，但我好象还是打不起精神坐在那儿写东西。里面放眼望去，永远不变的，有英语系的人，学生教授，总有认识的。好象是Angell hall三到五层的另一个延伸，总让我有压抑的窒息感觉。所以，一个人，我没办法去。呵，就这样毫无信心的八年，到今天。

在那里大约是最后一次跟C喝茶，谈我们失了踪的好朋友K。
也在那里请R喝咖啡，她会帮我做答辩笔记。万幸英语系里还有她这个能干朋友。

昨晚，当年教我开车的“教练”请吃饭。教练后来慢慢变成朋友，难得还能聊聊天。

好象在很认真地跟AA告别。一个一个有关联的人，别过。

五月里还能冷得象冬天的AA啊，我好象，终于不再爱你了。人家说的那种谈了经年累月的恋爱，要结束的时候，大概就这种感觉？眼泪和欢笑，慢慢都变成过往，人也终于变了，没办法回到从前。好奇怪，我怎么会难过至此？几乎自虐地隐隐希望，这一切没有这么快就烟消云散。这么多年来每天早上醒过来都因为课业或论文而生的心事重重感觉，难道也值得留恋？

明天要和Chair答辩前最后一次面谈。

Why do I have to be apologetic? I have no reason to apologize to anyone for my study of English lit. My English isn't perfect, but so what?

--Perhaps that's the attitude that I should have.

It's ridiculous that I could feel so bad about myself when the dream is almost true.

SS said that I should think about how to celebrate-- not for the past, but for the future. But what is my future??

Ten days before the defense, I'm still revising, and probably will never be able to finish. The chair tried not to be too harsh, but I know she wished i could have written better. yes, if only i had stayed here and worked more closely with her-- but that wasn't my fault, or anybody's. what's the point of saying this to me now, after all these years?

Anyway, i'll do as much revision as i can today and work as long as i can tonight. What will the draft look like tomorrow morning is already beyond my concern.
--------

I shouldn't have gone to the forum yesterday. More than ever before I felt there wasn't anybody to talk to. Gave a 10 minute mini-presentation, and nobody seemed interested. But that was ok. What really made me feel terrible was the fact that the forum I once loved was definitely gone, probably never to be found again.

-----
Hm... yes, it's indeed a time to let go of the past and think about the future.

Ann Arobr, one last month

Arrived last night, exhausted.

大概因为是最后一次在这里停留，走到哪里都是回忆，整个中校园让我心酸。
和以前要离开一个地方的恋恋不舍很不同，这一回，是别样的痛。

5/1
好象从来没有这样过，我一个人，坐在diag，等grad library开门。钟楼的声音悠长，满眼郁郁葱葱，多云的天。就像十几岁的时候，茫然的怅惘，在初夏，多少年，都一样。

电话里，Eugene的声音异常遥远，听他叫妈咪，真想抱抱他。

在AA的时候总是我寂寞的时候。

用手机拍了两张grad library相片。这小城，没有别的地方我更爱。进了门，仿佛全身每个毛孔都找到家的感觉，自在舒服。那时候，为了每学期的大小论文，在书架间穿梭，有充满希望的快乐，当然，写作时候的艰难困苦又是另外的故事了。以前，二楼的电脑是没办法编辑文件的，只能打印。现在装了office，可以就坐在那里写东西。我觉得我可以在那里永远永远坐下去。。。

松鼠们一如既往。只是没见到那个永远在ugli门前弹唱的人。

Cinderella

忙里偷闲，瞧了些新近流行的中文“偶像剧”。

爱情故事总也脱不了灰姑娘童话的套路。
为什么总是要把剧情编成这样，可爱女孩要靠钻石王老五的爱情拯救，是女人永远爱做这样的梦，还是男人非靠这样的框架满足自己的虚荣？

一边习惯性地嘲笑无聊，一边也意识到，我其实不过是被娱乐的电视观众中的一个。而且，而且，年少时喜欢向往的沧桑感觉再也没有吸引力，青春已然过去的现在，终于发现，年轻的笑容，单纯的美就算只是skin-deep, 确实可以让人忘掉些烦恼，很好很好。

是我在变老吗？还是，关于深度的研究，让我疲惫？

八年前的我，怎么会想到，在关于文学博士的梦想就要实现的时候，我会发现自己，其实，也爱明星帅哥？？

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/books/review/Fried-t.html?ref=books

So he has it as the title poem of a new book now. and i need to get a copy. yes. for the tears it brought to my eyes when i listened to his reading, for the first time in my life. would never forget the experience-- crying over a poem heard, feeling extremely sad yet lucky to be there in the audience...

-----------
Bought a pot, soil, gardening tools for a Osteospermum/African Daisy/Blue-eyed Daisy, and Eugene had a wonderful time taking care of the flower. The first afternoon, he stayed beside the pot and wouldn't leave it, saying he'd keep her company.

I'm glad that I still have the interest for Poetrydaily.
http://poetrydaily.net/poem.php?date=14706
Today's poet is brilliant in catching details-- making lovely little narratives.

Robert Hass's poem "Some of David's Story"

http://poetrydaily.net/poem.php?date=14700

I read the poem aloud, to myself, in the sunny afternoon. I was back from Starbucks, in the middle of a messy room, sleepy and disoriented because of the sleepiness, my intro still needing 6 more pages. Gosh, the poem is breathtaking. I thought of the crappy poems and fiction about 6/4 that I've read. About youth, love, sex, political ideals and disillusionment, nothing could be better than this piece. Without fancy phrasing, it just tells a little story, the ending of which is even predicable. The suggested sadness cannot even be said to be "profound." Yet, everything about love, about the time when the world just started to unfold in front of you as it was, is there. And all I can do, as a reader, is--simply to remember, to feel.

"To a Young Poet" by Mahmoud Darwish

Brilliant!!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238836

爱好

Eugene不知怎么知道angels都长着翅膀，很笃定地说，鸟儿们也有翅膀，它们是angels! 且不论逻辑缺陷，我觉得这说法好可爱：）

一直没有记他最大的爱好，是对工程机械类事物的激情。大概是工程师爷爷和学工程的爸爸还有舅舅的真传。一两岁，看到爸爸的工具就两眼放光，摆弄玩具工具能玩好久。至今已拆坏遥控车一辆，挂钟一个。两岁的冬天不断因为流感病在家里，偶尔给他看电视，迷上了动画片Bob the Builder系列。家里要是有什么东西坏了要修理，对他来说定是天大的趣事。从此认识了所有建筑工地专用车和器具，专有名词说起来，如数家珍。对任何建筑修理土木机械相关事情，无不聚精会神，在家的时间，多数以Bob自居，指着墙上他贴的Bob图画说是他自己照片。各类拼图玩具积木lego更是因情形被他指定为沙砾水泥，各种建筑材料不一而足，每天忙于运输修桥铺路。除此之外，Eugene另有奇异爱好——吸尘器。家里没有大吸尘器给他玩，就每次去Costco时要求去吸尘器货架玩样品。摆放在外面展示的所有类型，他都要我们帮着拿下来研究，附带管子有多长，有没有刷子，开关在哪里，扶手怎么放平调方向，吸进去的灰尘收集在哪里，脏盒子怎么拿下来清洗，等等等等。一般的大吸尘器都比他还高还大，他定要自己推推看，每次玩半天，恋恋不舍。天然喜好对学习真是有影响的吧，因为这样的兴趣，Eugene第一本会背的小书题为_Machines at Work_，给他读了两次，他就滚瓜烂熟。

难道，爱古典音乐又有点多愁善感的Eugene， 以后，也会去学Engineering？

亲爱的，我在鼓励你催你行动的时候，也在劝自己。

抑郁的朋友，坏脾气的我，春天了吗，樱花都落了，这是不是黑暗的最后，
最后以后，我们都会快乐吗？你看你看，生活都把你炼成这样柔韧坚强了，我
不知道该哭该笑。
我都知道，你的痛苦，也是我白天暗夜里，神伤的感受。

On the last day, it snowed heavily.

My more-than-four-hour meeting with S turned out to be a painfully confessional and retrospective conversation. My emotional chair kept directing my attention to my embarrassed position as a foreigner/non-native speaker of English in the English dept. why i told her about my interest in Chinese lit, i didn't even remember. And then her question, something like "why did you want to do this, appearing--at least when you just entered the program -- so out of your comfort zone," brought such a piercing pain for a couple of seconds i felt i was going to faint right there in her office. she wouldn't know, even with her lengthy post-meeting email that tried to clarify both her and my thoughts, that i haven't been feeling discouraged by the brutal job market situation. no, that isn't the real reason. what i'm struggling with is precisely the choice i made nine years ago--to apply to "English" departments in the US. why am i doing what i'm doing? S's question pushed me back to where i was in that very first semester in AA, faced with overwhelming challenges that made me want to quit every day... In fact, she meant to remind me of the necessity of acknowledging my particular identity as a critic, which seems the only way to sharpen my argumentative voice.

but, somehow, what i got from her words was: well, i'd better go back to where i'm from.

邮局寄快递回来

终于把第四章寄出去了。自己都不好意思，拖到离去AA只剩一个星期了。希望老师们不会不高兴。
写得匆忙，四十页都不到，印出来，看着没什么份量。只有叹气。

回头看看，这论文写了四年，消耗最多的是热情。之前所有紧张的，混乱的，兴奋的，期待的念头，变成键盘上敲出来的字，掺和了太多无法解决的问题和疑惑，任何推敲都好像成了无可奈何。关于诗句的纠缠，在勉为其难应用文学和文化理论的过程里，越来越意义模糊。不是失败，这感觉已经不是失败或沮丧可以描述。

告诉快四岁的Eugene，最后的最后，Mommy还有introduction 和conclusion 要写。在他夏天过生日之前，就能彻底完成了。小小的人，全都明白。

好像已经颇有一段时间了，陪Eugene看书不用再全部翻译成中文故事。 句子短小的书念几次，他就全背下来。他自己边翻边讲的样子，真仿佛认了字似的，很好笑。事实是，仍然拒绝学拼词、写字，或者任何“正经”东西。有时候，看着他的小同学们那么伶牙俐齿，还一众都能写会画，就很想他也能"fit in"， 可是也觉得，罢了，随他去吧，那么些自由的无拘束的想象，且让他再自在些时候。这么小，已经要在social institution里寻生存之道，够难为他了。

说到学校教育，我和L都有很多不以为然，中式美式，哪里也不可能让人满意。常讨论我们自己从小经历，以及这些年体会，深觉好老师之少见，各色制度之压抑，实在无趣。我们两自小表现不同的对所处环境的抗议心理，也一定会传给Eugene吧。去年为他总不听老师话伤脑筋，现下已然通了，尽量跟他说，但实在因为他觉得无聊要闹一闹，也就算了。除此，还能如何呢？

Writing the last chapter, standing

[ ]

It's been quite a while since I consciously paid attention to usage, style, grammar, and new vocabulary while reading. The habit of constant language learning I had as a English learner/English major in China seems long gone. Not that my English has improved to such a stage that learning is no longer as necessary as before; it's just boredom, I guess, as if you keep eating/drinking something regularly. At last its initially exciting taste will become part of your breath, your daily routine, and will no longer bring any sensation to tongue, like rice, or green tea... Anyway, to break from this boredom and situation of unlearning--

this morning, I decided to buy a copy of Garner's Modern American Usage sometime soon and to start seriously reading NYT's Grammar and Usage column every Tuesday.

Yes, i need to do something, instead of indulging myself in self-questioning.

路上的张灯结彩的装饰慢慢都拆掉了，
年节过后的寥落，Eugene都感觉得到，
我说，没关系，我们回家还是可以开我们自己的小彩灯啊，
他说好，但我知道那种同意里的无奈味道。

我今年很乖地给各地的导师们写新年快乐的邮件，
并各处表决心说明近期工作计划，无非借此督促自己
完成了结计划。
对，就是这八年的了结。
多少年前，到南京联谊的台湾小学姐，
在给我的小小卡片上写时光匆匆，曾经不再之类的话，
今天怎么竟想起。
十几岁，当时自有天真的沧桑体会，
现在，更多索然，不再轻易感叹。