List for the break

Christmas Eve. Not surprisingly, we are staying in the city as always :-) Will have dinner at home, and move on to Disk 2, Season 2 of Heroes.

It's not the time to make a wish yet (although for people it probably is), i am still going to put up my to-do list for the break, since having it here seemed to work pretty well back in June :-)

1. Continue the literature review section for our collaborative paper; (Began after New Year's Day!)
2. Finish 1; (a lot of work!)
3. Begin the analysis for my pilot study; (Began 1/18/09)
4. Write 3 up;
5. Begin my own lit review;
6. Go over the stats chapters not covered last semester;
7. Push S! (Finished 1/19/09)

To T.C.

Although we no longer hear from you and don't really care, just learned from a mutual friend that you are getting married soon. We also saw the wedding photos.

It's funny to be reminded how things have changed - between you and him, between you...and us. i never had a sister; i guess you were as close as one could possibly be. But most sisters do not drift apart. After all, we were just friends.

He looked very happy in the photos. Obviously he adores you :-) i wonder though, after all these years, if you have managed to tone down the stubbornness, and learned to not take relationships for granted. A clean slate is a precious thing; some people have to fight hard for one.

i know you would not see this. But still, congratulations! We are happy for you.

...for those years.

Almost ready

Just finished the practice midterm. i got 30 out of 34, which is 88.23%. Grrr...

The interesting thing is...i took it very seriously, treated it exactly as if it were THE exam. i set the alarm, followed the format, and even panicked when there was still one particular question that i wasn't sure how to approach, when the two-hour time limit was finally coming up.

Okay...i got one more day. i think i am almost ready.

So orderly, yet so empty

Yes, it's that time of year again, time for you to pack, leave, and stay extremely busy for a week somewhere 45 minutes up north in T-Town.

When you are away, things drastically slow down. It's like all of a sudden i have on my hands all the time, all this space, all the silence, and despite the fact that i hardly ever turn on the TV, all the channels to myself. The rooms are neat; no loose items on the floor here and there, the chairs pulled back under the dining table, the couch cushions well in place, the kitchen and bathroom lights immediately off, the power cords tucked away. Things are in order, in a way they normally don't get to be.

When you are away, orderly is this small apartment, yet empty.

The luxury

Over the past few weeks, the desk beside the bedroom window stayed a messy on-site storage for statements, receipts, notes, letters, articles...stuff i was more than unwilling to "process". Finally, one morning last week, with about two hours of shredding and filing, i got it all tidied up - tidied up to the degree that, on the 42" x 22" polished wooden desk top, there is nothing but an 11 inch laptop.

It was an eyesore; it is now a pride.

Turned out that the number 5 somehow "damaged" me, after all. The stats class couldn't have been the only reason, although it is also true that i am never a library person. What i need is exactly a moment like this: cool air through the window, a hot cup of coffee (seldom though), a list of items that i keep crossing out, the actual progress along the chapters and exercises. i need to be fulfilled, i am trying to be self-motivated. Maybe this luxury can help, the luxury of having an open, clean study space all to myself at the beginning of my 5th.

Transcending

Eastward on the 33rd Street i walked, savoring a half glimpse of the Empire State Building — to catch the second half of my Year-two, mid-summer commute. In about twenty minutes, the train would take me across the Hudson River to the other side, where this cooler, early Autumn air has been making my eight-block walk more relaxing and inviting than ever. Occasionally, on the sidewalk, the breezes would rustle through the tree leaves, and slowly brush me by. When it comes, you would want to keep walking, and walking.

It was this lulling softness in the air, perhaps among some other things, that had brought back to me the dream of reading. By reading i did not mean newspapers, magazines or tough articles, certainly not subway ads. Last night i had pulled out Sherwood Anderson's The Egg and Other Stories from the top of the shelf, slid it into my tote, so that earlier this morning on the downtown express train it would rescue me from the usual dullness accompanying my hour-long commutes. It did, his lightly plotted prose. Hardly any action there was, but the voices of the narrator leading me, with the same softness, into the same trance of that quiet, heavily tree-lined residential neighborhood.

i would not want this to end.

The condemnation

When i wake up tomorrow, i might find myself weighed down, very likely all the way at the bottom, by the regret for having a whole year (or a whole month, even just a whole week) and still...not making the August 1st deadline. But...who else am i trying to fool but myself?

The bitter truth is, whether this happens as a direct result of my procrastination or not, i am not a responsible adult. i am this ROV on an open sea, programmed to but somehow failed to self-propel. i am simply not capable. [Right...a loser statement it is.]

Perhaps the best penalty of all...is not being able to make it. The best lesson even, it almost seems.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Let bygones be bygones, i have to learn to. S is right, "it is not the end of the world", though it has to be the beginning of a new chapter.

An observer's note

To say that he smashed the heart against the wall, and that, all over the floor, in quiet melancholy the shattered pieces waited...is just too subtle.

Follow-up of my end-of-June resolution

Once again (and not surprisingly), these days i am having a hard time falling asleep, be it 11:30 p.m., 12:30 p.m., or even an alarming two o'clock in the morning.

When friends complain of the same problem, i always tell them to "free up" their mind at least an hour before bed time. The strategy could possibly work for me too, but this time i think i know exactly why. It's the sense of procrastinating or worse, time-wasting guilt, over a couple of things i should've completed a month ago. Yes, ONE MONTH ago!!

Which is why i must say it out loud here. First things first: Tonight, i am going to:

• continue and finish my pilot proposal (which i wanted to send out by the end of May); (completed: 10:25 pm)
• get the TECO funding application done (which should've been submitted back in April); (completed: 7/3, 9:00 pm) - - -> There was still procrastination, but...better than nothing :-)
• and to resume my work on J's site (which is still far from completion, since it requires so much tweaking). (template and site layout completed: 7/13, 5:30 pm)

Phew, i am already feeling better :-) (Sagittariuses are naive, aren't they? Okay, i know, it's just me....) Anyway, let's hope that, once i get rid of the first two, i will be at peace with myself again at the end of the day, and that the familiar shroud of drowsiness will come visit me immediately after i'm settled in bed, despite the caffeine i had earlier.

Farewell to this curse of insanity!

End-of-June resolution

i have to NOT procrastinate.

A Wednesday afternoon

After lunch with S, i brought some data back and am working from home. It's the first day after the four-day-in-a-row, above-the-100s heat wave finally decided to take off (and return to whichever evil planet it was from).

At this minute, there is no air-conditioning and yet no sweating, just the box fan going at the lowest speed beside me. In my glass mug sits one-third of Starbucks Frappuccino mixed with two-thirds of milk. It is still icy, yes, but i can wait. Over the speaker, Mariah Carey is repeatedly singing Against All Odds. It touches me as always. The usual uptown noises are not here on our street, and the girls are sound asleep on the living room rug. i guess...if it weren't for that heat wave, sometimes i simply forget how pleasant THIS MOMENT could be.

Pat and his guitar

i might not be blind, but i am totally deaf :-(

The break-up

i broke it up; it's hard to believe, but i just did.

Sometimes you wonder why things happen and why break-ups take place. Well, here comes the moment of truth: People had enough...or thought they did. In the latter case, what they do is try to make up. So...human beings break up, make up, break up, make up...until they are tired of it?

If it is hard in a virtual world, it's gotta be even more difficult in reality.

A reason to fall

They say people are emotionally at their weakest when they get ill. To quite some extent, i'd second that.

Two weeks ago, i was so sick that i actually believed i was going to die. There was this one afternoon that i had slept too much to fall back into slumber, and i saw this news of a dog hit by a car, paralyzed, possibly losing his life. All of a sudden, my tears gushed down fast and hard, all of which soon turned into bawling.

i realized, right at that moment, that i was crying for myself. i guess after all, all they needed was a reason to fall.

Much less fun...

i am definitely with you. It's going to be much less fun :-( However, the Sagittarius in me is also working: it could just be much less fun for...not even two years?