To a mouse

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face."

-Mike Tyson

I'm allergic to planning.  My aversion to making plans is second only to my aversion to people with iPhones.  (An ailment I will suddenly be cured of on April 9^th, at which time I am going to be "one of those spoiled brats with a fancy phone" I hated so much when I got back to the States—but that's another story.)  Usually when I go on a trip, I don't care to decide ahead of time at which restaurants I will eat, which buses I will take, or even which sights I will see.  I find it infinitely more enjoyable to be enticed by the smell of garlic to a tiny restaurant with better food than I'd ever dreamed of, when I didn't even realize we were near Little Italy, or even the awfulness of a tripe-filled hot-pot I hadn't planned on trying, but had to laugh about for years after.  (Don't judge me for the things I will eat when offered a latte from Starbucks until you live in China too.)  I've always enjoyed the unpredictability of traveling without an agenda.

Since certain shocks have left a bitter taste in my mouth, I've had a recent attack of pragmatism.  I've tried to wipe away any uncertainty.  I don't want any more surprises. Ever.  So I've begun planning my life, including my trip to New York City last week.  I had every minute of every day planned.  I bought travel books, did research online, and printed off subway maps, itineraries, and necessary tickets for my traveling companions.  There were to be no surprises.

Those "best laid plans" lasted about fifteen minutes into the trip.  Our flight was delayed 3½ hours due to the kind of thunderstorm that only March in the Midwest can produce.  We missed our second flight but all in all it was a minor speed-bump.  I've done enough traveling in situations where delays are the norm rather than the exception, to let that faze me.  We adjusted our schedule and got ready to go to Broadway.  The carefully planned schedule grew hazier with each passing hour.  Rather than being delighted with each new scene, I was frantically trying to figure out how to get us back on schedule, back to the place we were supposed to have been.  I didn't enjoy anything when I had mapped out exactly what the day should look like and it didn't resemble my dreams at all.

It became apparent to me that this was no way to travel around day 3 of New York City.  We arrived in Central Park with three specific goals.  The first was the literary walk section of the Mall, the oldest and prettiest pathway through the city's enormous haven lined with statues and quotes from literary masters.  Upon approaching the beautiful literary walk, we were halted by large white vans, bright lights, and two scrawny guys standing in the middle of the walkway.

     "Excuse me, but we're filming right now, so we have to ask that you turn around."

Normally, this would have delighted me.  I would have asked countless questions and been immensely interested in the TV show being made right before our eyes.  Instead, I was frustrated that I wasn't going to see one of the things I'd researched and looked forward to.  I considered my options:  if I ignored the guys and walked right past, I was pretty sure I could out-muscle either one in a scrap.  I was also pretty sure my sister and roommate wouldn't want to explain to the police why I had gotten in a fight in the park.

We turned around dejectedly and searched for Strawberry Fields.  At least we would be able to pay our respects to John Lennon.  Strawberry Fields wasn't hard to find, since there was a crowd gathered around the mosaic where a man in a Hawaiian shirt with too few brain cells was explaining his carefully crafted shrine of flowers, an apple, a hand-sewn strawberry, a walrus, and a variety of other chintzy knickknacks.  He had made an intricate peace sign over the "imagine" mosaic with roses, and was telling stories about the late Beatle that grew less believable with each breath he took.

This was an interesting fellow—a fascinating specimen of humanity I should have been entertained by.  Instead, I was fuming that he was ruining yet another of my plans:  a picture with the artwork.

In an even worse mood than before, I turned towards my last hope for Central Park:  the Great Lawn.  When we approached the beautiful lawn upon which so many artists had performed concerts, so many New Yorkers had lounged in the sunshine, I was looking forward to settling down for half an hour with one of my newly-purchased books and feeling the bliss of soft green grass.  Instead, a fence encircled the entire lawn with a warning sign that the grass was freshly planted and couldn't be walked on for a few more weeks.

It was after I left the park in a foul mood that I realized none of this would have upset me if I hadn't built up expectations in my mind.  The way I normally live, I just let things drift to me and enjoy them as they come.  

There's a certain poetry in finding life to be a pleasant surprise rather than a disruptive deviation from your careful plans.

Certain areas of our lives must be planned.  Without goals and dreams, we would wander aimlessly and accomplish little.  That does not mean that I should hold rigidly to those plans as though they are the only possible way to enjoy life.  An unexpected turn of events can bring with it joys I'd never dreamed of, even if it completely ruins the careful map I'd drawn.  Thank you, New York, for reminding me to be flexible.  Just because I didn't get the job I thought was the only possible avenue to happiness doesn't mean an equally wonderful opportunity isn't out there waiting to be discovered.

可能，我疯了有关书籍。

Fully furnishing an apartment without spending a dime of your own money is not an easy task.  I challenge anyone to do a better job than Sam, Rachel, and I have.  So what if our kitchen table rocks so much that setting a drink on it could be hazardous to your clothing?  I maintain that the uneven kitchen floor is the culprit, not our rickety table.  So we only have one chair to use at the table?  We sit on the floor around the coffee table and eat family style, like the happy Egyptian family we are not.  Free coffee table with only one leg?  Easiest of them all.  Behold: the majesty of the stack of books.  It's functional and cute.  Adds a whimsical touch to our apartment.  What happens when you break two legs off the microwave stand in the process of sweeping the kitchen floor?  Why, books are the answer to that question as well, just as they are the solution to nearly every problem in my life.  I use books to prop up my table and I use books to prop up my broken spirit when I cannot stand.

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."
-Lemony Snicket

我会写一本书。真的。

I don't make new year's resolutions.  I think they are doomed from conception and can serve only one purpose:  that of a guilt-factory.  I was once told by a very dear friend of mine (one of the three blessed people who happen to read this blog) that this is a character flaw and something I should focus on immediately.  Perhaps my new resolution should be to make resolutions?

I justify my disregard for the collective starting-over period by saying that I do decide to make changes whenever the need for one happens to hit me in the face, no matter what time of year it arrives.  The problem is that whether it be on January 1st or August 20th, the intended change usually fades within about the same period of time.

Until now.

Some time ago I stumbled upon a wonderful little website, www.onepageperday.com, on which you can type exactly one page, which it will save for you.  If you haven't written yet when the reminder fairies wake up, they send you an email called your "gentle reminder" to write your page that day.  Those emails are very easy to delete.  If they stack up in your inbox and you suddenly have fifteen of them, there is a magical button which blocks them from ever showing up in your inbox again.  New year's mumbo-jumbo defeated!  Then I remember that I asked them to infiltrate my inbox, so that I would actually be productive with my otherwise wasted life and I beg their forgiveness.  This new-found discipline lasts another couple of days until I get annoyed with the "gentle" reminders yet again.

That cycle might continue indefinitely if I hadn't made the mistake of telling that same nagging (and very beloved) friend that I was going to write a book.  Now, for some reason, he keeps asking me how that book is coming.  It's not that I don't want to write a book--I very much do.  It's that working 40 hours a week has got to be the surest way to suck all the creativity out of a person and leave them a dry shell of a human.  By the time I get home I'm so tired of listening to the insane ramblings of our needy clients* that all the creativity I can summon is depleted when I add a jalapeño to whatever I'm cooking for dinner.  That little addition is all I have left to contribute to the world.

Peer pressure is a lot harder to resist than an electronic reminder, so I've begun writing my book for the third or fourth time.  If it lacks the spark of humanity that makes literature worthwhile, I blame this system of slavery we expect adults to join in order to be considered "responsible."

"Each person's task in life is to become an increasingly better person."

-Leo Tolstoy

*If you think I exaggerate, I will record one of the aforementioned insane ramblings and force you to listen to its entirety.  I do not suggest testing me on this.

天天开心

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
Vincent Van Gogh

我离开中国一年多前。

If I were to be completely honest--which I'm not convinced is possible--I would admit that when someone asks me for a blog post, or tells me they check my blog daily because they love reading it, I shine inside.  Fireworks shoot out of the ends of my hair.  I grow to be 6 feet tall, and could run 1,000 miles without taking a drink of water.

Then I sit at my computer and stare at the page for a few hours, hoping a brilliant thought will crawl out of my ear and onto the keyboard.  That's what I've been doing for most of today.  The result has been a few scratched out sentences in my notebook, and a lot of coffee flowing in my veins.

When I write, most of the work is done before I ever sit at the computer.  I carry a notebook with me and I observe things while I'm inhaling smoke on a train, bouncing down rutted mountain roads on a bus, sipping coffee in a cafe by the river.    I no longer do any of those things on a regular basis, and I've lost the habit of soaking in human behaviors around me.  I left China over a year ago, and somehow don't feel like I've moved at all since then.  It's time for that to change!  The future is mine for the shaping, and I will not let it pass me by.

"The mission of life is to live [your] potentiality.  How do you do it?  My answer is, 'Follow your bliss.'  There's something inside you that knows when you're in the center, that knows when you're on the beam or off the beam, and if you get off the beam to earn money, you've lost your life.  And if you stay in the center and don't get any money, you still have your bliss."

-Joseph Campbell

"Don't ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

-Howard Thurman

第一入学申请表

December 13, 2011

Dear Kathleen:

We have received your application for admission to the English Master of Arts program for the Fall 2012 Semester. You will soon receive additional correspondence from us regarding the status of your application and any materials you still need to submit.

We know that applying to graduate school is an important and significant decision for you and the committee will give your application the highest degree of thoughtfulness and consideration. We will inform you of the committee’s decision by mail. If you have questions about the application process, please contact the office of Graduate and Professional Enrollment Management at (312) 915-8950 or via e-mail at GradApp@luc.edu.

Please let us know if your name, address, or application information is incorrect, and we will make the proper adjustment. If your contact or address information changes during the admission process, please let us know that as well so we can update your application.

Thank you for your interest in graduate education at Loyola. We look forward to reviewing your credentials and wish you the best of luck in the admission process.


Sincerely,

Ronald P. Martin
Associate Director of Enrollment Management
Graduate Enrollment Management

:)

研究生院

"Sometimes decades pass and nothing happens; and then sometimes weeks pass and decades happen."

-Lenin

I'm in love with adventure.  I've spent most of my life chasing recklessly after it, and it's led me all over the world.  In the last nine months; however, adventure been conspicuously absent from my life and I'm almost grateful.  Since I got back to the States my days have become somewhat monotonous and for the most part I've been glad for the respite.  Adventure itself is a wonderful thing, but it can be synonymous with turmoil.  It's good to have a rest from the whirlwind that the last two years have been.

I'm still enjoying my job more than I imagined I would, but in the last few weeks I've felt the familiar stir of restlessness reawakening.  I need to have a goal, a purpose, something to bend my life towards.  So, I have started taking steps towards getting myself in grad school in the next few years.  I signed up for the GRE this week, and am researching schools and programs related to English.  While on OU's website trying to learn about their Master's program, I clicked on the link to Frequently Asked Questions.  Check out the answer.