Everynight, I took a shuttle that drives me from work and drops me off at 4th and Judah. From there, a nice stroll down the hill takes me to 9th and Judah, where the muni stop is.  There is a nice deli/grocery shop at 6th and Judah owned by an old eastern European lady. I stop by sometimes to pick up a meat pie for dinner. She would always say "have a good night, sister" after handing me the luke warm microwaved pie. Another shop is at 8th and Judah, which is where I take my detour when I used to see JP, he lives up the hill at 8th and Lawton. Finally, at 9th and Judah, right next to the stop, is the 24 hours "world donut", with "Peerless coffee". There are always old or young singles sipping coffee , reading a book or newspaper regardless how late it is. I always look for signs of other people waiting for the muni, it's as if their misery is the proof that I'm not the only one and that help is on the way. But there are always times when the train just went by, and you are left alone waiting for the next train which always takes forever to arrive.

    Cupid hit me like a frantic, one day I was normal and sober, the next day I was all swollen from love bug bites. It's all about timing, just whoever showed up at that moment when my heart is filled with love, desire and readiness, one pinch, it all leaked out. Or is it, just about timing. How came he said all the right things that no guys before or after him has said, how came he brought me the excitement, happiness that I've longed for and deserved for so long.  I think I'm in love, but how can I tell when love has failed me so many times, and I no longer know what love is, no longer believe in my emotions. I hated it when I feel restless, insecure, worried and needy. I don't do love no more, I can't afford love when I'm the only person of my family here, when love means devoting all that I have to this one person. It's scary, it hasn't served me well, I remember the moments that it make me fly like a bird, but not more than the heart piercing pain it brought me. How can I fall in love when i no longer believe in love?

  

    The new graduate student who just joined the lab decided to quit, can't take the boss anymore. The controlling pushy asshole dictator boss, who is also brilliant. Even though this should not have affected me, it did, very so much.  

    Being the first new person joined the lab a year ago, it has been difficult to fit in, to join the club or cult, to be one of them. But having no other options, and not other way out, you eventually adapt, because that's the only way to survive. It has excited me to have her sitting next to me, finally some fresh air, some new activity, new perspective. Finally I have a friend to count on and really talk to.

    It pains me to see her going through this, but even more sad to see her emptied desk. It, in a very distractive yet deterministic way, reminds me of all my loss over the past year, all the tears shred while saying goodbyes to people you care and love, yet have to be left behind. It reminds me how far I have come, yet also how lonely my journey has been. The most depressing and disturbing part is that all the decisions  made along the way were made rightfully.  

    Today is a sad night, and tonight is yet another night to say my goodbyes.

    

dreamed of you before I know you, looked for you before I met you, was in love with you when I saw you, tried to break away from you when we are seperated, and worried about you when you left me. You have been the single constant of my life,for god knows how long, now you are gone, I'm utterly alone and lost.

is the worst. When I'm alone, memories, sweet or bitter, would come back to visit me. Death is like the impenetrable darkness, through which, all my questions, all my yells, all my cries are absorbed, nothing gets beyond, nothing echos back, in turn, I am silenced as well.

I wish life

can be perserved

like canned vegatables,

moments crystalized

like salt.

a teaspoon of

sadness,

two tablespoon of

sweet,

one dash of

.........

Here I come, cleveland,

ready to serve

Words can't measure how I feel right now. The love of my life was taken away, snatched away just like that, a simple line in an ordinary e-mail on a usual saturday night, "Matt was killed last night in a car accident"..what.can't be.is this a joke? I bought the wine we used to drink togehter. I thought about the eggs he made for my friend and me tonight, I was thinking about e-mailing him back tonight. He left me for Thailand last summer, which left me crying for weeks, now this, and I can't even be mad at him.God damnned..this can't be true.this is a nightmare that I made up in my mind.......please tell me it was a prank..

A person who is truly strong, a warrior, is someone who is willing to face or confront his weakness, his darkness, his mortality, his circustances but not comprised to it.

 

It's always interesting to see contradictory traits in people, someone educated but naive, someone soft but not sweet, someone demanding but not oppressive, someone adventerious but not social...

 

 

在我的生活又简单到两点一线的日子里，我的思绪就有回到了纯真纯粹的学生时代，有会想起我当年高中一统考场的辉煌和压力，想起无所是从的大学。 昨日和同学聊起天来时，还说起，之前年少气盛，所有的决定不是父母包办的，就是一时兴起选择的，上北大，学生物，出国，我凭着“无知者无畏”的勇气和傻气，和冒险精神，侥幸走到现在。只是有时像一觉睡醒，wondering, how did I get here? 也许，走了这莫远，绕了这莫多路，一直都在找自己，学生物，学神经，一直到现在研究“行为神经学”，好像要找到一个解释，from someone, why do we behave the way we do? why emotion, why hurt? why so much pain? why life? When now I possess enough, and just enough science knowledge to explain. I know i might be bitchy because my hormone level is off, or maybe stress triggers a molecule release in my body..I know that pair bonding is the function of some neurons in your brain, that pass experience can modify your DNA, and your synapses, so you change the way you act or think. 我这样模模糊糊的解释着，这些模棱的解释create an image, if not illusion, of orderliness。但是也因此而造就了我不严谨的科学作风， I think more about the implication, what could this possibly means, less about what truly the data is. 那末现在，在我终于找回一些答案，学会manage, or at least trying to, manage my emotion, my problems，what now? 我有时会想，如果我出生在另外一个环境中，我是不是还会问一样的问题。

Went out with my boss for some new post-doc interviewee. Peru cuisine, lemon marinated fresh fish plus those gigantic white corns. Very very tasty. During the meal, with my inappropriate usage of the silverware, I splashed some juice the old black T-shirt I was wearing. Only now I learned to be not embrassed, I learned to remain compose, to not flush. 

I grew up as a blue collar, that's engrained in my upbringing I believe. The pleasure of eating was in the simple seasoning, but more so the freshness and the quantity. 大块吃肉，大碗喝酒。I'm often ashamed of how unsophistated I am, how little I appreciate the richness of life, or how basic my appreciation of life is. I loved watching "blue collar TV", I loved watching simple silly soap TV from hongkong, or spongebob. For the amount of education I had, I often find myself unbelievably simple and naive. I never quite sure how I made this far, or how I end up here. Maybe around the stove, bound with 2 kids, married to a truck driver should have been my life. Caught between a world that was and a world that should be, both past and reality drifting away from my memories. In the end, I was a wondering spirit that never truly belonged, never committed or involved. I wandered, cynically laughed at those who settled, committed, loved or lived, painstakingly searched for the true meaning of life, when there is none. Life is to live, to enjoy, to have fun, to appreciate every stranger, every sunrise, to worship.

Rainy gloomy gray saturday, rare moments of quietness, laziness. :), gray and cold sky pressing the window in the living room, reminding me of the cold gray cleveland winter, funnily brought back old familar feelings. I always liked, or fancied cold rainy days since I was a little kid. I remember learning a little rhyme about drizzling rain when I was 5. I remembered singing it to mom while sitting on her bike on the ride back home, and feeling happy. Drizzling rain always sensitizes you, brought upon you some vulnerability, some uncertainty, some clarity, perfect time to quiet down and think, or just being lazy. A rainy saturday, start a warm fire in the fireplace, make some hot chocalate, laying on the couch with a lover,listening to the raining knocking on the windows....that would be a perfect saturday for me, time stops, and then a moment lasts forever.....

I'm no longer anxious, because I'm giving up. Such a resigned yet gentle attitude towards life, it makes you humble, it turns me from a bitter cynical bitch to a saint, carrying the cross, bearing the whips like an oxen, such is life, such is the repetance. 

       I had a hard time getting through to my parents. It's funny how little I talk to them, but until now, didn't know how much I relied on those 10 minutes every two week mumble jumbles, or upsetting discussions. Home maybe the keeping place for the seed of your soul, like a duplicate key, now I can't get a hold of it, I start to panick. One thing leads to another, before I know it, I'm an emotional rack, filling the toll of anxiety attacks.

       

Moving proved to be costly, physically,emotionally and fiscally. After several round of negotiation and bugging, $350 extra, I finally get most of my stuff delivered from the moving company within reasonable time. Now it's unpacking. The ceramic horse did not survive the long-distance shipping, broken into pieces, funny how it survived the whole trip from china to cleveland, and only broke off the tail, guess mom is definitely more careful a packer than i am. The DVD player, dvd and picture box is lost, damn the F#cking moving company, is it because that i refused to pay the last $75 "milking" overchange, so they deliberately kept that box? I was very sad and upset when I found out, some important photos, my precious nutcracker, are lost. All the futures are somewhat scratched here and there, but seem to be holding together all right, most of the glasswares surived, the little yellow dragon broke off part of the tail, and one side of the whisker

Moving, again, for god knows the what time this year, from my apartment to bradford house, to hawaii,to davis,to the guest house, then to the new apartment, finally, life is like the chinese checker, jumping along the way, briefly stopping at each port. Moving and getting married are suppose to be the two most stressful things in life. Everytime you move, you decompose your belongings, your life into numbered boxes, or plastic bags, and then resemble it, each time things get lost, things get deformed, things get distorted, each time your stir up so much shit, so much emotions, I got this item where with whom, I meant it for it to be what...it never ended up the way you planned, did it, your are further and further away from your intentions, aren't you, like the old chinese saying..the stuff remains the same, but the situation,the people are not...

   Got hit by some cold and holiday blues. With christmas music playing, everyone talking about vacations, seeing families, your spirit just get drained by minutes. Sometimes I think I should try to find some fake activities, you know, to kill the time, and anethesize the pain, then the stubborn part of me always wins, and refuses, refuses to cover the loneliness up, so in a way, I made this time of year harder for myself. Instead of celebrating, holidays are like memorial days, when I reminiscence about the tough time I've been through, how far I came, and then forecasting the even gloomier, more uncertain futures. , and yes you are damn right, it's quite depressing, and unlike any other days, when I can be depressed along with everyone else, during holiday season, only me, the anti-social, lonely foreigner get the special treatment. I don't bake chrimstams cookies, I don't decorate trees, I don't hand out gifts, neither do I play poker or majong, or cook dumblings. I sit there, brood over my loneliness, and get grumpier by minutes.  

   No, I'm lying, it's not all that bad, or bad at all. It's my dark dramatic writing styles that always exaggerate the bad part of it. I do have friends I can hang out with, a new city to explore, and experiments to do. But holidays are like magic mirrors that always magnify the softest and tenderest spot of my heart. Maybe it's just this year, so much has happened, and i had grown up so fast,it feels like I aged 10 years at the end of the year, feel like I'm ready to roll over and die. Maybe it's the good memory of mine that's causing the problem, I would often have memory to watching mickey mice on my parents 12 inch black white TV, studying hard in high school of my little home town,wondering on the street of beijing, shoveling snow in the driveway of cleveland, then wake up in my guest house in SF. Economists say that the living standard in china have improved by 100 years, several generations, in the past 20 years. Born at the beginning of that period, jumping from the small city of my poor province over a period of 10 year to the west coast of US, I feel like growing up 70 years. How do I relate to my friends nowadays that I used to bath once every two weeks in the winter in the community bath house, and that I go to the community restroom that has no flush, no water, and stinks like hell, at night, holding a flash light. I don't, I can't relate to them, and neither can they. I end up being this super wise yet innocent person who hate holidays.

   Merry Christmas! :)

      Haven't gotten on here for a while, what's preventing me, hard works, what else. Random thoughts pile up in my head, so it's time to let it out, release them to the world of random people and readership or not, time to clean up the limited storage space I had in the hard drive of my head. : ), went to a concert, a rock concert with friends last night. The killers, they are so so awesome, I like the sound, I liked their presentation, the stage design, how the lead singer commanded the stage, the audience..you truly feel like you are in the presence of true artist, such powerful voice. I was so intensely involved with my work, the planning of my work, I had a hard time to concentrate on the music before the killers' performance, my mind will just wonder off to random experiment planning, then the killers show up, such presence, such energy, i loved it, I actually stopped thinking about work..well..for a bit...Speaking of work, I realize that ultimately I'm working for myself, I just need to decide whether i really want the future I'm working for. Like my friend said, it's time to pick your spot in the society, how do you want to be known or introduced. I'm in a nerdy environment, best nerds on earth I believe, smart people, I like this community, but I'm not committed to it, I want to be in it, but I'm also so greedy that i also want to be something more, I want to know something more. I'm never good at prioritizing things, as for now, I still don't have to choose yet.

       Went to my boss' chritmas party tonight, it was fun, interesting. He and his life have a neat place, clean, posh, like an art gallery, but it feels liveless, cold to me, it's too neat, no big picture frames, fake art on the wall, no gigantic wedding pictures, misplacedkid's trophy...it doesn't feel like home. I believe they live a very sophiscated,pure life that's greater than a lot of people, yet somehow I long for the smell of deep fried chicken, the laughter or cry of kids, certain degree of clutterness, chaoticness, I want the richness, hence ordinarily of an ordinary life, I don't mind the smell of motor oil on my guy when he comes home...I want a big sqeeze for him...

       Yet, can I find a guy to build a messy nest with, am I ready to commit to this kind of life, do I really want it,would I know when i'm ready,  would I get it when I'm ready? Would my friends accept my choice, how about my parents? I know in my heart, that there are people that i like, there are people that I care about, there are people that i'm committed to keep in my life as hard as I can, but how close I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether i will ever be entirely sure.  For now, working hard is on the priority of the list.

      

I feel stressed, and so are my friends.  Stress builts up the concrete buildings of the modern world we live in, stress builds up the suffocating cart train we ride in, stress bulid up the greasy fast food that we stuff our stomach with.  Pressured to be rich, be successful, be recognized. Stress confronts us in every single breath we take, swearing to sqeeze every single drop of our energy, our spirit, to burn us up like woods in the stove that powers the giant metropolitan. What is left is the feeling that we are not good enough, that we are not strong enough, flames consume us so quickly that we didn't even have time to think, to feel the pain. Pressured to be a good person, a good friend, a good lover, a good parent, pressured to not make errors.... Sometimes you just want to go back to be the clueless brat, not responsible for anything. I feel like a spring sqeezed by the pressure, every 10 pounds of pressure, I move 10 cm, and age 1 year. :)

 

For some reason, get into this panicky, restless mode, which is not fun. Struggling in a pool like a drowning person is how I felt. All the big talk, all the composure, all the ease just left me like a breeze, then I became so jumpy, constantly need activities to keep my mind busy, people's companionship, reassurance, then the comfort I waited for never arrived. What is it that I'm looking for? Attension, distraction, fantasy, mirage things coming out of my imagination. I don't know. Is not fun to be fugitive of your life, you don't even know what you are running towards, or away from. , need to snap out of it and get a hold of myself.