October 29, 2003
In case…
If the policeman showed up at my door telling me I only have 10 minutes to evacuate and abandon my home, otherwise we will die of the spread fire. Then what will we pack in the car?
passport, visa, I-20
three laptops, two desktops (maybe just hard discs if we have time to take them apart)
photo albums, digital camera (and recharger) and camera
cellphone and recharger
a lot of bottle water, some cookies
Then I don’t know, just anything I could grab and squeeze into the car, books and clothes mostly I guess. Bin will want all two boxes of his class notes with him. I don’t think I will want any paper go with me. There is this thing called internet and all knowledge might be updated every two months.
Then I realize how little we need to go on living. Maybe when we are Proletariat, we don’t have too much that’s hard to abnegate. Memory and works seem the only thing we could not throw away at this stage of our life. Food and telecom keep us alive. And something to identify ourselves, the strangers to this land.
October 28, 2003
What happens?
The article on NYT discuss the new trend of professional women retreating to home. Some statistics are interesting:
“Fifty percent of the undergraduate class of 2003 at Yale was female; this year’s graduating class at Berkeley Law School was 63 percent women; Harvard was 46 percent; Columbia was 51. Nearly 47 percent of medical students are women, as are 50percent of undergraduate business majors (though, interestingly, about 30percent of M.B.A. candidates). They are recruited by top firms in all fields. They start strong out of the gate.
And then, suddenly, they stop. Despite all those women graduating from law school, they comprise only 16 percent of partners in law firms. Although men and women enter corporate training programs in equal numbers, just 16 percent of corporate officers are women, and only eight companies in the Fortune 500 have female C.E.O.’s. Of 435 members of the House of Representatives, 62 are women; there are 14 women in the 100-member Senate. “
So it is not because of gender discrimination at workplace but nature of sex?
“Why don’t women run the world?
Maybe it’s because they don’t want to. “
October 23, 2003
October 21, 2003
Old and sick
Every time I went to hospital for some ailment, doctors would remind me and explained every symptom with same words “see, you are getting old…” no matter to deterioration of eyesight, newly developed allergy to aspirin, migraine (which really did not happen before last year), or to a big and hard acne on face. I never took these words seriously until recently, since my 30th birthday, and since the exhausting moving across country. I got constant backache that needs physical therapy for quite a while; I am attacked by migraine almost every week; Every night after cooking and dinner I had to take a nap, instead of going out for a walk as before; any long or short trip left me lying on bed one or two days afterwards; and since Saturday we came back from Malibu, I was on fever and the tonsillitis almost took away my appetite and voice…. sigh, Not to mention the descending of memory and attention, sounds I’m like 60 instead of 30.
I got a terrible feeling about this. When your heart still feels so young, you find a lot to thing could not be achieved with your physical strength…That is pathetic. And I really did not realized the sign of getting older until now. They say 30 is a kind of threshold for women, that sounds pretty right for me now. The other sign that really bothers me is my slow progress in piano playing. When I was young, I learnt every new piece so quickly; the first time I read the score, I could play it easily with both hands. But now, well, it really feels like a machine is stuck at some joint and the speed of signal transferring from brain to fingers slowed down not just a little. It is frustrating, that means I could not learn to play as much music as I like. I looked myself in the mirror, it is still a young and eager face, where are all the youth and intelligence gone?
Anyway, I’m still a the point of new start of life. I hope California sunshine will cure my illness and bring back energy and health. Anyway, I’m only 30.
October 19, 2003
October 17, 2003
Weekend at North California
My friend Jeff came to US for business trip and stopped at San Francisco for one day, so Bin and I drove North to meet him. It is our first visit to SF, the best city in the US. Bin was not too impressed, since parking is a big pain on neck to a driver. If we have trouble finding a free parking in LA, there is no parking at all in SF even we are holding 20 bucks and dying to spend it. How about that.
To me, SF is the city confusing me most with movies. I mean it is as good as scenes in movies. Golden Gate Bridge against the sunset; clear sky and peaceful ocean; The sun sinks unto the sea at the horizon; beautiful crowds of people at every corner of the streets; life jazz singers sings blue in dim restaurants; swarm of hansome young marines in shiny whites packed on corner of Broadway and Columbus mingling with gorgeous girls; neon nights blended with champagne and perfume �could not be more cinematic.
After seeing off Jeff the second day, we drove to Palo Alto for a pilgrim of Stanford. Finally, a campus resonates my vision of typical academic institution: red roof under blue sky and quiet like an abbey (their trademarked building is a church, by the way. It is not that it is scarce populated or lack of tourists. Maybe it just happens to be a quiet, lazy and breezy weekend afternoon. We took a bird view at the top of Hoover tower, San Francisco is not too far away, surrounded by SF bay and continuous mountains.
Then we drove to Monterey. We stopped at Pebble Beach to watch sunset and sat by the beach of Carmel by The Sea to listen to the ocean wave under starry sky. Then we had the most breathtaking road trip ever since. The cragged and narrow high way 1 seems to lead nowhere other than the mystery mountains one after another, absolutely dark, no traffic at night at all. Steep cliff and roaring ocean are just under your wheels, but don�t look aside- the road is so winding that you would throw yourself into the sea at a blink. The never-ending winding trip lasts about 2 hour and we got so exhausted and scared. We joked that if a policeman stops us for alcohol check, we are most possibly walking in an S path. Then I realize maybe that�s where those Hollywood car chasing scene were shot, like �Basic Instinct� or �Catch a thief�. I should come back to check, but not at night again, I swear.
I feel like loosing my head when doing descriptive writing in English. Feels like a baby that could not say complete sentence, but piecing together some broken phrases. Maybe I�ve been a graduate student too long. I am trained to write in boring way… Just an excuse.
October 10, 2003
Math
the election results showed that 55% of Californians favored recall of Davis and 45% against it. From earlier reports I learnt 30% more voters showe up than before, and most of them are young people. Tha analysts commented that it was a bad sign for Davis, since majority of these kids are Arnold’s big fans. And it turns out how right it is.
I understand that people in California expect change and rejuvenation, I just don’t see how a popular action star can do it. He could be the one, in big screen, to conquer all and save the world, which, it seems, serve the most effective political campaign in this election. I like Arnold and most of his images in movies, but when I watch him on TV promised to his supporters that “I will fight with the bad guys just like what I do in my movies”, I still think both himself and his audience can not tell apart the reality and illusion.
Bin suggested the election reform should include weighting the votes from higher-educated people. While argueing it is against the spririt of democracy and equality, I think it might sounds right to this particular election. Sometimes we do need some reason than craze.
October 3, 2003
Time, money, justice
�Baby, oh baby you just need some
You just need some
Time, love and tenderness�
-from Michael Bolton�s song �time love tenderness�
Bin complained that I�m too obsessed with trivial things these days, such as trying to get security deposit back from the greedy and sleek former landlord. �You should concentrate on your work, not the 520 bucks, it is not worthwhile�. He felt hopeless on me
When I called our group legal service, the eloquent lawyer in Brooklyn could not wait till I finished my story: �getting money back from Buffalo while you are in Los Angeles? Forget about it! You will invest much more than 500 hundred dollars! have some common sense!� I did not get my deposit back when I was in college either. Why did you pay him the last-month rent?�
Why? Because we are decent people, we followed what says on the lease which we signed for agreement. And we are punished now for our stupidity? We had to either let it go, or go to small claim court back in Buffalo to ask for judgment. We could lose money and justice, or lose our time and money, but won justice.
Since when everyone has to measure justice with time and money? Yes, To win justice, you need money for good lawyer, or you need to invest time to fight by yourself, if you are not rich enough. So if you happened to be a poor but busy graduate student, you have to let the bad buy get away?! (Baby, oh baby you just need some You just need some time, money and justice.)
The law must have some problem. From the very beginning, we knew what this bad guy trying to do to us, but as we consulted with legal service, nobody could do anything about it, because bad guy has right too. New York State Law do not require landlord to have walk-through inspection before evacuation, and not to return deposit in a �reasonable period of time� (what is it? Lawyer explains it s somewhere between 30 to 60 days). Once you move away, especially to place so far away like California, he possessed our money with no sweat. He knows that, and he knows people would not get themselves into law suit for only 500 bucks.
But, No, I�m going to fight back. My rage and chagrin stole my sleep at night. I would not let him snicker in dream for his easy money, and I would not let myself being taken advantage with my eyes wide open.
Plus I learnt laws in this process. I enjoyed learning all kinds of new things. Losing time? Yes, but I might gain justice back probably, and knowledge and experience, for sure.
October 1, 2003
some pictures
Bin put up together some pictures we took at our good-bye party in Buffalo and our roadtrip from Buffalo to LA.
My college friends had a gathering last week. There are six of us graduating from Communication and Journalism department at Xiamen University resided in Los Angeles. I’m the only one left still sticking to communication major, or others switched to MBA or CSE. All exept two brought their sigificant other to the gathering. Except Bin and I, every one have got babies or expect one on the way.
It was a very precious and happy occation. Something you dreamed in detail about when you were young. Back then, when you imagine the life abroad, an old-friend union is a indispensable scene. And when that day comes, you realize it is far less dramatic than you thought.