自得其乐

既然舍不得放手，也明白有些秘密是不能说的，那就更应该把握每一段共度的时光，尽力让对方快乐。

好好练吉他吧。

Music is the answer.

最想放在这里但又最怕放在这里的一句话，居然在我烦恼着要不要放的同一天，出现在我朋友的blog上。

有独无偶下的无独有偶。

不想重复，就用这六个字来描述我的心情吧：

“这么近，那么远。”

去年的中秋节，一个人过。节日恐惧症突发感染，于是有了《突然剩我捱下去》。

今年却是和大半个社团的人一起，困在在UCC，为明天的表演彩排。

身边的人多了，节日气氛却更是淡薄。

没有赏月，没有灯笼，连月饼也没有了。

但是如果完美的中秋节是注定不会降临的话，我情愿不看，不听，不想。

(若是不见最好，免得神魂颠倒。原来不恋也好，免得伤心潦倒。)

出发前一天，原本是打算早上回学校做Research，然后一直呆到晚上上完课，才回来收拾东西去机场的。

所以那天早上，我吃过早餐，做好了去上学的准备，就带着对“明天就要飞走”的喜悦走向大门。

然后，最意想不到的事情发生了....

门，居然打不开，就算用了钥匙也是一样?! @_@

原来是门锁坏掉了，如果从外面锁起来的话在里面是怎样都打不开的。

搬进这个房子已经有差不多一个月了吧，偏偏在这个时候才出现/发现这个问题？

其实要出去应该不难，因为我很确定只要从外面开的话一定开得到，但是要怎样才可以“从外面开”呢？

A）叫朋友过来开。

在上班的朋友（包括我的housemate）的工作地点都离我家很远，而且应该是不到lunch time都没有办法可以抽空出来的。其他的朋友则多半不懂我家在哪里或者完全没有方向感的，一时三刻也没有办法赶过来。

B）叫锁匠来开。

门锁也算不上是真的坏了，不用叫锁匠吧？

C）报警吧！

不懂我的朋友是不是在值班，但是为了这种无聊的事情报警会被笑个半死吧。

D）等邻居经过...

这是我第一个决定采用的方法，但是等了大半个小时都没有人经过...好不容易等来了一个却没有听见我跟他打招呼...

思前想后，我使出了连我被抢劫时都没有用过的，最后的绝招，就是：

“救命”“救命”“救命”“救命”“救命”

喊了好几声之后，隔壁了邻居象是听见了，过来问我有什么事。

我也想不到要怎样解释给她听，就只是叫她帮我开了门就算了。

几分钟后，大门终于被打开了...

看看时间已经是比我原定要去上学的时间迟了三个小时了，在这三个小时里面，我曾经 1）不服气地把整个房子里面的钥匙都拿了出来试，2）不断地在想有谁可以帮忙，3）坐着呆等有人经过我家，4）忍不住要求救，5）费了不少唇舌说服邻居来替我开门。

经过这么一番折腾，我也没有什么心情要去上学了，结果是到头大睡多三个小时，醒来后草草收拾了行装，打算回学校上完课就不回家直接去机场了。

而另一段小插曲，就在我上完课之后奏起了。

Ever since I have decided to move on with my life, my desire to write something has also surged...

Not only in this blog (see how many entries I had this month...), also some other cyberspace, as well as in writing physically (I've just completed the 20+ postcards and 15 letters I promised to write to my friends long ago...).

I wonder whether this surging desire can be extended to music as well...

总是不知不觉的，就唱起歌来。

在热闹的大街上，在拥挤的车厢里，
在偏僻的小路上，在空无一人的实验室里。

一个人也好，和好朋友在一起也好，
如泣如诉也好，慷慨激昂也好。

总是不知不觉的，就唱起歌来。

随着呼吸的节奏，
感受着空气在我的身体里流动。

吸收了氧气，
呼出了音符。

总是不知不觉的，就唱起歌来。

世界突然安静，时间彷佛停止，
抽离了现实，跳进了乐园。

是防御的机制，是情感的出口，
是自省的方式，也是存在的理由。

总是不知不觉的，就唱起歌来。

The song didn't make much sense to you? Let me tell you another story:

52 years ago, he, at the age of 27, just returned from army. Being not too old yet not too young either, his family arranged him a match-making session with a 19-year-old girl from his hometown. Without much consideration, he got married with her.

A few years later, they had 3 children. Although life was not easy, they never seemed to quarrel, they cooperated beautifully and took very good care of everything that happened in the family. Soon their children grew up and had their family. They happily retired with a good amount of pension which would allow them to live comfortably.

Yet happy days never lasted for long, their second son had turned into a drug-addict, got divorced, broke their heart again and again by cheating their money and painfully destroyed their faith in him.

They left China to U.S for a better life, but only to get their dream shattered by the unfamiliar environment and the cruel fact that they had to worked for another 10 years to start receiving pensions from the States.

On returning to China, the fear of the second son chasing them again for money had driven his wife into Alzheimer's disease. She would not eat, would not talk, would not take a shower, would not allow anyone except him to take care of her. Since then, he almost never left his wife for a single day. Even when he had to run some errands, he would rushed back as fast as he could to make sure she was ok.

He cooked her meals, helped her take shower and talked to her. He probably never imagine himself needing to learn to use the washing machine at the age of 75. But he had to. Because she, the person who used to take care of the housework, was no longer able to do it.

His daughter-in-law used to help him as much as she could. But she also stopped two years ago.

With both his only daughter and his grandson gone overseas, he was suddenly the only independent person in the family. He had to financially support his two sons, who never knew how to love their parents until very much later.

In spite of all the worries and pressure, he never stopped loving and taking care of his wife. He would be overjoyed whenever his wife showed signs of "recovery", albeit it was a tiny little one.

It would be his 80th birthday next month. Both his daughter and grandson suggested a huge celebration for his birthday. He insisted on not having one because he thought there was nothing that worth celebrating.

As he went on explaining why he would not want it, his grandson suddenly realized that he was supposed to have the 50th anniversary celebration two years back, the exact same year when his daughter-in-law broke up with his son after spending more than 20 years in vain, hoping for the husband to be nice to her.

Who was there to be blamed? Him? His wife? His sons? or the match-makers?

No one.

This was still the one of greatest marriages in the world. Because he, without actually taking the vow, had fulfilled it as much as he could, in spite of all the unfortunate events that had happened.

"Until death do us apart"

I hope I could meet someone who is capable of the same kind of love.

I hope I could be capable of the same kind of love.

I just had a talk with one of my "close" friends about relationship.

Right from the start, I already knew that we are totally different type of people: one far too romantic amd idealistic while the other is too practical and to-the-ground. Yet some how one thing led to another, we got quite close over the years and hanged out together quite often.

But what had bothered me a lot is that we don't seem to be able to get close at a mental level. I had resorted to talking about lots of meaningless things to avoid dead air. I mean, it is ok to do so for sometime, but when it stays at this level over a long period of time, I really feel the dryness, i.e. the total lack of mutual understanding and support, of this relationship,

That is why I have decided to take a step back. An above-just-friends but not-too-close relationship should be the best between us.

You may wonder why I blog about this out of nowhere. I do not know either. There have been quite a lot of things going on in my mind these days. I really feel that it is time for me to make some changes to my life. It may not be for the good, but I have to do so nevertheless.

As cliché as it is, I want to live my own life.

Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: Happy ending?

作曲、编曲、填词，无一不要求眼到、耳到、手到。

可惜我现在仍然只是“未到”。

发觉我自己真的很需要一些正能量。

中午十二点，把《无中生有》的歌词放到了blog里面，因为我觉得这些歌词真的很能表达我昨天中午到今天上午的心情。

然后有那么一点犹豫，到底今天是不是应该留在家复习不要去练习。

一半是还在为昨天的失误而沮丧，另一半则是因为下个礼拜要考的两科，虽然都已大致复习了几遍，但还没有到很有自信绝对没有问题的地步。

踌躇了一阵子，还是去了练习，但是同时也带上了一些资料在路上看。

结果，今天的练习是无风无浪地结束了，然后是如常地和社团的朋友度过了愉快的一晚。

回到家，已经不是很记得昨天的负能量曾经到达过那么危险的程度，反而比以前更想好好面对一切。

要笑也好，要哭也好，生活还是要继续的，何苦为难自己？

Just experienced possibly the worst 3-hr exam ever in my life.

It's not like I didn't prepare enough for this Qualifying Exam, but I just became so worried that it would go wrong and, in the end, it did.

Perhaps it all started on Wednesday, when I received an email about the grade of one of my assignment: the lowest I ever got in all his classes.

After reading through the comments, I realized that my program didn't work at all at the testing environment. Then I spent 2-hours just to discover that, although both my development environment and the testing environment are Linux/Unix based systems, the latter just does not support Greek Characters. The program just worked after I removing them from one of the text files (I didn't even need to modify any of my code.)

I immediately sent the patches to the lecturer with some explanation to the situation and hoped that he would re-grade my assignment, only to find out that he wouldn't be back until next week. So yeah, I still don't know whether I can fix this up or not. If not, I would had a hard time catching up in the final exam.

Yet the feeling that shocked me most was that: It never matters how hard you have tried, if you screw up, you screw up. There may not even be a chance for you to fix the situation.

That's possibly how the worries about the Qualifying Exam suddenly flood my mind.

Yeah, I think I screwed up this time and I had to face the consequence: retaking (part of) the exam and running low in cash for the second half of the year.

Sometimes I wonder, why I am only happy on Saturday, out of seven days in a week? I know I should be grateful for what I am having but why it seemed that people who (appear to be) having less looks much happier than I do?

Maybe everyone also has their own problems and I am just being too self-centered. But I really miss the days when (at least I felt that) I had the control of my life.

Things just keep falling apart...

And I am depressed...

2006年12月，只属于四个人的五天，胜过无数个十年。

我会努力向前走，为着发生过的、正在形成的、还有即将遇上的珍贵回忆。

不知不觉，已经三年了。

如果早知道那是她的最后一个演唱会，我一定会不顾一切去看。

但是，这种事情，我实在情愿不知道。就算知道了，我也很想能够一厢情愿地否定它。

她终究是走了。

而我，这三年里只是去了拜访她一次而已。

大概我还是总在想着为她做点什么吧，所以我才如此执著于想弹奏这一首歌：《Somewhere in time》，1988年Titus[天长地久]系列手表广告的配乐。

广告里的她高贵优雅，在动荡的时势中等待着爱人的归来。画面怀旧而凄美动人，打动了当时只有5岁的我，直至这么多年后，她的这个形象仍然长存在我心中不曾离去。

[不在乎天长地久，只在乎曾经拥有。]--这是那个广告最后的独白，大概也是对人世间的遗憾最贴切的注脚吧。

（P.S.直到不久以前，我才知道这首歌也是同名电影《Somewhere in time/时光倒流70年》的主题曲。如果真的可以时光倒流的话......)