Friends and "Friends" make a friendly intercession.

My intercession was quiet, relaxing and lovely. And not too cold. After the finals, the feeling of lightness is awesome.

I made some museum trips enjoying the city of Boston (I always wish I had more occasions for outings like these). Ventured with Lue to admire the Harvard Museum of Natural History. I'm still deciding whether I liked the dinosaurs, or glass flowers* or the crystals' chamber best - they were all rather amazing.

I am sure though that I didn't appreciate the beauty of the bugs. Sorry Lue, that's my female nature speaking here. But I certainly did enjoy the food we got afterward.

Then came the Monday trip to Boston Art Museum which was even more fascinating, partly because I have learned how to become a smart visitor. I just need to be selective. Before, I used to follow rooms chronologically with all types of art on the way (which means it always starts with Egyptian ancient art, through Roman and Greek sculpture all the way through the Medieval cross displays). By the time I arrive my favourite painting exhibitions, I would be too tired to enjoy them. This Monday the three of us headed straight to the classic European (read: Italian, French and German) painting collections, skipping all the ancient art and ended at the late 19th century Impressionism (no modern art). I was surprised to see quite a few of Monet's pieces,

one or two of van Gogh's and a couple of Gauguin's (including the famous "Where do we come from...").

I was mesmerized by Giovani Paolo Pannini's "Picture gallery" and the perspectives encompassed within perspectives, deep spaces inside and details over even more minute details. Or John Martin's "Seventh plague of Egypt" with what Hai aptly described as "really cool dramatic lights".

We made some cuisine ventures too: sometimes lobsters at MIT Marriot suite, sometimes Malaysian dishes in Chinatown, sometimes cheesecakes from the Cheesecake Factory, sometimes really tasty Japanese ramen or just some really crappy dining hall food or even better, some instant noodles. Well, a whole spectrum to me. In between a lot of aromatic tea was poured. Or bubble tea.

I should also mention archery, because I don't get to do this kind of activities on a daily basis, so I thought it was quite worth painfully waking up at 8 on Saturday (!). What I found funny when we arrived was that everybody all of a sudden were wearing glasses -- and then you realize just how blind we all are. Though it looked impressive to see 9 people lining up to shoot. Couldn't help recalling Lord of the Rings and the elves (or is it just my reminiscence of the embarrassing teenage crush for mister beauty-eye Orlando Bloom?). I liked the instructor too. Talked to us very slowly, very patiently (that's how we need to be talked to, 8 Harvard kids and a Williams kid), and he liked to show off all types of cool bows.

So friends everywhere, everyday. And by that word I also include the very old, very long and as Hai calls it "cliched, overplayed tv show far too inexplicably fond of by Vietnamese girls" called "Friends". It made me laugh heartily first time in a while though. Cheered me up a great deal after the depressing and stressful finals period. I became quickly addicted to it, probably ruining my mature image in Hai's eyes.

Days went off so fast, exactly in the fashion of a Chinese phrasing "一转眼就没有了" (In a blink of eye there is no more). Again the concept of time is so relative, I can't help thinking it is one of the trickiest human inventions.

* Glass flowers at Harvard - The University has world's only one of its kind collection. Something like an eternally beautiful flower, which I wish I could steal.

P.S. I would like to send personal thanks to Hai, Lue and anh trai TA for the wonderful time. You guys are wonderful.

還有兩個.

안녕! 오늘어떻게지냈어?
오늘은 경제학시험이 있었어. 너무 어려웠어.

總得考完了。
對。

還有什麼考試嗎?
還有兩個。중국어 하고 영화수업.

加油 黎雲!

Anything special going on?

Snow. A phenomenal amount of it. Harvard is white. Beautifully! Have you seen the Yard? It’s just fabulous. I could have stood there forever, merging and melting into the whiteness. The only reason I prefer winter over spring. For the scenery.

All rights reserved to 종윤 for the loveliest picture. Thanks for locking up the beauty into this photo for me.

Can’t wait to go skiing soon. 아주흔분해.

경제학수업을 너무 싫어하다!

這個是什麼？
這個是我學習的結果。
你再一次没一心一意地學習啊!
可是我的經濟課 那麼“有趣”．．．我對它就不能不厭倦。
他是誰?
不知道。但你不是覺得他很酷嗎? 我從以前一直都認為會Skateboarding的人性感得厲害。
啊呀，你太hopeless了。學習太多了，腦子理那儿都是垃圾。
怎麼辦呢， 就是我，非常不喜歡學習的人。可是你真的不覺得他很帥嗎？
我只想把你殺死了。
等一下，那樣行不通。我還有期末考式得考。
到那時候，你就會殺死自己。

P.S. I really am hopeless... even this piece of paper has the derivative equation... ㅜ.ㅜ. 도와주세요!

Nasza klasa. - Jacek Kaczmarski.

One of the memorable and romantic things about communist Poland is that it gave birth and existence to prominent personas such as Jacek Kaczmarski. A famous polish poet and musician, he devoted his life to writing and singing abut his difficult times. What I find great about him is that he wasn't one-sidedly simplistic - yes, he did direct most of his criticism at the oppressiveness of Stalinist system in Poland, but he wasn't ignorant of the corruptions of capitalism either. And finally, not only was his simple guitar captivating, the lyrics are sad and piercing -- especially to those familiar with the time.

My rough and highly unrepresentative translation. But the song is too beautiful not to attempt putting it into English. Wonder how an English native speaker would understand a story of Polish communist times, not the typical from historical, political point of view but from an ordinary person's, human point of view.

Our Class. (Click to view the youtube link)
What has happened to our class?
asks Adam all from Tel-Aviv
hard to cope in these times,
hard to live decently at all.
What has happened to our class?
Wojtek in Switzerland in a porn-club
Writes: they pay well for something I enjoy anyways.

Kaska and Piotrek are in Canada,
they have perspectives there.
Staszek gets along in the Sates,
Pawel got used to Paris,
Goska and Przemek hardly make ends meet,
a third kid will come in May
They complain in vain to the offices,
that they want to the West too.

Magda on the other hand is in Madrid,
and is marrying a Spaniard soon.
Maciek lost his life in December,
when they had apartment runs.
Janusz, who aroused envy,
because he was like a wind,
is now a surgeon, he heals people,
but his brother hung himself.

Marek is in prison, for he rejected
to shoot to Michal,
whereas I write their stories,
and that's all of our class now.
There's one more Filip, a physicist in Moscow,
collects many awards today
He goes to Poland whenever he wishes,
he was seen by the Prime Minister.

I have found the whole class now,
On exile, in the country, in the grave
But something has changed
Each scribbles their own living.
I have found the whole class now
Grown up and mature,
I re-scratched our bygone youth,
But it didn't hurt much,
didn't hurt much...

No longer boys, but men,
Women now - not girls.
Youth will soon scar up itself,
there is noone's fault in it;
Everyone is responsible,
Everyone has thier life goals,
Everyone is relatively normal,
But that is still so little...

I don't know myself, what I dream of,
Which of the stars shines above me,
When among these familiar faces,
I'm still looking for faces of the children.
Why do I still look back,
Though noone is calling: "Hey my friend!"
Maybe someone will play tag with me,
Or at least, hide and seek...

Our own shoots, own leaves,
We fix them ourselves,
And the roots ,of course,
On exile, in the country, in the grave,
Down, to the sides, up to the sun,
To the doom, right and left,
Who can even remember, that
It is after all one and the same tree.


Piekna poezja o bolesnych czasach. Zastanawiam sie na ile wspolczesni Amerykanie beda kiedykolwiek w stanie zrozumiec glebie historii o pewnej, malej klasie. Ameryka nigdy nie wycierpiala wojny. Amerykanie od zawsze zyli w pieknym, plytkim snie. Ale swiat jest glebszy niz to co widza. Swiat moze byc piekny nawet w bolu i w trudnosciach. Kaczmarski dal tego przyklad swoja poruszajaca piosenka.

Into the reading period.

最近几天讓我比較高興，因為我看見我親愛的小熊貓在她的博客描寫了她的日，她的夢，她的生活。這樣比她在网上打游戲好多了，因為不僅不會是浪費時間，她也能提高她的語言水平。而且給了我机會觀察她的每一天都過了怎么樣。我那么想她。不能相信我已經离開她了。 我們在最近的將來不會在一起住了，因為我的生活般到美國了。

Egzamin ustny z chinskiego poszedl calkiem dobrze. To byla najlatwiejsza prezentacja z chinskiego jaka do tej pory mialam, strasznie krotkie zdania, i strasznie przy tym proste. Dostalam potem skrot do ocen semestralnych, no i ledwo ledwo wychodze z ta A, jestem troche powyzej 90ciu. Czemu tu sie dziwic, w koncu sie do tego Chinskiego w tym semestrze w ogole nie przykladalam (to przez ten Koreanski, ach te jezyki…).

The Chinese skit presentations was the highlight of the day (a very early one though, who wakes up at 8 during the reading period?). 力山 in my group was simply fabulous, with all his well-tested, amazing cross-dressing capabilities and intense passion for make-up. Never would I expect him to spend hours on youtube learning how to apply mascara for a single Chinese skit. He didn't spend that much time on the script itself. A friend made this summer in China, a junior at Harvard, 力山 always makes me laugh, raising my mood. That's probably his way of speaking that does the magic.

I was glad to see people laughing at our dorky ideas in the parody of Cinderella, such as 王子和灰姑娘做了非死不可(Facebook) 的朋友，也 (the Prince and Cinderella became Facebook friends) poked each other into marriage (!), or the ball with Usher's music in background and the short sentence twist to Ai Zhang Lin's short story. Other groups skits were fun too, as always, as expected. I liked best the "looking for girlfriend TV show" with three amazing male characters. One a geeky computer worm （“我什么要求都没有，只要是女的就行了” -- I don't have any demands, as long as she's female）, one a crazy old General from 16th century China （“我以前的妻子就是西施”）, and finally my favourite one, a self-absorbed, self-loving Chinese doctor (haha, guess why? no, not because the guy playing him was cute, though he really was cute). It's incredible how they created these roles by mere compilation of the Chinese vocab, grammar and a couple of 成语 learned this past semester. I love my Chinese class, people are just ridiculously creative.

新的開頭：2008年！

New Year's Eve celebration was quite spectacular - Viola and I went to watch a fireworks display in Warsaw's downtown. Or rather we endeavored to push through 20 thousands of Warsawians to only get a glimpse Polish performers, among which, T-love of course.

Wczesniej tego dnia, wysiadajac z samochodu z Pawlem na Marszalkowskiej, slyszelismy T-love spiewajace "Nie nie nie" jako probe przed wystepem. W powietrzu wisiala juz atmosfera sporego plenerowego koncertu. Z podekscytowaniem sluchalam znanej piosenki w chlodny dzien, na ulicy, w samym centrum Warszawy. Zdalam sobie sprawe, czemu tak dawno juz nie sluchalam polskiej muzyki, kiedy tak bardzo ja lubie?

The very same place 5 hours later was completely packed. I got there around 23:30, and clutching my sister's hand, I tried not to get killed by masses of people of various levels of intoxication. It was slightly scary, as some of them looked rather violence-inclined, and also because fireworks were exploding constantly everywhere all around you (I swear at some point I was paranoid somebody is going to blow one right next to me). In the end we gave up hope to see the stage, and stayed in a distance waiting for the firework show.

The show was brilliant, as always. My favourite type was the one leaving a serpentine-shaped trace. They looked like white dragons flying up and breaking through the dark sky. Then, in a blink of eye, instead of dragon tails, fountains of colours on the cloudy sky popped out. After a while, the air was filed with the smell of burnt powder, Palac Kultury was completely covered by smoke, and all one could see were the lights from its tall windows.

On the way home, the radio played another round of Abba's "Happy New Year", and my parents and I pondered the cultural history of champagne. Why does it have to be champagne for New Year's? It cannot be wine, martini, vodka or any other type of alcohol. It simply has to be champagne, otherwise it's not Sylwester. I said it is because of the way you open the bottle. The cork and streams of liquor blow up into the air, reminiscent of fireworks and serpentines. Gives out the feeling of festivity. And let's face the truth, who doesn't like champagne? Even I like the sour-sweet taste of this alcoholic drink.

可是世界上的別的大成市的一煙花一定比華沙的更激動，更漂亮. 華沙還不算大成市。我希望在將來會有机會，新年的時候可以在像香港，北京，紐約那樣大的城市，看這些 煙花. Sydney's New Year should be really nice - it's summer over there in January. You could actually wear a bikini and go watch the show. An experience definitely worth trying sometime in the future.
I am done with my break. Short it was, still greatly enjoyable. Regret shall I later, once back to Harvard. For being lazy, for eating too much and sleeping too much, going out too much, for getting distracted, generally for being an ordinary human being on a well-deserved break.

I am making another turn in my lifetime sandglass clock. Off I am tomorrow (4am! ) to fly over the Atlantic Ocean again. Ask why I hate flying?