Sorry-ology

Birthday party for 2 Ys Happy birthday to Yushan and Yuki, two pretty and kind girls! They had a very successful party last weekend, and every guest was amazed and pleased by everything that they had done to share their joy. *An anecdote about the cake: In the party, when the b-day girls were taking pictures of the matcha cake, I overheard a conversation between them. The one advised the other, "you should take the picture from another angle, did you notice that it is in the shape of an apple?" I was a little confused and therefore asked gentleman O by my side whether he thought it's shaped as an apple. He smiled embarrassedly and gave no answer. (He knew that I made the cake and might have thought that he had to answer my question with caution.) I murmured again to him, "do you think I should tell them that I have tried to make it look like a 4-leaf white clover?" He laughed and shook his head. Apparently I was not good enough at the design. It indeed ...

A heart in the grey sky It's been raining non-stop for almost two weeks. I cannot help wondering if it's me who brought the rain back to York. It rained heavily and the wind blew fiercely in Chicago on the day I left the US. At the moment when I entered Wentworth in York, it started thundering and showering and never stopped ever after. It's said that the weather had been extremely nice for the whole week during my absence... I spotted a heart in the grey sky yesterday afternoon. Andy once posted an amazing glowing cloud-heart on his blog. If that one, at least to me, is celebrating the beauty and glory of love, this latte-ly, creamy heart seems to portray an enduring and quite joy, the joy that can always disperse deep gloom. A heart that emerges from the heavy and grey cloud is a good sign, hope this brings you away from your worries too. Enjoy these rainy days.

York Mystery Plays --A Quadrennial Event This is a representation of medieval plays in the traditional way. It will present York Cycle, a series of biblical stories, this year. In the Middle Ages, the program mainly functioned as religious propaganda, but its occasionally daring jokes and fun were not less entertaining. I want to see this, anyone wants to come?

Travelogue I: Kalamazoo 3-7/May/2006 I finished compiling the travelogue for this trip to the US yesterday afternoon. It's good to write everything down before my poor memory fails me in the near future, or before my anxiety about amnesia gets worse. The trip consisted of two parts--the academic and leisure--and both were fantastic. The conference in Kalamazoo went very well. I met some old friends and came to know a lot more enthusiastic medievalists from all over the world. There were plenty of neophytes--first time in Kalamazoo just like me, and a lot more well-established scholars who have been attending this annual event for more than 25 years. Every year, they would come back for this annual meeting and have developed a strong emotional tie between each other after all these years. The idea of "international conference" itself is still a bit intimidating, but I was amazed and moved to find how these medievalists keep returning to meet their old friends and su...

Pilgrimage to Kalamazoo I am leaving for the 41st International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo tomorrow. It's the biggest annual event in the world for medievalists, as I was thus informed. The place name is tainted with an exotic sense. I don't know whether it has zoos there or not, but it is definitely suits the idea of Middle Ages well. "See you in the 'zoo!", my colleague said to me before her departure yesterday. It's been an dream for me since I learned of this place and the congress about 7 years ago when I started my career in Medieval Studies. It's a dream for every medievalist too. Some of my colleagues can talk about it nonstop, and some say that it simply becomes an addiction that they cannot move on without it. It provides necessary fellowship in this discipline as interdisciplinary knowledge is in particular essential. Kalamazoo has become a legend for medievalists indeed. The four-day conference, as usual, hosts 640 sess...

Tapestry of Spring Spring has stepped into the campus, driven away harsh winter, and opened arms to greet the coming summer. The tapestry of Spring brings warmth and solace to every soul awakend from the long winter. The famous opening 18 lines of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" resonate with this floral season. [Middle English:] "Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, hat slepen al the nyght with open eye- (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, ...