Sorry-ology

The last time that I went to London was more than half a year ago. King's X station is now quite different from my impression, it changes a bit, in a good way. There has been some construction work going on outside King's X and St Pancras for a long while ever since this city left trace in my memory. Some work still remains, but a new look of this area is only waiting for a final touch, I hope. Most scaffolds and temperary fences have been removed. Construction of glass facades for tube stations in King's X and St. Pancras have been completed. Their modern designs fittingly provide the old buildings a nice and quiet company. St Pancras station is more visible to the world now. The color of bricks and the grey tone of the sky are so mingled that they seem to generate an elegant color of greyish blue. I am looking forward to seeing it next time!

A passage from Madame Bovary I encountered this passage in an earlier draft of Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The imagistic expression of voracious sorrow and devouring memory is enchanting. The English translation is by Paul de Man. 'She clung to this memory; it was the center of her lassitude, all her thoughts converged upon it and nourished it. It was the intimate creation of her idleness. In her life, abandoned, cold, naked and monotonous, it stood alone like a fire of dead twigs left in the middle of the Russian Steppes by departing travelers. She threw herself upon the remembered image, crushed herself against it, joyously, jealously, and with a trembling hand stirred up the embers which were about to go out. To make it burn brighter and flame higher, that she might re-light her sadness by this love-flame which was flickering in the night, she looked around her for things with which to feed it; the most insignificant details of the past or the future, reminiscences of si...

Vincent Van Gogh, 'The Starry Night' Starry Starry Night I was walking home on this starry starry night, remembering a passage that a dear friend wrote for me a couple of months ago when everything was in a mass and I quite forgot how I would like the course of life to go. That was a beautiful passage, beautifully written. I am remembering that passage, perhaps, because the same thought that abused me at the time is now recalled. But this time, with a sober mind. 'Nothing lasts forever'--a notion that is perhaps unkind, But so will trouble and sorrow be untied. To a friend.

The Lake District, 17-19 September 2006: Levens Hall It's been a while after my trip to the Lake District. Endless travelogues, it seems. When I was there, it was the end of the summer, and it's autum now (sigh... this lament is a sign of senility.) Yes, autumn has been around for a while. These days whenever I have a chance to step on the gorgeous orange carpet--a seasonal mantle of the earth woven from golden leaves--the crackling under my feet is very comforting, assuring, even though I also bear in mind a melancholic notion that this path is leading the year to an end, and the cycle of nature to winter. Around this same time two years ago, when waiting for bus in front of Heslington Hall, I chanced to "hear" a squirrel crossing a field covered with fallen leaves. It made me giggle. : ) A lady sitting on the same bench smiled and said, 'isn't that lovely! It's my favorite time of the year!' This year the crispy sound constantly recalls to me ...

'Then you are very patient.' It is my conversation with a worldly-famous and well-respected scholar (abbreviated as S) in a conference dinner, ******************************* S: When I was in the E dept. in H Univ., H the postcolonialist was invited to take a position there. The faculty in the department was wondering why he was invited since he hadn't had a single book published. You know, in order to be in H Univ. you have to publish at least 6 books. Some faculty answered, 'but he had been a main contributor to this field of study'. Some others confronted the defendants instead, 'but no one understands what he's talking about'. (the conversation was carried on with the discussion of applications of theories and close reading in literary studies.) I: H's writing is difficult, but the style is also considered to be a means to assert his identity and idea as a postcolonialist. S: Have you ever read his work? I: Yes, I did. S: Did you understand...

Ah! Orange Autumn! I really love the colors of autumn and the sky of this orange season.