YANG IS A DOC NOW

Yes, after four years, I finally finished my PhD. This explains why I wasn't posting anything here for past a few months. Besides wrapping up all the paper works for the degree, I spent too much time on Olympics as well. Well done China though.

So, finally I am a Dr. now. What's next? That is the question that I have been asking myself everyday and I still haven't got any answer yet. Strange enough, when I finish my degree, I was not feeling very relived as I thought I would've been. And the worst of all, I have no idea of what is my next step.

It is a shame that I haven't been writing anything here for the past couple of months. I guess laziness IS my only one natural gift. So much has been going on in my life, and I wouldn't know where to start if I am telling. So, I will just skip those for now and maybe dig it up later sometime.

Simply Miracles

It is said that the 78 hour windows is the golden time for the rescue actions after an earthquake. It has been nine days since the quake in Sichuan, China, which has claimed over 40,000 lives. But the rescue teams are not giving up and the miracles are everywhere:

A 120-hour survivor who was still conscious by the time

A 140-hour survivor, who sadly lost her legs.

A 61-year-old survivor after 164 hours

He is rescued after 164.5 hours under the ruins

China in Black and White

FOR THE SALVATION OF THE DEAD AND

BLESSING OF THE LIVING

0628 GMT, 19th May 2008, China started its three minutes national silence and half-mast flags as a special tribute for the victims in the 5.12 Sichuan earthquake. This quake is now declared to be 8.0 Richter by Chinese officials. This devastating earthquake, unfortunately, happened in my home town, the Sichuan province. But I am one of the lucky ones that all my families are safe and sound. Over 30,000 did make it, according to the state media statistics and the number is expected to roll up to 50,000. Today is the start of the three day national mourning of this tragedy events. Many entertainment industries have decided to shut their business during this period including many cinemas, night clubs and pubs in Beijing. Most TV channels will suspend their entertainment programmes and most websites colour-coded their home pages with black and white. China is crying with the deepest sad and sorrow but it is fighting with the strongest will and courage!

MSN China

EACHNET(EBAY China )

MySpace China

Yahoo China
Google China

Earthquake In My Hometown

There has been reported a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that took place in China (Wenchuan county, Sichuan province). It was from the province where my homo city lies. I have tried to contact my family back there but couldn’t get through any of them. I couldn’t get through any of their mobile phones. None of them were picking up their landline. I have tried their numbers over and over again but with no response at all. Eventually, I managed to talk to my granduncle done there. He sounded laid-back, saying that there was only mild disturbance in my city. But he had no idea of why I couldn’t get through others. He said the telecommunication was down for a while. Although, after my conversation with my granduncle, I still couldn’t reach any other family members.

Being told that the disturbances were mild, I felt slightly relived. It is possible that my family has decided to stay outside the buildings for the night (it is 1 am over there at the moment) as there might still be some small disturbances coming saying on the news.

Being me, I couldn’t possible stop worrying and shall try to call them again after work. Hope they are alright.

This earthquake has turned out to be a tragedy over its central area causing over 8500 death so far, many unaccounted for. Far away from my country, I could only wish the best for those affected by this devastating incident.

Our BBQ

It has been a good day really. The weather starts to convince us that the summer is really coming this time. I was invigilating all day but finished quite early. So we decided to go for a BBQ at our backyard. And who would think this is what you will get by put ASDA beef burgers on a BBQ. It added a heck lot of fun into it.

My Weekend

There goes another weekend. I was doing what I have been doing for over a year now during weekends: cleaning the local hospital. It is a part-time job I took to help with my bills. Of course, being a PhD student, I have my ridiculous proud. I didn’t really feel good about it at all in the beginning. I was even reluctant to tell people there that I was doing a PhD.

Things change. Surprisingly, I found myself quite well suited in this job. It is peaceful. I don't have to struggle with difficult questions there. Just simple sweeping and mopping are keeping everybody happy. Nurses can be rough but most people are very nice. Patients always appreciate my work. Moreover, I always take lots of funny stories back to my house. There are funny things around. Like today, one of the good looking charge nurses has been promoted to matron. One of the patients has been singing with another tone all day. I am actually having fun working there sometime.

Well, the only problem we cleaners have is to get over the hospital in the morning. We all have our magic. Some share a cab. Some get a lift. Just by chance, a very nice Spanish lady started to give me a lift. Actually, her daughter drives. She is a very nice and beautiful woman. It is never boring in the car. She always has lots to tell. To be honest, as the car is nosy and I am not quite used to her accent sometime, I will normally lost about eighty percent of her story. I will then just keep smiling and nodding and repeating: ‘is it’. It works like a charm. Hope she never finds out. I can’t thank both of them enough.

When I am back to home, it is the boring bit. I am normally too tired to do anything. Now it is Sunday night and I am just annoyed that I will have to go to university to teach tomorrow knowing it is going to be raining heavily.

Over Gary's

It is 3:49 am. I am here at Gary’s to help him with some of his work. He is in bed now and will have to go to work at 6 am. The silly man just got married to an amazing girl. Every single one of us agrees that she is way out of his touch. I haven’t met Michelle, his wife, that many times but I’ve heard a lot about her, either from Gary or from the gossipy Chinese student community. She is very independent girl from a big family. Being rich back in China, she is determined to fight for a career here in London. It was actually quite a story. After Gary and Michelle graduated from Warwick, she only managed to find a position in a marketing firm with no basic salary but commissions. What she was doing was standing in the shopping mall and trying to sell insurance policies or other products of that sort to people walking around. Yes, we all know she was the kind of people we don’t even bothered to say no to while enjoying our precious time spending money that we haven’t earn yet. It was really tough for her of course. The newly graduated Chinese girl didn’t back out at all. Not even after Gary had tried hundreds of times asking her taking an easier road, which always ended up in family crisis as Gary would say. She said she’d carry on because she thought she can learn something. I actually wasn’t so convinced of that but no one could argue with her. She wasn’t doing so great at the beginning though. For mouths, she only managed to do a few deals, each of which only got 20 pound commission. The two had to struggle with Gary’s wage in London. She started to do better later but the reward was still pathetic.

One day, she was still doing her usual selling in a shopping mall and was still full of energy as always. She walked up to a woman and started her routine of persuading. Luckily, this woman appeared to be interested and stayed to listen. While she thought there was another 20 pound almost secured, the woman gave her a business card and said: You are actually very good. Why don’t you come and work for me? And there you go. She is still working in the new company that is much better and actually pays a reasonable wage. I never thought it would work out for her but it just did. I found myself have to admire her for that.

Well, that is just some story I thought I will keep telling for a long time. In order to make a better life, the couple do some causal work as well and that is what I am here to help. I had to finish it quick as I will have my thesis left to finish so I am working nights today. I actually enjoy working nights. It is so quite and I can concentrate so well despite the fact that I am exhausted. The instant cappuccino from Kenko wasn’t so tasty at all. The foam had such a dry taste and I almost felt disgusting after two cups. But I think I am almost done for tonight.

Darkness of the night always brings up the feeling of loneliness in me. Gary was lucky but I never have luck. Thinking of it, I should have saved some luck for not buying lotto for 26 years. I wonder when and how I can redeem it. And now it hits me that I still owe the newly wedded couple a wedding gift. I will need to give it some thought.

Relief

It is of course very unprofessional of me as a blogger to leave here untouched for almost another month now. Luckily we have 29 days for February this year and I get to catch the last train.

So what’s new? Plenty! This February has been such an eventful. Both my professional life and my personal life have added such strong flavour to my life. It was bitter, spicy and sour. I have been stressed into such an extent that I practically hated everything. And now I know why. I have so many expectations on so many things and when the bubbles burst I apparently can’t take it too well.

So the last bubble burst this morning. It was such a usual stressful morning and I was trying so hard to fill up my thesis. I was just moaning my less ideal life to a friend of mine and I realised that the last bubble just burst leaving no trace behind as if it was never there. There I was. Setting there finding all the expectations I had became past memory with only a pile of ‘what if..’ left. I thought I would be sad and pessimistic again like I always do. 

But I didn’t, surprisingly. I felt a relief, a long over due relief. Maybe with all the expectations gone, I felt that I then couldn’t get disappointed or upset by them anymore. So the burdens that I have been dragging along just faded into thin air. 

What bubbles did I have? I will tell one day. For now, I just feel great, calm and full of energy for the cleaning tomorrow in the local hospital. We are going to have a clean ward.

A Long Day. Really?

At this point, I really want to call someone up so that I can moan to them about how long my day was. Then I remembered that I need to keep a happy image basically because I complain my life way too much. Once on the phone, a friend asked how I was doing. I replied that I was actually very good. He cried out loud: what is wrong with you? That should give you a idea.

It was a long day. Actually, I had a long page full of what exacutly had made me exhausted. But when I finished it and read it through, I felt stupid. There was nothing serious and important at all but some little trouble you can expecte to go through everyday (well, second thought, probably you won't expect to have your kitchen flooded everyday). Something must be wrong with me. Many friends of mine told me that I have a pessimistic view of life. Maybe it has gone to some extreme now? I won't believe that. I rather think my view has always been objective and they are just too optimistic. So maybe it is just my life at the moment is stressing and makes my unhappy. Now, this is something else that I'd rather not say because I think it makes me sound rather pathetic.

Maybe a little bit more on this tomorrow but I have to sleep now. No matter what my mental state or view is, I am physically exhausted. Lots of things ahead tomorrow.

Here Goes 2008

Ok, it is 2008 now and I know I have to write something here. It is rather a shame that I didn’t manage to get a post here in the New Year’s Eve. I was enjoying the telly way too much. Yeah, I know it is sad. But that was not the worst part yet. On the New Year’s Eve, I followed the old tradition of all man kind: I sent greeting SMS to all my friends. I planned it so well so they would get my message right after the midnight. Unfortunately, I forgot to get the quality of the 3’s network into account. Anyway, I sent them off and I waited. Of course I wanted some of them to message me back so I know my list of phone numbers were not totally out of date yet. The clock was ticking coldly and my phone remained deadly quiet. Just right at the minute I was about to collapse mentally and swear to be a loner for the rest of the year, there it was. The lovely tone of my phone came up and it was a lovely girl I know. Her message was so simple but so precise. The emotion among the words was so frank, open and fearless. It was that three words that can reach deep into a man’s heart and he could never forget it. And those three words were right there on the screen of my phone. I didn’t know what to say and what to do. I was totally still and just let my eye sight land on that three words: WHO ARE YOU. Yeah, I deleted her number right away and didn’t speak to her since.

Jokes aside, this year is going to be a big year for me, because I going to finish my PhD. How exciting! Although I am still struggling to get my thesis finished as soon as possible, which is very depressing, I still can help to be excited of the thoughts that I going to finished. It is like a new beginning of my life is coming, it is like a dusty old book is finally turning to the new chapter. Of course I made some new years resolutions. Personally I think it is very important for anyone of us to do it otherwise we will have nothing to regret at the end of the year. My resolutions include things such as get up earlier and go to gym more often. In order to make sure I have things to regret at the end of 2008, I added quite smoking. That ought to do it.

Happy 2008 everyone!

On Christmas Time

I hope everyone is having a great time during the Christmas period, no matter their culture celebrates Christmas or not. In Chinese culture, we don't. But being so far from home in this fairy land called Great Britain, I couldn't help myself to get some Christmas spirit on. Therefore, it has totally nothing to do with my laziness that I have been almost motionless in my room and living on all kinds of junk food and takeaways.

Chinese doesn't celebrate Christmas, traditionally. But a little bird called ‘Economical Globalisation’ has brought everything about Christmas to China. During Christmas time, every single street in the city is playing this big Christmas extravaganza. Young people find a good reason to go out and drink their head off, most of who have no idea of what Christmas is celebrating. That's why I almost blanked out when I heard a tiny piece of news on six o'clock at the Christmas Eve afternoon on BBC 1: ‘if you are celebrating Christmas this year in China, you can get arrested’. How much have those young people been drinking, or the BBC 1 editors?

I was on the phone with my parents that day and my father reminded me a little Christmas tale. I was only about seven back then. We started to have English class in primary school that time so we read this thing about Christmas and Santa. We knew nothing about it but some nice old man giving out free gifts. I told that to my parents and I got so excited that year's Christmas time. Of course no one in my class believed any thing about Santa but my mother told me that if I put my socks at the head of the bed, I could get gifts from Santa, who would put the gifts in the socks. I put a clean pair of socks there before I went to bed and I found they filled up in the morning I woke up. I can still remember how excited I was. There was a card on the floor as well, written in English with a foreign stamp at the corner. I rushed into my parent's room and woke them all up. They said it must've been Santa. Then I told everybody in my class. No one believed me. I showed them the card and they couldn't care less. But that didn't spoil my exciting mood. And for the following few years, Santa visited me every time. The socks were filled with all kinds of gifts every time, although the only one I can remember is a can of coke because the sock looked so stuffed. A card with foreign stamp came with gifts every time as well.

Of course, it had been my mother. She was in English training herself back then and knew a few friends from states. That must be how she got hold of those stamps. I didn't suspect it at all until I was too old to believe Santa when I was about twelve or so. But even now, I can still remember how happy I was when I opened my eyes and thought Santa just visited. What a nice piece of sweet memory!

Days B4 X'Mas

Only days to go before Christmas and I have become lazier than ever at a time that I am supposed to be more productive than ever. I am trying very hard to get myself in the role of hard working though. However, watching film on TV at half past one in the morning now doesn’t convince anyone, does it? Well, I have got plan in my head already and I shall see how it works out in the next few days.

Christmas is coming and it is so clear that SONY is trying its hardest to do some damage control of PS3. To be fare, PS3 is the game console packed with cutting edge technologies and state-of-art concepts. But also, it comes with a totally failed market perspective. SONY has had totally biased idea of how luxury people would like to go on gaming. Its sky high price has put PS3 on the worst market performance ever. However, it is Christmas and SONY sees a new opportunity coming. Many game companies have new PS3 games published right at this time as well. So, it has been all over TV channels these a few days: ‘Entertainment like you’ve ever seen before’. It is rather tempting, which I have to admit. Isn’t marketing just powerful? And SONY seems to get it right this time.

And, also people tend to be less productive before Christmas and this can give bosses a big headache. This is one of the letters a senior staff sent to his fellow colleges yesterday. Isn't he lovely?

Colleagues,

There has been a noticeable drop in productivity in the School in the past few days. Just because the students have gone does not mean
that we can slow down.

I can only assume that this disgraceful situation is as a result of low blood sugar levels during the day. With this in mind, I have put boxes of chocolate biscuits in the kitchen and in D437. Please take one as a matter of urgency.

Oh, and Merry Christmas,

Someone I Know

It was just a annoying Monday morning. I woke up as planned at about eight and I got up as usual around ten. I went out to send off my visa extension application. Well, the whole process of getting all supporting documents for visa extension had been painful. It wasn't supposed to be but everything just had some extra hassle added. Anyway I was just glad it was over.

I went home after picked three huge bags of supplies for next two weeks. I then just realised that I forgot to buy rice. That meant pasta for tonight. I turned on my laptop. I really should write something in my thesis that I had to finish by the end of February. But before I started, I thought I'd blog a little. It had been over a week since my last post. I let my mind to wander, trying to figure out some easy topic. There were quite a few I could moan about. And right at that time, someone popped up in my MSN. Someone I haven't heard from for three years. We chatted for a while and I wished him a good new year at the end. Then, I couldn't help myself to write something about him.

We never met in person but only on the internet. It was the gay society on the internet. It was early 2003, if I recalled correctly. The awareness of homosexuals were just started back then in China. It was a forum that we hung out a lot. It was great fun. Right before I was about to come to UK. He told me he was about to marry a girl. When I asked why, his reply was just simple and just Chinese: for my mother.

It would an extremely bizarre reason for most of the people in other parts of the world. But for Chinese, that's what we do. Nothing could we put beyond our family, and our parents are one of the most important parts of it. It is impossible to explain this in a few words so I will just leave it here. Anyway, I told him and if I were him I wouldn't but he did anyway. They had a happy wedding, a few months latter.

About another few months latter, I was still struggling to get used to the life in UK, I met him again on MSN. He told me that he didn't use MSN that much. He was happy about everything back there. He was very good to his wife, in the way that any good husband could possibly be. He also told me that he had a boyfriend somewhere else. They met occasionally. He said everything was just working out. I wasn't so convinced though. But that's his life and that's what he wanted.

Then it had been three years. I never heard from him in these three years and I doubted if he would ever appear again. It might just be the Christmas spirit playing tricks and there he was on MSN here. He said hi. He said he just had a baby girl ten days ago. They gave the girl a very beautiful name. He said he was so happy and he was indeed a good husband. He didn't fool around outside anymore, and he had told everything about his homosexual history to his wife. His wife probably got the promise that it was just the past and he was just a family man now. I wouldn't know. We couldn't talk more because it was late in China at the moment we were chatting and his baby girl was crying. But I guessed that somehow his wife accepted it and forgived him. It might be the evidence of true love without border or just a sacrifice for the family made by a woman. I have no intelligence to comment at all. But I could see he was really happy.

Normally I would be judging him now but I decided not to. I did't even want to comment as such. It was just something I thought like to make a note on my journal, if I had one.

It's Late Afterall

It was two days before someone's birthday and I just remembered that I haven't got anything for him yet. I couldn't possibly have any energy back then to figure out a perfect gift for him, so I thought I would just pick up some card on my way home that day. ASDA was way too far for my mood to venture to when I left the university. The nice British sky in winter was all dark by five. I thought I would just go to the CO-OP shop that was only a few extra steps away from my way home.

I went to the shop with a friend of mine, who was leaving to Taiwan for holiday. We walked down to the shop, talking nonsense on the way. To my surprise, I found another friend of mine was working at the checkout in the shop. Well, actually, I am still mad of him now for not going out with the girl I set him up with. Anyway, I went to the card section and was trying to get some card nice. The small shop didn't have a brilliant collection and I was really struggling to get something won't mark down my taste. Finally I picked this card with a lovely teddy bear on the cover. There were not many options in the shop.

I said goodbye for my friend who was going to catch the coach to the airport and went home. That night I wrote down some normal birthday wishes in the card and I noticed the cover which says: Belated Birthday. There was no way I was going to get another card so I just wrote a yellow post-it note on the card says sorry about the cover, etc. I posted it the next morning.

About four days after his birthday, he got the card. I thought I must have forgotten to write down the property number of the address or maybe it was just his flatmates misplaced the card. Either way, the card was late and it became a 'belated birthday' card after all. The card I picked turned out to be quite appropriate. Could you ever possible to argue with life?

Simply No Sleep Tonight

I haven't been doing this for a while, working without sleep. To be honest, I need my sleep. I can't do that much overnights now. This is such a strong evidence of aging. Six years ago, I normally did my exam revision for a few nights, went to the exam directly and had a sleep afterwards. I did my Probability and Statistics exam in that way and still had a mark of 98 out of 100. I was good. A few nights without sleep wouldn’t have any effects on me at all back then. Now, I might as well just call the next day off.

But I have nothing on my schedule tomorrow. The weather is going to be upsetting, says the forecast. Stronger wind and shower give me no initiative to venture to my office tomorrow. I think I will take it easy. I am attempted to go down the city again but probably still have to see what the weather suggests.

I was going to do some work in the evening. As I am moaning here now, I think we all know how that went. A friend online told me he was playing Guild Wars, a good online game, which totally stimulated my desire of gaming. I dare not to start my online gaming again, too addictive. So I spent a few hours playing the arcade simulator. I also wanted to write something comforting for another friend who was a little blue recently. Unfortunately, I found myself totally incompetent to do so and ended up sending him some rubbish. Hopefully, he will get a laugh on my stupidity and take his mind off the troubles for a minute or two. Then, here I am, midnight, works undone.

However, like most of other scholar you might see (is it just fun to call myself a scholar), I actually like to work nights. Nights are quite and offer much less distractions. I do find it much easier to concentrate. Moreover, I have got huge piles of work to finish now. Besides my thesis, I still have 6000 words worth of casual work to finish in ten days.

How could I leave so many works undone till now? I think I have recovered from my ‘low phase’ that is a period of time I feel low for all kinds of ridiculous reasons and use them as the excuses to skip work, exercise and any other things that are supposed to be good to me. I am proudly to say that it is gone for now, though I have no idea when it will return. I might just use tonight as a start to get some work done first seriously.

Coffee is ready.

The picture is taken by Rob, where http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinlondon gives more

On My Way Home

It was raining this afternoon. When I finished my teaching, a lab of which had some music students complaining why they were doing a LAN networking lab, I was really not in the mood of appreciating the walk in a cool and wet winter night. Why did we have music students doing electronic labs anyway? Universities could always mess up the right things they were supposed to be doing in one way or another. I was so thirsty but I couldn't be bothered to walk back to the student union shop. It was a wet night and the drops had no sign to calm down. I searched my wallet hoping to find a pound so I could get something from the vending machine. I was lucky. There was a big fat two pound coin. I put the coin into the machine and press the code for a bottle of coke zero. Nothing happened. The coin was not accepted by the machine. I read the instruction again. Two pound coin was supposed to be working. I tried it once more but ended with disappointment. I thought I could still make it home without the coke.

The weather had not been good for the day at all. Thankfully I was not cold. The cashmere sweater that I was wearing was bought back from China two years ago. My mother bought it for me. So its colour really suited my father well and could make me look 5 years older with no problem. But it was really warm and soft.

I was soaking. The shortcut I normally took was dark and wet, which made it not attractive at all. So I decided to walk home through the shopping mall. It is probably the only thing keeping Hatfield from a dead place. It is not very big but managed to provide some entertainments out of the quietness in this small, not modern and not traditional English town.

As I was walking through, it just hit me that I was sharing with a friend with the books we read and our desire of buying more books. We were talking about visiting Waterstone and the shop was right there on my way home. I thought I would just hop in and see what they had got to offer before Christmas.

'3 for 2', the favourite trick of Waterstone was being played again. It was such a temptation, I had to admit. I thought I should be able to afford three books with no problem at a price of two. After all, the university just gave me my Christmas bonus although I won't share the amount in case you would be laughing too loud. That would be bad for your spleen, an old Chinese saying. It was not to my surprise that then I found my self struggling to keep the goods into my budget because I picked out six books. I was attempted to buy all of them but I was concerned that I still had my grocery shopping undone yet. So I put three down, the trilogy, the fist book of which was filmed as 'The Golden Compass'. A friend of mine told me it was really good though. I got myself a Ian Rankin's book The Naming of The Dead because I saw it’s adverts on my way to Liverpool for a conference four months' ago. I thought this ought to be good. I also got myself another Bill Bryson: The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kids. I read his book, A Short History for Everything, before. That was fun. The last book I got was The Shadow of the Wind, for no reason but that I had seen it on the shelf for a long time.

With my proud new entertainments in hand, I walked out after paying. There is a few fast food restaurants towards my home. It was still raining. Kids were trying to hit cars that lined for the fast food take out with garbage, I reckoned. I walked faster in case they turned around to give me some trouble.
……
After dinner, I turned on the radio, got my self a warm cup of tea and opened the page of The Naming of The Dead. It was such a peace and relaxing of mind I haven't had for a while.

I Let It Go

Finally, I decided to let it go. I thought I would insist but I foresaw a broken heart. At last, I couldn't pursue any more and I decided to pull out before I was hurt. I let it go.

I genuinely thought I had a shot over there and we would just work like a click of fingers. I thought he liked me. I knew he did. I liked him. I never doubted it. But I never expected that the feeling became so strong and my rationality couldn't control it any more.

So one day, I told him.

He said he couldn't go into a relationship. He said that he was through a difficult time and relationship was the last thing he could put his mind on. He said he liked me. He said if he started a relationship, he would hurt someone. He said it was him not me. He said let's see how it went. He was laying there right besides me.

I felt rejected and it tasted bitterly. Things had been tough on him, I knew. I wanted to help but he wouldn't open up. I turned around and looked at him. I was trying to make out of list of why I liked him but I couldn't. Right there, I knew he was what I wanted. I left in the morning. He said it was so nice to see me. I went back home and had some sleep.

I thought if I try harder, it might eventually work. So I tried. He was difficult to get in touch. However I tried I barely succeeded. He liked me, I believed that, yet distant he still was. My friends told me that I should just take the signal and took it like a man. I was about to. However, every time I was about to be the man, he rang me up. His voice never fialed to remind me how sweet he was. He liked to talk cold cars and IBM PCs that I barely understood but I just enjoyed it. My imagination then told me that I still stood a chance. I couldn't possibly let it go just like that. Not yet.

We had a long list of Gmail conversation. It had been running for over a year, although the recent mails only went from me to him but few went back. It was the 100th mail. I wanted to write something brilliant. But little could I put down. Besides all the nonsense, I only wrote: I miss you. Nothing came back and that was the last of our Gmail list. My friend said I should delete the email list. I couldn't do it.

For seven days, he had totally disappeared. I checked my phone every five minutes and the screen remained dead and black. My imagination had been making up stories that scared me. I finally noticed that I needed an answer. Although it appeared to be obvious, I needed to hear it from him. I left a message on his phone without any hope. He phoned back. The talk was as joyful as usual. He didn't give any excuse for his absence. Let's just don't argue it, said he. I didn't.

Two days later, I met him again. We had a lovely evening like always. We had some lovely drink, went to see a dull film, and had a nice KFC meal. That night, I asked him again. I was seeking the answer.

He couldn't go into a relationship, said he. He was through a difficult time and relationship was the last thing he could put his mind on, said he. He liked me, said he. If he started a relationship he would hurt someone, said he. It was him not me, said he. He was laying there right besides me.

This time, I knew there was nothing I could do to change it. I still believed that he liked me. But, as my friends said, it was more like an appreciation for accompany rather than a heart beat. That heart beat wouldn't be me, no matter how long I insisted. I was arguing with my friends but at that moment, I knew it was true. I felt rather relieved, in a strange way. I wasn't hurt but I knew I would be if I didn't stop by then. It was another sleepless night.

In the morning, I kissed him on the cheek, I had touch on his cute belly, I walked him to work and I left. I walked to the Hyde Park. The view was lovely. Walking among the beautiful greens with rays of golden sun shine in the air, I was calm and happy.

I thought he liked me. I knew he did. I liked him. I never doubted it. But finally, I decided to let it go. I thought I would insist but I foresaw a broken heart. At last, I couldn't pursue any more and I decided to pull out before I was hurt. I let it go, willingly.

A Lazy Day

Monday is always hectic for most of us. But as a student I have the privilege to have a lazy Monday. I did. I really shouldn't, considering how much my PhD thesis still needs me to finish. But just for the day, I can't care less. I got up nearly 11 am. I woke up earlier and the lovely sound of the shower hitting my windows soon put me back to sleep again. It was so cold outside. Who would ever want to go out today?

The room was messy. I thought I'd better clean it again. A friend of mine never understands why I am always cleaning my room. Me either. But it is just messy always. I am surprised that I could live in a cave like this for weeks now. I folded up all the clothes that were lying all over the places and those that have been hanging there to dry for a whole week now. I added some water to the pot of flowers near my window. I have got this pot for three years now. It is strange though that it blooms in the winter this year and was struggling to die during summer time.

There was a sound of someone banging on the bed for about 30 minute. Who got lucky in the middle of Monday?

The spicy girls are determined to com back. They've on the radio all day. The only funny thing I heard on the radio is that duck quacks don't echo. Really? The nerdy evil inside me won't like let something funny like this just going away. I looked it up in the internet and apparently, it does echo. How come we get a saying like this anyway?

While I am still wondering what to do for this relaxing day, it was dark outside already. And I just remembered that I have had nothing to eat today at all. But I am still not feeling like cooking. I think I can hold it up for an hour or so. It is about six now and looks like the call I was expecting won't come anyway. I am working in the graduate ceremony for the university over the nearby town tomorrow. It will be boring. On the work specification list sent to us by exam office, after a list of responsibility there is a line: We would suggest you to bring a book with you. You get the idea.

So there will be no thesis writing tomorrow, and probably none on Wednesday either. I will worry about it sometime else and when I fed up by it again, I will write some more rubbish over here. Time to cook.

I Am Legally Responsible...

I am obviously legally responsible for wrongly accusing ASDA, the biggest supermarket chain in UK.

It all started with a shopping at ASDA one day. I passed by the raw meat products section and found a box of lamb mince with a bit funny colour. A small bit of the mince appeared to be grey, a colour of which would make me suspect that bit of meat has been exposed to a high temperature. Then I recalled this programme I watched some time ago in BBC, which took undercover research on supermarket butchery. One of the cases was that a supermarket worker found the machine to mince the meat was broken as the mince came out cooked. Those mince then should be discarded. But they mixed the cooked mince with other mince and sealed to sell. Out of curiosity, I took a picture of the mince with my phone. I was thinking of summoning a staff but decided that I could do the evening without any argument of such. So I left.

Then, it was last night. I didn’t find anything else better to do than hanging around on a forum and I thought it would’ve been fun to ‘show off’ my proud evidence of careless ASDA. So I posted the picture saying that it was a box of mince with cooked meat from ASDA and I was expecting people argue if it indeed looked to be cooked or just a normal colour that can be expected in a box of mince. People did…but…

Soon, the replies started to highlight for my legal liability for making ‘public accusation’ of ASDA without real facts. Experts said that I should only do so if I bought that box and sent them to a place called…EHO (I don’t even know what EHO is, some sort of watchdog is my wild guess -_-0).

When I was trying to defend myself saying that I didn’t think that far as some sort of public accusation but just want to post something fun, my fake make up was soon penetrated by people with shining eyes. Other replies soon reveal my carefully structured conspiracy as I didn’t buy the mince yet I took a picture of it and then posted it on a public website. With all the evidence, legal experts in the following replies soon upgraded my behaviour into an ‘allegation towards ASDA’.

I have to admit that those were such a blow. I know my big mouth can get me trouble, but this is certainly not very testy. Obviously I am foolish, as pointed out by some replies of my thread, of trying to set up ASDA and making public ‘allegation’ against it. I did apologise at the end of the thread telling people that I am still a good boy. I guess I just didn’t think that people would take this post from that perspective. Doesn’t modern world surprise us? I should find out what EHO is.

A New Post

With no surprise, I haven’t touched this little space of mine for ages…big surprise. I actually don’t believe someone will actually read this bit but I was proved wrong yesterday. It then got me thinking of trying to start writing here, once again.

Let’s talk about music. Of course, a man like me can have no deep thoughts about music. It just came to my notice that there was a very nice music on the UK chart a few weeks ago. The song was: Apologize [Timberland Ft. Onerebuplic]. However, I didn’t realise that the original song was much more beautiful without Timberland’s ‘contribution’. This is the video of the original Apologize from YouTube:



However, what is more interesting is that this is not the official music video for the music. Apparently, there was no official music video for un-remixed Apologize (the remixed video was totally rubbish though).The author of the video above appears to be an independent director. So, it all looks like Timberland didn’t do a good thing on this originally beautiful song, or did he? Without famous Timberland to pull this song up the chart, and gets all the radio station play the remixed version, I still don’t know the original one. So, this must be what they call a commercial approach, the proud product of modern entertainment industry.