fortunate

've been so fortunate as to be in love. and wouldn't have know that we're such alike people had she not approached me the way she did since the end of last year. each day it's been filled with happiness and greatness in life. nothing but good and wonderful. but don't get me wrong, despite the fact that 'love is many a splendid thing', we are both perfectly aware of the reality, our limitations and stuff as such; it has not been about the moon and flowers at all. but i do have to say that with her i have high confidence (not hops) for the future. :)

the first thing

the first thing i learned in love was to distance myself. not necessarily in a self-protecting sense but rather in a self-preserving one. it's in my experience absolutely essential to do so because i cannot love a thing without this crucial distance from that which deserves my love. . . it's an art.

questions about 2005

got this from priscilla and it looks interesting. let me see what i can say about my 2005. here it goes.

1. What did you do in 2005 that you've never done before?

uh, wow, what a question. lots of things really. i waitressed, found myself strongly attracted to someone i barely knew, organised conferences, felt at home in (western and northern) europe and enjoyed solitude without feeling guilty.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for this year?

I didn't have any resolution listed last year; only had a wish of receiving some scholarship. for this year, no, not much i can think of. i just do whatever seems reasonable to do.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

hell, no.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

no. thank goodness. there was a friend who had that concern at one point though. it seems strangely distant to think about it now. we barely talked to each other after that thing happened.

5. What countries did you visit?

italy. hong kong (china). taiwan. south korea. copenhagen. the states.

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?

hmmm. nothing i can think of now. wow, i guess i did a good job last year.

7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched in your memory, and why?

email conversations. being hurt by a friend. the time when another friend who was, as said, in peril. feeling thankful for having some deep friendships for more than a decade.


8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

well. got a scholarship, finished my masters in nsysu and did my upgrade. but mostly it was about the fact that i managed to feel secure and not deprived- that was really hard.

9. What was your biggest failure?

not taht i didn't fail in things; on the contrary, i think i screwed up quite a few. but it's difficult for me to say that they were failures because they were more of a process for me to grow and change and learn. i feel reluctant to designate them as failures. but if there has to be one thing, i would say it's my terrible command of english. i always feel so frustrated by it although i know i am doing my best and it's not terrible.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

caught a cold. nothing serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

books. i spent all my money on books in new york- didn't even go to museums, galleries, or broadway. i am going to suffer a great deal because of this when i move. *sigh*

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

lots of people who were kind, sophisticated, intelligent and patient. among them i have to focus on my supervisor- we really manage to grow together and benefit from each other's working together i think. (i hope this does not sound too arrogant or anything)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

uh. a flatmate of mine. . .

14. Where did most of your money go?

accommodation. food. tuitions. books. transportation.

15. What did you get really, really excited about?

deep conversations. organising events.

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?

cheerio chen's 還是會寂寞.

17. Compared to last year, are you happier or sadder?

happier. i was whacked by financial concerns and possible withdrawal from phd in 2004.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

knowing how to switch on my social mode even when i dont want to. this is not so much of something i wish i had done but more out of curiosity- wonder what would have happened if i had tried to please people more. but i suppose i just don't really have that kind of energy and willingness to do so.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

endless chatting with people.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

so this shows that i am a bit late in doing this questionaire.

21. Did you fall in love in 2005?

yeah, crushes and others.

22. How many one-night stands?

wish i were that material.

23. What was your favorite TV Program?

don't watch tv but i seriously thought i'd watch star trek every saturday at one point. though what happened was that both my housemate and i didn't remember at all until days after.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

yes. . . sadly.

25. What was the best book you read?

many of them. all very very good. almost all academic. but i do enjoy the best _virtual girl_ as a novel.


26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

al start. :)

27. What did you want and get?

seeing my friends in taiwan. finding someone special. chocolates and icecream (<-- i am serious about the last one).

28. What was your favorite film this year?

Before Sunset, HUman Stain, Mystic River, Closer, Gia, The Constant Gardner, Saving Face, Clean, Tipping the Velvet, Proof, Happiness. . .


29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

it was a thursday and we had our research-day meeting. My supervisor bought a small toffee cake from the Thorntons and brought some wine. Yi-han also baked a chocolate cake for me. I was at first worried that I was going to be the focus of the crowd and felt afraid of such occasion. but it turned out good, just another day of having academic discussions with wine.

Also, before that day, we did a Japanese night at the flat to celebrate my 26th birthday, made sushi together under my Japanese flatmate's instructions, and had (only I did though) Tuna Sashimi (yum!).

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

more money?

31. What political issue stirred you the most?

the political issue that I got worked up over, i would say, was about race, nationality and belonging.

32. Who did you miss?

diana. 秋文. lucifer. veronica, janina and maria.

33. Who was the best new person you met?

adi.

34. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005:

always try to listen to the heart. find a balance between self and other. also try to be as helpful and patient as you can.

35. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

hmmm. never done anything like this before. lets see, maybe this one: 喜歡一個喝著紅酒的女孩，但不能喜歡太多。 (trans: 'i like a girl who drinks red wine, but cannot/should not like her too much'. in mandarin 'cannot' and 'should not' are expressed with the same phrase.)


35 questions. wow. that was fun. though a bit time-consuming.

jan. 2006

lots of things are happening. till now it's been simply great. i am still making observations and don't particuarly want to repeat the happy new year thing.

i am on the cusp of some adventure i think. and heaps and heaps of time are spent on chatting. i sometimes feel enamoured, frivolous or simply happy- it's a very roller-coaster ride. i sometimes sleep with a huge sense of happiness, though this kind of thing usually implies nothing but its emptiness. it's about virtuality as much as about personal beliefs. i see there's a good chance of staying true and affectionate with this person for a long time, but wonder if i do so want to step into it. what's lying beneath? is this really what i want? isn't this all socially constructed and i should be able to at least try and fight with it a bit?

***

read the collection of edward said's interviews and found it really inspiring. but at the same time i do come to realise, sadly, that i still have not read enough. it's not so difficult to do the job all right, but it is difficult to know how much more you could've done while you just have not done it- unsure if you're actually capable of doing that much either. of course, won't know until you try. but then you don't want your life to be completely filled up with one thing without others, as you do need time to 'waste' on having people's company and learning to be with them, for example.

***

cant believe there's only one year left. i must be finished with the thesis before next march. W-O-W.

a passage from _s/he_

My lover of six months sits watching on the edge of my tousled bed. I walk toward her, playing at being one of the ships come sailing in on Christmas day in the morning. I make the scarf billow and puff, silky cloth about to carry us toward reefs, shoals, the narrow opening between rocks, the way to safe harbor. I advanced toward her, my breasts dangerous and innocent. She says, "stop it." She looks away, repulsed. Then she says Iremind her of a girl she wanted in high school-- blonde, hetersexual, femme. She doesn't say if she ever touched the girl. She says, "Don't act like that." I sit down on the bed; she puts her arms around me. The creamy warmth that flowed as I walked toward her congeals and stiffens in the crotch of my panties.

page 57

some connection failure

wanted to replace the evil emily cat picture with this one at the left-hand side and yet it kept on having this 'connection failure' message blinking at me. *sigh*

picture from http://home.kimo.com.tw/bzb_grafik/top-en.htm. thank yunin for lending me this nice little black cat picture.

christmas dinner party

a photo taken on the 24th at our christmas dinner party.

deals.

the recent 'thrills' of life have been about shopping gains. one was an italian 6-cup espresso maker bought at aldi, which cost as nearly much as the 1-cup one purchased in Rome this past april. due to this fact, i want to claim that Aldi miraculously beat down the myth of euro-circulated countries being cheaper to live in than the uk.

the other was the three low-priced dvd's- bound, closer and tipping the velvet. all of them totalled out to 11 quid. i was especially happy about finally getting a copy of bound. after watching it in class four years ago, i'd never ever come across it and very few people would know/remember it either. it was such a nice surprise to see it on the shelf waiting to be picked up at the price of 2.99.

what has happened?

it's been as if i am/were/had been in love. but i don't know if this statement is truthful. one thing is that my life has been disrupted/changed in a way that resembles the way things were in my past relationships.

the page with angry terri picture

did this page some time ago but wasn't sure if the photo was a good one and so didn't really let people know. my housemate c disliked this picture because i looked angry and unnatural to her. she asked me to find another one for it, but i feel lazy. my mom's also seen it, well, she asked me if wearing glasses made my eyes stick out a bit. i thought it was really about my eyes looking bigger than those she remembered.

another reason for delaying publicising this page was that i again managed to screw up my introduction bit by writing long sentences to the extent of making them syntactically paralyzed with too much information. not until yesterday afternoon did ann remind me and we fix some part of it together.

the last thing that was funny about setting up this page was that i forgot to include my MA thesis topic (the one about _the dark room_) while i had no problem remembering putting in topics of past essays, papers and other odds-and-ends articles i've written. isn't that weird?

the day school we organised is now on here.

draining. . .

blind certainty or arrogance; distance, or being embarrassed or restricted in the communications- any of these easily put me a bit on the defensive or guarded side when it comes to making a connection.

i've been avoiding or ignoring emotional appeals, curiosity, or face to face confrontation that might otherwise sway my thinking or actions, and meanwhile being stubbornly punctilious, discrete, or formal in conduct or discourse for the purpose of being correct. i keep on doing them, so that i can convince myself of the rightness of my motives, which has to be a logical or reasonable procedure for avoiding a repeat of past legitimate hurt, loss, complications, exposure, or else. but it takes a lot of effort and tension to maintain such a stance, stick to one story, or to keep my guard up, and therefore, it is only a temporary, albeit passive, measure.

but then stooping to tirades or other indiscriminate, promiscuous, or random measures are beneath me.

In response to Pricsilla

as a long response to your comment:

it- what taiwan means to me- is a question that will stay alive for longer than i'd like it to, simply because it's the most exhausting thing in the world to be caught in contemplations regarding identity, positionality, subjectivity etc. what i find most challenging is that there are some real emotions and feelings involved. for me, it's _not_ a matter of choosing one over the other, but it often does look like one from the outside. but as i was saying, i feel almost equally awkward in taiwan and in here. although in taiwan i can (relatively; comparing with the outsiders such asmigrant workers) effortlessly overlook the awkwardness and strategically merge into the socially centred group of people. yet it does not mean that i don't find life in taiwan alienating, lonely and painful (which was part of the reasons why i came to europe in the first place).

i just had a hot pot party with other taiwanese students at our house last night. probably because i got accepted somewhere and was overally excited about the publishing opportunity, i was unconsciously expecting this occasion to be very enjoyable for me, if not celebratory. but then i realised that i could not agree with their social practices and their implications. for example, people cared more about the food than a good talk and each other's company. it made me feel sad. also, topics circulated among people were self-interested, prejudiced and narrow-minded. i am not accusing them to be who they are not- they are not mean at all. they are just inside their own keyhole, as we all are, but without being aware of this keyhole vision, buying into it as though they had already seen the world. i felt there were so much that needed to be questioned, challenged and discussed without withholding and hard feelings, but it was so impossible.

i think it resonated well when i read what you'd written the other day 'Whenever I meet people from home these days, they seem to me alwaysto some extent naive, timid, and intellectually un-curious'. i agree that most of the taiwanese people i have met, probably like those from other parts of the world too, are not interested or engaged with things taht are not directly connected to their interpretations of life experiences. there's a sense of unitariness that congeals people while it also disappoints and at times irritates me.

about receving university education in tw and n.america, i am sure it makes a big difference. but i am not in the place to make a comparison as i only know one side of the story and however similar the education system in tw is to that in the states, i reckon at least several things to be quite different. the most obvious is the value systems, english language skills (for someone like me doing english lit. for major), the meaning of doing a bachelor's degree and social and cultural hierarchy.

what is valued in tw and america is ultimately diffenrent and of course it is to be reflected in the education/teaching/learning. for one, it's still considered important to memorise things such as who wrote which piece in literature and things as such in tw, but i'd tend to think that it might not be so in the states (at least in auckland, new zealand it was a whole different set of approach and championed close reading more than anything else). i am not ready to judge which one is necessarily better or worse, and i do believe that both of them have shortcomings and advantages, depending on how people cope with it and how things are worked out.

also, 'the meaning of doing a bachelor's degree' is very intereesting. i didn't realise this until fairly recently. in the states i believe entering college has more to do with becoming a person capable of independent thinking and critical understanding, as part of self-fulfillment. but in tw, it's still related to getting a better job with higher pay; making yourself more marketable for the companies- very practical and profit-orienting. it's interesting because this is what the muslim emigrants in the uk generally think about college degrees- that it shall be helpful for their family finanice-wise and facilitate their upward mobility in social class hierarchy, which again will contribute to the prosperity of their family. tw for more than half a century has been a for-all-purpose independent country, and yet its people still feel insecure about the life and tend to believe in education only when it promises competivity and economic wellbeing afterwards. the implication of this might be that tw is still highly dependent on the global policies, markets and western countries' leads in relation to the world capitalist games. in a way, then, tw has not really been out of the soft-power colonialisation.

. . . oh, i think i should try to turn this into an artcle or something. XD i'll just stop here. my mom is online now and we're about to talk on skype.

a million things

i think i have done a million things today and am totally knackered now- it's just 9pm. i think i will hang on there for one more hour at most and then be oblivious in sleep for like a hundred hours. can't believe i still have so much more to do tomorrow.

good news, i am going to publish something! well, if everything else goes well that is. should celebrate it with friends with our hot pot party and rosé wine tomorrow night.:)

from a game of soul calibur

You're used to people telling you that you're cute because you simply are! Your love for beauty and all things social makes you a positive force amongst any group of people. Although you may seem delicate and fanciful on the outside, you're a lot stronger than people think you are. Purity, inner strength, and a sense of aesthetics is what makes you Xianghua.

Which Soul Calibur character are you?

this quiz was made by david park

_saving face_

before i go on talking about the film, let me just clarify that i've also been working hard! my days aren't just spent on watching films! i am sending ann an essay this thurs and it's already half way thru now. (though have to admit that i've been more relaxed recently)

ok, so that was just my little comforting myself and getting away from the uneasiness of watching too much movie. first, thank vanessa for lending me this dvd and thank my lovely laptop which showed me this movie for the past one hour, forty-four minutes and twenty-eight seconds (why do i spell out all the numbers?) and thank the tasty salmon cheese plus egg sandwich i'd just made. . . XD

. . . anyway. _saving face_ is an interesting film, not as cliche as i'd thought. Michelle Krusiec (born in taiwan!) deserves a big hand for her acting. joan chen also did a nice job. she's such a character full of conflicts. joan's part is really caught in between the two distinct generations- the first generation chinese emigrants and the third generation who are the so-called abc.

the kind of chinese community depicted in queens was horrifying though- they were so unbelievably out of it. but the part of constantly watching soap opera with her mom as if that would solve all the problems in the world _is_ realistic to me. whenever i go home, i always have to watch soap opera with my mom. she doesn't really talk about her feelings and things with me. she watches the tv. and so by watching the same thing with her, it's as if we communicated.

and i have to say the soy sauce part is so hilarious! so is the part of falling without hurting yourself.

what taiwan means to me.

i am constantly aware of a kind of lack of connection with taiwan, no matter how much i have come to realise the meaning of being a taiwanese abroad. it is about the same way i feel about it here: different cultural and social practice, meaning, understanding and everything. i grew up and lived in taiwan for more than 20 years and so i am supposed to know the unwritten rules, but still i find myself feel alienated, just like how i'd feel about it here.

well, it is much easier for me to earn some money in taiwan, as i can be passed for the central crowd- that's def. the difference.

knitting . . .

a day filled with various things. i lost a book of the library, _telling sexual stories_, in summer and they asked me this morning to pay 75 quid for it. way too much, cuz the paperback was out of order, they figured they'd get the hardcopy, which was 70. i was told that i could find a copy by myself, as long as it is good as new. managed to find a much cheaper one online from barnes and nobles, though had to have it delivered to me by international express- but even with the shipping fees it's still a lot less than £75.

as one can imagine, i was for a moment panicking. not just because of the money i owed, but also that the library freezes my account, and that all my one-week loans have to go without the possibility of being renewed- and i was like: for god's sake, i am working on my thesis!

but supposedly the damned book will get here next week and i will then be able to check out all the books that i want. the librarian was really nice; she extended duration of the book i recalled to the end of next week. i've also bought a copy of _telling sexual stories_ for myself, so that i don't have to check out the book and irrationally feel that it might be lost again. . . (to be fair, i lost it while carrying it on way home in my bike basket, not somewhere in my messy room that sort of thing)

after the book thing came the knitting. we had a fun event this afternoon of knitting with wine and cakes. i learned again how to knit, the last time being at the age of 8 with my grandmother on a typhoon day. i was still not very good at it, but it was fun. it's just that my knitting is like me, tight and dense.

and then came the news of my abstract being accepted in BSA. didn't quite expect it- always thought that my thing would be too 'region-specific' for big and general conferences. but i suppose it's nothing but good. had a look at the 'culture stream' and excitingly seeing a bunch of papers on ict. very looking forward to them.:)

listed out all the conferences that i am going/might go next year and sat down with ann to go thru each of them, in an attempt of dropping some. eventually i dropped only one, and there's about one that generally i'd like to go but actually feel ambivalent- it's just too far and i hate long-distance flights. ann joked that she'd never thought that anyone would hate to go to santa cruz, california. ah well, i'd probably be said hating taiwan for the same reason- i really want to avoid long-distance flights as much as i can.

but then i _am_ flying to west canada. . . think that will be more than 13 hours. oh no. Q_Q

gia

watched _gia_ while i really should've done some work. but it was such a compelling telefilm. so compelling.

i cried when gia saw linda for the last time- gia quickly left and the door closed abruptly after she repeated to linda that she had always been the only one in her heart (despite the fact that gia previously chose the drug over linda).

it also dawned on me towards the end of the film that i didn't remember seeing any representation of aids in movies after _Philadelphia_, and _Gia_ was the second one after _p_ in 1996(?)- how weird it was. (and things like _angels in america_ don't count; it's aids-related definitely, but it doesn't, in my opinion, get dirty with this disease.) it was so real too that gia's mother got scared at aids, and that gia was just left in a hotel room, as the hospital at that time couldn't do anything to aids, and so she was supposed to 'rot' by herself, waiting for 'the time' to come. . .

(seems to me hospital nowadays cannot do much either. patients are still left to live on their own and lead a life highly dependent on drugs)

what else is left there to be said? all the horrendous things that happened. it was sad and intense and realistic.

this does not come straight from the film but it's still part of it: i really feel distressed thinking about all the misery and terrible things that happen in the world, to people, to me and to others, and that how little i can do to make a change, though at the same time i do, however paradoxically, believe in myself and believe in what i can do if i try hard enough. films like this remind me of my optimism and cynicism at the same time.

narnia and a sense of guilt

went to see narnia this afternoon. the movies here in the afternoon is way cheaper than those in sweden, and of the same price in taiwan, so it's actually not too bad. the movie was faithful to the novel by the same title which i'd read as a child at 9. watching it was comforting. i recalled a great deal of descriptions in the book i'd once read and re-read and cherished in between the pale days of endless studying, sitting exams and dreaming about leaving behind all those dull days.

there were moments in which i felt like crying, especially when it was about the four kids' choice between 'going home and forgetting about narnia' or 'sticking around and doing their best to help the people in narnia fight off the white witch'. things as such easily stirred up strong emotions in me and i felt helping others was ultimately the thing to do; there's no other option for me. i was glad that the four kids felt that way too in the story; it had been/was the part that touched me, even after all these years. (but then it was really just a visual materialisation of the novel; nothing more.)

i went home and had supper with my tw housemate, c. c finished earlier than me. when she did the dishes, c suddenly gave this comment as if to have just discovered something: 'x hasn't been around and had dinner in the house for a long time'. x was the one who gravely harmed me during the summer. my first reaction to that comment was like: it probably serves her right to feel uncomfortable having dinner at the house. but then it got me thinking- or feeling guilty: why am i thinking this way about her? no matter how disappointing she might have been to me, i should not revenge my wound on her. it makes no sense and does nothing but reproduce the same harming effects. but i still cannot forget about it, let alone 'fogive' her in my heart. i still feel now how unfair it was, the whole thing. she could and can just get away because she's in a more previliged position and she's got voices, resources, everything.

but i do also feel guilty. she's probably fed up with losing access to talking to me and sharing her life with me. but you know what? i really cannot be as friendly to her anymore. i wasn't even so sure up until i typed the first sentence of this paragraph. i do feel bad about it, and don't want to keep on hating her, but i really cannot put up with what she's done. i am not ready to let go, and so the best i can do is really to not think about it as much as i can, and try to live in this house as peacefully as possible.

cyborg me

reading bits and pieces of _virtual girl_ and _body of glass_ makes realise that i can identify myself with the two cyborgs- maggie and yod- very very much. i can be just as 'out of it' in various social scenarios as they are often presented in the novelistic depictions, and raise many as stupidly basic questions as they often do, meanwhile not getting a lot of signs or signals around me. and multitasking too, it's like what i do all the time.

since childhood, i always feel that i have some sort of metaconsciousness that takes on a passer-by stance towards everything i do. i often feel watched- not in a literal sense as being watched by other people/eye/entity, and not necessarily about controlling, regulation or discipline either. i just feel that, because of this metaconsciousness, i have to be reasonable, rational, logical. and so i often fight with my desires and do instead whatever that seems to be more 'righteous' and 'truthful' to me. later of course i found that the world does not operate in such a way and my persistence was usually considered weird and 'unnecessary'. i've come to find a more comfortable way of doing this, not afraid of being who i am. but i've never figured out why i was like this from an early age. nobody in my family is like this- it's as if i were programmed.