Just another casual end of semester blog post with a cheesy topic

I just finished my one and only final for this semester. (not that I don’t have other finals. It’s just that the other finals are either online or two weeks ago.) I don’t really know how I did on my last final tbh, but I don’t want to spoil anything now. Knock knock.

As promised, let’s start with my ski trip to tahoe. I drove another 5 hours in middle of nowhere (with my roommate sitting next to me, can’t dare to shut her eyes for more than 10mins lol sorry lulu) We listened to all kinds of music and I finally found the song I kept hearing back in middle school but couldn’t find the name : 念念风尘. I asked lulu to play it twice and each time I was sitting on a flying carpet and all those memories of premature days just flashed by… They kept changing and I realized that as I grew older I lost most of the important details: the long shade right under the crisscrossing bricks of shades of green, the chitchats followed by kisses of spring light on rosy cheeks, the smallest library the tiniest seats benches filled with broken books with yellow pages and highlighter marks and library card with long lists of young souls curiosity wandering in the sweetest dream promised by the entrance of a grand hall of fictional souls. I was not a heavy tragic stories reader in middle school. I simply couldn’t get it. I would read Gone with the wind and told my Mom (who recommended the book to me) it was a love story. No it’s not. Now that I’m much older, especially after this semester, I felt like most of the books I read back in middle school was never about the story. It was about the decisions, emotions, tears, laughters, songs, mournings, dances, collisions, banging, growling, hiding, running, it was the word of sounds and consciousness, the forgiveness and acceptance, the soaring and diving, it was knowing that story is life, life is a story, and that the story with a God is always better.

“If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for?” –Pi in “Life of Pi”

The Christmas Tree we saw at Tahoe

Back to the whole skiing newbie thingy: I was bad.

Pretty bad.

Like, really bad.

I couldn’t even handle standing up on the snow. Before actually stepping on real snow, or maybe 10 minutes in the wildly white world I was just bald, naive maybe, “I mean snow is still solid and according to one of the many outrageously important and forgettable physics theory of which name I couldn’t remember that I learnt in my freshman year, it should have friction right.” Ha! Friction!  Maybe I shouldn’t pnp that introductory physics class. Maybe then I could learn more physics theory to enlighten myself：Surprise! Snow is slippery! Skiing boards and shoes (is that how you call those insanely heavy instruments even? ) won’t help you now! They only drag you down. More mass, more gravity, remember? Wait a minute, gravity… Whatever I am not one of those Leconte Physics nerds who only care about swing dance. (jk sorry Lulu) I am a resourceful and fulfilled human being. I enjoy mentally and physically fulfilling and that’s why I’m here, to learn how to ski. Ok, gear up, let’s do this.

Then it’s the deep regret that I really should have taken more Physics class. Why can’t I stop the ski board? Is it faster than the speed of light now? Am I going to crash into that pile of snow? Okay this is leaving me with no time and choice except to just sit into the snow. And I couldn’t get out, AGAIN!!!

I wonder, how much snow is too much snow. and how much fall is too much fall?

Before I knew it, I was weeping. I’d like to think that it had nothing to do with the snow and skiing etc and etc. But then, I was having a stressful semester and all those things that I promised myself to leave behind at Berkeley suddenly all came back. I’m probably haunted, I thought.

I want to say that this semester is a great semester. probably the best so far. I am in my worst scenario possible. But I am not my worst self if that makes sense. I had more time investigating on my interests and abilities. To spend more time on yourself, they say, it’s never a waste of energy and you always get some sort of “revenue” from it. But I was forced to take time to look at myself. I was forced to look into the mirror, question, scrutinize, attack my past decisions and motives. I believed that all the arguing, shouting, crashing, that happened in my brain was all for a good cause.  But then at the same time it hurt me so much to admit that I was on a pilgrimage way too long and my luck had gone cold. It was a different world a long time ago. I just didn’t notice it.

At the end of each semester I always say that I have a wonderful semester. I tried my best. And it’s true. Just that the past two semesters weren’t about trying my best, it was about the other option, the option that I always neglected. I will admit that I am kind of idealistic. Whenever I want something, be it a major or any event, I always try to get it. That’s the case for most human beings. We achieve the direction and meaning of our life through conquering this summit and the next.

I didn’t realize that it was ok to pin up a white flag on one of the summits. I also realized that next time, before setting up a pilgrimage, it will be better if I can just assess the risk and cost. Risk and cost. The most fundamental things in my life are probably not the most exciting. But chasing after a leopard I forgot my goldfish and she was dried to death. That goldfish was floating in a glass bowl and she was so alive, so much energy with her sun dried fire burnt scales, so many laughter she gave me. I didn’t get the leopard. And when I came home she was grey like sand in an empty bowl.

I felt like I should say something grandiose now. First I don’t want to spoil anything, since nothing is set yet. Secondly, when I was taking my stat final today, I suddenly realized how smart my peers are. Maybe I had this realization a long time ago. I didn’t consider myself compatible to them on any scale. I was the outlier. the lucky one. the black goat. But then after this semester I found a weird place in the herd. I can’t figure out exactly where I am from a aerie view. But at the same time, I can really see where my peers will possibly be in the future and I wish I have a seat in that future.

Thanksgiving ended last weekend. As I was sending off my cousin at the airport, I felt extremely lonely. Sending off my friend from W-college was way better because I had my cousin beside me. Airports, at that instant, became the loneliest places on this Planet in my mind. On the good side though, I have my bed to myself again. (which is something I didn’t expect  myself to miss. I “upgraded” my bed from a twin into a full size one month ago. Since then, I have waken up at the other side of my bed several times in the morning. At first it was somewhat scary because I would wonder for like 10 seconds where I was and then realized that it was the same bed, only that I woke up at a different location and my eyes didn’t get used to the direction of the sunshine. Although I have to say, I get used to a bigger bed quicker than I expected. At first I had to sleep with my doll in order to not feel way too lonely in the morning. After two weeks it was all good. )

This year’s Thanksgiving was used to its optimum in my opinion. We visited Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, I got to ride my first CalTrain ride. (and took several excited selfies on board) It has been over a year since I had a trip with my cousin. The last time we travelled somewhere was in August 2015. Way before that, in January 2014, the trio (my brother, cousin, and me) went to Bali for our winter holidays (and sadly, my last winter holiday that covered Chinese New Year.)

(Us watching a pond of sea water in Bali, near a temple that, if I am remembering correctly, worships a sea god.)

It was pretty exciting to get to travel to two of my best friends. We visited San Jose shortly before the Winchester Mystery House

(the CalTrain station of San Jose)

While we were onboard, the scenery outside makes me wonder: Across the Bay Bridge, you can’t find another town like Berkeley, or Oakland, or just Alameda County in general. The buildings are much nicer, I was able to locate one hippie street art at San Jose. I have to say, I have taken the lively power of Berkeley for granted for so long. More thoughts on this, I was probably shaped by Berkeley into a somewhat hippie person as well: I grew to have much more tolerance towards people or people’s ideas that I disliked on the first sight; I was more willing to listen to people’s issues and realize that, despite our difference in living situations, educations, personalities, there are issues that we mutually pay attention to. Whenever I felt the connection between my peers and I, I was moved, sometimes profoundly, sometimes for just a second, but I was indeed moved. I never realized that despite being such lonely animal by nature, I was able to see parts of me (interests, viewpoints, ideas, etc) on different people. The experience gradually made me realize: despite the conflicts and dramas going on and the worries caused by them, it might be possible to hear each side out.

By no means I am degrading the great scenery of San Jose, Palo Alto, all the cities across the Bay Bridge here. I’m just saying: I never realize that a college town can have such impact on the students.

Apparently when we were in San Jose there was an ice hockey tournament going on. The whole town squeezed into an arena and symbols of sharks are everywhere. One thing catches my eye: while we were walking towards the center of San Jose, we walked below a bridge, which had blue and white circles painted on its bottom. We thought that it might be because of the whole “shark” theme. Walking through the bridge is like walking into a sea park filled with sharks?

(A picture found online. We were there during daytime. It looks way more “ocean park” at night.)

We waddled aimlessly for a while and decided to have lunch. We also found a “dog park” with no dogs in it. Maybe the dogs were at the shark’s game. I had my first “rum ice cream”, it was awful. I thought I could endure alcohol more in a different format. A question for my 30 year old me, or 50 year old, depending on when I figure this out: is it just me or does everyone actually find alcohol’s taste pretty bad? and do they just pretend they like it anyways?

On a side note, I found champagne taste of jelly beans. They were packed sweetly in a tiny toy champagne bottle (made of plastic) and only tasted like a hint of champagne. I guess I found my alcohol intake threshold.

(it even says “Bubbly” )

We also had some Pho at the food park. We were having ice cream and fries as lunch and all of a sudden it seemed like everyone sitting around us was having this same bowl of noodle soup. So we got excited and went for a try. At first sight we thought it was just Chinese beef noodle soup but when we actually got to see it, it was clearly Pho. The taste was ok, I can’t figure out why everyone was having it. (maybe it was the only semi-healthy option in the food park?)

We visited Winchester Mystery House and had an rather excited Uber driver. He was educating us on the history of San Jose the entire way. Hearing that we were checking out the Mystery House, he suggested the Mystery Spot, which is clearly , a mysterious spot. We didn’t have enough time that day to actually visit both the Mystery House and the Mystery Spot. It seemed like my two companions were rather intrigued by mysterious creations.

The Mystery House was not as scary as I thought it would be. I did get a little bit dizzy at the beginning because of the strange staircases. In my opinion, it was a rather well designed house, with some strangeness to it but the strangeness was negligible. We even got to visit the basement of the House. But in general, I didn’t find the house mysterious.

The San Jose trip was the farthest we travelled in the Thanksgiving Holiday. Exhausted from all the walking and sightseeing, the three of us fell into sweet dreams on our CalTrain ride back to SF. I fell asleep despite that the train was lighted so brightly as if we were in an operation room.

After Thanksgiving it’s the last week of class. (although I thought we had two more weeks of classes. We did. But one of them was dead week.) For some reasons I felt rather sad to leave my Stat class. It was not a class of smaller class size where I usually got attached to my classmates and the faculties. My Stat class was huge. Maybe it’s because I put in tons of effort into my homework and lecture notes. On the one hand, I can’t wait for the class to end so that I can finally stop worrying about the annoyingly daunting conditions and types of hypothesis tests. On the other hand, I felt like I had a really rewarding and fulfilled semester. I learned so much and it would be sad to see the semester coming to an end, like any good novels I enjoyed.

Today is Friday December 2nd, last day of instruction. My roommate and I decided to go for a one-day skiing trip to Lake Tahoe before the whole deadness of dead week hit us. I got my Japan Visa and winter break is just around the corner. I have mixed feelings but now it’s not the right time to sort the feelings out. Anyways, I guess that’s all for this blog post. I wish all the students taking final in the next few weeks (including me lol) a success final and a satisfying winter break.

“I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure, born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be-withheld; or offended only at a price I cannot afford to give.”

I realized that the metaphor of automaton was probably the most popular and well-known part of Jane Eyre, as in “Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings?” Yet, my favorite quote from the book is actually as quoted at the very top of this blog. What attracted me is the accuracy of Mr Rochester’s understanding of Jane Eyre, given the short amount of time they spend together up till the point when the quote is spilled out from Mr Rochester disguised as a Gypsy woman.

Mr Rochester clearly understands Jane Eyre. Maybe this is what love is all about. Meeting another soul who understands yours and coming to the realization that one’s life can never be complete without its other half, that it is true that god splits one soul into two and destiny (yes such a vague, superstitious, childish, unreal, and above all, grandiose concept) manifests itself. Such romance, such pureness, much jealousy (from me).

Jane Eyre reminds me of the connection between itself and lots of things happening in my daily life. I have read Jane Eyre from head to toe for about three or four times (well, I’m only twenty and I definitely/hopefully have sixty more years to go) and each time I was able to see the story from a different angle and got different inspirations out of it. I guess it depends on what is on my mind when I read the book. Obviously what I focuses in primary school is way different from what I values in life now. I like Jane Eyre, both the character and the book.

The following paragraph is me grumbling about the “mandatory readings”section in my early school days. Please skip since they are neither nutritious nor helpful in any means. I still have to write about it b/c I can’t stop my mind flowing all over the place, per usual. 

I didn’t like the book as a young kid. I hate the fact that some numb educators(I mean can they even be called educators? they did tons of work but most of it has nothing to do with actually “educating” kids) decides to put parts of Jane Eyer into my primary school textbook. WRONG! nobody actually “reads”textbooks, introducing Jane Eyre by putting it into mandatory readings for school only pushes kids (me) away from reading it! As a kid I hated “mandatory” readings. Such a cold, strict, forceful and sad way of introducing reading to young kids. My primary school textbook included the section of Jane Eyre in which she revealed her true emotions to Mr Rochester. I remembered reading this section in textbook and was totally confused: first of all, I didn’t understand (in primary school) that between boys and girls there could exist relationships other than friendship, i.e. I didn’t realize that love in a romantic way existed. secondly, this section of Jane Eyre alone just makes Jane looks like a desperate woman yelling at someone she admires for simply not accepting her love, which is totally off topic for the book.

Jane Eyre has several movie interpretations, my favorite one is Jane Eyre 2006 version by BBC. I used one of the screenshot from the movie as the featured image of this blog post. This is Jane sitting and meditating. I enjoyed the 2006 version the most because: 1) Jane and Mr Rochester are not pretty human beings in this version, which fits the setting of the original work 2) For some reason I find Jane in this version has an aura of “independent woman” around her. If I have to draw out Jane Eyre in my mind, it would probably be the 2006 version of Jane. She seems to be perfectly fine reading, entertaining, or sitting alone. 3) Have you ever noticed the posture of a person can effect other people’s opinions on her? maybe I’m just crazy but the 2006 version Jane has the best posture. I mean look at it.

(She sit quite straight.)

I realized that I had digressed quite a bit. But anyways, the connection I see between Jane Eyre and my recent life is the definition of “love” , well love is a big word, then maybe “romance”. I just finished talking with my friend about the many romantic relationships we’ve encountered and seen in our daily life. Imo, romantic relationships around me seems to always fall into one of the extremes: either the relationship seems to last forever, or the bond breaks within one month. I mean seriously one month?! Is that even enough time to know somebody, to even start to have deep conversations? Or is it just because I’m too slow?

How many of us are actually “loving” our significant others? When the “one-month” relationships break up, do they feel disappointed? Surely breakup brings sadness. But will this sadness last, how long will it last? Moreover, do they feel disappointment? Are we respecting our significant other as our equal when in an romantic relationship? I realize that Jane Eyre is fictional and thus cannot be used as standards in evaluating real life relationships. “Evaluating”, I sound cold.

My mind is clearly wandering around again. Maybe I will come back and edit this post later. But if there is one thing I am for sure, it is that in Jane Eyre the word “soul” is used much more times than in real life. Love someone for his or her soul is the easiest way to ensure a stable and enriching relationship. Yet why do we forget about this and focus on much minor things all the time?

I don’t know how long this blog is going to survive due to my lack of motivation and inspiration in the blogging world (though, I am working on following more bloggers and documenting my life in a scheduled way, i.e. Polaroid pictures and journals). Anyways, I will try to make my 30 dollars for the .blog domain spent to its fullest.

Tomorrow is the first day of my Thanksgiving break. The “normal” thanksgiving break was supposed to start on Thursday, which is Nov. 24th. However, it seems like the holiday schedule is a bit funny for my school. I entered B-college in Fall 2014. During my first year of college, Thanksgiving Holiday started on Nov.24th, like most of my high school friends entering different colleges. I remembered this so clearly because one of my high school friends apparently had his holiday started on Nov.21st (That makes Thanksgiving break an entire week, excluding the weekend preceding Nov.21st) This awkwardly long schedule of Thanksgiving break is so confusing to me. But for my college, it seems like the four day Thanksgiving break is not enough for its mentally tortured students. If the school starts Thanksgiving break at Nov.24th, students start leaving school at Nov.23rd. (which makes it hard for instructors to have full classes to teach). Although, I must admit that I sometimes suspect that the instructors are secretly wishing students to not appear in classes in the hope that one day not one single student will show up in class. And thus, the school’s administrative people would have to do something in order to not waste both sides’ precious holiday time. The awesome plan that they came up with is to have no instruction on Nov.23rd, so that students can leave early as they wish, and instructors don’t have to show up to nearly empty classrooms and be disappointed once more.

One flaw about the plan: apparently students are leaving school on Nov.22nd this year. which makes me wonder how long will it take for my school to add yet one more day onto our Thanksgiving holiday schedule.

I have great expectation for this year’s Thanksgiving break. Partly because of my previous experiences, though gradually improving, were never the “best” experience I could have for Thanksgiving. I had always considered Thanksgiving break a short break. I remembered flying to New York for my first Thanksgiving break in college(old schedule, so started at Nov.24th) and was more than exhausted to get off the plane at 2AM in the morning (thanks to time differences across the US) and had to fly back to B-City, where my college is located, in less than three days. My first Thanksgiving break in college turned out to be such a tiring experience that for my second Thanksgiving break in Sophomore year, I visited S-city, an hour’s flight to the north of B-city. My friend from High School went to W-college over there. We had an awesome time sleeping in until Noon, finally leaving her apartment at around 2PM, having late-brunch(?)/early-dinner at around 3PM, trolling around the city without exact purposes, watching movies, then going back to my friend’s apartment at around 10PM, having late-dinner at around 11PM, then chit-chatting, or simply chilling, until 2AM in the morning, then falling asleep with lights on. It was an absolutely unhealthy, inefficient, and mentally satisfying (to my surprise) Thanksgiving break. This year my friend is visiting me in B-city. I started planning activities for the break two weeks ahead so hopefully I won’t wake up at Noon for this year’s Thanksgiving break.

My cousin is also visiting me from I-college south from B-college. Super excited for all the philosophical (seriously, he’s a much more mature person than I am) late-night talks!

That’s it for now I guess. I just finished my last homework before Thanksgiving and really, can’t control myself right now.