在青春的路口，曾经有那么一条小路若隐若现，召唤着我。
母亲拦住我：“那条路走不得”。
我不信。
“我就是从那条路走过来的，你还有什么不信？”
“既然你能从那条路走过来，我为什么不能？”
“我不想让你走弯路。”
“但是我喜欢，而且我不怕。”
母亲心疼地看我好久，然后叹口气：“好吧，你这个倔强的孩子，那条路很难走，一路小心！”
上路后，我发现母亲的没有骗我，那的确是条弯路，我碰壁，摔跟头，有时碰得头破血流，但我不停地走，终于走过来了。
坐下来喘息的时候，我看见一个朋友，自然很年轻，正站在我当年的路口，我忍不住喊：“那条路走不得。”
她不信。
“我母亲就是从那条路走过来的，我也是。”
“既然你们都可以从那条路走过来，我为什么不能？”
“我不想让你走同样的弯路。”
“但是我喜欢。”
我看了看她，看了看自己，然后笑了：“一路小心。”
我很感激她，她让我发现自己不再年轻，已经开始扮演“过来人”常患的“拦路癖”
在人生的路上，有一条路每个人非走不可，那就是年轻时候的弯路。不摔跟头，不碰壁，不碰个头破血流，怎能炼出钢筋铁骨，怎能长大呢？

看似不同的两个国家，其实很多地方很相似。

今天跟中国朋友讲两个美国朋友MB和MK来自同一个城市，是老乡，顿时感觉美国变得亲切了。看起来在美国人身上也可以用“老乡见老乡，两眼泪汪汪”这个俗语了。

一美国朋友近期准备去杭州，于是我们讨论中国和美国的区别。

1. 中国人普遍比美国人瘦好几圈。在中国普通身材的人，在美国属于营养不良型的。在美国普通身材的人，在中国都是胖子。
2. 中国大部分人不信教，美国大部分人信教。
3. 中餐的主食是米和面。美国菜的主食是肉。

另外，在生活中，我要成为一个更加坚强，独立，自信和勤快的人。

今天接到麻省来的信，要求我做陪审员。读了那封信的要求之后，我发现做为非美国人，我不符合陪审员的要求。于是我去网上填了一个表。第一个问题是“你是否符合陪审员的要求”，我回答“否”。第二个问题问“为什么”，我选了“因为我不是美国公民”。第三个问题问我的人种是什么。第四个问我想通过邮政系统还是电子邮件收取进一步的信息。我一一作答。

这真是有趣的美国文化浸染。我去年的室友也收到了类似的信。日语课的朋友前几天缺课也是因为这个。还有今天我问的朋友准备明年1月履行他的义务。

作为美国公民可以在法律上做决定，还真爽~

Conversation with Alex today:

 moi:  I am really afraid of rejection.
Alexandra:  hmmm

姥姥刚刚给我讲文革时候的故事。她说，她那个时候因为身份不好，被斗了一天。白天把肩章卸掉，被打嘴巴子，晚上被关在礼堂，要写检讨书。晚上看门的是一个又黑又壮的炊事员，劝说她还有三个孩子，不要做傻事。她因为相信党，相信自己的家人，愣是一个字都不写。结果第二天早上被放了，肩章也还回来了，还是继续工作。她说，那是她最难的时候，但是也克服了。我回想过去，觉得好像把自己给丢了。我要重新找回来。

I catch thoughts,
my own,
and other people's.

I train myself to become better,
so I can catch thoughts,
whether they fly high,
or low,
spinning,
or straight.

I wrote this when I was studying for my Japanese History midterm. Whenever I do something on my computer, I have my diary software open, so I can write down whatever that comes to my mind. I am a firm believer that we really can't ignore our thoughts, but we need to be aware of them, analyze them, and improve them. I take great pleasure in doing it for my friends, too.

Enter the door,
Mount the world runway.

I wrote this before brunch on Sunday. The sun hung high in the sky, and the air felt personable. There were very few people in the Dining Hall. I have always felt Winthrop Dhall like a runway. You enter the door, and walk straight past tables and chairs on either side to get to the card checker. I had been thinking about my life, because I am graduating in June. Being an idealist, seeing someone enter the door, I wrote down the small pseudo-poem above.

Destiny is a word,
People created it,
To excuse for the complexity of the world,
And their ignorance.

On this paper-writing day,
My alarm rang 6 times in the morning,
Once every 10 minutes.

It took a lot of self-love,
To be my own pastor,
And forgive myself for making the mistake.

It will take collective wisdom,
To find out,
What went wrong,
And what to do differently next time.

Quick entry: my dermatologist was mature enough to have experienced the Great Depression, and he said that this recession in front of our eyes looks like the one that has happened in the past. Oops~ hold on boys and girls for this roller-coaster ride! XD

I looked at some websites of US fashion magazines: Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Vogue. And then I looked at some websites of Japanese fashion magazines: CanCam, Pinky, ViVi. There are major differences between these two countries. US sites have much more information online, but Japanese sites have very little information. US sites are tab-oriented, but Japanese ones have very crowded homepages. Personally, I like US fashion websites more, but Japanese fashion more.

However, Japanese girls don't seem to wear very short dresses in the winter. Hope they don't get sick.

I am naturally curious -->
I want to learn -->
Colleges think that the best way to teach is to assign homework -->
Since I am in college, in order to learn, I need to do homework

I am pretty sure about other steps of this deduction, but I am not sure about the first step. A friend suggests that what we tend to do when we are little reveals our nature. I haven't come up with a better way of assessing my natural tendencies.

Another reason for doing work is probably also valid:

I want to survive -->
I want enough money -->
I want a decent job & decent jobs are offered to those who have a college degree -->
I want a decent college degree -->
I want to pass all my classes -->
I want to do homework

Please comment~~ thanks!

Most guys don't talk about girls and sex more in the locker room... they talk about what they normally talk about

At lunch, I was sitting together with two friends who are both in a stable relationship. They were talking about getting Christmas gifts for their boyfriends, their salaries, Sex and the City, etc. It almost feels like in a downtown NYC cafe. I started to picture them getting married, having kids, and living in homes in the suburbs. Maybe I'll end up that way, too. (That's why I don't want to grow up! :( Life's not fun past that point) So I started thinking about this question I think about a lot: why do people get married?

After searching on the web, I pasted the first article I found below. Let's read it together.

I am more or less persuaded. Why don't they offer courses like this in college? I feel like everyone should get this kind of education, instead of letting us learn things that are irrelevant to our lives.
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People marry to get company that they would not get if they were single. Nobody wants to return to an empty home, which is what happens if you do not marry. Isolation can be killing. Studies have shown that isolation can be harmful to health as heavy smoking or drinking.

It is only in the movies that bachelors look young and carefree. If you see men who are single, after the age of 28 or so, you will find that they look older and more worn out than married persons of the same age. Scores of studies done in North America and Western Europe shows that married people enjoy better health than singles. They also live longer.

Take mental health for instance. Singles outnumber married individuals by three to one in mental hospitals. Outnumbering the singles however, are widowed people, testifying to a fact that the death of a spouse is one of life's most stressful events.

However, data shows that divorce can unbalance a married individual. Divorced people in mental hospitals one and a half times, some studies shows. Single men are nearly twice as likely to commit suicide as married men. Divorced and widowed men, however, were even more suicidal than single men. Looking at this data it is worth examining why marriage contributes to health and longevity and why being single has the reverse effect. The answer is simple.

People who are married and especially those with children, drink and drive less, take drugs less, and engage in less risky behavior. They feel responsible for their wife and children while an unencumbered bachelor tends to be more reckless. Medical studies confirm that the benefits from marriage are many.

Married people not only have lower rates for a variety of illness, they are less accident-prone than singles. Singles also are far more likely to have a car accident or die of diseases of the liver, largely caused by drinking liquor. Research shows that married people drink least, the widowed, divorced or separated the most.

Heavy drinkers are also heavy smokers. Married people are happier than singles because man is a social animal and loneliness depresses him because human being grow up with close relationships and cannot cope with isolation.

A man lives in a family for many years after he is born. In school and college, he has friends. When he begins a job, he has office colleagues. But it is only at home as a bachelor that he is all alone. He cannot endure that. That is why you find men getting married soon after they begin working.

Finally marriage derives its strength from a human being's need to perpetuate himself beyond death by producing children. This evolutionary need is so strong that even an enlightened thinker like Bertrand Russell wrote that people unable to have children begin to find life meaningless because there is nothing to connect them with a distant future when they would not be alive.

I recently had some problems with writing in Japanese and French, so I consulted Wikipedia for solutions. During the process of looking up information and reading, I stumbled upon an article that I want to share with you.

After reading this article, I still hold the same thought that writing in a foreign language depends on having read a lot in the same language. I feel like I should sacrifice some other activities and focus on reading more in Japanese and French. Of course, I always need to read a lot in English in order to produce good works.

Hope this article is useful for you, too! (Especially the section of strategies to combat the writer's block)
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Writer's block

Origins of writer's block

Writer's block can be closely related to depression and anxiety,^[1] two mood disorders that reflect environmentally caused or spontaneous changes in the brain's frontal lobe. This is in contrast to hypergraphia, more closely linked to mania, in which the changes occur primarily in the temporal lobe. These processes, and their implications for treatment, are described in neurologist Alice Flaherty's book The Midnight Disease.

However, another interpretation of writer's block, sometimes confused with scant output, is given in the book Silences, by Tillie Olsen, who argues that historically many women and working-class writers have been unable to devote themselves to, or concentrate on, their writing because their social and economic circumstances prevent them from doing so.

It is widely thought that writer's block is part of a natural ebb and flow in the creative process. Author Justina Headley explains in keynote speeches that for her it comes from losing touch with the characters about whom she is writing; and that by discovering who they are again, the block disintegrates.

Writer's block as a chronic problem

There have been cases where writer's block has lasted for years or decades. The most notable example of this in modern literary history was Henry Roth's writer's block which persisted for sixty years and was caused by a combination of depression, political problems, and an unwillingness to confront past problems. This kind of writer's block seems to be quite rare, and most writer's block lasts for shorter periods or simply a particular sitting. Writer's block has caused problems for writers using the serial form, such as Stephen King's The Green Mile.

Strategies for overcoming writer's block

Some authorities have recommended the following to those suffering from writer's block:^[2]

• Scheduling time to write and work, regardless of the quality of the output.^[3]
• Engaging in brief periods of "freewriting" or "mindwriting," in which people impulsively write whatever comes to mind.^[4]
• Challenging negative thoughts about one's skill or ability to write.^[5]
• Using writers' exercises such as "chunking". They use many websites that contain numerous creative writing exercises. Writers read an exercise, and do it.
• Use the process known as automatic writing
• Taking a break, meditating, or doing relaxation exercises to relieve any pressure on oneself and on the writing.
• Doing something out of the ordinary. If writer's block comes from a lack of new ideas, attempts to spark creativity by going somewhere new or doing something different can be useful.
• Returning to the writing after a lapse of a day or two.
• Write a basic plot outline of the story if having problems keeping the story on the rails.
• Brainstorming at the beginning of the writing can help the writer by relating every point to another.
• Reading, watching movies or plays, or similar activities that might bring inspiration.
• Going out to get some fresh air.
• Similarly, diet and exercise are linked to optimal performance of mind and body - thus, keeping oneself in good health is important for creative output. Aerobic exercise oxygenates the brain, and walking in particular is a time honored remedy for creative block.
• Set your writing down, go out and do something (something that will keep you busy) and then come back in a few hours with a fresh mind.
• Try asemic writing.
• Review and if necessary reorganize source material or notes.
• Listen to music.
• Join a Writing Group

Other factors

Psychology:

• Hypolexia/Dyslexia^[6] (in contrast to Hyperlexia), Stopping thought, Thought suppression, Blocking effect, Intrusive thoughts, Thought disorder
• Procrastination, Low intelligence, Muteness

Sociology:

• Censorship, Oppression, Mind control, Social control, family pressure.
• Silence#In debate, Vow of silence

Human geography:

• Lack of resources such as time, money and skill; limitations such as poverty, literacy and education; major disruptive events such as war, natural disasters.