San Francisco Day one

We went to Berkley today. Berkley didn't appeal to me very much in the beginning. The building style is not uniform. No uniform color. No consistent building type. Some of them have Greek Temple design. Some don't. I even saw one of them having a Chinese type roof. Simply speaking, it's very unorganized. 

Maybe, it's a symbol of freedom.

We enjoyed the sunset in the upper hill of the campus. You can see the bay area far away in blood-red shining.

Seattle Day Four

Today is the last day in Seattle.

I went to the Art Museum of Seattle. This museum is actually only NOT-BAD to me, but it's a good place to kill time though. On the other hand, I found myself have never ever appealed strongly to the art museum, either in Chicago or in here. Anyway, there is still some master pieces impressed me very much.

After that, I visited Pike Market again. I ate a  sausage sandwich inside the market. And then I went to a very stylish bookstore near the market. The books there is categorized by some special theme like Cuba, female right.... Inside each theme, books were put casually unorganized, which made me feel it stylish. 

Tonight, I took the airplane to my final destination, San Francisco. A city looks so dirty but with feeling.

Seattle Day Three

What will happen when a city built in a place where tides flooded twice a day? In a time having no toilet system, the tide pulls crap out all over the street and make the city stinky. And what would happen if this city were burnt down after a desperate fire but everyone survived? After the UNDERGROUND TOUR, I realized Seattle is just this kind of city.

Although it's UNDERGROUND we saw as a dark, humid and basement-like place, this is actually the real ground level( first floor) of the city where sunshine was used to be so bright everyday 100 years ago. The citizens decided to rebuilt the city in a higher level. What used to be the first floor now became the basement. People opened a new door on the original second floor if the building was survived from the Great Seattle Fire.

I was astonished by the fact that what I thought to be the ground is actually not ground. Everything is elevated. Every road is actually empty under it. It just made me feel so unreal.
And it reminded me that I felt so curious about why Chicago had a first-floor-like basement. Now it's obvious the same reason, the Great Chicago Fire.

In the afternoon, we visited the Pike Market. It's really a fascinated place. It's like Taiwan traditional market. There is EVERYTHING in Pike Market like seafood, fruit, vegetable, old books, antiques, vendors of decorations and even entertaining people.

So, it's absolutely a nice place to look around.

Seattle Day Two

In the morning, we ate breakfast in the inn. There is a pie maker there on the desk. I put some source into it and started baking. However, the thing I put is something else. So, the tragedy happened. It overcooked and the room became smoky. I said sorry to the servant and immediately fled away.


After breakfast, we went to Science Fiction museum and Experience Music Project. I gotta say that loudly, this place is AWESOME! If I have a chance to be in Seattle in the future, I definitely will come here again. I love EMP especially.

In EMP, it introduce the evolution of music specially in Seattle, as well as the instruments. One man on which it especially focus is Jimi Hendrix, a representative of Rock'n Roll. I saw his video in the museum and I think he is really a genius. His guitar skill is mighty amazing.

In the second floor, there is a music lab. You can tried a lot of instruments like drums, guitars, basses, keyboard and many other things. They not only provided instruments but also the programs so that you can do just like playing in a band by following the instruction. Honestly, I respect the designer of EMP. Because it's really difficult to describe Music other than letting people actually listen to it. How come they can make visitors listen to so many things without making the room noisey? This museum is built brilliently.

Seattle is really a energetic city. With a sense of freedom and creativeness, now it's my favorite city in USA.

Seattle Day One

Yesterday is a day of flight.

We departed in the morning in El Paso in Taxes, transferred in Phoenix and then attend Seattle at night.

As the first image of Seattle is its rain. It seemed to have a heavy snow before our arriving, but now it's just raining. 

We ate in a expensive restaurant named Asian Breeze. I ordered a lamp with special sauce. It's very delicious. It looks like this.

The green thing is the mashed potato with wasabi, interesting. 

Asides from the meal, we also ordered liquids. I ordered a glass of tequila. It's strong and made me drunk quickly.

I think I like this city and am excited of it.

New Mexico Day three

Today we went to another national park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It's actually resided in TX. Compared to the trip two days before, this national park is a totally different scene to view.

It's extremely wide and spectacular.




We hiked into a valley along a trial named Devil's Hall trial. It took us about three hours. The view is nice, but the view is even better outside like the one I took from the road.

New Mexico Day two

Today we visited Carlsbad Caverns.

Actually, it's very similar to the cave I went by, Marengo Cave in IN. So, I didn't take much pictures in the cave.

However, there are still some differences.

First of all, Marengo Cave located in the hills of forest, but Carlsbad Caverns resides in semi-dessert mountains where shrubs and prickly pears grow all over them.

Secondly, Carlsbad Caverns seems to be larger but I think the formations of limestones in Marengo Cave is more delicate and beautiful.

Thirdly, the most famous sight-seeing of Carlsbad Caverns is probably not the limestones, but the bats. From summer to Fall, hundreds of thousand of bats will migrate to live in the cave. To see them flushing out of the cave is very spectacular.

At night, we went to boat taking along a river in Carlsbad city. The boat drove along the river where houses asides all are decorated with colorful lights (in a sense of Christmas). With the Christmas music on the boat, this trip is so Christmas! It's best trip for young lovers.

When starting getting down the cave I felt like catching a cold, although not severe. Anyway, I hope I could become better tomorrow.

New Mexico Day one

It's the first day of my winter vocation trip. My two travel-mates are my senior high school friend and her boy friend. And today we went to White Sand National Monument.

It's extremely beautiful.

It's as white as snow, but as dry as dessert.

The pure white sand is so soft that you sink into it once you stand on it. Further, the sand is so comfortable that it's not sticky at all. I grabbed a fist of sands and then let go, the sands just flew away with wind without a tiny little sand left in my hands.




We left after sunset. It's really a must-visited place. People said that it's better in summer when some flowers blooms.

Humorous American Professor

Today I helped Tung unpack some facility in the basement of Talbat. 

It's a pretty large box, maybe as high as a person. Very heavy as well.

One ME professor passed by and said "Oh~ is that a Christmas presents?"

We spent about twenty minutes to unpack the outer box. What's inside is another box( still pretty large). At the same time, the professor came by again and said " boxes inside boxes, what's going on? "

Pretty funny guy.

【梁正宏】邀黑面琵鷺跳一支舞

梁老師上課教的非常好

我一共修了他三門課

我的核工基礎是他打下的

以前經過他辦公室時就注意到他的門口會貼一些他的作品

【邀黑面琵鷺跳一支舞】是他的新作

我覺得很感動

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

前奏起身，我緩緩向嶙峋的妳走近

如同孩提時，纏就阿母的環抱
熱情地伸出雙手，邀妳開步同跳第一支舞
左足前進，右足側踏，左足再後點
點點滴滴，隨我沿蜿蜒的記憶
重新勾勒阿母兜我入懷的繡圖
時間隨音樂的行進，彷彿拉近又推遠
曾是阿母偷偷遞給補習費
催促童年的我，循小徑趕往美術課的鈴響
小徑兩旁，玻璃空瓶高低排列
彷彿老舊的開罐器齒痕，迂迴繞進廚房後門
醬瓜拌飯，又是阿母稀鬆的一頓午餐日常
停步走，肩碰肩，背後換手
我聽到不遠處，縈繞有縫紉車的吱喳聲
針線起落，那是教授洋裁的阿母正兼職趕工醫院的制服
密密縫織，如快板般的詩行
平仄著貼補清苦生活的曲調
是降Ｂ大調還是升Ｃ小調呢？
雙手繞圈，左右換位，交叉換手
再近一些，還有高中聯考的鐘聲傳來無數的音符
復旋入，深夜裡疲憊的阿母端來溫熱的人蔘茶
漣漪紛紛，叩起教科書翻閱的每一擺幅
也輕扣著阿母收摺起的裁縫車頂蓋
懵懂詩句，伴隨縱容的稿紙阡陌
在阿母從未退稿的陪伴中，翩翩起舞
舞向大學的霓裳，也舞出人生無常的歡愉與傷痛
搭肩繞圈步，停步走，雙轉
年年，圍爐的話語總愛笑說
阿母炊煮時，被煤炭燻黑的臉龐最像妳
屬於一種超越色系的光譜暖度，慈愛的安靜
白色也是，雪花般地飄然落下
羽化翅膀，柔和地護衛翼下每一個永遠長不大的孩子
是不是阿母也像妳一樣，也擁有件絕美的羽衣
只因捨不得穿上，飛回天空離開
而將它平貼成爐灶前，漆牆上的一片潔白？
潔白一如竹竿上的晒衣，在風中飛舞著遊子思念的節拍
時間會在哪一段音節回首呢？
會不會自錯落的旋律中譜入遺忘
還是自我負笈遠行的腳步聲中悄然流失？
又是不是遠的近著，近的遠著？
從打狗到風城到陌地生（註）
我輕輕帶領，妳可要緊緊跟隨
碰肩，走步，轉圈
誰料，從急診室到加護病房到救護車
在趕返老家，歸回本位的途中
竟是我與阿母間最貼近的距離
樂章終了
我左手靠背，右手平伸
俯首感謝妳的一路相陪，並滿心期待地詢問：
若舞曲再度響起，我是否有幸能再邀妳同跳下一支舞？

正式下雪了

一覺起來
窗外赫然轉成一幅銀白畫面
好漂亮


決定一早去辦公室唸書
順便欣賞一下雪景
星期天一早
路上一片空寂
只有雪和我

哇哈哈~球拍終於到啦

就在感恩節從芝加哥玩回來的晚上

終於看到我的大郵包放在餐桌上了

也就是說我的羽球拍在過了快三個月後

總算是推翻貨船沉沒在太平洋或是被海盜劫走的可能

平安地從台灣送達熱切期待的我的手上

球套是我從國中用到現在的Kawasaki
球拍YY Carbonate 20 MS是阿太幫我準備的
禮拜六試了一下
殺球的威力連自已都嚇了一跳
哈哈
愈來愈期待下一次打球了

關於印度人的英文

我必需修正之前對印度人英文腔調的評語

說他們英文發音不好是不正確的

因為昨晚看了一部英國片Summer Scar

發現自已聽的非常吃力

原來真正英國人的英文和美國的英文竟然有這麼大的差異

相對地，哈利波特裡的英國腔巳經很美式了

畢竟還是Hollywood電影

即使如此

電影裡的對話

仍有一種似曾相似的感覺

赫然發現

這根本是印度朋友的英文麻

我恍然大悟

其實以這個角度來看印度人的英文

他們的英文根本是相當的標準

當然

並沒有那一種英文的腔調是「正確的」或「標準的」

任何腔調的英文都要想辦去聽懂

然後想辦法讓自已的英文讓所有人聽懂

就這樣

毛帽、羽毛衣、卡布其諾

在Kranert Art Center附近轉角的一家咖啡店買了一杯卡布其諾

然後就沿著Goodwin Ave. 往材料中心走去

走著走著就飄起了雪花

雪花隨風無序的紛飛

握著咖啡的手指也

沒有手套的冰麻起來

一暫間

很有一種在國外生活的感覺

很奇怪

來美國快半年了

出國的感覺始終不強烈

就好像只是換了一個地方住而巳

但是今天

毛帽、羽毛衣、卡布其諾

很有感覺

Pardon 變少了

剛來美國時，最常講的一句話就是 Pardon me。

最近突然發現，這個字出現的頻率巳經大大的減少了。

在美國，我講英文的對像，主要可分成三種人：

1、老美

2、印度人

3、母語阿拉伯語的人

這三種人中，沒有一個的英文是容易聽的懂的。

或許很奇怪，老美的英文應該很清楚啊?

但其實當他們講的很「標準」時，字跟字之間很含糊、很連續。

腔調也是平平的。

印度人的英文是異常的流利

他們不但可以講的很快，而且用字也很精準

但他們的怪異英文腔調也是非常有名的

的確也是如此

我覺得印度人蠻好相處的

有次聊天得知在印度有超過一半的人口是吃素的

這讓我很訝異

阿拉伯半島到北非都是講阿拉伯話的

之前我還以為埃圾是講埃圾話

果然交朋友還是可以長知識的

他們的英文可以感覺得出來沒有印度人那麼流利

但腔調一點也沒輸

另外

我覺得阿拉伯人也很好相處

相對的

老美基本上不太好相處

有時候會碰到一些不太理人的

不過

對話中比較會開玩笑的

也是老美

最後講一下亞州人

我們學校

中國人很多

韓國人很多

台灣人不少

日本人超極少

基本上，亞州人的英文我是聽的很懂

可能是因為大家都是用一樣的不精準的英文吧

但是

和中國人當然是講中文

而目前我沒有韓國人朋友

所以也頗少使用東亞式英文。

Plan of background construction for research

Since my recent research subject is already decided, a plan to build up a solid background focusing on my research is important.

Generally speaking, my research area is in solid physics. However solid physics is a very broad discipline. I think I should focus more on crystal and defect structure. About the transport of defect, I need to study the diffusions in materials.

To analyze the thin film, we use TEM and X-ray. Although I don't like experiment, I definitely have to be familiar with them. 

So far, all the topics mentioned above can be reviewed through the textbook of physical metallurgy.

So, let's do it.

下雨

不用打傘的小雨

讓我很悠哉的從 EE quad 散步回家

吸著濕潤的空氣

在稍涼的夜裡

有點像是回到台灣原始的杉木森林

感覺相當的舒服

Letter part 2

Unfortunately, ARC turned my explanation down and still charged me for the broken racket even though I wrote such a convincing letter. The replying letter is as followed.

Wei-Ying,

I have examined the racquet that you turned in severely broken. Our staff
specifically examines equipment when checked in and when checked out. Based
on the severity of the damage there is no way that I can wave the charge
from your account. It is very obvious that this racquet was damaged by
something other than just waving it in the air.

All of our equipment is highly used. My suggestion is that if you feel that
the racquet was damaged when you received it you should have notified the
staff before leaving Member Services and exchanged it for another one. We
can only go by the proof we have of the damaged racquet.

The charge will remain on your account. If you do not feel comfortable with
the rental equipment that we have my suggestion is that you purchase your
own equipment to use in the facilities.

Sincerely,
Kristina Pettigrew

I decided to try again. This is my response and I hope it could work.

Miss Pettigrew,

I am writing this letter because I believe I used the racket very appropriately. But I am afraid that I have no way to prove how it just broke in the air since I have no video tape to record it. However if there is indeed some surveillance camera on duty in the badminton court, it could prove what I said was totally true.

I will not bother you to find the video tape (if there is one). I just hope you could understand that what happen to me is really physically possible. When a material has a crack on the surface, there will be a phenomenon called stress concentration. The crack will not cause the fracture immediately because it need some time to propagate. But the crack will propagate faster as it's getting deeper. When the crack become deep enough, it will break even under normal stress like 'waving in the air' because of stress concentration. By the way, since I am more or less professional in badminton, when I said 'waving', it's obviously not slight waving but with some speed and strength.

No matter how, I think you are right about that I should exchange the racket in the first place. I just want to make it clear that I didn't make up some story in order to avoid the charge. I guess I will accept my unluckiness although I believe I should be waived from that.

Best,

Wei-Ying

A letter to the manager of ARC

( I went playing badminton tonight and peculiarly the racket borrowed from ARC went broken. I was told that I would be charged for this. So, I wrote this letter to the manager. The points is so strong that if I were the manager, I would be convinced.)

Miss Pettigrew,

My name is Wei-Ying Chen. I went to ARC on Wednesday night and borrowed a badminton racket.
The badminton was broken when I was using it.
I was told that I will be charged.

I think that's not my fault.
First of all, I used the racket appropriately. I did not do anything brutal like knocking the ground. All I did is regular waving the racket in air to catch the ball. It's during the motion I waved it in air when it suddenly broke and twisted. Although even I can hardly imagine, it did happen.

Secondly, there was already a deep crack at the bottom of the ring before I borrowed it and I believe it is the reason to its failure. I have noticed that for a long time because I borrow rackets every saturday afternoon. I borrowed this kind of defected rackets several times and they never went broken this way. So, I didn't expect it to break this time, either.

Maybe I should return this defected racket and borrow a new one immediately in service center in the first place. But I think ARC is also responsible not to lend students this kind of 99%-already-broken rackets. It's really not fair to the last 1%-to-break user.

The above is my explanation and I hope you could understand.

Best,

Wei-Ying

The relationship between Taking a shower in the morning and Disney Channel

    Yesterday morning, I took a shower before going to class.

    It sound nothing to talk about. Some people prefer take showers at night before bed time, as I usually do, and others prefer take showers after they get up in the morning. Maybe there are still some people not having regular washing-themselves schedules. They take showers only when they feel needed.

    Anyway, after shower I went to class. It's just like a normal day when Prof. Oxford were murmuring and I was busy taking notes. But all a sudden, I found myself feeling so comfortable sitting on chair. It's not a wooden chair in classroom anymore. Amazingly, I felt like relaxing myself in the sofa in my living room. And the blackboard with a professor in front of turned out to be a show screen. 

    So, a note-taking class is transformed into a show time. In addition, it's my favorite one, Disney Channel. Now you hear my secret. Try taking a shower before go to class and the then enjoy it. 

Trip to Turkey Run national park

    It's a short trip, about one and half drive. The park is located in Indiana state. Generally speaking, it's a forest kind of park. There, you can camp, do canoeing, hike or just casually walk around so to enjoy the nature. I won't say the view is spectacular. But it's a good place to appreciate the scenery of fall where trees turn yellow and red.

    The weather is mild. Temperature was basically cool but sun light penetrated the cloud now and then so visitors could feel the warm. In the sky, there are always some eagles whirling. 

    Here is something interesting. Since Irene was in our car on the way to the park, I said something nice on Adrian. I said that he cooked breakfast for three of us every morning. Meanwhile I also poked fun of him by saying that the breakfast is always the same like some fried eggs with tomato on top of it. After this, something amazing happened............. The breakfast next morning became......... French Fried Toast!! Haha, good.

Trip in St. Louis part two

    It's getting sunset when we 'landed' from the top of the Arch. We then visited the Cardinals Baseball Ground under the requesting of I-Hong. He is crazy about baseball, though not a fan of the Cardinals. A fan of Atlanta Brave, actually. No game today, so we just took a look at the empty ground through the fence.

    On our way back to the parking lot, we found it so weird that we barely saw a passenger or someone all our way through . Where are all the people? It's like only we five visitors were in this city. Now I realized why somebody told me St. Louis a 'dead city' before.

    Anyway, we were on our way for dinner after that. We had dinner in a restaurant named Brio, a Italic food restaurant. It looks a little bit high-classed. Because it is recommended by Li-shin, we can't help imagine what kind of life she used to live in St. Louis. During dinner, Pin-Shin asked us several questions like some hint between boys and girls, which is difficult to me. How come a never-had-a-girlfriend boy like me would know this? No matter how, the dinner became interesting since we had something to talk. We learned something and here is the conclusion: Don't give present to someone in case the misunderstanding that you were implying something. Treating a meal is a better choice. We can also think it backward. If you are really crushed on someone, don't treat a meal but give a present instead. Or she/he would misunderstand that you feel nothing on her/him. It sound quite false. Anyway, it's just logic.

    Finally, it's time to home sweet home. However, WE RAN OUT OF GAS. I-Hong noticed the low gas warning so he followed the sign on highway to the gas station. But it was not on duty. So, we used GPS to find another two gasoline stations. Unluckily, they were also closed or abandoned. At last, we called the police.

    After about fifty minutes, a police came by to check if there were really some stupid kids with a car without gasoline. After another twenty minutes, second police came. he brought us some gasoline and lead us to a gasoline station that was working. Gas filled, we were again on our way home.

THE END

Trip in St. Louis part one

    I can't believe that I had another trip out of town again since the last time I went to Chicago is only about two weeks ago. This time, it's St. Louis in Missouri, the second-most nearest big city to UIUC. Along with me are I-Hong the driver, Grace, I-Ging and Pin-Shin.

    It took about three hours to get St. Louis. The first place we visited is fast fried chicken restaurant Lee's.

    After finishing our lunch, we went to the Budwiser Brewery.

    A brewery is the place where beer is made commercially. We first looked around the exhibition and the souvenir store. Surprisingly, there is a R.O.C. flag pattern, among about fifteen nations, showed on a big board hung from the ceilings in the exhibition hall. After that, we joined the tour hold by the brewery. We visited many facilities belonged to this brewery like the stable and fermenting room. The reason here is a stable with several Dalmatian dogs and Clydesdale horses kept inside is because that it's a symbol of early career of Budwiser.

A Dalmatian and two drivers on a carriage

    The tour is composed mostly of aged couples. They asked many questions in the ending of the tour like hard-working students. I think that's cute.

    After the tour, there is free beer for every visitor. Beer is not only free but also unlimited. The taste is not bad although it's common beer you can bought in Walmart. Grace got so blushed after drinking only half cup of beer. The others seemed to be OK. For me, I drank one cup,which is obviously not enough.

    Anyway, we continued our trip, not drunkly, to the most famous landmark in St. Louis, the Arch.

The Arch and skyline of St. Louis
(photo from www.orgsites.com/mo/stlchristianhomesports/)

    This arch is really spectacular. In some way, it looks so unreal.We took cable car inside the arch to the top of it to enjoy the view. Looking to the west, it's downtown St. Louis. To the east, it's great Mississippi River. The Arch itself symbolize the city as a bridge across Mississippi River as well as a bridge for Americans starting their development in the mid-west.

Downtown St. Louis

應該讓同性戀夫妻領養小孩嗎?

        討論這個問題之前要先有一個前題，就是同性戀者和異性戀者沒有不同。

        接下來，關於法律上是否應允許同性戀夫妻領養小孩，主要有兩種正反的意見：

        一種是站在同性戀者的人權上。他們認為既然同性戀者是正常人，那當然應該有權力和正常人一樣可以領養小孩。另一種是站在小孩的人權上來說話的。這方面的人認為即使同性戀夫妻可以提供良好的家庭生活，小孩長大的過程中仍然不可避免的會感受到社會畸視的壓力。因為不管如何，總是會有人在背後指指點點。

        我同意前者的看法：應該保障同性戀夫妻領小孩的權力。

        後者陳述的是事實。沒錯，初期被同性戀夫妻領養的小孩很可能會受到畸視。但是，一旦同性戀夫妻領養常態化後，社會才會開始見怪不怪。只有社會開始見怪不怪時，才是同性戀者被視為正常人的時候。這時候，同性戀者的小孩就不再會感受到社會的壓力了。

        我承認這對初期被領養的小孩有些不太公平，因為他們是在社會價值觀尚未扭轉之前被領養的。不過反過來想想，那個小孩的出生是公平的呢?有人啣著金湯匙出生，有人的父母卻是低收入戶、罪犯或酗酒者。基於公平的原則，法律是否應禁止低收入戶、罪犯或酗酒者生小孩呢?

        當初美國社會要接受黑人和白人平權的政策時，對白人一樣是不公平的(相較於之前的白人)。第一批被送到黑人白人混合學校的學童，就好比第一批被同性戀夫妻領養的小孩。但也就是因為美國決定接受並進行這種短期陣痛的磨合，今天才看的到歐巴馬在代表民主黨競選總統。

Research plan

Appreciated, I got more sense about what to do with my research after consulting Din, a senior member in my lab.

The research I am now involved in is to study the property of CeO2 film. CeO2 has the same structure with UO2 so it's a good object to study instead of UO2, which has radiological concerns.

The film will be implemented with heavy ions in order to simulate the situation in a nuclear reactor, where fission products are always damaging the fuel. Damaged sample is studied through many analysis like TEM, SEM and so on. On the other hand, computer simulation is also conducted. We would use Molecular Dynamics to the very short initial stage of the damage formation and Kinetics Monte Carol to the long later stage of the defect migration and relaxation. 

Din said that they had spent several years on computer simulation just before this semester. It's difficult because it seems that Pro. Stubbins himself does not know simulation very well. So Din and Bei really counted on themselves actually, that's why the process is so slow. Now, they want to spend more effort on experiments to see if it would be easier to get something. 

He suggested that I should do these simulation things and experiments at the same time with an interesting strategy. Since understanding simulation theory is harder compared to doing experiments once the procedure is known, I should put my "brain" to read papers while give my "body" to experiments.

I think this idea is fine and I will follow it. I hope I can officially start the research before winter break. 

圖書館

其實我從小到大就不喜歡在圖書館唸書

我喜歡待在家裡唸

在椅子上的我定不下來

每五分鐘就要換個姿勢

蹺腳

盤腿

蹲在椅子上

站起來

走來走去

坐到桌子上

這些都不太適合在圖書館

第二

小時候唸書時

很容易就會開始神遊想像

比如讀近中國代史時

就會想像自己是統帥反攻大陸

反攻大陸後沒事就只好征服世界

而在讀數學物理的時候

我想像的劇情就....

還是在征服世界

總之，若是在圖書館

一個人突然痴痴的傻笑起來

好像也不太適當

再三

我很容易分心

輕聲細語讓我分心

正妹讓我分心

圖書館樓下菜市場的味道讓我分心

館內的故事書小說讓我分心

所以在圖書館讀書也未必比較有效率

一直到大學畢業

我都是這麼地遠離圖書館的

我想我比較習慣在一個私人空間讀書

但是

Grainger Library很不一樣

在那裡唸了幾次

發現效率非常的好

大部份是唸了好多東西

看一下時間發現才過了一小時而巳

為什麼呢

可能是挑高的大廳

空曠感讓人安定

可能是疏遠排列的座位

遙遠的正妹很難分心你

可能是地毯

走起路來沒有聲音

可能是長大了

不再在乎傻笑被人看見

可能

以後要常來圖書館唸書了

睡了十二個小時

八點半PM

看完阿拉丁 on Disney Channel 後

想說小睡一下再起來做點正事

沒想到今天特別疲累

很香甜地一直睡到

聽到Matt和Adrian在客廳的講話聲

嗯

所以巳經十二點了

我倒頭繼續睡

第二次醒來

四點十四分

睡眠時間累計八小時

腦子巳經非常清醒

一點睡意也沒有

但四點起床真的很怪

所以……

開始做夢

水籠頭開水的聲音

冰箱開門的聲音

微波爐的聲音

我房間什麼都聽得到

不用看錶

現在巳經七點半了

但起床好冷

而且

再一個小時就睡滿半天了

加油

再睡一下

八點半AM

關於生活費

我是從什麼時候沒再跟家裡拿錢的呢?

好像是在升大四的時候吧

那時候一個月爸媽給的生活費約四仟元台幣

這個錢支出我的吃飯、交通費用

每個月還會剩一點

但在付教科書及寒假上山集訓的費用後

存款會再歸零

四上時靠大三的成績和社團活動

申請到五萬多的獎學金後

就停止和爸媽拿零用錢了

講起來很有趣

爸媽有一個規定

我們家每個小孩工作的收入

五分之一要上繳

不管是多是少

譬如說我弟家教一天賺了一仟塊

回家時

他就要放倆佰元到我家客廳的鍾魁腳下

然後

它會被爸爸拿去換成樂透彩卷

回到我的獎學金

五分之一大約就是我一年的生活費

所以互抵之下

這一年就開始吃自己了

畢業後當兵

每個月拿士官的微薄薪水

退伍後旋即回清大當研究助理

中間只有五天的無薪假期

一年後

進清大核工碩士班

津貼大約和士官的薪水相等

又過半年

來到了UIUC

我覺得自己很幸運

一輩子還未曾為錢煩惱過

既不用打工賺生活費

也沒有和家裡拿錢的罪惡感

但除了運氣之外

我想這和我的生活習慣也很有關係

可能有人不相信

在我今年去日本玩之前

我還未曾替自己買過衣服

(紀念衫除外)

我穿的都是親戚給的舊衣服

沒有逛街的興趣

也不會去電影院、KTV之類的

像是個宅男

但又不會像宅男擁有很多的收藏品

總之我的生活支出很低

所以一點點的生活費就很夠用了

記得爸爸一向是反對小孩打工的

他覺得有時間打工還不如拿來唸書

(不過最近他的堅持似乎有些軟化了)

而媽媽則是很讚成小孩打工

她總是把我們拉去當選務人員或是幫我們找家教

而我很反對我打工

原因未必在於要節省時間來唸書

或許更是因為我覺得打工的工作多半是無聊的

而我無法忍受無聊

即使它是Easy Money

一個人可以忍受無聊時

他的生活只會愈變愈無聊