The life of a scholar is a strange one. My Chinese teacher taught me a saying today which captures it exactly (if a bit immodestly): "phoenix feathers and dragon scales". What it really means is that every human life is tiny but precious, but to me it seems to have a slight strain of the eclectic as well, peculiarity, impracticality, beauty. Of course I am reading too much into it.
What I really mean to say is that being on a work groove like I have been makes one feel strange and adrift, maybe a little like being high, in that you see things that no one else can see, only more strenuous. And again, it's a little like being in training for a mental marathon. That's what graduate school is like in general, I realize as I near the end of it. It's to make you stronger and stronger so you can put in two, then four, then seven hour days of mental labor, and teach you to be your own boss, look over your own shoulder, crack the whip over your own head.
I have a mathematician friend who, in a bad spell, made himself work by tying himself to his chair. The effort of getting untied was just slightly more than his urge to procrastinate. It wouldn't work for me, of course, because I procrastinate in the same position as I work in. There are Chinese stories of young scholars keeping themselves awake while memorizing reams of boring commentaries by tying their long hair to the rafters so that if their heads started to droop, the yank of their hair pulling would wake them. Also they would pierce themselves with pins, but we won't go there. Ugh.
Me, I have been putting in 3-7 hour days without any such devices, merely because I want to be done with the project I'm working on, because I feel capable of doing it, because I want to show'em all, and because--I admit it--I'm a tiny bit inspired.
So much for the internal world, which has been essentially the same for 5 days, naturally with periods of exhilaration and despair.
As for the external world, there are only a few events worth noting. On Tuesday there was a dissertation support group meeting. I decided it would do me good to go, as I'm becoming a complete hermit. But somehow I had a hard time prying myself out of my apartment. The meeting was at 7; 6:30 came and went. Finally I dashed down and got my bicycle. But every ten feet, the chain kept falling off. I am getting good at putting it back on, but things couldn't go on like that. I looked closer: the wheel that the chain goes on was warped, probably by some bicycle domino effect in the garage during my absence. It will have to be replaced. Stupid worthless thing.
I took it back to the garage and left it there in disgust. It was 7:15. Do I give up and go home, or do I take a cab? I was already in a pretty black mood by this time, and I knew if I went home nothing would cheer me up, so I hailed a cab. I got there at 7:30 and wasn't even the last one to arrive. IP, who does psychological research on pre-school kids and is the only one with the managerial skills to actually run a meeting called us to order (repeatedly) and had us report one by one on our doings. By the time it got round to me time was short, so I kept it to two sentences. People seemed impressed, though! I am impressed myself. I don't think the thing I'm writing is stellar, but a 10 page article in Chinese (yeah, it's up to 10 pages, single-spaced) is nothing to sneeze at. I also learned some things about taxes.
Then, as if in karmic reward for my travails, I saw it on the way out, and cried hurriedly, "Can I got that to go!?" For a mere 8 RMB (never mind that it's enough to buy two cafeteria meals), i.e., $1 US, the key to temporary happiness was mine. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Is that not a beautiful thing?
I saved it and had it for breakfast the next day.
I nearly encountered a crisis in actually trying to eat it, since I don't have any forks! But the cafe was kind enough to provide one, as you can see from the last picture.
It was not as good as mine, and certainly not as good as my mama's, but it was pretty darn good. About as good as your average restaurant pie. It was apple, though with some raisins in it. I am not a fan of raisins in pie, but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, it tasted divine.
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