January 1, 2011 – A Beginning and an End

When I went to buy a computer for my counselor in the morning, I didn’t help much. By the time it was sorted out at noon, he invited me to have a meal together. I felt a bit embarrassed—after all, “no reward without merit,” I should be the one treating him, hoping he’d look after me more in the future.

Around seven, a few people went to the train station to buy tickets. I asked them to get one for me too, but later they called back saying they couldn’t get any. When I ran into them returning at the school gate, they gave me back my student ID and asked where I was going. “Chengdu,” I answered. “Chengdu tickets on the 10th are easy to get.” Damn, I specifically asked you guys to buy Chengdu tickets. Guess I’ll have to go buy it myself. I put my student ID in my pocket and went to find my counselor at the Third Middle School gate. After waiting a while, they arrived and we went to the computer city.

While eating with my counselor, I realized we didn’t have much in common to talk about. School matters weren’t worth discussing, and our lives had little overlap. We were basically just making conversation while eating, which felt quite awkward. In real life, no one wears labels on their face. When we interact, we can only observe and guess someone’s interests and hobbies. But in online life, I’ve already labeled myself—my likes and dislikes are clearly stated in the sidebar. If you like it, get close; if not, leave. So real-life communication is the hardest.

Before I woke up today, I had a dream. In a place full of broken coffins, somewhat like a mass grave, a soldier sitting in a tank was shooting a kangaroo with a gun. I rescued the kangaroo from their hands, let it jump onto my arm, then took it to the southernmost part of China, with the sea strait outside. I was about to take a boat to send it back to Australia when suddenly the kangaroo spoke: “I’m from Mianzhu, I’m not going to Australia.” I thought, why does this kangaroo want to go back to the zoo? Didn’t it escape? The dream ended there, woken up by the classmates who’d gone to buy train tickets earlier. Later when I thought about it, this dream had quite a meaning, so I specifically recorded it here. As for Mianzhu in the dream—that’s the hometown of Jiannanchun liquor—I still can’t figure out why that place appeared.

Logically, my blog should show “2010——2011” below today, but it still hasn’t appeared. This is also why I randomly wrote this post—to test if it would appear after publishing this article, though it goes against my “better nothing than something mediocre” principle.