Updated

Snows again. Change of plan. Today I decided to stay home. Sitting in front of my computer, I tuned to Foshan 98.5 But wholly crow they were actually playing Rihanna, just like an R&B station here. Not exactly what I was looking for. Globalization once again shows me its ugly face.

I went to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" last week and I am really glad I did. It probably is one of the best movies I saw recently and I was still interested in the script when I got home, so I downloaded the short story to read and even read some critiques/reviews in the New York Times. Given the very high quality of the reviews that I cam across, I decided not to put in my two cents. There are two things I could add to the on-going discussions of this movie, however. Everyone can relate to Benjamin's growing up, an experience of realizing his many superficial differences from everyone else while discovering more similarities. He was an septuagenarian; his friend Daisy was an tennage girl. He was white; his parents were black. Above all, he reverses the chronology of the aging of the human body. In its core, however, the human experience his soul is living is the very same as yours and mine. We all come to the world alone and, as Benjamin's mom puts it, "go to the same place". We all seek pleasure in sex, in friendship, in the arts, in nature, etc. Instead of contemplating time, refreshing our conception of time, comparing this movie to others that play with time, such as "Memento", a very 2008 thing to to, I think, is to celebrace the diversity that we have in this life and embrace the very similarities we share as human beings. A very strange way to end this out-of-nowhere sort of blog, let's welcome 2009, the first year with President Obama. Let's get out of this economic downturn.   

和朋友喝多了竟然开始讨论做生意的问题。人喝醉了就是好玩。有人喜欢半夜打电话诉苦，这位同学喜欢研究赚钱之道。只可惜我的business partner都没有一个去过中国。那真是“干个屁。”美国又有身份的问题。说了一晚，结论是还是乖乖的打工吧。

最近英文水平下降的问题可是越来越严重了。今天吃饭跟别人聊天竟然别人都听不懂了。昨天竟然used a word that doesn't even exist. "I missed the darn golf ball and almost dug a whole in the turf. The sand FLIED and showered over my head." 朋友说: "Chong, you got a legit job and you can't say that at work." 到底该怎么办。。。连电话都不敢打了。

近英文能力大有退步，概为废寝忘食打电玩所致。房子找到了，同屋找到了，开始找家具，忙这忙那的。学习真是一塌糊涂。估计会拿到无数个B。非洲舞蹈估计最惨，上次作业拿了个C.也不知道为什么就是提不起心思好好学习天天向上。快3点钟了，竟然在写blog。明天的考试不知如何是好。

Its been two weeks since the essay was assigned. I just can't bring myself together to just sit down and do it. Senioritis has taken an emotional toll on my academic well being; not that it matters too much, but its like the last several yard in a marathon and I do want to finish strong. Every saturday night has been the same. A combination of floor parties, strangers walking into my room for some drinking games, going over to Marshal for a keg of some theme, stopping at the snack shop for a slice of pizza. Not too bad. But I just can't relax and let it go. Er...

The College held a political panel this afternoon to discuss election 08 issues. It was quite a good length of entertainment and intellectual engagement. As much as I would like to part of this fascinating process, I am just as happy being an audience of the election process. The complexities of regulations at the state levels regarding the choosing of a party candidate in a caucus, a primary, a combination of both, or a combination of either and another convention, the arbitrariness of such conventions being open or closed, and the front-loading of these conventions and therefore the campaigns and debates, all add to the entertainment for some and the frustration and confusion for the others. Furthermore, inside either party lies another layer of politics. The dems struggle with the electibility of their candidates with the Clintons fussing about Obama's experience and Obama's supporters vetoing Billary's integrity. On the other side of the isle, the GOP is suffering from fragmentation as the fiscal conservatives, the religious conservatives and the value voters all pulling strings for their respective candidates, although it is absolutely inconceivable that the latter two groups would cross over to the other side. Regulations aside, the political issues and the diverse characters of the candidates contribute to the intricacy of the American political landscape of this year. An increasing consensus of a recession might draw people's attention to the economics rather than the "war against terror". Hopefully the issue wonks can increase their audiance base and draw more to the dems. McCain is now the safe bet for the next presidency. But another 100 years in Iraq? Wake up, Americans. If the draft reinstated, despite a very slight possibility, you might see your ballot a bit differently after you wave goodbye to your kids going to the battlefield.