I feel I'm a disaster saved by random good-hearted strangers

It is interesting how the system works, and just the system in general. I used the word "system", rather than "society", or "world", or "earth" because they are all too specific examples when chaos are invovled. A few years ago, I started to be convinced that not everthing happens logically since that'd be boring to death, and random events are very important -- so important that it's a pain they are actually random.

For instance, this morning, an absent-minded disaster (meaning me) put a full stack of 35 graduate students' homework on the top of her car, unloaded her other crap, and just started driving without remembering those papers she was holding on to a second ago and that they were meant for her to grade. Fortunately, she was honked and waved at by a stranger in a SUV passing her while she was making her first turn in the parking lot, and fortunately, she noticed that that guy was honking and waving at HER, and fortunately, she decided not to ignore this honk like what she did to all the other ones, she got the message -- "hey, there's something on top of your car!!" She was saved for the day.

I can't imagine how embarrased I would have been and how long the embarrassment would have lasted if that stranger didn't run into me today and if I lost all the papers. And it's not just about my own embarrassment, it'd also be those folks' time and labor forever lost. This is not the first time I was saved by randomness, and hopefully not the last. I wondered, after this, how strong the harmonizing and stablizing power this system has got, using random events in many smart ways. What's in turmoil under the mask of peace, and what can we see beneath chaos and noises? Now I'm a truly believer in serendipity -- it may not happen to me, but it will happen to somebody.

So much for today. :)

smell

That's yesterday morning. It was not the first time (well the second time) I walked down the empty long hallway but suddenly I felt the smell of that school building. There was nobody else around and it was exactly the same smell I breathed in three or four years ago inside some school buildings at UMCP. It was subtle that I couldn't tell where it came from..the paint? stuff they put in when making white paper? or a mixture of several things? But I was pretty certain that's the exactly same smell. Strangely, it brought my mood all the way back to that girl years go in Maryland where she's timid and shy and intimidated. I was timid and shy and intimidated that whole morning. Ah, creepy, if it's really true that smell controlled me..

A little research from Wikipedia...

"Olfaction, the sense of smell, is the detection of chemicals dissolved in air. The chemicals themselves, generally at very low concentrations, are called odors. ...As discovered by Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel (who were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2004), mammals have about a thousand genes for odor reception. Of these genes, only a portion are functional odor receptors. Humans have 347 functional odor receptor genes; the other genes have nonsense mutations....As of yet, there is no theory that explains human olfactory perception completely."

On being late

Once you are late for one thing, you are late for everything that day. And you thought you would be relatively early among those late people? Oh no, other late people just didn't show up . This is California, girl.

my roomie's comments (that I still remember and be amused by.)

"Don't be sweet to me. Sweet people make me nervous." --When I swore to her I would be sweet to her from that minute.

"Muffins are cupcakes in disguise!!!" -- After we bought 12 huge muffins from Costco (with remorse. )

"Well, if you like moldy bones, you two can probably hook up. " --When I told her how much I adored Oscar Wilde.

And, "this is only my HUMBLE opinion..." ;)

New Year's Resolution 2007

I'm happy that I had a fruitful 2006 in terms of personal growth, though my 2006 one wasn't quite successful. In this new year, I will (try to) do the following:

1. Learn free-style swimming. I'll go to the adult beginner swimming class this spring, and get myself prepared for surfing.
2. Learn to receive. A few friends complained about my never letting them help, and I had ignored their comments. This time I want to change.
3. Become an early bird and be more focused, so that I can get things done.
4. I want to go to Tibet in the fall.
5. I will always have a pillow book so I can also learn to know the world through others' eyes.

Extrinsic resolution:
MA wants me to change my habit of never taking no as an answer, at least when it's about her.
SY wants me to make a significant progress in my dissertation this year.