Skip to main content

Begin again in the library


     

    I just made a decision that I would not work on the new market research project and now I am back in the library again, Just like in 2021 when I quit my job and stayed in the library trying to prepare for the English level test and learn Dutch by myself. Now I am really learning Dutch because French broke my heart :) Sometimes when you look back at the past, you just keep wondering which mysterious force pushes you to become who you are now. Me again, being proudly unemployed. That's a joke since I just cried this morning feeling all the anxieties about the uncertainty of life. 

    One of my dreams is to become a writer. I actually thought about the idea of applying for the creative writing program after completing a course at Berkeley called people of mixed racial descent. I loved the course so much that I had a strong desire to make my voice (and the people that can relate to my experience) heard through writing. Then I came to doubt whether I write in English or Chinese. Because English is not my native language, I feel at ease talking about sociological terms in English but I sometimes struggle a bit talking about daily life when wanting certain things on the shelf but don't know the English word. I think I would be able to write sociological articles in English but I would not be able to write novels. After thinking for a while, I just put away the dream and started to apply for sociology Ph.D. and master programs, hoping in one day I would go back to Berkeley, where I have so many new experiences and life-changing moments. 

    Now, I am trying to apply for a Ph.D. program in Belgium that wants to make migrant voices heard through creative-writing workshops. Life is a circle, somehow I am back to where I was before. I think everyone has moments when they wipe off the boundary between familiarity and distance. The library in Belgium is new to me but the feeling of staying in a library and thinking about the future is familiar. Sometimes when I wake up or wander on the streets, I feel at home because I know the place by heart but at the same time being a bit unfamiliar thinking how English becomes the private language in my life. 

    These days I started to read a collection of essays talking about solitude and loneliness. In the book, there is one Chinese author who talks about her experience of writing purely in English. English is a second language for us that we learn in school and will use in public situations for example seminars, airports, and cafes. However, English can also become a private language when English is all over your life, you think in English and dream in English and when you talk to yourself, it is also in English. Writing, as a way of expressing myself, is a very private behavior, which can also be in English. When I think about my experience, I feel mind-blowing that I build my friendship and relationship in English, even though when I make love, I speak English. I created all the private conversations of initiating sex, during and after sex in English. While saying I love you in Chinese 我爱你 is awkward and weird, I feel I love you can flow out of my heart easily. Sometimes, a word from another language feels closer to you, which wipes off the boundary between familiarity and distantness. Like the author I mentioned before, she was deeply impressed when she learns the term "kill the time" and that time can only be killed by pointless things. I feel the same when I am not happy doing meaningless work. I think she partly solves the continuing puzzle of my validity of writing in English. 

Labels

Labels:
Location: 比利时鲁汶

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More than a friend: book review of loveless

    Abnormal sunny weather returned to Belgium again and I started to enjoy the autumn there. Another word for autumn is fall, which depicts a scene of yellow leaves falling from trees, swirling in the wind, and gently falling to the ground. In my hometown, there are more evergreen trees, but there is one specific tree called  Ginkgo (银杏) which turns all the leaves yellow in autumn. When I was young, my mom worked in a medicine company producing traditional Chinese medicine. She told me that there was one product that used Ginkgo leaves to treat heart-related diseases and laughed at me when I thought they used golden Ginkgo leaves for medicine. When leaves are turning yellow, they are reaching nearly the end of life journey. However, they do provide pleasure for kids and adults like me rustling on fallen leaves. Ginkgo is a tree native to China. No wonder I don't find them in Belgium.      I sat on the bench, bathing under the sunshine, and read the book l...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to talk about love

     one of my favorite movies and books “There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.” —— the fault in our stars     When we say forever, we know that it can never be a forever because we could die every day or every moment. The commitment is a reckless decision that only people in love will have the courage and certainty to think about a forever with anoth...
Post a Comment
Read more