Some research progress

Today I sent out my article on nüxia. My expectations are low but even if I get rejected, I'll receive advice on how to make it better. Eventually, I hope to place it with just some decent, if not prestigious journal. As I said, this paper was far from my best one. 

And I've also decided to work on my dissertation and see if I can turn it into a book manuscript. I just started reading William Germano's From Dissertation to Book. I just think it's something to take note of. Who knows? I may succeed in publishing a book one day and want to find out how and where I got started.

Greyhound did that again and other stuff

This was an adventurous morning.

We got up at 6:30 so Lei could catch the Greyhound supposed to leave at 7:45. His flight is at 5 pm but the next Greyhound would be too late, so he decided to be early. I had to use the restroom when we arrived at the bus stop, but the station was not open, so I had to drive home, leaving Lei there waiting for the bus. Then I got his message saying Greyhound was FULL. It was already a miracle that it was only 20 minutes late, right? But they oversold the tickets (or some people were simply riding longer than their tickets allowed them to) and five people were told to wait for the next bus, which "will come soon" but that was a lie. Among the five my husband had the #2 boarding ticket, and the other guy was actually #1. Good job Greyhound you did that to us again.

So Lei called me, and I drove there while he talked with the other people about renting a car. Two people wanted to come with him, one American guy called Luc and a possibly Indian girl Heera. The other two guys looked like Japanese, and were here on business. They decided to purchase Air Coach tickets on line, but declined our offer to take them to PMU--they insisted on walking there, which would take a while and I couldn't persuade them. I don't know if it would have helped if I tried Japanese. But they just looked like them didn't want to cause trouble to people so that's fine.

Luc came to present at a conference from Minnesota, and his school (or company) would only reimburse shuttle expenses, not flights, so he had to transfer to another Greyhound at Chicago at 11:30 local time. Heera is going to see family in Chicago, and could afford to be a bit late, but we couldn't be sure if the next Greyhound has seats either. So we went to Hertz, but it opened at 9. We waited there, trying online reservation at the same time. It turned out to be too expensive. When Hertz opened we were told they didn't have any cars available till Monday. Tried the other rental car companies across the street and were told the same.

We then searched for other options online again. Limo and Air Coach have 10:30 and 10:10 buses respectively, and at that time there was no guarantee that Limo would have open spots. We saw there were 12:30 buses too so I decided that the other two people should try first, as Lei could take the 12:30 one. But that option soon disappeared: sold out I guess. We had to wait at PMU to see what we could get, the 10:10 Air Coach or the 10:30 Limo. While the other two went to withdraw money I selected a 10:10 Air Coach ticket and the system was holding it for me for 9 mins. As Lei and I wanted to let the others have the opportunity, I went in to tell them, and backed out of that webpage to let Luc make the reservation. But immediately after I did that, that option also disappeared. Well. I guess we couldn't have reserved that ticket and left the other two people behind anyway.

Lei also went in to withdraw money. The last option would be borrowing a car from Matt and driving it to the airport, but then I have to drive back alone... I've been through this 12-day road trip but driving to and back from Chicago still sounds scary. I texted Matt, asking him if his van was available, when I spotted the reindeer shuttle pulling in the PMU drive way. I ran to them, asking if they had three spots available. And they DID. Matt called at the same time, telling me there were two people in his kitchen waiting to drive to Chicago right now. God is amazing. I'm so glad that we stayed patient and loving during the little crisis, and God rewarded us (perhaps?) by opening two windows at the same time. I gathered the people together while holding the reindeer, asked what they thought, and we decided to go with Alex and Esther from Matt's place.

This was perhaps the best way. Alex and Esther were going to hang out in Chicago, and could drop Luc off at the Greyhound station, if they can make it there before 11:30 (12:30 Indiana time), where he could take the next bus to Minnesota. Heera and Lei can both get off at the Union station, which would be perfect for Heera, and Lei can take the metro from there to O'Hare. So after a bit detour due to road construction and events, we arrived, met everybody, and they drove away.

Well it sounds like a bit running-on bland narrative now, but like I said above, it was a little crisis for us, as we were missing one after another buses while waiting, and it was hot outside. But it was good to be able to solve problems side by side with Lei, and God provided us with friends and opportunities. I'm grateful for that. I hope they get there safe. Lei's flight has a connection and it will be a long day for him

God bless us.

write a story/novel with a reversed plotline, retrieving from the end to the beginning

Imagined custom

In this culture, women are trained for good wives since girlhood. A young man's family may negotiate with a young girl's family about having her over to "take care of the house," meaning pre-marriage trial. It would be better if the young man's parents have prepared a house for him. A man NEVER does housework. He must work outside the household. If by any chance his wife can't work for a while, he must have his mother or female relatives over to help, if he can't employ a female servant. Or else the cooking, washing, babysitting, etc., will not be taken care of.

Say a man loves a girl. She is attractive but she loves someone else, and is expecting that one's family to propose to have her over. The said man's parents then secure for him another girl, one he doesn't love but doesn't dislike either. They turn out to be great after marriage. Many years later the young man's mother dies, so his wife has to take care of two households. Then she becomes very ill. As the family don't have any close-by relatives, they at first seek help from their female neighbors, and then hire some cheap servants paid by the hour. But at last this is not sustainable and the wife is not likely to recover, so the father suggests to the son that he marries again, which is very normal in that culture. But then the son loves his wife. He loves her so much that he doesn't even want to marry another after her death, not to mention that she's still alive. Then the girl from his youth, his first love, comes into his life ...

City Novel

Write a novel about the city. "Present the city in terms of human experience," "describe a city in terms of [the] characters’ observation and movement—a city of the eye and the foot, so to speak. ... give people’s perception of a city, of its culture and traditions, in a word, of its ethos” (Hanan Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 36). 

One summer in Guilin will do.

This time, the author starts writing because she feels she is going to die. She feels it in her body. She first writes on New Year's Eve, when her visitors have left, and she writes overnight. When she's writing her pain increases, in her shoulders, her nape, her back, her backbone and muscles. Her eyes sore. But she thinks the chief danger is in her heart, for it beats with such violence and difficulty as if it's going to exhaust itself. But the muscular pains feel more immediate, so she doesn't attend to her heart as she would otherwise do.

She writes about today. She had prepared for A's visit, but A didn't come. For this part refer to Ding Ling's Miss Sophie's Diary. The difference is, she had prepared to love A. She had made that decision because her best friend had persuaded her into it; or because she had seen something, the happy example of a poor but content family to awaken her from the delusion of the futile promise of perseverance, or something. So she had decided to step down and love. But then A didn't come, and instead another man came and warmed her heart toward him. Afterwards A will resent it, will be indignant, and accuse her of being changeable. But she is unable to communicate the subtle changes, the decision and disappointment, the unexpected attention, disturbance, and love.

So she writes.

In the end she will die when she is writing. Her entry is unfinished, stopping at the half typed character "want"

put an idle man on stage. he has nothing to do with the plot whatever, but he is constantly in the way, and has to be pushed aside to allow room for the actors. he is there doing his stuff, or doing nothing: he walks a little, eating snacks, or staring at the play like some Chinese street onlooker, very dull, apathetic, shameless.