61 pages

It’s Saturday night, another night when I mentally refuse to close my eyes and get some rest. I guess it becomes my way to celebrate weekend now. Weekend is really nothing special for me except I don’t have to worry about getting up early in the morning and chasing the bus to go to school. I never go to parties or hang out with friends on weekends (maybe that’s a typical American college life?). Homework and projects are like huge metal chains wrapping on my neck. If I dare to move only an inch to anywhere, they’ll choke me to death.

The preparation for last Friday’s studio presentation just sucked up all my energy. I felt I was going to pass out as soon as it was finished. The professors kept us in the presentation room till 5:30 that evening to talk about our progressions. They assigned us a schedule for the remaining time till final presentation day. I took a glance at the schedule…façade design, structure layout, material usage, interior perspectives, model…blah blah blah… “Whatever, I’m done today” I whispered to myself. As soon as the “boss” (our professor) announced presentation’s over, people stormed out of Lawrence Hall like hurricane.

I wondered around the school, didn’t know where to go. DWTX went to Portland. There’s no point for me to go home and cook for myself in that freaking cold kitchen. So I called my old roommate and met with her and other two friends of hers in the Orange Café. We chatted a little bit about our lives. But soon I figured we don’t have a lot common ground to continue the conversation. So I withdrew from the talk and became a listener. I like to observe people, especially their eyes. The expression in their eyes tells me what kind of person they are. Like my old roommate and her friends, I don’t want to say who’s good or who’s bad, but I feel they’re thinking about serious life issues with a really unrealistic perspective. I guess many foreign students in the States have had similar kind of dreams (like money would drop from the sky and fall into your pocket). Once they wake up from the dream, they would be facing a great pain from expecting too much while putting in so little effort. A friend of my close someone joked that since my name means all of my dream will come true, I can make all his dreams come true as well. But actually, my name Si Cheng (think-succeed) is really emphasizing on the word “think”. It means if I don’t have any desire and refuse to put in any effort, I won’t have any success. When my grandfather gave me the name, he was expecting me to achieve my goals from considering the situation thoroughly and trying everything within my ability. I think the name fits my personality very well. Maybe that’s why I’m driving myself crazy in this ARCH program. I believe I can be a good architect. I will prove it.

Many memories came back to me today, all good ones. I took out the CD my high school music teacher made for me when my classmates and I went to Manila for a music competition. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw my pics as a high school student with travel uniforms. It was just two and a half years ago, but it feels like a long time. I remember when I was in Manila, me and another Japanese girl (something Ko, I forgot) stayed in a student’s house. The host family’s last name is Ferrari (they are French)! And it was the first time for me to see a Japanese girl without make-up at night…gosh that was scary~. Later this evening, me and DWTX went to a small hill in Eugene where we can see the night scene of the town. It was rainy and cold there, but our hearts was warm. We recalled the time when he took me there for the first time. I’m sure I blushed when…oh well, he knows what I said… hhaaa…ennNNnn…I checked the length of my journal, 61 pages! I started it almost a year ago after I met DWTX. I wonder how many pages don't have any C-D stories. I'm not sticking to him all the time like a piece of tape...it's just that he's a very important and special part of my life. I don't know what to do if this part is taken away from me.

I realized this morning that I have no clean socks to wear anymore. Then I remembered I haven’t do laundry for two weeks (eewwww~>.<). So I did my laundry and FOLD them right away! I cleaned my room, did some readings and cooked. That was my achievement today. Good night!