近期流水账

今早八点整，电话响了。一位朋友的朋友向我家医生咨询癌症问题。国内患者的治疗，要按照国内的方式进行。美国医生即使把天说透了，对国内的治疗依然是鞭长莫及。问啥基本是白问。

我们这里今天又下雪了。下雪之前，大家见面就谈雪。哎哟，又下雪了，明天学校又该关门了吧。晚上9点半，学校通知来了。对，明天关门，所有的家长会统统取消。

今晚七点半，电话又响了。这是找我的电话。美国五学者的教育书马上要印刷了。出书前，细心的编辑提出几个小问题让我们回答。来电话的是本书的召集人，他是美国文科博士，学业有成。本书的五个作者谁都没见过谁，但通过网络，我们首次合作还算顺利。感谢网络。

前天，2月10号，我清理了一大批死去的邮件。偶尔看看自己过去写的信，我真是傻到家了。我同时清理了新浪博客的好友和关注。没有互动的好友怎会是好友？删，我删了一大批好友。一些关注过的博主，他们的文章并不是我需要的类型。删，我删了一大批关注。我老了，我的眼睛已经容不下太多无关紧要的东西了。

昨天在我工作的网站，我读了几篇忧伤的诗歌。为了表示我的善心，我安慰了作者几句。其中一句是这样的：我已经不会忧伤了，向我学习吧。今天我把这句话又延长了一下，于是我就写成了这个样：已经不会忧伤了，已经不能忧伤了，已经没时间忧伤了。

我非常喜欢亚洲文学课。我总搞不明白的中国文化，美国老师就能把我搞懂。我很感谢美国老师。中国老师说十句我能懂一句，美国老师说一句我就能懂一句。我好像是这种感觉。

今天在课堂上我们读了一首袁枚的诗歌，我非常喜欢。诗歌大意是说，若无知己，还不如和书为伴为好。我孤陋寡闻，不知这首诗歌的中文版是啥。哪位大拿知道，告诉我一下吧。谢谢。

On Books

   I.

If one opens a book, one meets the men of old;

If one goes into the street, one meets the people of today.

The men of old! Their bones are turned to dust;

It can only be with their feelings that one makes friends.

The people of today are of one's own kind,

But to hear their talk is like chewing a candle!

I had far rather live with stocks and stones

Than spend my time with ordinary people.

Fortunately one need not belong to one's own time;

One's real date is the date of the books one reads!

     II.

Everything else in life is easy to break with;

Only my books are hard to leave behind.

I want to go through them all again,

But the days hurry by, and there is not time.

If I start on the Classics I shall never get to history;

If I read philosophy, literature goes by the board.

I look back at the time when I purchased them—

Thousands of dollars, I never worried about the price.

If passages were missing, the pains I took to supply them,

And to fill out sets that were incomplete!

Of the finest texts many are copied by hand;

The toil of which fell to my office clerks.

Day and night I lived with them in intimacy.

I numbered their volumes and marked them with yellow and red.

How many branches of wax-candle light,

How many drops of weary heart's blood!

My sons and grandsons know nothing of this;

Perhaps the book-worms could tell their own tale.

Today I have had a great tidy-up,

And feel I have done everything I was born to do....

It is good to know that the people in the books

Are waiting lined up in the Land of the Dead.

In a little while I shall meet them face to face

And never again need to look at what they wrote!

                --Yuan Mei (translated by Arthur Waley)

2/12/2014