This morning I had a nightmare that was rather scary...  In the dream it was about a week before my wedding day, and I realized many things were not ready yet - not even the paper invitations were sent and we had no clue who's coming who's not.  I was totally freaked out, and then my thought went like, "no, wait, isn't it still 3 months ahead of us?"...  And woke up with a little headache.

Oh well, I guess I'm stressed.

In Orange's thank-you card for me he listed 24 points why he thanked me, and I especially like:

Point #19 "For being the smart kid yet very down to Earth".

Point # 22 "Unconsciously, I am learning a lot from you about how to save the Planet Earth and be environmentally conscious (even though I don't seem to respond like so...)".

Both about "EARTH", haha.  I won't comment on the "smart kid" part, but I truly think I'm proud of my being "down to Earth" (although here slightly deviating from its original meaning of "practical" and "realistic").  Yet, this feeling of pride probably stems also from inferiority.  Yesterday after bible study, I shared about my lack of compassion toward people who are highly educated, cocky and rich.  I know this is a problem of mine.

I have a very humble origin, a poor family with both parents financially bankrupt.  I had to "climb" with much effort to where I stand today, while somehow I feel like many kids at LPC/MIT/Harvard were born rich and it just seems so natural to them that they have had all promising opportunities in their life.  In a sense I feel proud of my humble origin and difference from them, but just as much I may have felt inferior, and I protest by behaving "down to Earth", being extremely stingy and always emphasizing "NO NO, I'm not rich, I'm not like the rest of people around me, I received full scholarship and my parents didn't pay a cent for my education (nor could they afford to), blablabla...".  Probably, deep inside it's a wound that hasn't been healed, disabling me from truly loving those around me, and I know people feel it.  Lord, I plead for your forgiveness and power to change...

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And thank you for associating me with "saving the Planet"!

嘩嘩嘩，聽了何韻詩那麼久才驚覺她有首歌是講環保鬥士的，叫“風見志郎”，歌詞旋律一流，大家要聽聽：

沒名字的臉　夕照的剪影　因山水抗戰
像奇異生物　任世間指點　怪一點點
寧願孤身在戰
被困這溫室甲蟲也感染
用渺小的觸角力抗這偏見

沙粒也顫抖　一粒一粒一粒拯救
伸張非一般的正義得一對手
可能　他的身軀好比妖獸
一天一天稀釋價值得他甘心去守

默然稻草田　被瞬間剪短　將磚片搭建
但幪面青年　入世雖短淺　都死守流失的海岸線
像最小的甲蟲也苦戰
用最蠢的方法但勇敢依然

冰川也顫抖　一些一些一些拯救
得出多悲哀的結局　他都不甘脫勾
就算昆蟲　他都珍惜牠的罕有
不肯棲息摩天塔下一心退休

人間風景　沒法一幅一幅出手拯救
他忠於的一些價值鋪於四周

P.S. I'm far from being an environmental fighter, for I'm so economically-minded.  But I admire those who are.

Just feel like I should blog a bit. So people are 犯賤. I'm now unnecessarily taking a class that is arguably the most difficult class I've even taken in my life - atmospheric dynamics. Waves, complex numbers, differential equations, all sound familiar to me but then when they appear in the homework I am plainly stuck... I spent > 10 hours on just one homework... Oh well, why am I not taking the plant biology class instead, or something more chemistry/biology which probably is my strength? Physics is just beyond my level of comfort, and I really do need to stretch now... =/

When I got back my graded first problem set, I was so discontent with the grade that I argued for more points but to no avail. But interestingly, my heart has changed since then. Now I guess I have let go of perfect grades, and manage to purely focus on the fun part. After all, I guess it's quite cool to learn about all those bizarre waves that so characterize daily meteorological phenomena. =)

Oops, I have pretty much forgotten about blogging myself... Hmm, probably it's high time I restart.

In short, I'm missing Hong Kong, but also enjoying life after coming back to Boston. Hong Kong has been great... Wedding planning, photo-taking (in Cyberport and Shek O), familiarizing myself with Karen's parents, simply enjoying every moment with my family, meeting with lots of friends, teachers and relatives, having quite deep talk and sharing among quite some of them, reading a couple of books, being immersed in the warm sunshine and mild weather, eating whatever heavily MSG-ated food found on streets, observing life and livelihood from around me, riding on the MTR while adapting to its new name, checking out Breakthrough to see God's great work in Hong Kong's youth, karaoke and endless MJ rounds, well, you can imagine how packed yet super fun and fruitful my trip to Hong Kong was!!!

Life back in Boston has been great, thus far. I've been developing a new project and direction, which is likely what a main part of my PhD thesis is gonna be about - interactions between plants, vegetation and air chemistry under the context of climate change. Wow, you know what, my interest in biology is reinvigorated (while evolutionary biology has always been a favorite side area of interest of mine)!!! I expect myself to know quite some plant biochemistry and physiology as well as forest ecology for my research. Indeed, this reminds me of how moving I found when I saw the logo of "photosynthetic matter" on EVE in WALL-E. After all, if not for plants and photosynthesis we would have come into being and thriving all these millennia. Praise the LORD for the (metaphorical) THIRD DAY OF CREATION!!!

And these are the two classes I'm taking this semester:
12.810 at MIT: Dynamics of the Atmosphere
EPS 236 at Harvard: Environmental Modeling and Analysis

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHARLES DARWIN!!! It's his 200th birthday, and 150th anniversary of his groundbreaking work "On the Origin of Species". As the title of another recent book says, "Thank God for Evolution"!