平日忙碌，也就周末有点时间是自己的。喜欢在报刊亭捧上一大叠报纸，靠在沙发上慢慢读，常买的报纸有《经济观察报》、《南方周末》和《周末画报》。偶尔也买《上海一周》，爱看上面的馆子介绍，未必去吃，看看图也是蛮好的。

 

近来有了剪报的习惯，好的文字是值得一读再读。只是我这个人粗枝大叶，剪了一堆，却不去整理，散落在抽屉里。

 

这一期的《南方周末》上有冯象的一篇文章《见不到起舞的苏格拉底》谈到现代大学的教育理想，里面的观点令人颇有共鸣，网上也有：

Three Phases in Cambridge

 

It is so hard for me to describe my feelings towards Cambridge. In fact I have experienced several phases here in just a few months.

 

I fell in love with this small town almost at the first sight. It is so different from the city I used to live. Comparing with Shanghai, a large modern but noisy metropolis, Cambridge is just a tiny place that it only takes me half an hour to walk across the whole city. I spent the first few days just walking on the narrow pebble-path and appreciating the beauty of the ancient architecture which boast of thousands years of history. I could smell the scent of romance in every corner and felt myself in a fairy tale-my description may sound a little bit childish, well, I did feel that I was like a happy child in an amusement park when I first came here-a lot of fun, no worries at all. That's the first phase.

 

In a famous American movie it is said that life is just like a box of chocolates-you won't know what you are going to get. The first chocolate I picked from the box was sweet and delicious, however, the second one turned out to be bitter. My nightmare began with the prelude of the first class, a class taught by a very respectable Indian professor from the department of economics. I was so sorry that I failed to appreciate his smart brain fraught with profound knowledge. The reason is simple-the English he spoke sounded to me like a language from the other planet. Actually it took me forty minutes to make sure that the language he spoke was ENGLISH. When I finally confirmed that it was, the bell rang and class was over. "Do the English speak English?"-the title of a text in my high-school English book kept on looming in my mind like a ghost.

 

The class was composed of 50 students representing more than 30 countries. Every one had a splendid background: some were graduated from Ivy-leagues such as Princeton and Harvard; some had already got a master or even a PhD; some had been working in the world-famous companies such as McKinsey or GE for more than ten years; some were high-level officials in the government. I should admit that I was the most noticeable one among them; however I could not feel proud of that. I became the most noticeable one simply because I had the most unnoticeable background:  the youngest one, major in Humanities, with flaky academic preparation for economics, number-blind, always follow the voice from the heart instead of weighing the 'opportunity cost' whenever make a decision. Being with all those economists who are number-crunchers, I sometimes asked myself : why did Cambridge accept me and provide me with a full scholarship? The answer was clear-politely speaking, for the reason of diversity; frankly speaking, for the reason of decoration-no contrast, no distinction-linaism. Nevertheless, I did get some comfort a month later when chatting with a native British student. After listening to my complaints about the language barrier, she thought for a while and then said,' yes, I do understand every word coming out of the professor's mouth, but the combination of these words means nothing but confusion to me.' Wow-I heard a 'little mean lady' cheering deep in her heart-Fortunately I am not the only one!

 

Most of my second-phase frustrations came not from the classroom but from the dining-hall. I hate to complain anything about UK, however I have enough Chinese in my blood to value good food. Food here, it seems, is usually cooked in only two ways: Way number one: dump everything in the hot water, and then pull them out; Way number two: dump everything in the hot oil, and then pull them out. Though I tried very hard not to complain, my stomach seldom agreed with me. In order to placate her, I began to cook for myself. Once I thought, after spending a year here, I might end up being a cook instead of an economist.

 

I sound very cynical about my second phase here, that's only because it belongs to the past. After tasting both the sweet and the bitter chocolates, I came to realize that no matter what I get from that box-sweet or bitter-they are chocolates, they are the gifts given by life that should be cherished. I am here because I want to learn and grow. Starting from scratch gives me more space to grow. After struggling with the heavy workload, I found myself making progress everyday and my cooking skills has also  improved a lot.

 

Tomorrow is another day-this is one of my classmates' tag; Mine is-enjoy life from today!