it's 4 in the morning, the snow truck has just gone by, and i'm still awake trying to read for classes and thought it would be a good time to call my aunt and ask about my uncle's condition. he's better, they report, but we didn't talk for long because they were all getting ready to leave for the hospital. it's the fifteenth day, my cousin reminded me. which started off my self-pity all over again! and all i have are instant noodles! i could hang up a lantern i suppose? lanterns on yuanxiao makes me think of the xin qi ji poem.

東風夜放花千樹，更吹落，星如雨。
寶馬雕車香滿路。鳳簫聲動，玉壺光轉，一夜魚龍舞。
蛾兒雪柳黃金縷，笑語盈盈暗香去。
眾裡尋他千百度；驀然迴首，那人卻在，燈火闌珊處。

while i am at it, i found on this blog a a lively discussion of some of the lexical aspects of the poem. i especially like the commenter who found a oed style dictionary entry on 闌珊 with literary attestations. and i quite enjoyed the (brief) debate over 他/她/它 in thatmost famous line of all: 眾裡尋他千百度, although i think there is some fundamental confusion. i agree with those who support the 她 reading that contextually the poet must mean the third person feminine singular, but that doesn't mean the original text didn't say 他. in fact it must have, though then again how would i know since i've never verified this? but historically it should not have been possible, i'm quite sure it's true that 她/它 was a 20th century morphological development, and i do know that 他 is used in ancient poetry to mean any of the three third person singular subjects (the fact that all three pronouns are today pronounced identically seems to support this. although i should ask my mater about it more specifically) so there's nothing contradictory about the business at all. and anyway the origin of the 20th century creation of 她/它 is apparently attested by luxun, at least in this article on his [luxun's] diaries.

sometimes, i almost wish i had given up all this *gesture at bookshelves* and gone to beijing on that scholarship and studied chinese literature instead. but i suppose the grass is always greener &c, and if i were now teaching unregenerate jc brats (and no doubt i would have been sent to rj to teach idiots like we were) i would probably hate it and do a ho por fun and rip up some essay that doesn't come up to scratch and then i'll be for it.