The Events of Three Month Ten Day

Today I performed the grand feat of walking all the way to my Chinese class, and then walking all the way home, and then going upon a little promenade to the Kleistpark with J. For some reason this walk is generally gruelling. I come home, do things for an hour or so, then feel overcome with slumber and want nothing more than to curl up on the sofa beside the stove or even to go to bed. Anyway, today it wasn't so bad, perhaps due to the fact that, after a white night, I slept ca. 16.5 hours yesterday. In the morning I went the long way, via the Siegessäule, and was kept on my toes (so to speak) by the threat of rain and the threat of coming late. At the CDU building (which I like to poke fun at as the Abode of Evil), I found out that I had mistaken the hour by an hour, wherefore I was actually in excellent time, instead of ca. 17 minutes late. Then I went past the building that houses the embassies of Monaco, Luxembourg, etc., and the Mexican embassy which I oddly like (diagonal ribs of grey stone and a coppery door panel that is most likely a reference to the natural resources of that country), etc., in fairly good spirits. On the Straße des 17. Juni I had the privilege of passing a convoy of black compact cars surrounded by police cars and motorcycles, and of guessing whether a criminal, businessmen, or politicians were being thusly protected. Later it did rain in a heavy, silvery April manner, but by then I was nearly at the building.

In Chinese itself we reviewed the vocabulary of family, etc. Our teacher becomes exasperated from time to time, but in a nice, restrained way and in a moment she calms down again. Considering how we learn things and then forget them again, commit a blunder over and over again, and things of the sort, it is quite understandable. (Besides, I suspect that she rather likes me and is correspondingly tolerant, because I know English and have a sense of humour.) Unrelatedly, she wants us to stop relying on pinyin; I am not inclined to heed her suggestion, as I learn the proper characters anyway, and need pinyin for the accents (not that I take sufficient pains to use the right ones anyway). We gave presentations about our families; I volunteered to go first, and it didn't go so badly. I go carefully and therefore slowly, but produce reasonable sentences most of the time. It's the listening comprehension and pronunciation that I do badly.

Then we learned the numbers from 11 to 99, which is fairly easy, as one must merely say e.g. four-ten-eight (48). Whoever evolved the Chinese language is likewise pragmatic where dates and times are concerned. Months, for instance, are known as "one month," "two month," and so on and so forth, instead of "January," "February," etc. According to the Chinese format, today's date would be expressed as 2-0-0-9 year, 3 month, 10 day. The weekday would be expressed as "week two day," the sole exception being Sunday, which is called "week tian day," "tian" (which should have a bar over the "a") meaning "heaven" or something else which I've forgotten.

On the way back home I timed the length of my walk, this walk taking the route via the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche and Wittenbergplatz and Nollendorfplatz. I arrived at Ernst-Reuter-Platz at 1:12, at Nollendorfplatz at 1:44, at Winterfeldtplatz at 1:49, and at the Kleistpark intersection at 1:59, more or less. It is a nice route, through the stir of the roundabout at Ernst-Reuter-Platz, the steady trickle of students on the Hardenbergstraße, past the bookstore where T. and I went months ago and the Steinway-Haus and an art gallery, past the Universität der Künste building where I used to go to student concerts and masterclasses, and above all past an interesting mix of people that becomes more tourist-y but remains as interesting at the Kirche. The route also leads me along a "tony" (to employ an expression which strikes me as being a little pretentiously slangy and a lot suggestive of a thesaurus, but fitting) shopping street. I like watching for particularly elegant or striking clothing, and even more watching for distinctive faces. It is a funny jumble, suggestive of New York, especially when a wave of people gathers along the edge of a broad pedestrian crossing and then breaks onto the asphalt.

At any rate, I wonder about my future as much as ever. As far as music and writing go, I haven't been very sanguine lately. I know that I can write a publishable story; the problem is my extremely demanding standards, and finding my own style. I refuse to attempt to publish anything that does not fulfill my ideals, or to sacrifice quality for quantity or speed of production. Besides, I am not precisely sure why, because I am not an experienced professional writer and can't expect to write as well as someone who is, but for instance if I read a truly excellent article (the fiction and poetry rarely impress me much) in the New Yorker, the internal dictator points to that and tells me that what I write is worthless, and then I feel terrible for a while. Then it feels as if I were far more inspired writing-wise and music-wise five years ago; where I had moments of genius then I no longer have anything except moments of moderate talent.

On the other hand, it feels better to write or play decently if it reflects months of hard work and thought. There are dozens of poorly written, unoriginal stories floating around on my computer, but they reflect hours upon hours of tinkering and research, and the germination of tiny seeds of ideas into full-fledged plots, and the determination to go on writing in spite of impatience and of the knowledge that the result would not be especially good. Not to mention that writing them can be fun. I can picture stories in my mind as if they were dreams, and then live through them and record what I see. It is especially fun when I haven't previously thought out the details of the plot, so that the twists and turns of the story come into being and surprise me as I write. The problem with such stories is that they are not very realistic, and it requires much ingenuity and exertion of mind to lend them detail and depth. The writing I'd like to do is far more realistic; I want to write stories that are so natural and plausible and vivid that one has the impression that the scenes are recorded from life. But I want to depict especially interesting scenes, and do so with a wealth of observation, so that the reader does not want to escape from life into unreality, but can better understand, be curious and critical about, and come to terms with, life . . . if that makes sense. (c: