This semester is already half over, and the assignments and coursework have gradually grown heavier and harder to make sense of. People say you need to bear the weight of pressure to truly improve, but if your body breaks down, none of that means anything. A few days of disordered living have left my stomach a little sore both when I get up early and when I stay up late, leaving me uneasy all day and stripping the taste out of whatever I eat. The most sensitive organ in my body is telling me that life has lost its rhythm a bit, and it needs to find balance again. Taking care of the inside of your own body matters more than learning more things — with swine flu running rampant these days, everyone should be careful.

College life changes a person in the smallest, most trivial ways — what time you get up each day, where you sit to study, how many books you read, how much time you spend resting — all of it is shaping, bit by bit, your attitude toward life. Though perhaps it’s only years later, once you’re working and your attitude has been compromised piece by piece, that a person can really be said to have grown up. Of course, having no experience of that myself, this is only speculation.

My attitude toward life has changed a great deal, and so has its content. To put it politely, my life has been carved away at quite a bit. Even though I’m unwilling to compromise, the time I spend blogging, watching movies, reading comics, and reading books has indeed shrunk considerably. Still piled up and waiting for me are NASA’s 50-year Earth mission, the four elements of life, The Mutants, and Still Walking, which I’ve been watching for almost a week now without finishing. The things I do in the time I carve out for myself bring me a kind of gorgeous utopia, along with a bit of precious childishness, so no matter what, I’ll keep trying to fight for that time.

The other thing that’s changed the most is the weather — winter has come early to Chengdu this year, nearly a month earlier than usual, they say, and apparently there was even light snow downtown yesterday. Too bad Sichuan University, out here in the suburbs, never got the chance to experience Chengdu’s rare snow and ice. A couple of days ago, when the cold front rolled in, there were still people in the square singing melancholy songs in high, breathy falsetto voices, with surprisingly decent skill. But whether the event ended or the weather just got too cold, they vanished as of yesterday, leaving me with an indescribable loneliness whenever I cross the square now.