• Because each grief is not something to be experienced and overcome, like a severe but finite bout of illness. She has learned this. It is absorbed into the self, it becomes a part of the self. A change occurs; mysterious, intangible, but definite. The person is altered forever by it.
• 'There is something, isn't there? Tell me that you know there is something.' And by something, of course, he means: everything.
• He realises what this is, with a new, terrifying clarity. This is the moment upon which a whole life turns. He will return to it, time and again, over the years. It will be with him until the end of his days.
• 'I mean it. I say it, because I mean it'. He takes her hand; she does not resist. With one finger he traces a semi-circle in the soft skin on the inside of her wris...

• 在很久以后这群少年才纷纷意识到，人生中最美好的春光，只此一季，不会再来。
• 那样宁静微笑的表情，几乎能把所有喧闹阻挡开来。
• 我想要新生的你，能够自由平安地在蓝天碧海间唱歌。
• 这一世，你不离，我不弃。
• 她看着他，她的眼睛亮如繁星，他毫不怀疑地伸出手，她就会陪他走完一生。
• 然后我们三个人继续保持着友好积极快乐青春的状态走向回家的路。
• 看似温暖的时间总是走得很急很急，一晃四年就这样过去了。
• 他永远不会像我一样敏感脆弱地洞悉真相，所以永远也不用伪装自己的愉快和不愉快。
• 这画面仿佛五月的紫色花朵在时间的河里轻轻地、美好地一朵朵缓缓流过。...

• Out of Africa
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• The Lovely Bones
• The Most Exotic Marigold Hotel
• Monsters, Inc
• Monsters University
• Queen

• 90210
• America's / Canada's Next Top Model
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine
• Criminal Minds
• CSI: Miami
• Don't trust the B- in Apt 23
• Glow Up
• How I Met Your Mother
• Leverage
• Masterchef US
• NCIS
• New Girl
• Pan Am
• Point of Entry
• Project Runway
• So you think you can dance
• Suite Life of Zack and Cody
• Suite Life on Deck
• That's So Raven
• The Noose
• Totally Spies

So what is a good day?

• People talked about getting a buzz from being productive, and from knowing that their efforts counted toward something worthwhile.
• The best days also tended to involve people feeling confident that they were doing a fine job, and that they had the support they needed from others.
• Finally, people talked about good days leaving them feeling more energised than depleted, overall. It doesn't mean that the work wasn't physically or mentally tiring - just that it gave back enough enjoyment and motivation to make up for whatever it was taking out of them.

~

Our automatic system uses selective attention rules/filters to decide what's important enough to bring to our conscious attention. These include our priorities, con...

• Focus on finding happiness through what you already have, rather than what you believe you still need.
• Exercise your body in whatever way you enjoy, even if that just means always walking to work or stretching while you watch TV.
• Forgive yourself when you make a mistake, and then don’t make it again.
• Stop searching for flaws in other people – it means you’re avoiding something you don’t like in yourself.

(Inspired by http://thoughtcatalog.com/kim-quindlen/2...)

Watched:

• ✔ Castle in the Sky
• ✔ The Cat Returns
• ✔ Grave of the Fireflies
• ✔ Howl's Moving Castle
• ✔ Kiki's Delivery Service
• ✔ My Neighbor Totoro
• ✔ Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
• ✔ Only Yesterday
• ✔ Pom Poko
• ✔ Ponyo
• ✔ Porco Rosso
• ✔ Princess Mononoke
• ✔ Spirited Away
• ✔ Whisper of the Heart
• ✔ The Wind Rises
• ✔ From up on Poppy Hill
• ✔ Ocean Waves
• ✔ When Marnie Was There

To watch:

• The pond brimmed full of lotuses, the marsh rippled with water lilies and hyacinths, and the rice paddies burgeoned with knee-high stalks as supple as a baby's hair.
• The sky wore a pinkish veil, borrowing the hue of the lotuses unfolding below.
• Ephemeral. Nothing lasts. Not sadness, not pain.
• Above us the sky stretched high, blooming with thick white clouds, like a wide blue sea cradling floating gardenias.
• She had reinvented herself as a city woman - vivacious, fiercely independent, and possessing a zest for life.
• The metropolitan landscape of this city of my childhood is what I cling to the most, because it remains static and unchanging, filling me with nostalgia when I visit home, unlike the family and friends I left there, who have grown and changed in ...

• Om Shanti Om
• Three Idiots
• PK
• Guru
• Queen
• Prem Ratan Dhan Payo
• Jodhaar Akbar

(all books read from 2013)

On the Tang dynasty and Yu Xuanji:

• The Moon in the Palace by Weina Dai Randel (AD 631 - 648)
• The Empress of Bright Moon by Weina Dai Randel (AD 648 - 655)
• Passing under Heaven by Justin Hill

On Chinese Society in 1930s and beyond:

• All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson
• Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

On the anti-Japanese movement in 1939 and subsequent decades:

• Red Sorghum by Mo Yan

On The Hundred Flowers Campaign 1956, Antiq-Rightist Campaign 1957-1959, The Great Leap Forward 1958-1962, Cultural Revolution 1966-1976: