Ok. It's getting from bad to worse. The last time I'd been sick like this was June last year when I got back. Singapore had felt like a new toy then.

Met once again, in the form of veteran immigrant, a nice little Chinese girl yesterday from Tangshan. She's waiting to take A-levels in November. To my horror, she took out her first Math S tutorial and asked me to help her with the problems marked with asterisks. Despite a returning fever and the remoteness of RJ Math S in my mind, I managed to pull through most of them. In parting she lent me a book 《幻城》, 作者叫郭敬明。且看封套上的半自我介绍 （不知道这样摘录算不算侵犯了版权了）：

网络名：第四维 （the 4th dimension)

获新概念第三届第四届一等奖

出版个人作品集《爱与痛的边缘》 (One of the song by Faye Wong is of this name)

目前在上海大学影视艺术技术学院学理工和艺术结合的奇怪专业

性格一半明媚一半忧伤

对待生活消极又充满希望

坚信人性中甜美的东西, 可是依然沉溺于绝望之中

喜欢看电影睡觉和用四十五度角仰望长满云朵的天空

有清亮的笑容深黑的瞳仁以及看不见的忧伤 (本来想把封套上的照片拍下来showcase一下他清亮的笑容和深黑的瞳仁, 但照片出版的质量太差, 拍出来更加模糊不清, 乍一看像个犯人)

以前总喜欢叫自己孩子, 喜欢彼得潘因为他可以不长大

而在时光的洪流中, 还是悄悄地

渐渐渐渐 渐渐成长

I dare say he did describe pretty precisely some issues involved with modern intellectual/ brooding youths. But stuff like "unseen sorrow" is just too cheesy. If sorrow is unseen, it'd better be unspoken too.

再看看封底与他同一类型的作家给的评语:

苏德 (新锐人气写手): 通篇有种神秘的气氛, 慢悠悠地散发, 关于圣战的遥远臆想, 还有一种支离破碎的爱情.

周嘉宁 (新概念一等奖): 语言和故事都是一种空中楼阁.

张悦然 (新概念一等奖): 像是冰澈的溪水, 流淌在白色之上, 幸福之外. 它流经每个人的心灵, 我们所有人都能这样轻易地打捞起一个似曾相识的梦境. 琥珀颜色, 只属于我们自己的梦境.

And so on. 总觉得他们这些话说了等于没说, 东一段词汇, 西一个概念, 的确够支离破碎了. 算了, 不批评了, 把书看了再说吧. 虽说看它有种浪费生命的感觉, 但毕竟是人家一片好意借的.

SY once said that purity and innocence are different things. Through accumulated understandings I now take a pure person to be one who involuntarily believes in an ideal, and any deviations from the ideal in real life startles or disorientates him. Whether he has energy enough to cover the disorientation is another matter. But the immiscibility of his nature with reality is necessary to maintain purity. An innocent person is one who is not acquainted with facts, concepts and prejudices in real life which might bring him to a more general, integrated, albeit stereotypical understanding of the world. So with this I guess BX is pure but not innocent. Jo is pure and innocent. RZ's pure and still innocent to certain extents. SJP is pure and not innocent, but he's unlikely to submit to any kind of categorisation. Indeed this is rather limited to people who retained a large part of the childish self. Or, to me, an excuse to believe that loss of innocence and growing up is not the end of the world.

Enough rambling on a Sunday morning. No tuition today for exams are over. The kid asked me instead to go biking at East Coast Park - just as I got sick from exhaustion of biking last week. So not going. Instead will be good girl and drink plenty and rest at home, etc.