Reading Yiyun Li

My planned recreational reading this week was Yiyun Li’s short story collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. I’d heard her name before, but it wasn’t until reading this story in the New Yorker that I realized I should be quietly reading everything she writes.

You can’t sit down and read this all in a sitting. It’s just so sad. Granny Lin loses her job and with it her bed:

Her things are packed and placed at the gate: a duffel bag, not heavy even for an old woman.

I need to rest between the stories. Maybe they’ll get lighter, but the first three have been tragic.

Joy

Hayfever medicine – a six month’s supply of cetirizine hydrochloride – has arrived. Have necked back a handful and will now read the instructions. Hopefully I can soon stop clawing my eyes out. Ordered from Chemistdirect.co.uk, if anyone fancies saving a bucket on high street prices. Take that, Boots!

Bonus, these pills may cause drowsiness. Nap time . . .

Friday

Sluggish start but managed to throw myself out of the house and into the local library for a quick translation session. Got a piece done but it’s going to need a rewrite. Plus there’s plenty of vocab I should check up – ‘dam-head’, ‘dam-shoulders’, ‘dam-knees-and-toes’, that kind of thing.

Had a few hundred quids worth of work come in the last few days, which is reassuring. My sources of income aren’t as diversified as I’d like at the moment, but there’s no indications any (well, either, at the moment) are going to dry up and there’s a healthy buffer in the bank. Plus having divulged myself of one client recently I have the time and flexibility to take on any occassional work that arrives.

Popped into the supermarket on the way home and picked up the ingredients for a stir-fry – ie some pork and a pre-packed stir-fry bag, complete with mini-sachet of soy sauce and ready sliced veg. Made it, ate it. Resisting the temptation to cook and eat the leftovers now .  .  .

To read, perchance to fall asleep with a heavy book on my chest . . .

Getting started

Up and functioning at eight, did laundry, headed out for coffee and reading. Got through a chapter and a bit of my Chinese history – Jonathan Spence’s Search for Modern China. Up to the Xi’an incident with the Communists and Nationalists deciding if they should fight each other or the Japanese. Hard to say how much of it is sinking in when I’m just reading it and not actually using or discussing it. This is a general problem, one of the reasons I’d like to get back into an academic environment. Maybe.

Generally sluggish day actually, hayfever was really hitting me. Did quite a bit more reading in the afternoon though – Second World War just ended – and am about to go out for a bracing walk. And take the beer empties to the recycling.

Overly lazy

Didn’t get anything of value done today. Was up and mobile early enough – 9am, hardly fantastic but about average while I’m working the jetlag out of my system – but then basically sat around on my arse till 2pm eating pork pies (yum) and watching Youtube clips (Mitchell and Webb).

Youtube must have had a massive impact on productivity. One of the most watched websites, etc, etc. What was all that time used for pre-Youtube. Quick to load browser-based telly increased the opportunity cost of actual work.

A new translation landed in my inbox, so read through that. Standard stuff, a bit of geological and dam vocab (is there an adjective for ‘relating to dams’?)

Fell asleep after managing to read, oh, six or seven pages of Chinese history. Am now having a beer. Need to get my discipline back, no shortage of stuff to do. But first, a game of Defcon.

First Post

I’m aiming to keep the blog as a daily-ish record of what I’ve been up to, not so much for anyone to actually read but more for myself. If I can take ten or twenty minutes a day to account to myself for what I’ve done with the day just passed I will, perhaps, end up making better use of time. Or at least making a deliberate decision not to, which is equally valid. Discipline, motivation, blah.