My buckeye memories

I take a pleasure in wrapping myself in a blanket and placing a hot drink by me when I feel like reading in cold weather.

Cold weather is perfect for reading, not studying.

I can sit there for a whole day, keep my mouth shut, buried in a book without doing anything more meaningful.

It may sound awfully dull to others, but that’s how I make myself feel better.

I don’t read Chinese version of foreign novels for the style, the tone of the original author can be lost in translation.    

Dear John is an exception since I am not the owner.

John’s father was a single dad with Asperger Syndrome, a kind of autism, who still made his son from scratch.

The main syndromes of Asperger are—social and communication deficit, restricted interest.   

Not knowing his father’s an Asperger, John blamed him for not being a cool dad.

He hurt and broke his heart on purpose.

The gap between the two grew with time and he run away to the army.

Until one day, he was back for vacation and met a girl who discovered his father’s unusualness.  

John realized that the love his father gave him lay in things like preparing breakfast.

 When I first read ‘Dear John’, I hadn’t been to America , and I didn’t even know where North Carolina was.(The setting of this book.)

Now, I got the sense of why the characters ate hot dogs and baked beans when they had no money.

Hot dogs and baked beans were gross and cheap.           

And I understood why John got upset that his dad always made scrambled eggs, bacons and toast for breakfast—a typical American breakfast.

Many little incidents and reactions in this book helped me see how great of being a parent and how much a kid should cherish it.

A good book can feed us food for thought, and this is definitely one that I’ll resort to even years later from now.

一點想用中文寫的混亂思緒：

    我喜歡這本書中親情部分遠大於愛情部份，可能是因為爸爸和書中主角的爸爸有點像，做事很有條理、謹慎、少話，不常和我說他的事情，工作上也好、生活上也罷，但是我說過事情他卻記得很清楚。對於我的要求幾乎百依百順，遇到重要事情，他比我還緊張(care me more than himself 的感覺)。記得去年，我到爸爸公司幫忙做簡單的翻譯(一個美國的機師來)，爸爸的一個部屬(該怎麼說？被我爸管的人？同事好了。)跑來和我說，爸爸在公司多麼和氣、替他們著想，他剛從高雄來的時候，爸爸怎樣幫他安排…聽得我好感動(原來爸爸人這麼好)。

    這次公演爸爸有點不贊成我當演員，他說我被選上，他覺得替我高興(因為我試鏡完還打電話回家吵，「爸~~~你覺得我可能會被選上嗎？我忘詞了，你覺得呢？你說呢？你覺得導演怎麼想？)但是演員排戲的時間投注太多，他覺得或許不是那麼值得，對英文幫助也不大，他比較擔心我之後找工作或是之後繼續讀書的問題。

    僅以再次看完此書，反省我和爸爸的互動，我對爸爸的關心。

    我真的該長大點，我想還是沒有認清我已經離二十二歲越來越近的事實。