七年一刻

星期一七點的早晨，窗外被雨水佈滿的三峽，秋末第一波溫度的驟降，昨晚忘記關窗今早微酸的喉嚨，暌違已久的台灣冬日，七年了。

七年前的那個冬日，清華文齋五樓，那個夏熱冬冷的四人房宿舍，依稀中我盤著腿在那個老舊、稍有移動還會唧唧叫木椅上，桌上是剛入手最新款等待與我一起出征的IBM-X31，畫面上是遍布北美各地的學校網頁，腿上抱著那綠色的課本，在筆電螢幕前，算著一道又一道的線性代數，醞釀著也等待著希望。

七年後，X31已報廢，坐在三峽新市鎮的小公寓的書桌前，不自主地回到了當時的情境，揣摩著二十出頭對展翅高飛的期待。

人生，是不是總要有這麼一個抽離，才會展現它的美。

No Separation of Work and Life

When writing to FC, I suddenly realized one thing. While my current teaching load is three times as much as the load when at UW and I am still alive here, I have been thinking how I could be that swamped (at least I claimed I was) by teaching only one course in the graduate school. And the reason was: I spent too much time whining. As it is now, I am too busy to even think about anything to whine. In the past, from time to time I felt guilty about being unproductive, watching too much TV series and having too much fun, now I often found myself falling asleep before a 45-minute show was over.

Maybe when one's capacity is forced to stretch to a size much larger than ever, everything in the past becomes so tiny. Maybe before making any real accomplishment, we need to be stretched over and over again.

Now my work and life are mixed so well that I can't tell the difference. Though I am not sure where it will lead to, I guess it's just the Assistant Professor 101.

There is No Going Back

[寫於八月底]


回台灣一個月了，和往常一樣，夏末秋初總是在台灣渡過，同樣過於鬆懈的暑假尾聲、同樣的濕熱難耐，只是這次不同的是，當秋風吹起時，深夜十一點的飛機不再起飛 -- There is no going back。

今天決定把網誌標題改了。舊標「In the Middle of Nowhere」是過去六年的心情寫照，回台之後，留學生活的如夢似幻迅速消散，一切變得再踏實不過。迷惘虛幻之感沒了，接來的是責任與挑戰，學術和人生都是條 one-way trip，踏上了起跑點，就只能往前衝了。

舊標題下的照片，2008-09秋冬激盪下的視野，繼續留著，以備將來暈車時，還記得當初是如何地渴望搭上列車(*1)。


--
(*1) 見舊文 Byebye Jail.