“你看水里的魚，長得那些奇形怪狀的樣子，是因為它們一天到晚在喝水，水中毒、鹽中毒。”，J 說。

在以前的中國，有一種說法是“人生的關鍵點就那麼幾個，走好了就會順，走不好就會不順”。其實，那是因為那時候的人（直到 1990 年代？）的 making choices 的機會不多。

在現在這個年代，每個中國人的每一年，都有很多的 making choices 的機會，所以上述的“人生的關鍵點就那麼幾個，...”的說法基本上已經不再成立。

在如今的中國、美國、加拿大的社會裡，對一個人的人生來說，比所謂的關鍵點 遠為重要 的是關鍵線。這幾條 縱貫線 很重要：知識、求知欲、道德實踐、taste、洞察力、性格等等。

There are too much tyrannous noises in typical Chinese cities.

(Image 'Noise' by JarleR / http://www.flickr.com/photos/29523289@N06/5544262496/ / CC)

The wannabe king dreams up his future in his moated castle that is unconnected with the world.

The thought of surety banishes possibilities from too many people's minds.

鹽味助鮮。

Well, a job holder wants monetary "respect" from his employer. However, does he respect the potential job seekers who are willing to replace him for his current job and earn the salary, i.e. his competitors with fair play?

In topology, "a sphere is an orientable surface with no boundary".

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein_bottle    and    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere#Topology .)

Well, the meaning of 'boundary' in topology is so confusing in my untrained eye.

Yes, Virginia, RIM will continue its decline.

When can any Canadian university set about offering world-class undergraduate education in its true sense?

The household drainage brings great convenience to people's life. But the drain clog that is naturally inevitable to be formed is a small annoyance occasionally.

See, with every solution, even where it's great, comes accompanied problems of its own.

The neighboring parching summer streets are kind of reminiscent of some distant days.

So many people's life, not existence, has vanished in the high-flying world of investment banking.

I savor the tranquility of the early morning prior to the moment of the rising of our baby daughter, which is a moat for my sanity.

The ongoing dismissions of product quality issues will cost Panasonic a lot more down the road.

When there have been more and more descendants of Eastern Asians enrolled in top-notch universities and colleges throughout the U.S. and Canada, they bring with them some entrenched dispositions to those higher education institutes. The heavier and heavier presence of those embedded dispositions and their caused behaviors may be a portentous sign of the shift of the higher education in both countries.

If you REALLY OBJECTIVELY think about that matter, then you may agree that my above sentences have got their point.

Can the skill of the Chinese language, which has been being studied by more and more Westerners, be parlayed into financial gains?

It seems that making Microsoft really invest in protecting its Hotmail and Live email services from hackers' invasions is like squaring a circle. That's virtually impossible. I get fishy emails from obviously compromised email accounts, which are held by my acquaintances, every once a while during the past several years.

古希臘神話中的仇怨真多啊。

The maples shade and the flowing breezes whisper creature comfort.