I have finally given up on having a long term plan or a normal life. I have tried so many years for so hard, and nothing seems to work for me. Maybe I will learn how to live like a 神仙 (shen2 xian1) or something. The first step is to quit science once and for all. :( I enjoy the ideas of science and I get excited with new problems and discoveries, especially these days with all the spacecrafts on Mars, Saturn, Titan (and Jupiter--the proposal to send an orbiter to Jupiter "Juno" was just approved for Phase A study yesterday, and my supervisor started this project--very exciting!), but somehow I cannot deal with the day to day work. There are many interesting things to do in life, so I will just pick something else and try it out. For now I want to study music and see how far I can go. There are some practical problems--visa, green card, money, etc. but I shouldn't let these things stop me from living a life.

Anyway, these days I suddenly became very philosophical. Maybe not suddenly, since I have always been interested these metaphysical subjects without formal studies. I remember we used to have so many ardent discussions on these back in middle school with you and me and XC (I think the 3 of us were the real sincere seekers). Then later you found your God and XC probably found her Way, so it's about time for me to find something. I don't know why I am so slow, but probably because I had to struggle with career choice all these years. But it's all good now. And I am happy that I am beginning to understand you and everyone else better. Why do I think I understand you better? I was reading Bruno the other day and was struck by the realization of the Ultimate. By the way, a new proposal is under development to send probes to all 4 giant planets and they want to call it Giordano.

-- email excerpt to XH.