I get up at 6:30 in the morning, buy the breakfast, I ordered a cup of 豆漿 and buy芝麻燒餅與水煎包. I eat in the research room. Then I start my daily work. I check the grades of my two teachers’ students and this checking cost me about two and half hour. Then I went to meet with Professor M and change our opinions toward his dissertation and our department. We talked about these topics:
1) writing a paper is trying to communication, not to show off, so a clear writing style is the best policy than ambiguous. For example, when we talked about Bourdieu’s mathematical formula, habitus= X+Y, do we really know what we are talking, do we know what Bourdieu talks, or did Bourdieu really know what he was talking? Or this is a cheating? A bullying? Did he want to cheat us, or cheat any other people in academia? Before we understand Bourdieu’s terminology, we shouldn’t use it. If we can explain and communicate in easy and clear words, then just do it. Simple is beautiful. I trust clarity is the most important thing when we are writing academic articles.
2) about the research method. He use historiography method in his dissertation. I asked him why he used this method. He replied me: “By the method, we can delineate the collective attributes among the intellectuals.” Just re-counting on the number of people and where they graduate and other dimension, we could get interesting results. Just as the statistical graphs, if we can re-make them in other way (maybe change the order of the items, or displace items in line into in column), there may be other history we can talk. This are different ways to play the statistical game, so are other data we get from literature or interviews.
3) third, we talked about the translation question. If we want write Chinese people’s names. Before 1949, We must write in 威妥瑪 spelling, now we must do in 漢語spelling. Translation is always a question and we can dispute on translation. Taking Durkheim’s conscience as an example, there are two meanings in one word in French, but if we want to express it in English, we need two words such as collective consciousness and collective conscience.(I am not very sure here) Actually, we shouldn’t stick to the English translation of the French words. We should trace back to the original word and translate it into Chinese directly. Having the ideas been translated in another will miss some meanings. Having the ideas translated second-handedly will lost a lot of meaning. Therefore, if we can trace back to the original, we should hold the copy as it was an original.
4) Academic cheating. Do what you should do, don’t do things corrupting your integrity. M said “integrity is the best policy.” I agree with this idea. Whether will I be a academic guy in future, I will keep this integrity in all my life. I believe academic affair a vocation, not a job. Schools are places to teach students, not to employ students.
5) M share me a website “I-tune.” In I-tune store, we see “i-tune U.” There are many university courses on the website of “i-tune”. These recorded courses are high class. The English courses can also train my English ability. I can learn new knowledge and English at the same time. Too marvelous!
After talking to M. I went to sing, for celebrating our course tasks having been finished. Friend sang many interesting songs: 無字的信批、新男性的復仇、追追追。We also dance during the songs of 草猛. F is happy, W is happy, all we are happy. Dancing is funny. One hour after F’s and W’s leaving, a friend sang 蕭煌奇’s song:阿嬷的話. I can’t help but cry, bursting my tears out. I missed my grandma. I hope she lives well in another world. I believe God would bless her and her husband (that is, my grandfather) and take good care of them. Mayday’s song are cool, and the song called female and male mind in the same body is also cool. Interesting! When Y sing the “love movive”, it’s amazing, a wonderful voice. After today’s singing and dancing, I am more convinced Roosevelt’s words “when play, play hard; when work, don’t play.” Playing hard makes me relaxed. This experience is so special, and makes we think about the possible other types of life. Maybe life is really a game, let’s play. Don’t be so serious, let us just play. I hope laugh and smile are always with me, I want this!
At night, after eating no good dinner, S and I went back to research room. We talked about the ice research. I drank a can of beer, and discussed with her, trying to make interesting titles and sub-titles for the paper. We had a brainstorming and we enjoyed it. About 9:30 P.M., we went back home and called it a day! A lovely day! :)
