My job requires me to read. This should be a pleasurable experience. But its my job. It's my work. Reading is fun no longer applies. Activities are only fun when you have the luxury to do as and when you feel like it. At the end of the day, I'm expected to deliver something out of it. To conduct booktalking, to write book reviews within a given period of time. I cannot afford to read at my own pace, I cannot mince the words and appreciate the delivery of their fantastic stories.

There is a clear distinction between interest and work. I never like to mingle the two together. It can never be. Some people can. My deepest and sincere reverence to them. When interest become work, it is no longer the same. I cannot understand the devotion and passion people have for their jobs. It seems work is all they have and all to life. I never will.

At this point of time, the dream manifests itself again and tempts me once more. I shall have a piece of land, in a quaint nice peaceful outskirts of chengdu, to lead a hard to resist idyllic life. I shall plant my crops and tea and be self-sufficient.

At times, I will invite my friends over for some tea. We can drink tea for the whole day, and the society forgets our existence. Then, when I feel like it, I shall leave my hut and travel to see the four great mountains of sichuan.

After that, I will travel further to Lu Shan and see if I can discover the true form of Lu Shan. For a poet once said that Lu Shan grandness is surreal and it mystifies itself by concealing its true nature. Perhaps I might gain some kind of enlightening of my own and write another poem which no one will hear of once i compose it. Alas, I wish the society forgets about me and I too forget about the human society.

Veronika decides to die

Paulo Coelho does it again, after "The Alchemist" that has left a lasting impression, Coelho's work with deep philosophical meaning has left me inspired and rejuvenated. Veronika, a beautiful and young women, who has everything that one could not ask for more, a good career, good parents, youth, has decided to put an end to life after finding life to be mundane and repetitive.

Veronika wants to be a pianist, but her loving mom wants her to grow up to do something else, lawyer... something that can earn more, so that she can have a comfortable life. But Veronika cannot refuse this, for her mother love her so, and she has to acede, with the moral obligation that she would hurt her mother if she refuse to. This is a inner conflict of what everyone else expects you to do and what you really want to do.

It is a sad tale, at the start the build-up to Veronika's decision to die, but things took a change when her attempt failed. Landed in a asylum, she started to love life again but only because her remaining life span is left with a couple of days.

Its the only book after Romance of the three kingdom that I couldn't stop. I just had to finish it once i started. Although Tuesaday with Morrie, Kite Runner are excellent books as well, I have to rank this above the rest.