Travel Notes on East Lake (Part 2)

I live seventeen floors up and when I cry

I can see the city through my watered eyes

2020.11.22

Xiaoxue

You don’t need a map to guide you when riding on the East Lake Greenway. Just follow the asphalt road and go straight ahead. There’s no problem in choosing any fork you encounter. After all, no matter how you go around, you’re still within the “East Lake” circle.

 

The weather was very good on the day I went, and the calm lake water against the blue sky gave people an indescribable sense of mystery. There are not many people on the greenway, and you often don’t see pedestrians when you turn a corner. Most of the people who come to the greenway are runners and cyclists. Although they don’t know each other, they often stop at the same best place to enjoy the lake and chat.

I found an empty bench and sat facing the lake. The lake in the distance is extremely calm, and there is really no obvious dividing line between it and the sky. If it weren't for the roar of the waves, I would have thought the scenery was just like the sea.

 

Personally, I always felt that there was something wrong with the lake, so I took some photos and posted them on Peng WeChat, simulated the space of the king of curling, and called xd. We chatted on the phone, about the courses we came to the university to study, the canteens we ate in, the beautiful scenery around the university, and the construction of our hometown from afar. I was really proud of myself for being able to talk so much.

 

It is common to be alone in a foreign place. The university's special management system and way of working and resting dilute the concept of "class". I often ride a bicycle and wander around the campus alone. I don’t really like being alone, and the personal playlist I listen to most often still contains “Old Friends” by Half an Orange. Every time I switch to this song, it arouses strong emotions in me. The lyrics are even more memorable to me:

♫ Half an Orange

"Old Friends"

 

Swipe up to read

 

I live seventeen floors up and when it rains

I can hear those drops in my windowpane

Lets me know that I’m still here

But when the sun comes up I will go outside

When it breaks through clouds I will give a smile

Lets me know that I’m still here

Sometimes I want to run away, run away

To find good times again

To find all my old friends

Good times, I said good times

Find my friends again

I said I wanna have good times, good, good times

Find my friends again

Good times, I said good times

Find my friends again

I said I wanna have good times, good, good times

Find my friends again

I live seventeen floors up and when I cry

I can see the city through my watered eyes

Lets me know that I’m still here

When my eyes clear up I will go outside

I’ll imagine you’re still by my side

Lets me know that I’m still here

Sometimes I want to run away, run away

To find good times again

To find all my old friends

Run away, run away

To the nearest place, where I’ll find all my old friends

Good times, I said good times

Find my friends again

I said I wanna have good times, good, good times

Find my friends again

Good times, I said good times

Find my friends again

I said I wanna have good times, good, good times

Find my friends again

 

A huge city with a huge population base... After leaving high school, I traveled far away, saw the colorful world outside, and realized the insignificance and loneliness of individuals.

 

I would find various places to study by myself, I would eat at the buffet alone, I would ride a bike around the lake at midnight, letting the late autumn night wind blow my hair that I had grown deliberately long. One person dealt with the security guard, and the other person went to the outpatient clinic to register, pay and receive medicine. A man took the subway from Wuchang to Hankou to see his dentist. He lay on a recliner and was blinded by the dim and bright light. I reluctantly opened my eyes and looked at the seven or eight doctors staring at me. I asked them to put various medical instruments into my mouth, accompanied by all kinds of professional medical terms and countless drug names even if I counted my toes. Although I knew they were all thinking about my health, at that moment I really only felt unreasonable fear and loneliness.

I still remember Max, who has the ability to reverse time in "Life is Strange". Her ability not only brought her a strange life, but also brought problems: when the town encountered a storm, what caused the time to go back to the time when her good friend Chloe was shot? Or should he keep her and let the whole town be destroyed by the storm? My choice was to sacrifice the entire town. At the end, the two of them embraced each other and watched the town being eroded by the storm - I don’t know how many people saw it in tears. Who doesn't want to have a good partner who will stay with him for life? Who is willing to endure loneliness?

 

So I began to participate in a large number of organizations and activities, sign up for student unions and clubs, learn Rubik's Cube and programming... let them occupy my alone time as much as possible, let them enjoy my world exclusively. But in the end, I found that I was still unbearably lonely. It was a kind of emptiness that belonged to me. I even doubted whether I was a node in the community of human destiny.

 

Sometimes I really can't feel my existence, my own value, and I feel like I can't maintain my ideals.

 

These fearful emotions often affect my mood, but I am still very proud of myself for going to job fairs alone and getting to know Tsinghua seniors. I will still call my parents and chat when I have nothing to do, so that their lives will be less lonely because of me. I will still be satisfied because "the clouds are parted and the blue sky is revealed", just like the blue sky above East Lake now.

I feel that the calm lake is like a listener. Although I don't make a sound, it takes its own meaning. In such a city, there is such a lake, such a blue sky, such a bench... good scenery will really open people's minds more easily.

I stood up and thought that in a few minutes I would ride back to school to write my calculus homework, write unfinished code, do everything that should be done in the teaching building at this time, and take exams... I can't imagine it. What memories of East Lake will remain in my mind a few hours later?

The name "East Lake" is very common, so common that I would even confuse it with Wuhan's "East and West Lake District", and the big lake in the East and West Lake District is Jinyin Lake. I don't know how the name "East and West Lake District" came from. , it is said that the former West Lake was divided into East and West Lake and West West Lake, and then West West Lake was disappeared?

 

I think there is nothing wrong with being a simple person, as simple as the name "East Lake". But I know that this is just in vain, because I am always used to setting my goals too long-term, and it is easy to aim too high. It's rare that I haven't thought about myself as much as I did when I was at the East Lake. I always feel that my life is dissatisfied and unhappy, but this is precisely because I don't take a particularly long-term view.

 

Learn calculus, why should you learn it?

"Integral records the path you have taken step by step, and differentials predict your future direction time and time again. Integrals represent the past, and differentials represent the future."

This is the most elegant answer I have ever seen, but I understood it by the way when I was looking at closed-loop algorithms. Otherwise, I would not have known the special meaning of calculus until I finished studying it.

 

In the same way, when I looked through blogs on the Internet and found that the processing of various data sets is inseparable from matrix arrays, I realized that the applications of linear algebra are so wide.

 

Besides this, how many other things are there that I have learned but still don’t know the profound meaning of them? When something like this happens, can I just burst into laughter?

 

I got on the bike and this time I really wanted to leave. On the road, I would turn around and look at the East Lake to the west of the road from time to time, and I would not hesitate to stop and capture the most beautiful moments of it on my mobile phone.

 




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