Often times I had to stay up till five in the morning, and when I eventually got to go to bed, I wondered: 'Where are those cars going five o'clock in the morning? I never knew a city starts to wake up this early!'
At BU, a college that I have no sense of belonging to, there is actually something I could be proud of, and that is: my dorm. I am very lucky to be assigned into one of these brownstones on Bay State road, though arguably my brownstone might be one of the worst on this street. Nevertheless, Bay State road is probably the most picturesque place on campus. Otherwise why do the tour groups always focus on this one tiny spot of the humongous campus? For this very reason, I find it proud to nestle in this corner of the BU community. I always enjoy the feeling that those people in the tour groups look at me when I swipe into my house, as if I'm someone that they would like to be when they were accepted by BU--since I live in the better place. What's in front of my house is one of the finest places on campus, but what's behind just doesn't sound so pleasant--the Storrow Drive.
BU is a college in a city, so it has more metropolitan feeling instead of vast amount of grass lawn like our fellow colleges, such as: Stanford, Wellesley, or even our neighbors Harvard and Tufts. However, the city beats cannot stop BU Terriers from desiring nature on campus, if not the entire campus, at least a small chunk of it for us to pretend that we actually have a campus. So we have the "BU Beach", a place that I have wandered through quite a few times wondering why the heck it is called "beach", since I see no sand. It's more like a park on campus: lots of grass, some sculptures, and many chairs...this is it. As my freshman year went along, one of my neighbors in the house, an upper classmen told me the story: you have to find the beach yourself by laying down on the grass and closing your eyes. Then, what you hear is supposed to sound like waves hitting beach, though it's really the sound made by cars driving by on storrow drive, lies along the "BU Beach."
The very same storrow drive is out of my window, but I do not find it romantic as described on "BU Beach", at least not at five in the morning. The "BU Beach" seems like a comfortable place for me to read and think in a sunny afternoon, laying down on the grass or sitting on a chair. This, I do confess, but I have never done so. I probably should, just to complete my BU life.
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Storrow Drive is a road that runs parallel to the Charles River, another scenic spot of Boston, not only of BU. I can literally see people running in the park next to the Charles River, which sometimes could be quite a recreational activity for me, though it is not rest of the time--which is, most of the time. People may wonder what do I have to complain when I have such nice view out of my window. Let me explain as precise as possible: storrow drive is not only a nice, scenic road runs along the Charles River, but the section out of my window is apparently the part connects the city with the "Mass Turnpike," the freeway runs through the entire state of Massachusetts. Moreover, no matter whichever direction my fellow Boston residents are heading to, they pretty much have to get on the "Mass Turnpike," meaning they would drive in front of my window, while causing some noise, which is inevitable. I live on the second floor, and the thing is that I don't seem to get the good side of either of these two: storrow drive and the Charles River. On the second floor, we're close enough to be bothered by the noise made by storrow drive, while the view of Charles River is blocked by trees in the park on the bank.
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...I was laying in my bed five o'clock in the morning, after catching up for my finals, wishing finally to get some sleep. It's always amazing to realize that sky can brighten up so fast in the morning, while I was trying to fall asleep. As I was desperately wishing not to notice the sky was not dark anymore, it was cruel to know that it was probably within minutes that sun was gonna be up there. But this did not seem to be enough to hurt my feeling, storrow drive started to get busy! God damn it, can you believe it? Give me a break, it was only five in the morning! Where are all you people going? "Why don't you better use the time by staying in bed asleep, or at least pretend you're asleep?" It was then, I started to wonder how the day could be made different by getting up at different time, and thus leads to doing different things. Hmm, interesting.
I then reviewed the point of time that I usually got up at throughout my life, and plotted this data into a graph on my mind, "Age vs. Time I get up." Here, we see an obvious curve which resembles the graph of "y = -1/x" . Excuse me for not using mathematical terms, since first I'm not a math person who loves mathematical explanation, and second that I just figured excluding math out of this article is for the health for both the author and the reader, if there's any. Unfortunately, I just got lazier and lazier as I am getting older. In kindergarten, I would get up extremely early, at least to my standard of now, without even feeling that I was getting up too early, which would lead to the feeling of exhausted at a later time of the day. Then in elementary school, my laziness started to surface, I was constantly being late for school, not a good record for a kid under 12. To my knowledge, I don't seem to remember a single time that I got to school 30 minutes before school started, or I might and it is just that I do not rememer, which I do not consider possible. In middle school, finally some difference. The school made me get up 6:20 every morning, given 25 minutes to clean up, and I had to run at least 1 kilometer afterwards. It was pretty much the most regular schedule that I have ever been on, and I couldn't afford going to bed after 12, which could be a disaster. This healthier pattern was extended to my high school career since I was under the same school authority for a while. In the last years of my high school, I would go to bed at about midnight...Now, in college, sleeping before 12 sounds weird to me. I guess I'm a hopeless person now...always live on the wrong schedule.
Later on, I found the question that "where are people going at five in the morning" just stuck in my head. Finding no solution, I had to think through it. Five o'clock in the winter, very early...first of all, getting up at such an early time of the day would be quite a challenge to most people, and getting into the car and actually drive seems quite a sign of determinism to me. I don't want to know that there are some of them who are actually "early birds", as this is just too cruel for me to face. Hence, I seem to summarize these people's motivation into: it must be a place that this person has to be at a certain time, or as soon as possible. Otherwise, would you get up at five and actually do it? I suppose most of us won't.
Sadly, my thought ran off the topic: I love the feeling of early morning. I actually rather enjoy the feeling of early morning. And everytime I think of early morning, this one picture is vividly presented on my mind: one early morning in Beijing, presumably downtown area: it could be around Jingshan, once an imperial garden, now a park with a hill behind the Forbidden City, or it could be on the Chang'an Avenue, the one most vital street in Beijing...sun is slowly rising, and the light shines on everyone gently...you see people waiting for bus, or riding bicycles, and some others having their breakfasts on hand while walking. Things get started then, and people were all busy hurrying to some place, their destination, and most likely the one place they will spend their day at. Seniors citizens are probably the most active people in the morning, some of them came out with their birds in cages, walking slowly but happy. Others are scattered all over parks or in their own communities recreating: Taiji seems to be the most popular, while you can also find other forms of exercising. Our senior fellows tend to stay home for the rest of the day, though it is also a scene in Beijing that old men play Chinese chess outdoors, but usually not far from their home in the afternoon. ( I myself consider several old men playing chess in Hutong or against the red wall of Forbidden City and its attachment to be classic)...a crowd is also often accompanied--they're watching. Please be advised, people are not supposed to talk to those who are playing...this is probably part of the Chinese culture as they believe the educated will not talk to intervene the game while watching.
I also remember times when I traveled with my parents that I had to get up as early as almost 5 to catch some magnificent moment, and it was bitter. True, last year, before my senior year started, my high school made all attending seniors get up 3:45 in the morning to climb up the mountain next to our campus, in order to see the sunrise on it. That time, it was awkward, my day wasn't going right.
Morning may be a good thing for me, but the trouble is that I don't seem to have the habit of getting up early enough to enjoy it. Would I still enjoy it when I get up early regularly, which means the "beautiful morning" is only a normal pattern to me? Five o'clock in the morning, where are people going? How are their day like? Is that a brand new start, or plain just like another one, or disastrous? Who knows...I choose to stay in bed, whenever I can, when it is five in the morning.
Last, I would finish in the quasi-Australian way for this random piece of writing: "Good day, mate!"
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