棒棒糖 VS 香烟

Lollipop，就是我们小时候吃的棒棒糖。苏格兰的小孩也喜欢吃。常常可以在街上看见他们边走边吃。我也曾加入他们的行列。

昨天，去见牙医时，在路上遇见两个十二三岁的女中学生。其中一个吃着棒棒糖，舔啊舔的，吃得津津有味。来到马路旁，她往口袋里掏啊掏，掏出了打火机。她的同学则从口袋里拿出一包香烟，递了一根给她。 我……我……我还以为她是要拿一根棒棒糖给朋友。

红灯转绿了，有点回不过神的我跟在她们后面过马路，看着她抽了一口烟，再舔一舔棒棒糖。

女性抽烟在苏格兰是很平常的一件事，而且女性往往抽得比男性凶。有个朋友说，或许这是苏格兰女性为了显示自己的能力和男性一样的结果。

三月廿六日，苏格兰公共场所全面禁烟后，报章上报道了不少烟民的埋怨。有的说，这是侵犯他们的人权。有的说，他们无法和朋友在酒吧里头好好的说话。因为烟瘾来时，他们得到外头抽烟，一根烟之后，就接不上朋友的话题了，非常无趣。报章上也刊登了两张照片，一张是酒吧里头的有酒无烟，另外一张是酒吧外头的有烟无酒，很搞笑。烟和酒，可是城中夜猫子不可或缺的良伴，如今鱼与熊掌不可兼得，怎不让他们呱呱叫呢？

另外，苏格兰也还有一个有趣的现象。从我当通译以来，都可以看见护士、助产士、医生、病人和访客在医院的大门口或抽烟区抽烟。二三十个人围在四米乘一米的空间吞云吐雾是挺壮观的。每次经过都得走快两步，免得不小心咳嗽了，就被当成是歧视烟民。

可是，不管是有酒无烟的酒吧、有烟无酒的街道或是香烟袅袅的抽烟区，它们所带给我的错愕，都比不上一手棒棒糖，一手香烟的女中学生来得大……

Masalah Dihadapi

Masa beredar secepat kilat, sampailah masa untuk mengisi laporan kemajuan tesis saya. Apabila saya mengisi bahagian yang menyatakan masalah yang saya hadapi dalam penulisan tesis, saya ketawa tiba-tiba.

Cuba baca laporan-laporan saya yang terdahulu, pasti kamu akan faham sebab saya ketawa...

Semester 2, Sesi 2003/2004
Kesukaran memperoleh sumber dalam bahasa Melayu, maka banyak penterjemahan diperlukan. Masalah paling ketara yang saya hadapi ialah penterjemahan karya-karya Li Qingzhao ke Bahasa Melayu.

Semester 2, Sesi 2004/2005
Sumber-sumber dalam bahasa Melayu adalah kurang, maka banyak penterjemahan diperlukan memandangkan sumber-sumber yang saya rujuk adalah dalam bahasa Cina dan Inggeris. Ini telah melambatkan kemajuan penyelidikan saya.

Semester 2, Sesi 2005/2006
Kajian terdahulu tentang Li Qingzhao jarangnya dijalankan dalam bahasa Melayu. Maka, kajian saya terpaksa merujuk kepada sumber-sumber dalam bahasa Cina dan bahasa Inggeris serta menterjemahkannya ke dalam bahasa Melayu. Ini telah melambatkan kemajuan kajian saya.

Pandainya saya. Boleh menggunakan ayat yang berlainan untuk memberi alasan bagi kemajuan saya yang tidak begitu memuaskan.

Daripada laporan-laporan tersebut, saya dapati nampaknya saya tidak memperoleh apa-apa kemajuan dalam tiga tahun yang lepas. Memang berasa malu untuk menuliskan laporan “KEMAJUAN”.

猪之歌

有个朋友给我寄了这首MTV，挺有趣的。
有时间的话，去听一听吧！

http://img94.exs.cx/img94/405/songofpig7gr.swf

似乎马来西亚华裔对猪都会有一份特别的感情……

病发在五十岁

这几个星期来接触了好几个女病人。中年、老年都有。遇见了她们，心中泛起了点点的担忧，又有一些些无奈。

首先是一个来自香港的安娣，六年来，她都在和癌症搏斗，先是乳癌，接着是骨癌。乳癌的化疗导致头发脱光了，好不容易长回来了，骨癌又来拜访她。见到她的时候，过耳的头发，不太浓也不太薄，是第二次化疗之后再长出来的。她说：“现在三十多岁，很快就五十岁了。五十岁，什么问题都来了。”

三十多岁，说的是我。先是有点愕然，接着，却不得不承认她的话。看，我的人生不也是一眨眼就过了三十年吗？

另一个安娣则是因为B型肝炎而来的。弟弟前年死于肝癌；妈妈去年发现患了肝癌。超声波扫描显示她的肝有肿大的迹象，可是验血报告显示她的肝功能正常。医生要跟她做活检，以获取最准确的资料。活检，即在身上局部麻醉肝的所在，然后插入一支针，再取出肝组织。取出的部分就像是把回形针拉开成条状，一寸长左右。她担心这样“搞”她的肝，会不会激活了潜伏在肝里头的癌细胞？医生说，她要担心的应该是活检之后，导致肝流血不止，或是受感染。

可是，弟弟死前所承受的痛苦，妈妈现在所受的煎熬，让她只希望将来自己可以“好死”。丈夫有意无意的言语：“早知你有这样的坏遗传，我当年就不跟你结婚了。”，让她难受又无奈。一旦丈夫疑神疑鬼怀疑自己患上B型肝炎，她更感愧疚。所幸三个子女都不是B型肝炎患者。离开医院之前，她说：“唉，我以前哪里有看什么医生的。过了五十岁，就这边痛，那边病！”

躺在病床上等待第二天动手术的老婆婆，索性一看见我，就哭了起来。边哭边说自己的命不好，得了肾病，洗了十几年的肾。很惨啊！很痛啊！没有人理我，孩子只管赚钱……我忙着安抚她说：“放心吧！你现在到医院来了，医生一定可以帮到你的。”“医生没有鬼用的，上次做了手术又不可以，现在又要做。”时而说、时而骂、时而哭。从医生问她的问题旁敲侧击，我好不容易才了解她的情况。

原来她要做的手术是安装体内移植管，也就是在大腿的皮肤下层安装一种特别的管子，连接动脉和静脉。这条移植管会用作进行血液透析（洗肾的其中一种方法）插入针头的部位，以接上洗肾机。手术当然有一定的风险，而体内移植管常见的风险就是移植管不能操作，得另外找地方安装移植管。老婆婆就是因为双手的移植管不能操作，所以才要在大腿安装移植管的，而她现在用的移植管是装在右胸下的。

老婆婆生于1933年，1983年回去香港探亲以后，就没有再踏足故乡，因为她得一个星期洗肾三次。算一算，她也是五十岁以后就患了肾病。

如果我真的不幸（或者是有幸，因为还活着。）像她们一样，病发在五十岁，那么，我要怎样过病发前的这十九年呢？或许，首先该换一份不必天天跑医院的工作……

Burns Cottage

Now, it’s the turn to talk about Burns Cottage. Before talking about Burns Cottage, I must introduce a guy to you first.

Ladies and gentleman, let’s meet with Mr. Robert Burns. He is Scotland’s most remarkable and best-loved son. The Scottish say he is a humanitarian, national hero, poet and musician, lover and international son. I believe you still have no idea about him. Then, please allow me to introduce him from a foreigner’s view. He is the writer of Auld Lang Syne (友谊万岁). You should have an idea about him now, right?

Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 at Burns Cottage. He stayed there until he was seven years old. The cottage was built by Robert Burns’ father William Burnes two years before Robert was born. Do you notice that Robert Burns’ surname was different from his father’s? It’s not a typo! Robert Burns dropped the “e” from his surname to adopt the more common Ayshire spelling of “Burns”.

Ok, let’s go back to the Cottage. Roberts Burns and his brother, Gilbert received their early education at the cottage. Anyway, Robert Burns never went back to the cottage in his life until he died at 37 years old.

Since the Scottish are proud of Robert Burns, so everything related to him is considered important too. Therefore, we had a trip to the cottage to see its real appearance. There is a museum beside the cottage which so called the world’s most important Robert Burns collection. (Honestly, I doubt about this…) There are books and manuscripts, personal artefacts as well as art and “Burnsiana” in the museum, but not as massive as I imagined when I was reading the leaflet.

Even though I’m not very familiar with Robert Burns, but I enjoyed the trip as it’s good to see how the Scottish take good care of their heritage.

Culzean Castle

What did you do on April Fool’s Day? From the photos I uploaded this morning, I believe you know that Thiam Kian and I had an outing on that day. We went for a trip to Culzean Castle and Burns Cottage organised by University of Glasgow's International Student Office. Both of the places are in the south west of Glasgow. It took us 1.5 hours to go there.

Let’s talk about Culzean Castle first. Before I forget, let me tell you that we need not to pronounce the "z" for Culzean.

Culzean Castle dates back to the 12th century, but the castle we see nowadays was mainly designed and built in the 18th century. The famous Scottish architect, Robert Adam (1728 - 1792) was the designer of the castle.

It belonged to the Kennedy family. The tour guide emphasised, this Kennedy family has no connection to the Kennedy family in the USA. The purpose for building this castle was because the family wanted to have a big house for all of their family members. Of course, they wanted to defend themselves from their enemies too. Therefore they decided to build the castle at the current location, where there is sea cliff at the back and gutter in the front to provide natural defences to the castle.

Anyway, after staying in this castle for about 150 years, the Kennedy family gave the castle to the National Trust for Scotland in 1945. Do you know why they did so? The reason was that the family was unable to pay 74% of heritage tax to the government. What a high tax, sigh!

After walking around the castle, we moved to the Camellia House. It's a greenhouse in Culzean Country Park. Have you seen the photos we took in front of the Camellia House? My friend, Toung said, the photos we took between branches of the tree are Bollywood style photos. What say you?

Flowers in front of Camellia House attracted our attention. For sure, we took a lot of photos with the yellow flowers. Toung said again, it's impossible for people to be prettier than flowers. Why I always have such honest friends?

It was a great trip as the weather was pretty good. It’s rare to have a whole sunny day in Scotland during the spring, you know. Of course, Toung and Wai San brought a lot of fun to us too. And the happiest thing was we just paid three pounds each for the trip. ^_^

格拉斯哥的春天

早上艳阳普照，中午细雨纷飞，傍晚寒风骤起。

其实，也可以换成这样的组合：
早上细雨纷飞，中午艳阳普照，傍晚寒风骤起。
早上艳阳普照，中午寒风骤起，傍晚细雨纷飞。
早上寒风骤起，中午细雨纷飞，傍晚艳阳普照。
等等……

只是这三个时段，这三种天气就变幻无穷了。不要忘记了，还有乌云密布、狂风骤雨……一天可是有24小时哦！一个小时，是可以让春天的格拉斯哥变脸连连的。

最刺激的是艳阳下，大风吹，穿着三层衣服走在阳光普照的户外，嘴里不断嘀咕：“真冷啊！”如果因为艳阳而低估了冷天气，穿少了，才凄凉呢！

开始明了李清照所说的：“乍暖还寒时，最难将息”。