Early September, I was in Vancouver for a weekend visiting my brother’s family. The sky was laden with overcast as the plane touched down. The city feels very clean, looks modern and the traffic is not bad. It is a likeable city. Over the weekend, we visited the Stanley Park, Granville island and the Capilano Suspension Bridge park. I enjoyed the gatherings and played our role as tourists. I like the city, but also feels that it is missing its energy, its prosperity and its own character. I wonder if living in Vancouver through the rainy season could be a depressing experience .
This September will be remembered as my transition to become an empty nester.
After helping our son to move in to his dorm in LA, my spouse and I had a great time visiting in the Getty Museum, then the two of us went home. The term “empty nesting” did not quite reflect the sentiment I experienced in the first week after, I felt more like being granted “renewed freedom and extra time to spare” even though we always miss our children. Living with teenagers is sometimes an energy sapping experience. When taking care of infants or young kids, it is physically exhausting but mentally uplifting as the babies make you feel so much needed. Teenagers give parents sprouts of helplessness when they choose to follow their ideas, and simply ignore the parental advice about healthy living, good work habits and important moral values. It would have been not that bad if not for his injury that requires extensive physical therapy to maximize his recovery. I had some nights waking up exploring (mostly in vain) how to squeeze in more life lessons and healthy habits to my son. Now it is time for him to flap his wings to find his own path, and we become his supporting cast from this point onwards.
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第十年的情人節 (Traditional Chinese)
by 東野圭吾 (Keigo Higashino)
I enjoyed the clever plot of his long detective novel “The Devotion of Suspect X: A Detective Galileo Novel” by the author.
I had expected more clever murder cases from his new book. To my surprise, this latest addition comprises of nine short stories. Only two of the stories are related to murder cases. Each story is engaging, about human beings that we can relate to, about likeable characters and often about relationships that we care about such as paternal love, parenthood, friendship.
After all the years writing about detective stories, Keigo Higashino brings us back to the fundamentals when we look deep enough, many real life stories consist of clever plots and interesting twists too.
I fully enjoy reading each of the nine stories.
Enlightenment Now : The case for reason, science, humanism and progress
By Steven Pinker
With enthuse praise of Bill Gates, this book has taken me quite a while to finish.
It has three parts – I. Enlightenment and what it is ; II. Progress and III. Reason, Science and Humanism.
Part I and II contain humongous volumes of information, which prove beyond doubt that life has never been better than now in terms of progress towards life expectancy, maternal mortality, child mortality, poverty, diseases and maybe even happiness.
Human survival instinct tends to focus on the negative sides of many things, and modern journalists like to create drama out of bad news. The author debunks those biases, and provides us convincing evidence our progress towards living longer, healthier, safer, richer and happier.
Part III reads like an extremely long persuasive article to convince reason, science and humanism over things like authoritarianism, magical thinking, irrationalist, fascism and theistic morality. I find it taxing to follow along.
I enjoy Part I and II, but part III seems too academic and too full of different terminologies.
If you think the world is not getting better, this book is a must read to change your mind.
oliviatamccue 
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