Last time saying this, but I would give anything for an imagination, anything to pick up an interesting news bit, a bizarre murder case, and be able to weave, elaborate, embellish it into a coherent story with characters and denouements. but I can't, and I envy those who can, as i try to make a story deadline (next Friday is it? bang bang). The tragedy of nonfiction is also that, due to my poor social skills to anything not handed to me, I am lacking in the department of human interaction. That is, i've had plenty of interaction with nurses and doctors in the last two weeks, but alas... other than maybe a paragraph on just how Chinese Chinese hospitals are, i can't see a redeeming point. Unless i do some social-critique type of essay... then I've plenty of material, but I'm afraid Gao Xingjian beat me to it. i must be too Westernized if I'm thinking like Gao too, all respect, but unfortunately no one respects him here, but then the fact that I don't like (but respect) Chinese literature in the past 100 years doesn't bode well for that. so instead, i bought Kafka on the Shore in Chinese instead, along with three other contemporary contemporary Chinese novels that looks of interest, and here is my philosophy, if you've no stories pelting in your direction, then enter the world of fiction. Diminutive homework from my classes help this, and so I'm setting myself with a rigorous self-study schedule that includes writing many characters and finishing novels in two weeks and churning out stories no many how painful it is. whether I succeed or not is a matter of perseverance, but by god, I'm a New Yorker, and that's the end of it.