Chapter 1

Nile was a student from Germany, traveling to Italy during his summer vacations. That’s all. He didn’t say too much about himself and Jane didn’t ask. That didn’t mean she’s not curious about him, however, Jane never masters the technique enquiring other. So, to avoid sounding like a police woman, she chose not to ask.

They stood by the side of the ice cream shop, eating, talking and smiling. Only after she finished her ice cream, Jane noticed Nile was seriously good-looking. Eventually God sent her somebody nice to look at to make up all the visual torture she had to surfer for so many years. It’s not like there’s no good-looking guy in computing field, it’s that people really don’t care about anything other than 1 0 binaries, including appearance. Jane had this research fellow, who only wore free Microsoft T-shirts, with consistently two huge yellow sweat stains around the armpits. The standard uniform in her research lab is shorts, thick socks, sandals, and whatever T-shirts one can get for free. People never bother to shave or get a haircut; everyone has a big saggy belly and some freakish little thing, like squeezing left eye every 3 second. Jane is the only girl in this group, or the only girl who actually looks like a girl.

“Thanks for the ice cream”, said Jane, “it’s very good.”
“You are very welcome.”

Then Nile stopped talking. His eyes were so wide and pure, like the ocean, or the cat Jane used to have when she’s a little girl. His nose is so straight and tall, like David’s. He has this dark brown thick curly hair, which makes him look like one of those sailor dolls. Realized it’s probably rude to stare at someone like that, Jane started to feel her face was burning…She must’ve turned red! Jane then paniced, maybe she’d got some ice cream on her nose or something, so she wiped her face quite hardly, but there’s nothing.

“A walk?” finally Nile said something.
“Sure.”

So both of them joined the tourist herd. Nile was so tall, all the Japanese tourists, and Jane only barely reached his shoulder.

Jane was quite confused. She wasn’t sure why Nile was like that. There’s a slim chance that he had fallen love with her at the first sight and would like to follow her around the world until she said yes, and then they would live happily ever after. However, Jane was brought up with strict logic reasoning rather than fairy tales, so this idea didn’t even bother to flash in her mind. Then what else? Why would this guy offer her an ice cream on the street and now be walking with her? She decided not to care. After all, it can’t hurt anyone to have a bit unusual in a trip.

Now they were in front of Trevi Fountain. Besides them, there were also another 3 million people packed in this tiny street junction. All Jane could see was millions of people’s heads and the head of Neptune.

“pfffftttt…” Jane sighed in her female computing scientist way.
“Let’s come back later. I bet nobody would be here at 3am”, said Nile.
“Really? 3am?”
“Yea, why not, that’ll help you with jet lag.”

Alright, that’s it. Jane couldn’t stand it any more. She has to find out.

“So what is it?” Failed to find a perfect way to start, she only managed to mumble out those four words.
“What what is it?” Nile’s eyes were so innocent.
“The ice cream, the walk and now the fountain at 3am, everything.”

Nile smiled a little, such a warm smile. Jane suddenly felt stupid. Why did she have to ask! Why couldn’t she just take whatever romance might happen?!

“Your laziness and aimlessness caught me. You didn’t look like a tourist but clearly you are one. You seemed a bit lost and I figured a bit ice cream might cheer you up. Since you enjoyed the ice cream, I also guessed maybe you would mind my company either. I’m traveling on my own and it is not as cool as it looked. That’s it.”

The second after Nile finished his words, Jane decided to believe him.

“Oh…alright then.” Jane stopped for a second.

Then both of them burst into laughs. Instantly, they’d felt like old friends for ever.

Via Roma - the prelude

Jane remembers the feeling so vividly: hot air wave with strong humidity and dust, mingled with gasoline flavor from the millions of mopeds on the street, so sticky to her skin, like a tight air bubble wrapping her up, impossible to escape from. Somehow she never really wanted to escape. The feeling always brought her back to the late May afternoon in Rome.

She was in town for a conference. Jane is so called “third sex”, a female computing scientist. She spends most of her time researching inside the binary world, and goes to bed at 4am everyday. If she has to, she gets up before the morning ends and last the whole days on 20 cups of black coffee. Sometime she seriously suspects if her head has started to look more and more like a computer screen, since that’s what she spends most the time staring at. She’s still single, simply because she doesn’t have time to go meet guys and no handsome, clean and funny guy would pay a visit to a computer lab to discover Jane. She’s fine with it; it’s difficult anyways to squeeze a boyfriend into her crazy schedule. She had fancied a trip to Italy ever since the day she watched the movie: Roman Holidays. Don’t take it that Jane is such a girlish girl, who fancies being a princess and meeting a tall journalist guy. She just simply likes adding the locations of the movies into her travel wish lists, of course only movies she likes.

After two day’s preparation and one day at the boring conference, Jane finally got to take an afternoon off. The sunshine was so lovely: warm and comforting; and Rome was so lovely too: busy and vivid. Jean wondered on the street, aimlessly following a big group of tourists. She had found out it’s the easiest way to discover a famous site. Don’t even bother to consult the map or travel books, millions of tourist, like tuna fish herds, will take you there. Just join the trend.

Time for ice cream, or gelato, like those Italians call it. Jane stopped by this little shop, but couldn’t decide what to go for.

“Hard decision? Erh?” a guy’s voice.

Jane looked to her left. It was a young guy with shining tanned skin and clear blue eyes.

“Yea…too many choices.” She smiled to him shyly. Somehow, she always becomes incredibly shy in front of good-looking guys. It’s silly and she doesn’t know why. She tries to comfort herself: it’s not like they can sense all the wild thoughts you have about them!! But it doesn’t work anyways.

“Try this one, you’ll like it”. The guy handed her two bright orange colored ice cream balls on a cone, with a big smile.

Jane didn’t really know how to response. She’s taught not to take food from strangers when she’s two. However, maybe it’s because of Rome (Jane later blamed Rome for many things that happened that day and after), she took the cone and had a bite.

“hmmmm, it IS good!” She smiled back, less shyly.

“Hi, I’m Nile”.

“I’m Jane.”

A Novel

I'm thinking about writing a novel. It all started when I was trying to find a decent fiction book to read. I browsed through the titles listed by Penguin, and you wouldn't believe how limited the topics are: love affairs, relationships, love affaires, relationships, love affaires, relationships...I can do something like that. Rather than spend time reading love affaires and relationships written by other people, I might write my own version as well. After all, I do enjoy making things up, don't I.

So it'll be a love story, with an affire or maybe not, (I'm not a big fan of affaires), but definitely lots of relationships there. It could be a story of several girls, who go to college together and then how their lives change over the time...lots of rooms for relationships and even affires if I want.

Time Wasting

I was reading this little book I got when bought a Cosmo magazine last time when I was in London. I didn't even notice the title. It starts with a scene: a woman finds out her husband has affair and decides on leaving him, and then blah blah...As usual, I flipped to the last page, and found out the woman and her husband finally get back together. Pft....What a book and what a waste of time to read a book like this!

Somebody hates finding out the ending of a book or a movie before they finish the story, I actually think the ending would be the first thing I want to know before even start the reading. What's the point to waste your time if after all the hours spent you only get upset or even angry with a disappointing ending?

Birthday!

Finally, after trying hundreds of sign-in names/user names/display names/web names, eventually I got the site set up. I did end up with a rather weird web link name though.

As the title, I really just want to post some my random thinking (and maybe some gossip news ) onto this blogging site. It feels a bit uncomfortable initially; it feels like publishing my own diary. ( It'll also be a good practice for me to type outside MSWord - without spelling checker! )