September knocked me over and rushed by in a swirling blur, leaving me gawking open-mouthed, breathless. Life's exacting demand seems to know  no bounds, nor does it care a wee about how to soften its stony face and pursed lips; i was squashed and squeezed out of every drop of possible freedom, and shackled to a gloominess that i know not whether to place blame upon this importunate pitter-pattering rain, or, more justifiedly perhaps, on my maddeningly packed schedule, preposterously outrageously ruled out all my reading time. On a Shanghai rainy night as this, with bitter winds lashing against the window and cutting into my face, with glitting car lights dashing all over the streets as though heart-broken, homeless, wandering ghosts, i couldnt discern evidences of my being alive.

Oh how i doodled, most ungratefully! Fortune's smile is expensive enough, without my roaring complaints adding to its weight.