My son called in the evening of 11-11-08, two days before I am leaving for China. I was very happy talking to him over the phone. To be sure, he seldom calls home and I don’t want to disturb him with too frequent calls. I know he is busy all the time and I always call him at wrong moment.

He talked about his plan for the independent study month, the January of 2009. There was some kind of project that he needed to compete with others in order to win the funding for the project. He told me that he planned to read a lot of books, that since he lost his credit card and forgot the PIN for his debit card, he ran out of money, that he wanted to major in mathematics and he liked it very much.

I wish he had more time for book-reading. I wish I could help him in whatever way I can. As for competing for the project, as always, try your best and let luck take care of itself.

We used to talk a lot before he left for college. But gone are those days. A call from him is enough to make my day.