1. Main = Subject + Verb [[+ Indirect Object] + Direct Object] (Compulsory)
   
   • and （与）
   • or （或）
   • but （非）
2. Adjunct (Optional)
   • Adverbial modifier: time, place, how, etc.
   • Relationships between things: temporal, conditional, concessive, reason, result, comparative, etc.

This is what I think of mind-map of thinking according to English Grammar. If everything can be named, and the time, the place, and the manner (how) can be defined completely and accurately, and relationships between things can be described clearly, this world will be wonderful, but....

Boredom is feeling that there are too few high quality ways to spend attention (From this). One of ways to conquer boredom I think is improving quality of everything you are.

    I surf internet everyday, like reading posts on various forums, which often takes me much time. Just a little obsession. I have a lot of things I need to do each day, but it's often hard for me to concentrate on them.

    I think it's really hard, you know, to insist on learning something you don't like much, or to try to like what you dislike. Boredom always made me depressed and unconfident, then give up. Most of the time, I didn't know actually what to do next. I probably got better after having a walking or sleep, but it didn't make sense.

    Today, I had read a post by a person I like, which impressed me much and still does. I guess I should think about what to do everyday. The state of "know nothing to do" is really and truly bad. I hate uncertainty and no supports. I want to be strong, and overcome obstacles I am facing and be understood. But who cares?

    I don't know what I am writing, but it makes me feel better, which is enough for me. I enjoy the time when I am devoted to something, despite it's easy to get tired. Recently I spend most of my time learning English, that I read Status Anxiety, New Concept English, Crazy English and so forth, and also learn English Grammar and do writing.

    I like to be absorbed in writing, though it does not look that cool. I am not good at English, know little about english words, and seldom write right. Probably it's a good habit to write something down more or less each day, even my life is so simple that I have not much to write. I envy people who can write fluently; thus, I told me just to keep learning as much as I can. To be crazy about something is a privilege of young people, however don't to be bored everyday.

    Here is a list of my favorite sites that offer services for people who want to improve their English skills. continue...

Yesterday, I read a article by Jay Dixit about dreams. It says that dreaming is a sensitive system that tries to pay much attention to the threatening cues in our environment, and as Harvard's Barrett puts it, the dreams are just thinking in a different biochemical state.

    This artcile descrbiles a bit devilish study first in which researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison tried to find out what will happen when a rat stops dreaming. The result of study was that rats lost their ability to defend themeslves. Finnish psychologist Antti Revonsuo believes that this is not because they were exhausted but because they were robbed of their dreams. Dreams, he contends, are a training ground in which animals and people alike go over the behaviors that probably are the key to prevent themselves from danger. In article, the author analyzed many situations and gave out several real instances, as well as quoted Revonsuo and other scientists' arguments and conclusions, trying to figure out the stuff of dreams. It's amusing and thought-provoking, and really gave me a clear recognition of dreams.

    In a article of New Concept English I read before, I already knew that we need sleep not because we need to rest our bodies but because we need dreams. In psychiatrist William Dement's experiments, people in test who showed some personality disorders because they were disturbed from their rapid eye-movement or REM sleep—which indicates dreaming—for several nights on end. And in this article, I got to know more about dreams.

    Dreams basically simuates virtual realities, most of which are so lifelike that they often confuse us and make us think that is really happening. I read a book on psychopathology of everyday life and interpretation of dreams by Freud before, he told that dreams are secret accomplishments or satisfactions of subconscious wishes. This author also quoted Freud's opinion, that Freud saw dreams as convoluted pathways toward fulfilling forbidden aggressive and sexual wishes and that frightening dreams were just wishes in disguises. It makes sense for me, yet this article goes further in addressing the function of dreams. It says that dreams are a sort of theater in which our brains screen realistic scenarios and the primary of function of negative dreams is rehearsal for similar real events, in which we don't dream about other people, only ourselves. We practice reactions in our dreams over and over again to ensure our own survivals when confronted with a threat.

    Just a few days before, after I watched a lot of violent and bloody murder films at late night, I dreamed a lot about scenarios that I was chased and threatened. In that cold lifeless world, there were dangerous events, negative emotions, monsters, near-death experiences and such far more sinister than in waking life. Now, I know that our dreams just served to protect us, why I dreamed that horrific scene that night because during our sleep the dreaming brains scans emotional memories, when it detects a memory trace with a strong negative emotion—which probably derived from awful experiences in real life—and then it constructs a nightmare around that theme. Probably it feels not good at frist, but it just tries to train us in dreams. If you conquer dread in dreams, yourself will improve. So a function of dreams as Revonsuo thinks is to protect and prepare us, thereby dreams simulate emergency situations and provide an arena for safe training. Why the dream world is so filled peril is to simuate the potential threats and prepare us to react quickly in dangerous encounters.

    In last paragraph "The Nighttime Edge", it talks about the dreams' edge over consicous thought. It gives an example we all knew in high school that how German chemist Friedrich August Kekule found the molecular structure of benzene, which is because he dreamed about a snake devouring its own tail and this had inspired him. Sometimes we probably had been in similar situations, for which we got better at tasks just by dreaming about them. Thus, a sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School, Robert Stickgold holds that dreaming is much more complex than rehearsal. I totally agree with his statement that sleep makes us to integrate and consolidate knowledge and during sleep our brains are making sense of the world, discoving new associations among existing memories, looking for patterns, formulating rules. Stickgold also think this is how we create meaning. This makes me think a lot. Although we rarely remember our dreams, but dreaming practically happens in our brains during sleep. Even if we are not aware of what is happening in dreams, we probably all had felt before that we once better understand some complicated problems after nights of dreaming.

    After reading this article, I started to think the dreaming as a sort of thinking activity on another level just as Barrett contends that the purpose of dreaming is as broad as all waking thought and says dreams as really just thinking in a different biochemical state. Dreams is also worring what we are worrying about in waking life, however levels differ, it often solves problems in a fancy way, unconsciously. And so it is, ancestors believed that dreams predicted the future. But we all don't understand dreaming completely, even though it is so basic to human existence. It consumes years of our lives, certainly plays a important role in our lives. In this area, we need more research.

    At last, I highly recommend this article to anyone interested in more information on this topic, you will know the stuff of dreams more deep inside.

At 12 o'clock last night, I just woke up from short-term sleep. After the completion of a task—an easy learning thing—it's still a long time to the dawn, thereby I decided to do something to kill time.

    Although I think it's fairly awful to watch videos like movies, cartoons and such at late nights all along, I guess probably mental condition is comparatively at low and lack of self-restraint at night. I always couldn't stop doing some things which I would overly regret soon. Last night it's even worse because I watched lots of films full of violence, death and bloody murder and the like. Bad experience it was! I simply only wanted to watch some other kinds of films to have a fun at first, but these films had certainly attracted me. Doomed to be not ok. I didn't like any of them!

    I felt horribly bad and was tired when the time was getting close to 6, thus I forced myself to sleep holding a thought that I could get rid of all unfavorable influences imposed on me. But nothing was relieved, nightmares chased me continuously, made me feel like in a cold lifeless horrific scene until I got up from bed hours later. Terribly afflictive it was! I didn't have any deep sleep, whereas nightmares even reminded me of some of them I had before, like nightmare season 2? 

    I cannot remember any detail now, but the feelings still remain. Don't want to have them anymore.

    一直不很明了一些基本的英文标点的使用方法，今天闲着就认真搜了下资料。也把一直困扰我的Hyphen、En Dash及Em Dash的使用与键入方法弄清楚了。详细可以参看这篇文章。

    Hyphen, En Dash and Em Dash是这三个符号：-，–，—。中文里面为：连字符，连接符，破折号。

    简单地说，Hyphen作为连字符，用于连接单词构成复合词，如self-image;或者分隔数字，如086-9089023。在键盘上，位于“0”与“=“之间的那个键的下部分。

    而En Dash作为连接符，表示的意思是“through”，比Hyphen长，但比Em Dash要短。一般用于包含一段日期或数字等。比如：“37–59”表示“从37到59”。

    Em Dash最长，类似于中文中的破折号。用于句中的中断，使用插入语时，或者用于长句的停顿等。比如，利用Em Dash在句中插入一个词语、短语或子句，这时的作用类似小括号；或者将句子末端从主体分离出来。

    En Dash与Em Dash在标准键盘上都没有单独的键可以输入。在文字处理器中，一般可以在插入项找到。但如果需要在其他地方使用的话，可以使用Alt + 0151—先按下Alt键在依次按下小键盘中的0151—来输入Em Dash（—），使用Alt + 0150来输入En Dash(–)。

    文章中还提到了一点，在规定中，Hyphen、En Dash与Em Dash前后是不允许有空格的，除了Hython在某种情况可以在后部加空格。但我觉得，破折号（Em Dash)前后加空格会显得好看一点。:-)