梦是反的么？

这两天天热，睡觉前看《京华烟云》定定神。好个林语堂，篡改《红楼梦》也就罢了，还要让红玉和阿非热吻若干分钟，再安排红玉去焚稿、遗书、投湖，实在是有点怪怪的。

结果越看越想看，导致睡眠时间严重不足，睡眠质量下降，不停地做梦。前一晚梦到总是当天去买飞机票。在一个阴森的苏联式大楼里（比如清华的主楼），转来转去，找不到其他国家航空公司的机票代理，只有中国民航，带着招牌微笑，对我大喊，“乘坐中国民航，实现心中理想”。实现个球，我现在想要一个猛男，你有现货吗？一生气，就醒了。

昨晚，做梦参加一个艺术研讨会。到晚了，所有的门都关着。我挤进一个房间，四面墙上都是大屏幕，主讲的是四个印度人，他们形容可笑，一本正经，描述他们的新作品。这个作品就是所有的听众一起编一个故事，随着故事的发展，情节立刻便成电影出现在屏幕上。轮到我了，我急了，磕磕巴巴地用新学的亚美尼亚语说，“我拿起了一个装着蓝色液体的烧杯”。大家哄笑，四面墙上都是拿着蓝色液体烧杯的我。没劲，我逃出来去吃麦当劳。点了一大堆东西，掏钱的时候一张信用卡也没有，只有现金。掏出了一大堆，人家都不收，原来都是打折卡和兑换卷，钱呢？我一急，又醒了。

如果梦是反的，那么我……这大概是过生日以前照旧的焦虑症吧。

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正在帮老师整理问卷，调查大学生的父母。有不少家长抱怨学费昂贵，导致他们入不敷出。也有些有先见之明，从孩子一出生，甚至出生以前就开始为他们的大学教育攒钱。有几个妈妈的文笔却是精彩，把中产阶级为了追求常春藤名校教育所遭受的折磨描写得淋漓尽致。他们为了支付学费，不得不积压自己的养老金存款，抵押房子，降低自己的消费。做可叹的是，许多人要孩子比较晚，孩子上大学的时候，父母都已经50、60岁，甚至70岁了，眼看着养老金都化为了学费收据，他们的焦虑不是没有道理的。我突然生出一种物伤其类的感觉。要是我能够在35岁左右的时候结婚，40岁之前生孩子，我的孩子上大学的时候我也要60岁了。此时就算是欢乐，似乎也是打了折扣的。张爱玲说成名要趁早，生孩子又何尝不是？

以下摘录父母语录若干： I buy reduced vegetables at the store. The last two winters, I have grown lettuce in coldframes over the winter. I look for things on sale. We literally eat rice and beans and have not been eating out like we used to do frequently. I take my own lunch to work. I did not choose Columbia--my daughter did in spite of my protestations to go to a ''state'' school within Michigan. Just hauling her belongings back and forth is expensive. The carpets in our house have spills on them and need cleaning; the walls in our house need painting. Ordinarily we would have hired someone to clean the carpets and paint the walls, and we could not do that. I have just let them go because I am gone all day and I am 60 years old--I cannot drive a hundred miles to work daily and take care of these things, too. I have darned my socks and sewn repairs in unmentionables. We have accepted free T-shirts from Microsoft and other similar places so that we did not have to buy clothes. So yes, we have definitely made sacrifices. /////// She just graduated on 5/16/2007. It is a relief. We are broke. If we had known how little Columbia University cared about the financial impact upon our family was, we would NEVER have agreed to her attending the university despite her dream of graduating from an Ivy League institution and her academic giftedness. My husband will be 74 years old in a week. I am 58 years old. We will NEVER recover from the economic impact that her eduation has had upon our savings, our retirement, the upkeep on our home, our future. There is NO time for us to recover. There NEVER will be. Our older daughter has suffered from our inability to help her with her law school tuition due to the drain on our finances caused by the Columbia tuition, expenses, etc. It was not and is not and never will be possible for us to make an equitable contribution to our older daughter's law school education because Columbia has drained us dry. We have had to sacrifice all hope of ever being able to have a comfortable existence in retirement. It has not and will not be possible in our lifetimes for us to do anything that we had hoped to do. This year I am being forced OUT OF MY JOB, due to a reorganization. Columbia University has sucked us dry and I wish the university would STOP sending requests for donations. I will NEVER donate money to the place because of how we were treated financially. The University of Illinois treats its students better. Every encounter we had with the Financial Aid Office at Columbia University was a nightmare. Billing was inaccurate. We were treated as criminals. //////// Because I married and had my children in my late 30's and early 40's, my husband and I decided we needed to immediately begin saving for our retirement by not taking family vacations or decorating our home, etc. While others went to Hawaii, we saved. Unfortunately, I also became totally disable and had to stop working. When it came time for our children' to begin college, we found that our savings prevented us from obtaining financial aid. In other words, our other friends, who took luxurious vacations and did not save, received financial aid for their children's college. We, on the other hand, were told that because we had money set aside for my retirement, were not entitled to financial aid. It did not matter to to the university that I was disabled and needed the money to live on. ////// The only reason we are not strapped and making huge sacrifices to send our children to college right now, is that we saved most of what they needed for college over the first ten or twelve years of their lives by investing in the PAX Fund. If we had waited until now to come up with the money, we wouldn't have been eligible for financial aid and we would have had to borrow it all from the banks. We were well advised as a couple with young children to start saving immediately for their education, and thankfully we did that! /////// Although our sacrifices were great, I would do it all over again. I just wish that universities would take into account all other obligations, including what it cost for raising other children in the household and what it cost to help take care of sick parents. I feel that there is so much done for people who make less than $50,000 a year and people who are rich usually can afford to pay for college but the middle class is always neglected. Those of us who make between $50,001 and $90,000 a year usually get very little help and end up owing weigh more than we can afford to pay back. It is always a tough thing to have to chose wether you can take care of an ailing parent or send your child to an excellent ivy league school.