Why don't we stand out and fight? Around a month ago, I was informed that there was a plan to build a nursing home for old people in the five empty apartments on the first floor of the apartment building where I am staying and the adjacent one where my sister is staying. We were all outrageous partly because neither of us was asked for opinion regarding this and partly because we had never heard a ridiculous plan like this. We respect the need of old people. And we also believe it is a good idea to build more facilities catering to the needs of senior citizens. But it sounds absolutely absurd to build a nursing home in a residential building. The initiator of this whole plan was the government organization of the community. The government has been encouraging projects designed to serve for the old and is willing to allocate a large sums money to support this kind of project. Consequently, many official organizations spare no effort to encouraging this type of project. What I will state in the following is what I was told by a few residents in our community. Like many other communities in China, there is a relatively big and stable group of senior citizens doing square dance regularly on the pointed square in my neighbourhood. One of the officials from the local community initiated a picnic in a park for these amateur dancers. During the activity, this official announced that they were going to establish an activity center in the apartment buildings to afford better service for the old in this neighborhood. All the old present cheered for this seemingly wise decision. The official claimed that it would be an activity center for the old while later on the official announcement they stated there would be beds and medical staff as well. Additionally, this so-called activity center which is going to be run and supervised by a private company with generous fund from the government is expected to serve all the old living nearby rather than just the old in our housing estate. Later, a few representatives from the committee of property owners were asked to meet the government officials in the local community. According to a voice record (there is indeed a voice record which I had listened to) of the meeting, these government officials were rather firm regarding their determination to set up this activity center. Some of them even threatened these delegates who partly compromised to the power of government and who partly reckoned this project was actually good. So what this committee of property owners did was to put up an announcement to collect opinions from residents in this community. It clearly states that all the delegates in the community had passed this proposal unanimously. They even attached a very precise plan for the renovation work, which was absolutely absurd as they must had been planning this for a very long time. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for them to submit such a detailed plan for this project. The members of committee released this announcement to avoid future accusation because they didn't want to be accused of not informing the residents. They put up the announcement in a place that not many people usually pay attention to. And after the wide criticism among the residents, they took it off before the supposed time. Because of this, the majority of residents in this housing estate knew absolutely nothing about this. I soon friended with quite a few residents in my apartment building and treated this as my top priority. I called the president of the committee to ask about this who told me that he would go to negotiate with the government organization for this community. I found this whole thing so ridiculous that I found it hard to contain my anger. As a result, I called the hotline of major which is set up for local citizens to report all sorts of problems. Also I called a hotline of law to ask for help. I then shared what I had found with other residents in our different Wechat groups. But, shockingly, not many people knew this and they claimed that they didn't see the announcement, which is totally expected considering what the committee did with the notice. But what was thoroughly despondent was that most of them didn't care at all because the activity center was not gonna be built on their apartment building and because they were simply not interested. With this activity center just a few floors down my flat, I was seriously concerned. I tried to instigate more residents to pay close attention to this by repeatedly stating how our rights were infringed and how we should stand out to fight for our rights . It unfortunately didn't work very well. Afterwards, we were asked to do a residents’ opinion poll which was the result of the negotiation mentioned above. We believed this was essential for us to win this. So I with a few other residents in our building searched every floor, explained this project and then asked residents for opinion. We also called the residents who were then in a different city. We finished the poll for our building within a short period of time. But except for my apartment building and my sister’s, all the other buildings were very slow in doing their poll, which was not surprising though. In order to make the poll work, we needed to get as many votes against this project as possible according to property law. There are around 20 apartment buildings in this housing estate. With only few of them that had finished the poll, it didn't look promising for us. So a few hospitable residents including me and my sister decided to help with the other buildings to do the poll so as to make this poll an effective one. We in the end won the poll and the government organization of the community claimed that they would stop the project. Here I'd like to confess something I was and still am not proud of: when trying to get as many votes against this project, I and many other residents manipulated the information we offered for the other residents. We secretly agreed that we would only mention the negative points of this project, leaving any positive points out. This was nothing smart or glorious. But what they did first in my personal opinion was even more despicable. We are still so far from our ideals of democracy. I thank all those who have fought hard for all the rights I am currently enjoy. They must have sacrificed so much to achieve the current state. Next time, when we are faced with a problem, I think we'd better take some actions instead of just sitting around and waiting for some people to fix it. When everybody thinks this way, the problem will never be fixed. What we want and want to see in this world doesn't just happen to us. Some people have once stood out and fought really hard for it.

The Purpose of Reading Why do we read? Do we read for joy ? Do we read for knowledge? Or do we read for enlightenment? When little, I had never been able to figure out why people around me kept telling me that a person should read as much as possible. Nobody had attempted to explain the explicit benefits of reading to me. However, I embarked on a journey of finding the purpose of reading myself when growing up. This paper will describe the three different stages of my relationship with reading. I read from learning languages to enjoying a story to learning knowledge. Stage 1 Read to learn languages At the initial stage, with rather limited interest in reading, I read mainly to enlarge vocabularies for both Chinese and English. I had barely started developing my reading strategies and it was also quite difficult for me to understand underlying meaning buried in words. Writing had no part to play at this stage. Thanks to my perseverance, I managed to go through this stage. Growing up in a tiny village in China, I didn’t have much access to books partly because my parents had no interest in reading and partly because there was no library either in that village or in my primary school. Furthermore, thanks to the dogmatic education methodology in my elementary school, I found no fun in reading Chinese books. This could be attributed to the fact that my Chinese teachers would just teach us to think in a fixed way and there were always standard answers for Chinese reading questions. Also, because my Chinese teachers would constantly require us to memorize a variety essays both modern and ancient ones, what I had towards Chinese reading then was only anxiety and stress In senior high school, after deciding to receive higher education in America, I started to cultivate my habit of reading English books so as to improve my English. The first book I chose was “Pride and Prejudice”, an enormous challenge to me. It cost me around 3 months to finish as I had to frequently refer to dictionary and struggled along the way to try to understand the meaning of the author. Even though I had specific extrinsic stimulus towards reading initially, I had to force myself most of the time to stay focused on reading materials and to finish reading a book. Nevertheless, I managed to read a few Chinese and English books. Although they are far from enough, this was a good start. Stage 2 Read to enjoy a story At this stage, I read mainly to maintain or enhance my interest in reading. With relatively enough vocabularies, I was able to enjoy stories written in both languages, particularly in English. I therefore paid much less attention to words than to the content of a book. Additionally, I started my habit of writing. When choosing what to read, I would intentionally avoid picking serious literature books as I gradually found that reading interesting as well as easy stories served as great catalysts in maintaining my interest in reading. I also started developing my reading skills such as skimming, especially guessing the meaning of new words. As I was determined to improve my English, most of the time I read only English books. The books recommended by my friend: “Handle with Care” and “Desert Flower”enormously facilitated in fostering my interest in English reading as for the first time, I was able to fully immerse myself in a story and to truly enjoy it. The newly-found motivation in reading relentlessly encouraged me to read more interesting stories including “Steve Jobs”, “Everything I Never Told You”, “My Sister’s Keeper” and so on. At this stage, my motivation has gradually turned from an extrinsic one into an intrinsic one as I did not need to force myself to read. I was able to thoroughly enjoy a book. Also, I started writing. First, I would only copy insightful sentences. But gradually, I wrote a few sentences of reflection on the books I had finished reading. Stage 3 Read to learn At this stage, I read to learn and to acquire inspiration. After some time, reading interesting stories is not enough to keep my interest and to satisfy my needs because I realized that interesting stories failed to leave much in my mind and therefore are soon forgot. My choices of books are quite different from before. At present, I read books from classical literature like“To Kill A Mockingbird” to social science like “Social Psychology” to Chinese essays. I have not only gained multitudes of inspiration from these books but also a better understanding of myself as well as this world. The best part is that I have come to notice more links between seemingly unrelated fields. Writing has now become an essential part of reading for me. I write to summarize, to review and to reflect upon the reading materials. Writing has also become my tool to communicate with myself and this world. Both reading and writing have grown into a part of my daily life. I no longer need any external stimulus to encourage me to do reading or writing. I have also encountered with the incredible joy lying in reading and writing, which serve to me as hobbies as well as tools for gaining new knowledge. In conclusion, I have so far experienced these three different stages in exploring my relationship with reading.What I feel and what I choose to read apparently vary from stage to stage. I have also finally come to appreciate the benefits of both reading and writing. I am now also able to answer the question I raised in the introduction: I think we can read for many purposes and our purpose of reading can be quite personal which heavily relies on how we explore our relationship with reading.

Step by step, we are all approaching the inevitable end of life-mortality. Nobody escapes it, but it seems that not many people actually realize it's existence. Mortality itself is frightening. I don't know whether it is only because the fear towards death is programmed into our gene in the long course of human history so that we will have the best rates of survival. No matter what, I am personally exceedingly afraid of death partly because it means my existence will be wiped clean from this planet and partly because I know absolutely nothing about it. The first time I realized I was mortal was due to my grandfather’s death. The very idea that I would just vanish from this world was more than horrifying as well as devastating. Before this revelation, I had never even once thought that I would just stop existing one day. This definitely shattered my world. Death is not a daily topic like entertainment that constantly dances on people’s lips. It is more like a taboo in Chinese society deeply immersed in somewhat outdated traditions and customs. More exactly, death to many people is akin to a virus that many people seem to reckon that the mere mention of it is likely to make them catch this fatal disease. Consequently, it is almost agreed that we should never bring up this upsetting and unpleasant topic in conversation. But this sort of avoidance never serves us any good. At least not in my case. I have hoped for a long time that more people will join the crowd to talk about this to some extent almost forbidden topic because the more we know it, the better we will know about how we should live our life and the better we will be able to survive the traumatic death of our beloved ones. My grandfather’s sudden death because of heart attack had been shocking as well as extremely traumatic to me and to many of my family members. After his death, I was drunk in depression and desperately wanted to find a way out of this mental quagmire. I tried to write a letter to confess to my father how afraid I was about my grandfather’s death. My father drunk in his own sadness was I believe at a loss about what to do as well. After all, nobody had ever told my father how he should survive his close family members’ death. My father read my letter and then just pretended nothing happened. When younger, I couldn't understand why my father didn't say anything about it. But now I know. My grandmother’s suicide was even more disheartening. My family had believed that we had done our best to keep her old life as comfortable as possible while in the meantime nobody paid attention to her severe mental illness. One of my aunts had been despairing for a long time after her mother’s death as she was the one who was in the hospitable to look after my grandmother. She had reckoned it was mainly because of her carelessness that had caused this despondent incident. She had borne that heavy cross in her heart for too long. Fortunately, with family support, she won this rather difficult battle. Life is random. Not everyone is guaranteed a natural death-too old to live. Some young people die because of a variety of reasons nowadays such as car accident, drowning etc.. Many young people die from incurable disease as well. Thanks to the development of information technology, we these days know virtually whatever we want and don't want to know. When scrolling the posts on social networking websites, it is not uncommon for us to see posts asking for donation so that they can help sick people receive medical treatment. Many of the patients are still very young. Seeing those posts can be depressing to me. It reminds me how fragile life can be and makes me feel sorry for those life which haven't had a chance yet in this world. One of my friends one day informed me that she was slightly depressed because one of her best friends in senior high school died because of stomach cancer. Her friend reached the end of life around a month after her diagnosis. This totally unexpected event almost crushed her and her level of anxiety shot up. She was uncontrollably worried about her and her family. I wish there would be anything I could say or do to help her feel better. But unfortunately there isn’t. I do sincerely hope there will be more talk about how we prepare ourselves for the end of our life and how we handle the leaving of our beloved ones. Just a few days ago, I finished reading a book called “Being Mortal”. It was a rather nice and illuminating read on many levels. It facilitates me to understand the priorities in my life-chasing after materialistic wealth? pursing personal achievement? or going after my dream? Understanding these is essential for people to live a happy and fulfilling life. Apparently it takes time to figure out the answer but it's worth it. Of course, the sooner, the better. In the past, I had placed enormous value on materialistic wealth, which later I realized didn't quite work for me. Now, I attach more importance to quality of life-spending some time enjoying a movie or a book, more importantly spending some time accompanying my parents. It's difficult to live in a society that have formed many norms and that have placed many expectations on individuals. It's certainly easier to follow the path everyone takes. But if it is not where my heart belongs, I would like to make some reasonable changes so that I can be happier with my limited time in this world. After all, when I am facing death, nothing really matters. It doesn't matter whether people like me;It isn't important whether I have risen to fame or achieved greatness; It is meaningless to try to please everyone. Sometimes, that I am still living and breathing is a good enough reason to make me happy.

I first noticed this movie because of the news that the movie was banned from being shown in movie theaters. After it was finally released, I was exposed to a few times mentioning in my circle of friends. At the very beginning, I decided to watch it simply because I was attracted by the movie posters and I was enormously interested in the story the movie is trying to tell. What happened during that special period of time was a total blank in my mind, though I had learned some rather sketchy facts in my history class in high school. Regarding this movie, I have heard quite a few negative comments from friends as well as established online commentators. Some of my peers found that there was nothing for them to relate to this movie. They had no feeling at all after viewing it. A professional commentator claimed that the movie focused too much on the youth and the dramatic changes with the leading characters’ life under the particular circumstances, while the original book has instead concentrated more on the sensitive topic-the suppressed sex at that time and how the impulsive act of the leading male actor-hugging one of the female artists turned his life upside down. One of my students majoring in movie directing liked neither how the director built the characters nor the great amount of music applied to construct the scene while no profound meaning was explored nor the realistic scene from that time was established. As true as these may be, I personally thoroughly enjoyed the movie while watching it. I remember I was in tears a few times during the whole process of screening. I can't really be 100% sure that whether I was just deeply touched by the nostalgic as well as sentimental music or the heart-stirring political slogan. I was deep down thinking that youth was rather glamorous no matter what era it was in. As a matter of fact, the youth in the 1970s was in my personal opinion even more absorbing under the veil of nostalgia. No doubt the leading female actresses are exceptionally attractive in terms of their appearance. I don't know whether it is because I am already mentally not young any more. I almost feel jealous of their youth which constantly exudes from their youthful as well as healthy body. No matter what, the movie served as a great stimulus to evoke my enormous interest in understanding what my parents had underwent at that time and in how history steered its wheels towards this moment. More importantly, I wonder how the influence of history has been passed to my generation. What really touched me in this movie was how kind He Xiaoping was. With his father a prisoner and her mother remarried, He had been shown pitifully little love in her life before entering cultural troupe. She confessed that she even had to get seriously ill to attract little attention from her mother. I fully understand how pathetic this can be as I had similar experience in my childhood. After turning 12, my parents were away to do business. When I got sick, I was never afraid and in fact I was secretly happy because that would mean my mom would come back to look after me. This is how awful a left-behind child’s life can be like. Harboring great expectation for future life, He became a member of the cultural troupe. Contrary to what she had hoped, this is the beginning of another nightmare for her. She tried to blend in and did her utmost to make her father proud. Unfortunately, none of her roommates liked her. Other than that, they gang up on her by mentally and verbally abusing her. The worst was she lost her father when she thought her father would be rehabilitated. The guy-Liu Feng He had a crush on has set his heart on another girl. And he finally had been punished to work in the remote area for he was accused of committing sexual harassment towards his beloved one. Even though he didn't do it, nobody stood up for Liu. Consumed with disappointment on people in the cultural troupe, He became extremely passive aggressive regarding her work, which led her degradation to be a nurse in the war zone. Bombarded with the worst conceivable scene there, He barely survived and was deeply traumatized. After the end of the war, she was made a hero. But soon she was admitted to the hospital for her mental illness. She is not alone in this. I believe there are multitudes of people who were traumatized due to historical incidents like war. My grandmother was one of them. What she had experienced during cultural revolution planted the seed of depression in her heart which later sprouted and eventually led to her suicide. Some people may say Liu was even kinder. Forgive me, I honestly don't appreciate Liu’s kindness. The kindness and good deeds he embodied in my opinion were the result of political brainwash. He almost seemed like a person with no independent thinking. I don't really support this sort of kindness that is appreciated by the receivers. Why bother? The life that Liu and He led in the end was in stark contrast with other people in the cultural troupe. Nothing could be more ironic than this. Liu and He were so kind and so caring. But they didn’t end up living a successful or glamorous life like many others. You may expect the two of them to live a happy life, if not, at least a life with fewer struggles. You may want to see that their good deeds are paid back in money or in fame. But, no. Not every efforts you have made are going to yield a good result. I suppose this is life. It is never logic. The essence is always randomness. In the end, I realize what I love about this movie is not the music, not the plot, not the actors, nor the well-known director. I love it simply because it has afforded me a glimpse of life in that special and memorable time.

I am getting forgetful. I don't know whether it is because I am aging or simply because my brain is so awash with information that it has absolutely no space for the seemingly not really important messages. I am definitely not kidding about this. When I recall what the major incidents be they political or societal that have happened in this soon-to-end year, I can only remember the kindergarten scandals and the trial of Jiang Ge’s murder case in Japan. Of course, I remember the gunshot at Mandela Bay and the terrorist attack in Manchester in England. But these are pretty much all the significant cases I am able to recall immediately. Nothing more. Things are all quite blurry to me when I try to remember what have happened in the past three years. I know there have been a few tragic air crashes with two of them which involved the Malaysian Airline. But I seem to have forgot when, where and how they have happened. I do know there have been quite a few terrorist attacks. But I don't know the number of casualty nor the time that they happened. I bet there are many forgotten people or topics which once were exceptionally heated. It may be too demanding to require an ordinary person to exactly remember all the important world incidents that have happened this year. But what surprises me is that I don't clearly remember what I have done or achieved this year. This really scares the hell out of me. Think about this: when approaching the end of a year, you don't remember what you have done this whole year. It's like you haven't even existed this whole year. This is the very reason why I am writing this down: I want to keep a record of my life as I know when my memory fails to serve its purpose, I at least have these words to rely on to find some answers. Honestly, I seem to have stopped walking further this year no matter whether it is regarding my job nor my personal life. In other words, no change has happened with regard to both of them. But, have I really wasted this year? To some extent, I think the answer to that question is no. I have read quite a few books this year, probably the most within the past three years, ranging from psychology to economics to literature. (I would like to write a short lists of books that I find really good later). This bit reading has opened an entirely new window for me to gain a better understanding of this world. Psychology serves a wonderful tool in helping me understand myself and in understanding the great significance of acknowledging my shortcomings and then accepting them. Thanks to the relatively limited knowledge I have acquired, I was able to survive my minor mental crisis that had haunted me for a few months. As for this, I have to thank my beloved as well supportive family and friends too. The very basic knowledge I have gained has helped me understand many human behaviors and social phenomena too. The greatest power that economic theories possess is not only in facilitating us to see this world more objectively but also in pointing out the not-so-visible connections to us. Learning the connections between the superficially-not-related things is both enlightening and mind-opening, like the connection between the crime rate and the implementation of the policy :legal abortion (this is an example from the book “Freakonomics” (for further information, please refer to this book. You may be surprised.) The other books I have read this year like “The Gold Finch” and “When Breath Becomes Air” have made me realize that life can be very unpredictable, very random and very screwed up. So it is probably pointless for me to keep dwelling on or lingering on the trivialities. Basically, what I have read this year to some extent has changed how I view this world and myself. In the meantime, it has altered my expectation for my future life. I also have the readings to thank to for what I have done in helping one of cousins to go through her depression which has virtually dragged her whole family down (She is still receiving professional treatment now and is slowly recovering.) What has happened with her and her family has rendered me this revelation that it is of great significance to arm myself with some scientific knowledge and meanwhile to always bear in mind what I truly value in life. Don't go blindfold in life. Another memorable thing was that I finally went back to Wollongong to visit my friends Gerald and Carol. I had planned to go back to Australia to visit them around a year after my return to China. However, things just got very uncontrollable. Still, I was more than glad to be able to keep my promise and more importantly was very delighted to see their familiar faces and to talk with them about smalls things over wine. They were the people who helped me secure a position in Wollongong University even when my writing score at that time didn't meet the university demand. They were the people who provided me a physical and psychological shelter during my time in Australia. They were also the people who drove me around Australian cities to help me get a bite of Australian culture. I have been and will always be grateful to them for what they have done for me. Another factor that has made this trip unforgettable is that it was my mother’s first international trip. Even though I was a bit anxious about the preparation and the actual trip, I was glad I came to Australia with my mom. We had some disagreements during the trip. But we are getting to know each other better, which is of enormous importance to me as I haven't had many opportunities to listen to my mom’s history and to get to know her my whole life. I kept a Corgi and he had stayed with me for half a year and is now living my sister’s parents-in-law in the countryside. I have to admit that I didn't fully understand how enormous the responsibility was when I decided to keep it. I made the decision purely based on my love for puppy. I had truly enjoyed it's accompany and it assisted me to undergo the emotional downhill. It was extremely difficult for me to say goodbye to him. But now I know he is quite carefree in the countryside and is cared very well. This gives me some comfort and being able to see him again doesn't just cut him entirely out of my life. The last minor thing I want to mention is that I passed an exam that I had thought I was doomed to fail, which was a nice surprise. These are pretty much all I want to record for this whole year. While reading it for another time, I realize how ordinary and uneventful my life is in 2017. But I don't think there is need to wonder what else my life can be. As long as I am content with my life, I don't mind being plain or ordinary at all. This passing year has made many people realize how tough life can get sometimes. I just hope when it gets a bit unbearable, you have someone to turn to; you have a shoulder to cry on; you have a hug to warm you up and you don't forget that there are always people who love you and your very existence enlightens their world.

As a matter of fact, I don't know what I want to write down here. I don't know where to start, either. (1)I experienced a relatively short period of helplessness and powerlessness at the very beginning of this year. I was negative, pessimistic, disoriented, disappointed and depressed. Fortunately, I was quite sensitive to my emotion and more importantly was rather active in seeking a way out of this spiritual marsh as I was extremely afraid I would be stuck increasingly deeply in the mud of marsh without being able to break myself away from it in the end no matter how hard I try. I attempted to talk with people I deeply trusted, to read psychological books to understand myself, to watch movies and to write. Writing has always been of unique meaning to me. The most significant reason why I write is because in the past with both my parents constantly away, I need an outlet for my emotion be it positive or negative. But, now I utilize it as a means to get to know myself and in the meantime to keep a record of the changes in my thoughts. When still slightly depressed, I wrote the blog titled as “Fear” which so far has had more than 20,000 readings and many warm as well as heart-felt comments. This actually surprised me a bit as I thought it was typically cliche. No matter what, I thank those who have read it and those who have offered me sound advice. After surviving that minor crisis, I have shifted the focus of my life to try to stay happy. Not long ago, I reckoned it completely wrong to drown myself in materialistic enjoyment. I felt stupid to let myself be slaves to glamorous goods displayed everywhere. Even though I hate to admit this, there is no way I can figure out a solution to resist the temptation from materials. Especially in this information era, the competition between online store and physical store is more than fierce with both of them endeavoring to provide not only quality but also reasonably-priced goods. Other than this, I simply can't move my feet every time I notice there are discounts in malls or department stores. This gets even more serious when my peers or friends have a binge of shopping. Truth be told, I feel small and hopeless in front of the diverse and smart promotion activities held by a variety of companies. (2)In addition to that, like many people, I am really afraid of death. Some people may say it is a bit hilarious to be so afraid of death at my age. Actually scratch that. I am always afraid that bad things may happen like plane crash, gunshot or car accidents. I think being exposed to too much negative news or information must be held partly accountable for this. I have once read a research which can back up this statement. In my personal opinion, I don't think this sort of fear has anything to do with age. Rather, it has everything to do with our experience and reasoning and perhaps attitude towards life as well. I don't find fear of death funny at all as facing death is an issue we all should learn to deal with our whole life. To some extent, life is constantly seeing people off at the terminal to paradise or to hell if they do exist. Departing like this is extremely miserable especially when we see beloved people off. But it has its upside. This sort of fear drives me to value my life and to value my time with my beloved family my parents in particular and friends. (3)Being a parent is the most difficult but also seemingly most enjoyable job in this world. ( I can't really give this a conclusion as I have no experience) Recently, I have been reading books written by a well-known writer from Taiwan called Long Yingtai. She wrote a book about how innocent, adorable and naughty her eldest son is. I have to admit this book called “Kid, Take Your Time” has pictured a great vision for being a parent. I have been bombarded with too much negative information concerning how difficult it is to be a parent. It gives me a headache when I think about the financial burden, the sacrifice of free time and the sleepless nights. But this book actually views being a parent under quite positive light, which makes me feel it is really great to be able to parent a kid. Or is it just because human beings are genetically programmed to have this sort of feeling? It is extremely difficult to be a parent. No matter what culture we are in, parents tend to devote themselves to loving their kids and to trying to provide the best in this world for their kids. But these are not necessarily what their children need or want. And in many cases, children complain about their parents. Chinese parents are generally controlling to varying degrees though. They use what they believe is right to guide their children’s life or to put in a more appropriate way to arrange their children’s life. Many of them control their children like they control a kite in the sky by dragging the string in the hand. By letting go of the string, they are afraid that the kite will simply fly away without looking back. On the side of children, their personality is squeezed. They feel like puppets controlled by parents. Many of them are lost and not happy. This is really sad as with so much done, nobody seems to be happy. I myself have fought for the fight of independence for a long time. Even though I am 100% sure it is essential to give space for children to develop their independence and self-discipline, I am not sure whether I can actually let go of my children in the future if I have any. I found it extremely difficult when I had to give my Corgi to one of my relatives so that it can be taken better care of. Of course, this is different from letting go of a kid. But the emotion involved can be similar in my perspective. Parents may be blamed for this. But I think there are many other reasons involved in this such as culture. Culture is in our blood. It influences what we think and how we behave. I have once read “culture is skin deep”. However I think culture is bone deep. (4)For almost thirty years in this world, one of the most important lessons I have learnt is to let go of those who don't like me. I had always taken others’ opinions seriously either because of my sensitive personality or because of the collectivism at the core of Chinese culture. Due to this, many times I had to walk gingerly like walking on eggshell. I had always been too cautious around people. It was extremely exhausting. What was worse was that I found that wary as I was, people were not necessarily happy with me. It was rather disheartening. As a teacher, I have encountered with students who don't like my teaching method -(not enough test-taking techniques are taught in their opinions) and students who don't like being critiqued by me due to the fact that they tend to exhaust ways to find a shortcut to pass English test as soon as possible like buying answers online or find somebody else to take the exam for them. Honestly, it really hurts to hear something like that no matter it is directly said to me or not. It stings all the same. But have I really done something wrong? Should I doubt myself because they dislike me? Should I change to cater to their tastes? Doesn't it make me a clown? Gradually, I have learnt to let go of those people’s critics of and doubts about me. I start to focus more on how I feel instead of on how other people think of me. Because I have realized that sometimes no matter what I do, it seems there are always people waiting there to point out the blemishes. Because there is not even one perfect person. Perfection is simply a lie probably fabricated by people who desire to drive us to consume more and to work harder. why bother trying to change other people’s opinions when what they think of me has little to do with my actual life. This enlightenment has led me to more freedom as well as more happiness. With fragmented time, I don't want to lead a fragmented life in this fragmented world. I don't desire extraordinary success, which invariably comes with great sacrifice. I don't want fame, which is usually gained at the cost of privacy and pressure. I am not eager to rise to be a millionaire overnight which is too dreamy and too surreal. All I want in this world is nothing but an ordinary life.

The value of higher educationI have been planning to write this for some time. But there is always something getting in the way. Mark this please: I am not writing to dish out suggestions about how you or any of us should live a life. The sole purpose of this piece of writing is to record my thoughts and to be used as reference in the future to examine my revolution of mentality. My determination of writing this culminated when I bumped into an article titled as “Should Everyone Go to College?” I guess it is originally a speech given by a relatively authoritative researcher in the United States. He and his partner had done some researches with regard to the value of receiving higher education. They both agree that holistically it is unquestionable that going to college can be a smart decision no matter on the level of the country or society. But they cast doubts on the individual decision of attending a university by citing a great deal of data from seemingly reliable sources. Based on the proof they have provided, apparent is that it may not be worthwhile for some individuals to go to college at all. Because the financial return can be seriously influenced by the type of university they go to (public or private; with or without student loan), the major they choose, the time they need to graduate and the career they embark on. ( For more information on this article, please check it online. I find it rather interesting as well as enlightening.) After reading it more than one time, it fails to convince me to buy what the authors are trying to sell. Building the whole research on purely economic ground is far from enough to make the content reasonable and solid and therefore not so believable. But I have to admit that they excelled in arresting the public attention since in this exceedingly materialistic era, all what the majority of the public care is how many financial benefits they can gain when making a decision, which in professional term in the field of economics is called ‘opportunity cost’. Of course, they are not alone. I have encountered with quite a few news articles recently reporting the value of overseas education for Chinese students from similar angles. It is self-evident that more and more Chinese students have been flooding into different countries to further their education so as to gain a great edge over their peers in China. But with the rapid improvement of Chinese tertiary education and the increasingly fierce competition among Chinese overseas returnees, many Chinese students with overseas education background gradually come to realize that the reality of job market is almost poles apart from what they have expected. A great number of them earn only as much as their peers graduating from Chinese universities. Naturally, this leads to doubts about the value of overseas education especially when we take all the sacrifices for it into consideration ( the astronomical amount of money, the homesick, the loneliness and the overwhelming stress etc.) Some people start regretting their decision of studying abroad. I am as a matter of fact quite disappointed with the media as they invariably withhold important information in order to shape the public thinking towards a certain direction. Of course, it is more than plausible for us to care how much we can earn after a long and bumpy course of education. But what we should bear in mind is that money only plays a part in the picture. One of significant reasons why the returnees struggle to find an ideal job can be simply that the economy is not quite recovered from the recession. Of course, some of these people hold false hope for what is in store for them due to various reasons. Other than the aforementioned, we should not ignore the fact that the filed we are working in may be lukewarm now, but it is very likely that it will become robust and strong in the near future. Future always holds many surprises for us which we can never tell whether they are good or bad until they happen. We can't jump to the conclusion that it's not worthwhile to study abroad or to receive higher education at all just because the job market seems bleak now. There are some other important benefits rendered by higher education are omitted here. On a general level, people with university education tend to enjoy higher social status. Aside from that, they are inclined to be more confident since they have gained professional knowledge with depth in a certain field. This enables them to deploy information asymmetry to their benefits. Well- educated people are also generally less susceptible to all sorts of straps online or in physical world. To many people, quality higher education plays an essential role in their pursuit of dream or in realizing their potential. Another benefit usually ignored by the public is that well-educated parents to some extent provide better parenting for their next generation. ( These are just my subjective ideas. I should have cited researches to back up these. But, that will be too time-consuming.) Doubtless, these benefits are all intangible and extremely difficult to evaluate. People love tangible stuff and figures better since they seem to be solid and believable. This is probably why these not so visible merits are usually not mentioned by the media. However, it is wrong to take it for granted that being well educated guarantees securing a decent job and living a good life. Honestly and personally, it doesn't promise anything. Well-educated white collars in some developed countries have already realized that like their blue collar workers in the last century, they are very likely to be laid off in an economic downturn. And it is getting increasingly difficult for them to keep their positions for a very long time. (I get these ideas from another article called ‘The Futile Pursuit of American Dream’) After the 2008 economic crisis, many well-educated white collar workers in the United States became unemployed because when their companies planned to cut the operating cost, they with their high payment easily became the most obvious targets. Many others were constantly afraid of being laid off. They were and probably still are not living the great life the public usually picture for them-a life with big house, more than one cars and regular holiday in and out their country. So I suppose it isn't right to expect you will work a decent job forever and meanwhile gradually climb up the social ladder. I am afraid that this is going to happen to China soon. People in China are all celebrating the rapid economic advancement. It is indeed very impressive. But the competition in nearly every field is getting more and more intense. Everything here changes so fast that I constantly have to adjust myself to get used to them. Working in a private company for almost three years, I can clearly sense how fast things change. The company I work for owned an enormous market share of the international education application even about five years ago. But with this market becoming more fragmented, it becomes increasingly difficult for it to reach to its potential customers. With more and more money invested in marketing online and offline, the gained profit becomes far less. To handle the cutting- throat competition they face, they keep coming up with new policies and new market strategies which we usually have to struggle to adapt to. What is worse is that when the operating cost keeps climbing, they exhaust all sorts of ways to squeeze more profits out such as reducing the number of employees they should hire or issuing policies to make all the employees themselves bear part of the operating costs. After talking with a few friends, I believe my company is not alone in this battle. I guess this is the transform that a lot of Chinese companies have to undergo now. I once said in class that I think it's highly likely that I will lose my job in the future thanks to the development of artificial intelligence. I mean with big database, they can invent robots who can speak different languages with various accents and more accuracy. Who wouldn't like that sort of robot? I would like to have one to help me master foreign languages instead of going to a school or a training center to have traditional lessons. Life is random. Future is unpredictable. Even if I get laid off one day, I won't be surprised. Even if that's the case, I don't and won't regret my decision of receiving higher education and studying abroad because it helps me find peace in the hustle and bustle of this world.

Student & Teacher I was a difficult student, naughty, rebellious and disobedient. I was so attention-craving that I would go against virtually all the not-so-important wishes or orders made by my teachers. I never excelled in academic studying, nor any other field. Even though I made to the top of class sometimes, that came like a flash in the pan. Of course, without a shred of doubt, I was never likable or anywhere near a standardized good student in teacher’s mind. As a result, in my primary school and junior high school, my heart was constantly brimmed with hostile feelings towards my teachers, the exceedingly strict teachers in particularly. It was like I was born with a natural hatred towards authority. I had a few horrible teachers in the first 12 years of education. One of them was my supervisor in primary school. She never sided with me when I was involuntarily involved in a fight with my desk-mate who regarded teasing me or provoking me to get angry as an almost essential part of his daily entertainment. Because that guy’s parents had bribed this teacher by sending her gifts occasionally, this terrible teacher would always blame me for having a fight with him without getting to know what actually had happened. One time, I felt like I had had enough of the nonsense and asked for a change of seat, which was almost expectedly declined adamantly. This was to a certain extent devastating to me then as I couldn't come up with another solution to lead me out of the quagmire. The only thing that helped me survive that period of time was the hope for a brand new life in middle school. Due to my poor performance in study, I was asked to repeat my first grade of junior high school by my mom. Even though I wasn't passing exams with flying colors, my achievement was to a great extent applaudable. But this only invited cold shoulders from most of my teachers. They generally felt this was quite unfair to the other students which I didn't and don't disagree. I encountered with the worst and the best teacher in my life in junior high school. They were like devil versus angle to me. The devil played favoritism to extremity. She could be all smiling to her pet students and extraordinarily cold to others. As a pretty ordinary student, I really hated this and once I wrote down the three Chinese character “I dislike her” in an exam paper. After reading it, she got so outrageous that she called me out to the corridor and scolded me loudly and harshly with every inconceivable and unspeakable words for at least half an hour. I don't remember what exactly she said but I do remember crying with big droplets of tears streaming down my face. I was then and there paralyzed with horror and embarrassment. During this whole drama, my English teacher came to tell me to gather all students’ homework, which didn't stop demon’s harsh criticism. Being caught in this drama by my English teacher, I was overcame with shame. This basically crashed my pride and fueled my anger towards her. (I deserved punishment, but not one with such magnitude) But my English teacher was extremely nice and gentle to me and a few other students who were living in the cramp dorm of the school. It was actually a classroom with over 20 double bunks and no toilet or washroom attached. She felt sorry for us to live in such poor environment and to eat tasteless food served in the small canteen and would ask us to come to her office to give us nutritious home-made food to eat, such as boiled eggs or stew. In my memory, she was always so tender and talk to people with a gentle voice. I had never seen her lashing out harsh words at students. It was she who fueled my interest in learning English, which later changed me. When furthering my education in Australia, I had a very approachable tutor who was ready to help whenever I confided my bewilderment to her. After starting my course, I was soon overwhelmed by the study load and the quantity of assessments I had to finish. I was completely lost. But she offered me help with regard to gathering necessary materials and academic materials. Her sound advice and generous kindness made me feel welcome in that foreign land and alleviated my serious homesick. Accidentally, I ended up being a teacher. I soon developed a strong fond towards this career. I like this job not because of its great meaning endowed by the public but because of the meaning it has infused into my life. It is teaching that makes me realize the pure joy of communication; it is teaching that equips me with more wisdom by forcing me to learn more knowledge; it is more importantly teaching that finds a better me, leading me to like myself more. So far, I have taught hundreds of students most of whose name I have forgot. Also, I have ended up being friends with some of them. I have not only learnt a lot from my students and but also have been touched by them. For these, I will always be grateful to them. When I was still relatively inexperienced, RW asked me to help her prepare IELTS test. Honestly, I was flattered to be the one chosen among several teachers she knew. Her course of preparation of studying in Britain was rather winding. Because of not meeting the language requirement, she had to defer once and she was under enormous stress for she quitted her study in a top Chinese university so as to wholeheartedly concentrate on preparing the language test and other necessary materials required for her study abroad. We had been having lessons for a long time and she was improving slowly. I was anxious that she would not make it as when I was leaving to Australia, she still hadn't achieved her goal. Fortunately, her efforts were paid back in the end. She is a very sweet girl, so considerate that I was a few times nearly moved to tears by her. One time, I got a serious cold and IV fluid didn't help at all. She went to ask her father for a Chinese medicine prescription for treating cold. Then she went to buy all the herbs and made the medicine before handing it to me. She had insisted on doing that for a few days even though she had to bury herself in studying at the same time. I was absolutely astounded at the kindness she showed towards me. RW is now pursuing her master degree in England and we had a quite enjoyable reunion last year. I am really glad to see how things have turned out. Of course, I have had many other very nice students who have made me more resolute in being a teacher and who have made my life full of meaning as well as purpose. It is they who keep motivating me to stick steadfastly to what I have been doing. PS: One of students contacted me after reading this and told me he felt sorry for what I had to go through and shared with me his experience with not-so-kind teachers. Doubtless, it is unfortunate that we sometimes have to stuck with bad teachers. But it is definitely fortunate that teachers are on the whole getting better.

I decided to read Paper Towns mainly because I thoroughly enjoyed another book "The Fault in Our Stars" written by the same author-John Green. But I honestly believe this one isn't as good as the another one I read before. I personally reckon the former one about life, death and relationship is rather thought-provoking as well as tear-jerking to a certain extent. But this one which focuses on growing pains we all experience when we are maturing seems to pale a bit compared with that book. The female antagonist in the novel-Margo is, at least superficially, the typical popular student in many respects in her senior high school. She is conventionally good-looking with a great figure. She hangs out with other popular kids and does all the so-called cool things like running away from her family, breaking into a Disneyland at night and so on. But deep down she clearly knows that she does all these things to suit her fixed impression that others hold of her and to meet other's expectation of her. One day, she found out that her seemingly best girlfriend had been sleeping with her boyfriend. She then decided to bid farewell to her high school life in advance. Margo for a long time had been torn between being a popular kid and being faithful to her own self. So after what had happened, she just wanted to put a brake on this life about being a paper girl in a paper town teeming with paper people. Before leaving, she decided to go for a little adventure with her friend Quintin. Quintin has been her neighbor for a long time. They used to hang out a lot when they were both little. But as Margo grew increasingly popular and Quintin increasingly nerdy, they drifted apart. But I suppose Margo still thought Quintin of all the people was the least hypocritical. At one night, off they went to execute the adrenaline-driving as well as exhilarating adventure. Margo revenged against all the people who in the past had offended her and invited Quintin to break the most rules in his whole life. Quintin at the very beginning was extremely afraid of not adhering to rules and regulations and was constantly concerned they would both got caught and he would wind up being admitted to the prestigious university which has already promised to enroll him. However, after several trials, he found this almost unspeakable excitement involved in it. He realized that stepping out of the comfort zone wasn't all that bad. It was even to a certain extent eyes-opening, affording him brand-new perspectives on things. After this, Margo left with a series of traces left behind for Quintin. Then Quintin with his friends started the journey of finding Margo. The story ends with Margo being found and not wanting to go back with them. When I read to the part where Margo was gone, my stomach churned a bit as I seriously thought she committed suicide because of her unloving and uncaring parents. I was even a bit annoyed as I didn't know why people always die even in novels. I mentally listed all the main characters who died in the fictions I have read. Lydia died in "Everything I never told you".The female antagonist died in "One day".The little boy died in "Book Thief". (Actually, many people died in this book.)The little girl died in "Handle with Care". The girl with Leukemia died in "My sister's Keeper".Quite a few students died in "Nineteen minutes". A great number of people died in "1984".Will died in "Me before you". A few people died in "Lord of the flies". This apparently can go on and on. I don't know whether it is because of my fear of death makes it so conspicuous in the stories or because of some other reasons, it seems death is as a great topics to writers almost as love, probably even greater than love. Of course, as I went on, I was relieved as Margo simply left her family behind. There are two concepts in the book I felt strong connections with. The first one is about being an attention-seeking teenager. Margo was a teenager with great capacity in planning and taking care of herself. At the same time, she was exceedingly stubborn. But deep down she desperately craved for attention particularly attention from her parents. But her parents believed she was such a headache that they literally decided to ignore her when she was gone. I believe we all go through a period when we want to be the focus of attention. We want to the world and life revolve around us and only us. I had had that similar experience. My parents were barely around after I entered my junior high school. They seldom expressed their affection toward me either. Therefore, I felt like I wasn't really loved or wanted by them. But soon I found out that every time I got a serious cold, my parents would shower me with love and concern. This may sound morbid, but gradually I sort of hoped that I would get ill and hoped my parents would come back to see me. I even kind of liked the smell of penicillin. So I think I quite understand Margo's feelings about not getting enough attention from her parents. Another concept is about being a paper girl. Traditionally, many people may think it is utterly wrong to be paper people who are downright hypocritical. But I reckon this is sort of unavoidable since this is really only a paper world. If you were being true and faithful to who you are, this world may not be able to carry your weight since the world is only made of paper. Many people have not got to known themselves enough to realize what they want and who they want to be. These people act and behavior according to social norms. So it isn't all that fair to claim them to be hypocritical as they simply don't know better. According to psychology, we human beings do basically everything in the interest of ourselves. We sometimes help others because it makes us feel better about ourselves. Sometimes we do it because it makes us rid of pain inflicted on our conscience. So theoretically, it isn't all that wrong to be a bit hypocritical. Being a paper girl/boy in a paper world is quite normal. There is no need to hate yourself for that. But I do admire those who are always true to themselves and who try to be as faithful and genuine as possible even though they live in a paper world.

Strictly speaking, I am still a step away from turning 30. Here I just want to write down my feelings for the soon approaching 30. 30 in Chinese traditional culture is quite special which is shown in the Chinese saying that a man should be independent at the age of 30. In many people's mind, someone should have already achieved some important things in life at this age including having formed his/her family, having climbed to a certain level on the ladder of career. Of course, own property and private vehicle are considered things we generally should possess at this stage of life. In the past, I had imagined a few identities for my 30, a wife maybe even a mother or a relatively professional teacher. But now it seems I am not becoming any of the aforementioned when approaching the age of maturity. Does this mean I have wasted my time in the past few years? Or does this mean that I am worthless due to my inability of meeting my own expectations? Months ago, the sense of being powerless emerged in the bottom of my heart and it has never really left me ever since. And according to my conversation with a few of my peers, I am apparently not alone in this. Many a peer experienced exactly what I had felt. And we are both bewildered with respect to the near future. Nothing seems quite certain presently in our life. Not like those freshly out of the ivory tower, we can't afford that much precious time to try, make mistakes and then learn. Time is to a certain extent, a luxury to us. I don't know since when I am starting to walking gingerly and being extremely cautious when it comes to making decisions. I have become too afraid to make expensive mistakes from which require a great deal of time to recovery later leading to the scenario that I am far behind others. I don't why somehow aging is slowly turning me into a coward on some terms. This is quite the opposite to what people usually expect. It is believed by numerous people that the wisdom and maturity life endow us are supposed to make us better-prepared for life and consequently render us more courageous and confident. I suppose it can be because the older we are, the fewer opportunities we have to start something all over again. The responsibilities coupled with aging are making it necessary for us to be prudent. We are not living solely for ourselves any more and can't be that fearless and carefree as when we were younger. But this is not denying the beauty of getting older. The air of ease and certainty some middle-aged or senior citizens carry is just as charming as the youth embodied in young adults. I reckon it's just not right or even pointless to write a specific plan for one's life as life is made up of a serious of random choices and life itself is never logical. Neither is life a science which can be analyzed in a scientific fashion based on data analysis. Thus, it's just absurd to predict what is going to happen in life. There is no paved path in life that we are supposed to follow. But since multitudes of people start taking a certain path, it suddenly makes it the right path to take. We know that it doesn't necessarily make something right, just because everybody is doing it. You may still be able to arrive at the same destination as they do even if you take a different road. But you will very likely suffer for taking the road not appointed by the group or the community. The pressure this society exerts on you may wear you down. Many people bend their wills to that sort of stress easily while many others continue their exploration even under extremely stressful environment. When we live in a society, it is of enormous difficulty to not to be swayed by other's opinions or by the group you belong to. What I at present really want to do is to build a strong mind so that I can stay true to my cognitive awareness and so that I can stand bravely even when I am confronted with pressure from peers and family. It's very likely that I will still be a nobody at 30;It's also very possible that I will still have no improvement in my career, have no partner or child at that age.But it's OK as long as I am stronger-minded; as long as I am content with my life.