Space of soul

A period of two and a half year of postgraduate study has been over. Cordial friends, a good job, a pretty girlfriend are what I gained in this period besides diploma. I shall say I get a good harvest in the end.

  That Friday, January 12 of 2007 made me both happy and grief-stricken. At noon, one of my friends had the lunch with me together. Then we talked a lot about work and movie. I felt very happy for that. Then, my roommate, pal, and best friend came to see me because I was leaving this campus where I’ve stay two and a half year. Poker helped us recall strings of stories which we made together—mountain climbing, golden pebble beach, English lessons, barbecue, singing, speaking English…  We were supposed to roller-skating after the poker but Mount Horn climbing took its place. However, this mount climbing proved to be a great fun. We took many pictures there and made another unforgettable story. On the top of the mountain, we tried our best to shout each other’s name as loudly as possible because, probably, we wanted our names to be remembered by nature, or god or whatever or perhaps we just want to bear each other’s name in our own hearts. I felt cool though I became hoarse in throat, I felt energetic though I didn’t have siesta that noon. Seeing them off, I felt grief-stricken because I thought this will be the last view. At night, my lovely sis came to see me with a paper bag of fried clam, which she cooked herself for my next day’s meal on train and we had a long conversation to say farewell.

  Night is really very long that day that I thought a lot before dreams. I recalled the past with marvels overwhelming my mind. I marvel at how great friends I’ve made during my life. I deplore that so soon I’m leaving for another city. Unconsciously I lost into beautiful dreams, so sweet that I want to smile.

  Next morning to my surprise, I got a phone call from my sis. More surprisingly, my sis was phoning me at the foot of my dorm building. I appreciated so much though I’ve told her not to see me off because otherwise she’ll come late to office. After breakfast in the No. 7th dining hall my roommate, pal, sis and I taxied to railroad station. Standing beside the train, we were saying something when a figure in green ran toward us as well as waving her hand with a platform ticket in it. It turned out to be Wenya. She said to me xiaoxia couldn’t make here due to the stomachache. I was moved by them not only for the departure but also for they are two of my closest friends, plain but special. The train started and moved slowly meanwhile a strong feeling of sadness was also creeping over my mind slowly but heavier. That feeling is really nonverbal but I want to keep it in mind forever.

     College students always have a lot to complain----failing an exam, a chilly love, loss of an opportunity, graduation without even a psychological preparation. All of these reflect their pessimistic side in viewing the world around them. In entrance exam to postgraduate, many students regard it as the farfetched difficulties full of impossibility. Some of them, even, feel so tried of their lives, hoping to end it as early as possible. Or rather to say, some are struggling in the hell of colleges, instead of a paradise for the knowledge and life enrichment.

     I am quite contrary to this, though I also have bad moments once in a while, say, failing an exam, loss of love, overwhelming difficulties ahead of me. But I prefer to take it as a natural way, that is, every difficulty comes naturally and goes naturally as well. There’ll be a pin-in-hole solution to it, waiting for you to find it and apply it. Afterwards, you will learn it by heart and will soon be able to solve it the next time when confronted with the same situations. As for me, I prefer to take my failure as a reference, or a memory. It teaches me how to succeed the next time, or at least, how to avoid it. This is one suggestion for those with problems of coping with difficulties.

     Let’s talk back to our title of this passage. Firstly, why trace the best memories? I think this is a best way to go out of depression. Spend few minutes on the past best memories---a success in a national speech competition, a wonderful show in an entertaining party, a tourism to a mountain-climbing along with your best friends, one roller-skating experience, a happy singing, an incredibly crazy dancing, or even a funny CS-fleet game fighting. These all lead you to become terrific and induce a high spirit toward life. I write this article, for I meet too many people, in the English corner, who often shoot questions about how to solve their depressions. Why not keep an eye on your ever success and build your confidence.

     Secondly, how to trace your best memories? I think this is easy for everyone. We must have a lot of moments when you have to take a bus, or wait for a long queue, or whatever. This is a waste of time, but which can be fully made use to have a quick memory-flash in your mind. I guess you’ll soon have a smile at the corner of your mouth even without your awareness of it. You recall some one who has ever done a great favor to you, some moment when you told a joke to your friends and made them laugh off their chairs, some place where you’ve been to. You’ll feel you did a lot of meaningful thing in the past, which will encourage you to be more active toward life and to do more meaningful things in the future. Recall moments when you did something wrong in the past and try meditating how you should avoid the same mistake in the forthcoming days.

     Perhaps, some people will criticize this as a daydreaming, but I think there’s no wrong with daydreaming. On the contrary, by a proper daydreaming, it can provide us with impetus and a temporary spiritual enjoyment. I often daydream. Even once I smiled for no reason in streets, and the passer-by all took me as incredible stupid. However, a high spirits is the premise for a more active action. Stupid will teach you to become clever. Try to trace your best memory to your age of 3 and I believe there’ll be a lot of smiles appearing in your pretty face.

   Yesterday was a moving day to me. I watched a classic movie, shot in the year of 1999 for the greeting of new year, set in USA. The title of this movie, I believe, is not strange to each of you, 不见不散. I was moved because there was a moving dream by the actor when he was on a plane back to Beijing.

　In his dream, he separated with his beloved girl and this separation lasted for almost his life. Because of some mindless disagreement they quarreled and the actor took plane back China to see his sick mother, whom he had not seen for several decades. Time really flies very fast, the shot was switched to around 60 years later when the actor and his beloved girl had both become old man and old lady. In a sanitarium they came across each other again by accident after almost 60 years’ departure, both either handled by a paramedic or wheeled by someone from the hospital. Both kept single in order to wait for this moment of reunion. Two old couple met again with tears in their eyes, full of regret, full of pity. I felt sympathy with them and was moved to tears. Then my heart felt very sour and thought I would rather die if this happened to me.

 　To be lucky, this is only a dream of the actor. He himself sobbed to awake. He couldn’t help crying but was very appreciative for the help of his seatmates on the plane who passed him a handkerchief to wipe off the tears. He was turning his head to her to say thanks when he found his seatmates changed from a man to his beloved girl who actually followed him to the plane and exchanged the seat with a gentleman when the actor was sobbing in dreams.

 　The end is a comedy. It makes me feel and see the whole process of love very vividly and make me seem to have experienced many different turns in love. I hope I can say “不见不散” to my beloved girl and keep it a comedy for whole life.

We swam purposelessly around the new world, everything seemed to us so magnificent and marveling. And more amazingly, we could breathe in the water. Therefore, for one while we swam on the surface and for another had a scrubber diving. We enjoyed ourselves really very much. Later on we submerged to the bottom of the ocean, where there were many buildings. We were very interested in one small weird hut seemingly built with shells. We entered it and found it was a video-game-booth. “Wow! It’s great!”, we shouted: “We can play the video game here”. The boss was a very old but kind-hearted tortoise, whom we asked what we need to play this game. Tortoise pointed to a shrimp who was playing happily with one game and said: ”look, you need only one shell and can play any game here. However you can get a shell only if you’re able to answer one riddle from by me successfully” That’s easy for us, so we agreed to have a try. Apparently, the tortoise underestimated our ability of riddle games. “Well, in fact, how can a tortoise figured out our high intelligence since we were human and he only a tortoise”, we thought. To this, we smiled to ourselves stealthily. Well, actually we were wrong because we really met a trouble in the last tricky question. The tortoise asked the first question elatedly, thinking that we must be unable to answer it. “What can change the Arctic into Antarctic? ” “Ant”, Qi answered it very quickly. The tortoise was very surprised and said: ”Ok, that’s too easy. Let’s have a tough one. What stands in the middle of China ?” Hearing this riddle, we couldn’t afford to laugh to our tears cause this was the easiest one which can only be found in preschooler’s book. Yong answered: “Of course, it’s I”. The tortoise couldn’t help showing his respect to us and was more cautious to ask the third one and continued “A guy goes to a shop and wants to buy a watch. The price of the watch is $21, the cost of this watch is $18. He gives the owner of the shop $100, but the owner doesn't have changes. So he goes to his neighbor to ask for changes. He returned $79 to the buyer. Later on his neighbor finds out the money of $100 is fake, so he has to give $100 back. The question is how much the owner lost.” This tricky question was really beyond us and tortoise felt very high to see our puzzled faces. But after some mistakes and hint from the tortoise, who, this moment, really showed his generosity we finally worked it out. Soon we steeped ourselves in the happiness of video games. Now, my dear readers, can you figure out the answer to it? If yes, we will go on our expedition; else if no, we’ll still continue it anyway but I will reveal the answer to you next time :)      (To be continued)

In the middle school I had a best friend named Qi. His name is a legend because his full name is chuanqi in Chinese. We used to compose a kitty-team, consisting of three. Qi was the second and I was the third. Of course, I won’t omit the eldest hero among the three J. The eldest kitty is called Yong, a little bit slow-minded but very stubborn. Our team was famous not only on our campus but also in neighboring schools so that many viewers came to our school to visit us, wondering what we seemed like. To this, each one of us felt very proud of.

After class in one morning we came out to a piece of clearing during the ten-minute break. We enjoyed our game so much with paper-made plane in our hands, pretending to be a pilot and carrying out a cooperative task with each other. As we were enjoying ourselves and jumping on the ground, Qi suddenly disappeared, which made the rest two of us very scared. Yong went to take a look but also disappeared in the very place where Qi vanished. I was more scared, however having no choice but to save them out. I came to the very place, but it seemed nothing but as normal as it was. I tried to jump on it and to my expectation I was absorbed in as well. As it turned out, we fell into a sea world, in which they were waiting for me to come.

There we met each other again and all felt so terrific about the strange world which was really beautiful, everything sparking in addition to the pretty fish around us. We became very excited and began our new expedition from then on. (To be continued)

  I should say I feel very happy because I got a new pair of shoes yesterday. This pair of shoes is somewhat special because it's a God-striking-at-me gift from Mei. Or rather, Mei is a God-striking-at-me gift from God. Yesterday was a rainy day, raining for a whole morning. Having gotten up, I held an umbrella and walked down stairs. As I expected, my name was listed in the blackboard, notifying me to reclaim my package.
  In the mild rain, I went to the west-hill post office to reclaim my shoes, which were actually knitted by her mom stitch by stitch. My appreciation was far beyond any words can express it.
  With shoes in hands, I tried to appreciate them. Almost every people seeing it praise them to be pretty. First, the color is white, and it has a beautiful pattern, two butterflies in the above-side sole. The shoelace are in the front while Meis' behind. I like them very much but I won't wear it because I don't want to dirty it, as least won't before Mei came. It represents her kindness and care, thus I will take it as a souvenir to commemorate where the love began and testify how it developed.