The Happy, Relaxed Weekend with GAKIs---Part II

Continue…. Sorry! It seems to be a long time ago….hahaha

May 16, 2010

It was a sunny day.

I woke up early in the morning. I did not know why I could get up early even though I went to bed a little bit late last night. Maybe, that』s because I was so excited about the following schedule. In such a comfortable, tranquil morning, I took a walk around the house alone to enjoy the nature beauty.

Then, most of GAKIs also woke up when I came back to our place. We had porridge and some dishes as breakfast. We talked and had our meal together in a god mood. After that, we prepared to leave for our next destination, Shanlinchi forest recreation area (杉林溪森林遊樂區). We took about three or four hours to act in the forest recreation area. A great group of people played games, sang songs, talked to one another while going mountain climbing on such a cloudless day. It really made us feel tired because we had to walk up and then walk down constantly as the terrain rises and falls. However, it actually made me released from the pressure from my daily life and also made me feel relaxed. Then, we found somewhere to have our lunch, and went back to Taichung in each motorcade. At last, all of us were back to the school safe and sound, and took a picture together as a precious memory.

Perhaps, someone will think that the schedule is boring. But, as far as I am concerned, the destination is not the most important thing. What』s more important is the journey that I can spend with those I like happily together. In addition, we are able to know one anther better through the journey because we can see the different sides of each person that we cannot find in our daily lives. That』s quite interesting!

The Reflection of “Peaceful Warrior”

It is a movie that was edited from a novel named “Way of The Peaceful Warrior”. It is combined with part of fiction and part of autobiography. This story is based on the early life of the author, Dan Millman.

He is a university student and a locally famous gymnast. He can get good grades in school and win pretty girls’ hearts. Everything in his life seems very smooth. As far as we are concerned, if we could live a life like Dan’s, we should feel content. However, Dan feels annoyed with his life due to some uncertain factors. Then, he meets an old man and this old man guide him to find out the exit of his complex mind.

Overall, the story tells of a chance meeting with a gas station attendant who becomes a spiritual teacher to the young gymnast, Dan Millman. The attendant who Millman nicknames Socrates becomes a kind of father figure and teaches Millman how to become a Peaceful Warrior.

In addition, the central concept of “Socrates’ philosophy” is this: that one must live entirely in the present moment.
There are some quotes that make me impressive and give lessons:

"Take out the trash from what's inside your head."

"Where are you? Here. What time is it? Now. Who are you? This moment."

It tells me that I should seize the present moment, never think too much something complicated, and gather all my concentration on what I want to do. I think it is really a difficult lesson even though most of us know it. Maybe, we will be able to do that if we try hard.

"It is the journey that gives us happiness, not the destination."

Sometimes, we will care about the outcome too much. In order to achieve our goals, we may ignore the process that we make efforts. But, actually we should enjoy our happiness and sense of success from the way of reaching the targets.

"Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what's good for you. They don't want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs."

Be the masters of ourselves! Listen to our hearts. Try to find out the real thoughts in the mind. Also, to become a real adult, we should learn how to think independently and how to be responsible to our behaviors.

It is a quite good movie. If you are available, you should see it indeed.

The Happy, Relaxed Weekend with GAKIs---Part I

May, 15, 2010

It was the day that I had expected for a long time. I was excited to go on a tour with GAKIs (They are the members in the chorus. We are so close like family members that sometimes we can share the secrets in our minds with one another.)

This time, we went to Nantou for our two-day-one-night tour, and the weather was comfortable, sunny and windy on average, yet a little rainy later.

Our way of transportation is by motorcycle. We were separated into three motorcades, and each departed in turn. Luckily, the person who rode the motorbike and took me all the way was my good friend, A-juan. We were originally quite familiar, close with each other so that we would not feel embarrassed, or did not know how to get along with each other. It is very attractive, interesting way of tour for me because I am able to directly enjoy the comfortable feeling that beautiful scenery and the nature bring to my body and my mind. Besides, I personally like not only the carefree feeling of fooling around by motorbike but also the cool feeling that the breeze fans my face, my hair.

We spent a little bit long time to arrive our destination. We took a walk and act around the Chi-chi train station (集集火車站), walking along the rail, taking pictures, and having a lot of fun. We ate some delicious fried mushrooms and bananas. Then, we went to a place where we only needed to pay 6 NT. dollars for an ice-lolly. The ice-lolly had many different kinds of flavor, tasted not bad and they were really very cheap.

Afternoon, it began to rain, so we had to ride to the place where we wanted to stay that night as soon as possible. We all got a little bit wet after reaching our destination.

After having dinner, we had some activities, playing a drama each group. Then, most of us played card games, Truth or Dare, The Killer till late in the night.

It was happy, unforgettable day because I could be with those who I like and share happiness with them!

A One-day Tour of DFLL at Flying-cow Farm

It was May 5, 2010
It was the first extracurricular activity after mid-term exam. Although I have been to the place where we wanted to go, I was a little excited about it because I could go out with my friends, seniors and have fun.

We woke up earlier than usual because we had to arrive at the meeting place on time. But seldom people looked tired. Maybe we were going to go on an outing instead of going to school, so we seemed not to feel tired or anxious for the insufficient sleep.

On the tour bus, we once planned to sing karaoke or see movies at first. But there are only two tiny screens on the bus so that we could not see the images on both of them clearly. So most of people on the bus chose to see the scenery outside the windows, and then fall asleep accidentally. (Hahahaha)

After getting our destination, we began to move on our own. Because of the sunny, hot weather, each of us could not help buying a milk ice cream cone as soon as we saw the stores. My heart was full of happiness after having a taste of it, which had rich milky aroma. Besides, I thought that the taste of the ice cream was so fantastic that we would never forget it!

We barbecued in the camping area during the lunch time. There were various kinds of food on the table for each group. We felt quite hungry and could not wait to eat. But what we should do before starting to eat was making a fire. It was lucky that the time we spent to make a fire was not too long, so we barbecued soon. The foods are not bad and pretty much, especially meat. We really felt full and satisfied.

There were many kinds of cute animals such as cows, sheep, goats, rabbits, and such on the farm. During this outing, I experienced one thing that made feel interesting. I milked the cow for the first time. The feeling of touching its warm nipples is unspeakably strange. Besides, I saw a special kind of butterfly, which looked like a withered leaf. I really had deep impression of these two things.




It was a wonderful day! Everything is nice: good weather, good views, delicious foods, and my dear friends and seniors. I thought that we had fun even though we just walked around the farm. That’ because we good friends were all together!

Lately...

A student should do

It is the mid-term exam that makes me suffer so much pressure. Perhaps, it is because I do not focus on my study so much that I have to make efforts to make up the neglect of my own duty as a student during mid-term exam. Some of my classmates do not have such a problem because they study hard all the time.

It seems a good time, chance for me to reflect on my past daily lives in the last term. I am aware of that I have too many extracurricular activities, and also indulge in the happiness from those activities too much. Therefore, I lost the sense of responsibility to carry out what a student should do gradually. In order to prevent that worse condition of my study, such as flunking an exam or a course, will happens to me, I made my mind to concentrate more on it. I decided to spend my weekends in the library in the future except for going home. After all, what I can do in the library is limited, including studying, reading, seeing movies, which all benefits my life.

Something complicated made confused

A good guy who is a senior of mine showed up and came into my life. At first sight, I did not know why, but I had to admit he really caught my eye so that we wanted to understand him more. A period of time passed, we became friends because we take the same elective course and attend the same club. We always get along well with other, and we can talk happily with each other all the time. He also expresses his concern for me like my brother. In his presence, an independent, strong girl like me suddenly became a girl who needs to be attended. It is really weird.

Lately, our relationship seems to become better and better even to an unspeakable extent. He is usually willing to keep me company if he is available. We will go to the library for study and go out to have meals together, only he and me. Besides, some of his conduct makes me feel confused that he regards me as a common friend, a close friend like his younger sister, or someone else. For example, first, he did many things that touched my heart indeed. Second, he will frequently feed me like a couple of lovers will do when we have meals together. There are still a lot of matters that makes my thinking complex, confused. He is so sweet, considerate that I strong suspect that I have had a crush on him. However, it bothers my mind that he makes me tend to be accustomed to his company, and want to rely on him involuntarily. I am afraid that I will lose myself gradually, so I try to control my mind, oppress my emotion.

Will it be my first love? I do not know.

A Kind of Self-abuse ? Nervousness and Anxiety

It was a stressful day for me that I had two oral presentations in a row on this Wednesday afternoon. Also, because of these, I did not feel hungry at all. Maybe I was too nervous and too anxious. One of the presentations that I had to do was in an elective course called Copy Culture and Consumerism, which is basically all lectured in English. Even though I am an English major student, I still think taking this course a quite challengeable task. Sometimes, what we need to do in this class is even more difficult than those in some required courses. For instance, I have to read a lengthy article, which context contains about more than thirty pages, and make a summary. Then, we must present it individually for about ten minutes. Due to not having enough time to prepare it well, I thought that my presentation was not well-organized. (What a pity it was!) What I could say was that it was fortunate that I got through with this work smoothly at last. But, I cannot be too excited about it because there is still a lot of hard work waiting for me to carry out in the future.

Somebody asked me why I chose the course, which exhausts me so much. In fact, I hesitated for a long time about that if I really wanted to take this course. For many times, I really wanted to quit this course, escape from this challenge, and live a relaxed life. However, I made up my mind to face this hard work bravely. The reasons are as follow: First, I thought that the name of the course sounded quite interesting, and also made me feel curious about it. Second, it was possible that I could improve my English abilities much more and trained myself to be more courageous and confident on the stage by taking it. Third, I must keep my promise with my friend Sally to take this course together.

In reality, I am convinced that I will definitely gain something meaningful even though I have to pay so many efforts on it. I expect myself to make it! But, somebody thought that I was really crazy; they did not understand why I treated myself like this, making myself so busy and tired!

It is the song that we chorus are going to sing

Pondering

On a silent Tuesday night, some thoughts came into my mind all of a sudden when I just lay down in my bed. Just in the sudden moment, I was aware of a terrible situation

I remembered that I was as busy as a bee during the whole day. I have seven classes that day, and ordinarily, I have to practice playing volley ball and also singing in the night. But, I have to practice singing earlier than before, and I cannot play volley lately. That’s because our club will have a chorus performance in May, and I hope that I can spend more time focusing on singing, and let my progress catch up with, even surpass others. In addition, my finger and knee got hurt, so I have a reasonable excuse for not going to play volley ball. Then, I thought I can make use of the situation to take a rest and release from the exhausted life temporarily.

Once, I thought that my life will be colorful and full of joy all the time because the members in the chorus, the teammates in the ball team, and my dear friends in the college really made me fell warm and well-beloved. I do not want lost anyone of them indeed. However, I seemed to gradually indulge in the joyful life too much. Also, I have been accustomed to rely on them and hope they can usually keep me company. I did not awake from happy world until something unpleasant happened to me recently in the club. It seemed like a complex thing, and made me feel somehow uncomfortable, confused, lonely, and a little down!

Thank to the things, I was able to calm down, and had a reflection to my daily life again. I realized that my weakness, frailty appeared, but I did want anyone, especially males, to find this. For me, it is such a terrible thing to rely on others. I frequently hope that I need not to be protected by others, and I need not to rely on others’ help. Instead, I expect I can become an independent, hardy, and strong-minded girl. That’s because I am convince that feeble personality will make one vulnerable one day. Therefore, I told myself females and males are all equal individuals, and we girls cannot be so delicate that we always need boys’ assistance. I do not want anybody, especially those whom I love, to worry about me, so I have started to learn how to take good care of myself at an early age. Even though I will feel a little hard and lonely sometime, I will pretend that I am ok and try hard to make myself enjoy the time that I can spend alone.

Further, I thought it is improper that I pour too much of my heart to those leisure activities rather than my study. I have to rethink what my college life should be. Is it what I want? Do I really know what kind of life I am living? Am I really happy? Do I really think that everything is paid off and meaningful? Is my life too busy so that I cannot concentrate on everything? Should I cut off some activities so that I can focus on my study much more? After all, a saying goes, “You cannot sell the cow and drink the milk.” So, it seems to be the time for me to adjust that pace of my life, and reset a long-term goal for my future. Although I am still in my fresh year, I do not want to have any regret at all in my college life.