Journal 50: My World

I am from the Asian country Taiwan. Maybe because it is a small country, we Taiwanese people knew to get what we want; we have to rely on ourselves. We have a kind of indomitable attitude to achieve whatever goal. Living in this community has made me resilient to many life challenges that appear. My family is consisted of my parents and two brothers. My mother is a tender woman who knows when to console me in her arms and when to leave me alone to deal with my own problems independently. She gives me enough care and concerns without letting me lose the ability to resolve my own problems. My father is a daring entrepreneur who is willing to take a step further to achieve. Influenced by his audacity, I was not afraid to grasp any opportunity when it comes. I remember I used to complain to him how tired I am and about school policies I felt was unfair to us students. He then told me if we can’t alter the situations we are in, we have to learn to adapt to it. He wanted me to be like water; Water can fit into whatever kinds of containers without changing its original essence or nature. My brothers, who learns to love life and enjoy playing sports, taught me to have enthusiasm for life and to ease myself when appropriate. These factors in general have really made me recognize how a well-rounded individual should be like. 

Journal 49: What I Am Proud Of

Living in an Asian country, community, and family has taught me the most essential personality of all-diligence. Starting from the first day of first grade, mother has always exhorted me to maintain high diligence at all times. She taught me by only maintaining diligence and being industrious can I succeed in every field. I then learn to be diligent in all cases, despite all outer distractions that may deviate me from my track of reaching my goal. The determined teaching of my mother has rooted in me a resolution of how I know my goals of each stage of life specifically.  During times when I felt frustrated, I seek for my strong determination of reaching my goal. This motivation always gives me a clear vision of how I want my future to be so then I can pursue it whole-heartedly. However, my strong determination of reaching my preferred future has taken away some of my free time and relation. I tend to feel that I do not have time to relax. This is the more rigid side of my personality. Despite the rigidness of my personality, I also tend to be more optimistic when facing dilemmas. When I have a clear direction f what I want to pursue in my mind, I maintain hopefulness and pursue it with all my might and heart.  

Journal 48: Busy busy busy

One of the activities I do is swimming. In the beginning of junior year, I suddenly found out I am drowned in a pile of schoolwork and to-do things. I lack the motivation to concentrate on reading and somehow has a muffled feeling; I felt like I was suppressed under or these works. I tried to relax and renovate myself by sometimes reading novels or going on the computer. However, I realized that as soon as I went back to work, the feeling of suppression arose again. Then one morning, my father woke me up and told me he realized that I was feeling down recently. He wanted for me to try swimming. The minute I stepped into the water, the cold water embraced me and seemed to have reduced my anxiety immediately. I dived deep into the water and let the water blocked out all the noises and worries; it is only in this moment that I truly felt peaceful. Swimming is the one sport that I am vividly aware of the distance I have advanced. This made me realize the meaning of motivation. Motivation naturally appears when you realized what a long way you have gone through and all the things you have achieved. You then appreciate yourself more often and gain the strength to continue on your journey. Swimming is a catharsis and a learning experience for me. 

Journal 47: More Art

I think the picture that has affected me the most is a picture of a middle-aged man carrying his elderly mother in a millstone around his neck sitting in a hospital. He seems like he was either feeding his mother some medicine or talking to her softly and comforting her. This picture really shocked me because I was expected to see the man carrying a baby or a child in that bundle and that the man was just doing his duty as a father bringing his child to see the doctor. When I saw that it was an old lady in the bundle around the man’s neck, I came to think about how people nowadays usually do not take caring for their parents as a duty. They only thought so much for their children but to neglect their parents’ welfare. Some pushed the responsibilities of taking their parents to other siblings. In the end, the elderly has to go to nursing home.  And this man in the picture, did not forget about his mother, does not think it is troublesome to carry his mother, and is willing to take time to take his mother to the hospital. This also makes I reflect on how I treated my mother currently. I interpreted my mother’s regardful greetings to bossy condemnation and her encouragement as annoying reminders. Now every time I think of the picture, I learn to be more grateful of my parents and more appreciative of what they’ve done for me. I know I will not neglect them when they aged.

Journal 46: Art and Life

When I was still a small kid, my Grandfather used to take my brother and I to parks just to enjoy the scenery of mountains and lakes. It is not until one day when my Grandfather brought up the idea that we could replicate the scenery by painting that I realized I have passion for art.   I can say that art is a panacea because it creates a way for one to express his or her feelings. In other words, it acts like a catharsis and helps ameliorate people’s stress. I think I will be a painter who paints out the sceneries that are easy to be overlooked and help people realize the fact that even a small corner of nature contains scenes that inspire and touches people. I will take art not only as a career but as an interest that helps me and others to express our feelings, alleviates our stress when things go wrong, and appreciate the beauty of nature and life. By joining art school, I wish to interact and collaborate with more creative and intelligent artistic students. That way I can learn more about diverse aspects of art through the vision of different people and help me bring out novel ideas of expressing arts. By joining an art school, I can also practice and mature my skills on subjects that I may have never thought of before.

Journal 45: About Myself

The experience that I cherish the most is volunteering to be a Chinese T.A. at Fremont Chinese School in California. I was reluctant and even refused to volunteer at the Chinese school at first because I was not sure of I have the courage or the ability to help the teacher with the teaching. The thought of me standing in front of a classroom teaching just seems to take a lot of courage. Eventually I still joined the crew of the T.A. after my friends said they were all going to volunteer. The first class of my volunteering experience ended with me feeling embarrassed when the teacher called me up to introduce myself and I just stood there without knowing what to say. The teacher then knew I was not someone who was as outgoing so she first let me graded homework. However, she still occasionally called me up to the whiteboard to spell out the Chinese words the students did not know. Every time I answered the students’ questions, I realized they always responded with satisfying gratitude or sometimes admiring glances. As time goes on, I realized I really love how the students appreciated my teachings and how I was being admired by them. The thought then occurred to me that I do have the ability to answer the questions of students; I can also assist a teacher like others. The teacher seemed to have noticed my changes so she gradually let me have more opportunities to interact with students. After that, I started to prepare daily lessons for the teacher or sometimes even teach the class of that day’s lesson when the teacher called me up and when the students demanded me to.

Journal 44: Past Experiences

Since I was a little kid, I have admired my Father’s job as a business man. He goes up on the stage to encourage and arouse his employees’ spirits or gives orders on how the next step should be to gain a mutual success for everyone. I admire the opportunity and freedom his job gave him to make many decisions and tactics. My Father has always told me how his job has profoundly tested and verified the many vital life principles such as only hard work pays off. Thus, I not only admire the freedom of his job to make decisions for himself and to work at his own pace, but also the pleasure of harvest of good achievements that comes with only hard work. In conclusion, I can say that my Father and his education style had influenced my aspiration to study business the most. On the other hand, my interest in Biology has somewhat influenced my other willingness to study Biology, too. I have always had some fascination when doing experiments and discovering something novel. My Father then suggested me to combine my admiration of Business with my love of Biology. In the future, I wish to study Biology first then to use the principles of Business I learned to sell the products I invented in my works of research.