This will probably be my last journal entry prior to practice teaching, which starts tomorrow when our team of student teachers is scheduled to leave for 　　　　Paitan 　　Middle School, on a mission that bears the name and cachet of SCAU. I am proud and pleased, not to say thrilled, to be on that team, along with another 10 energetic girls and a smart engaging teacher, Mr. Qing. And for most of the next 30 days presumably I am gonna be away and off line, and may not get around to writing anything, which is still something I will have to adjust to, for writing is so soothing and delectable that it has literally become part of my mental anchorage. Anyway, I see fit now, therefore, to share with you some of my recent thoughts before I depart, and to indulge myself for one last time in the sheer pleasure of communing with English.

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and contrition lately, partly because it seems to have suddenly dawned on me that as one becomes a senior in college, he becomes an old man, an anachronism in his surroundings, an odd man out among his juniors, a solitary exile on his way out, and a self-important bigot in his insistency upon what he considers to be true and right. Surely I find this proposition to be true, for figuratively speaking, in the waning twilight of my college life, as I so often examine myself, I seem to see in me a curmudgeon, so restless, erratic, and excitable that he questions everything, and doubts everything in so far as his paranoia and random suspicion will carry; and hereupon I have somehow gained a better and more critical insight into the nuts and bolts of life in early adulthood and lust in late adolescence and consequently harbored  within me more grief, more anguish, more grudge, more fidgetiness, more sobriety, and more yearning for peace and love than ever. All this stems from the irreconcilability between my individuality and the harsh reality as it is. The nagging idea that my time on this campus is quickly running out before I even know how to enjoy and make good use of it speaks to the sad truth that for more than three years since I first set foot on this land I have simply been given to a lifestyle of sheer business, a recurring and engrossing spiral of existence that calls for nothing but a sense of obsession, an autosuggestion that you have something worthy and worthwhile to pursue and that God willing, in due course of time all your efforts and pains will pay off. Yeah, I have full faith in what I have done, what I have devoted myself to, and what I think of as the tenets of being an upright and aspiring man. And in this regard, little does it matter whether I am ultimately to be rewarded for my persistency and fortitude or to simply end up like a fool who woefully realizes that he should have better utilized his God-allotted lifetime. So I will try to be meek, and not whine about those might-have-beens.  After all going to college is like having a bet with your fate, with youth and ideals being the stakes: either you lose or you win, there being no such thing as “I quit!”

That said, I am still trying to be upbeat, even though my right senses and intuition tell me that my way to a better future is undoubtedly gonna be a tough slog, with little to trifle with and much to be wary of. To be honest with you, I may have often entertained some unrealistic hopes and whims over the years, but they have been well-taken, if not well-founded; they have remained till this day to be what I consider the unalienable rights and ambitions of a free man; they have stood the test of time and distance, if not the check of reality, and proved to be strong; they have sustained me and seen me through trials and tribulations, even though they may come to nothing in the end…It is true that what one can and cannot achieve in life is often predetermined by his fate, which more than anything defines his life, his success or failure, and his ultimate demise and that to remain unyielding in denying one’s fate can hardly make it any better, as shown everywhere in our lopsided society.

As of old, I have come to believe that as one is born into this world, he will some day find his place in it, whether it be of high stature or not, and will have his share of the bounty of God’s grace so long as he keeps to righteousness, not straying from the path that God intends us to follow. Yes, that’s true. The only problem, however, is that one is not easily satisfied, for he has avarice, and ambition, and always wants more than his lot entitles him to. Therefore, for one to be happy and at peace with himself and the world, he needs to be content, or at the very least to learn not to complain.

That should be enough, I think, and when I come back, hopefully I shall have something positive to say about the declining days of my studentship.

Take care…