It becomes cooler and even cold. Winter is here to tell us that we really have to be sure and ready for it. Withered lotus leaves demonstrate another scene of its beauty.Around the living community, I see some delivery men busy dealing with piles of packages. Most of these packages are mainly ordered and purchased on 11.11. More than one month, 2018 comes to the end and more than two months is the spring festival is around the corner. Wow, it is fast as days go. My colleague says to me that next week she has to book the ticket to to go back home during spring festival. And she still does not know if she could order it. For those who work far away from home, it is a miserable thing.Every year it cycles as seasons change. We become elder, sophisticated and know more and harvest more. Maturity of life does not only represent the looking of a person, moreover, the mentality which is the ability to tell what everything around is. Experience helps a lot and we learn to be wise and rational.Today is nice with warm sunshine in daytime. In the afternoon, I make tea and drink it by looking into the sky. Most time of this month is rainy, even though the sky is not so blue, I still like the light since it brings me hope and happiness. What a sunny day.

My cell
phone rang.

I looked at that crazy little thing vibrating with excitement and with a
strange number flashing happily on the screen. I felt disoriented, kind of
overwhelming with both dread and anticipations and for a moment almost unable
to remember how a phone works.

I soon pulled myself together, picked up the phone, and whispered hello.

“Good morning, this is XX insurance company. I’m glad to inform you….”I hung up the phone. Another scam call and I should have known better.

But next time when my cell phone rang, I would still pick it up in
thrilled anticipation because it might be that call I’ve waited for so long. Days
stretch like an eternity in suspense.

The call from a dream school. I just wonder how many parents right now are
going through the same like me? Obviously, my husband is not one of them. “They
are igniting worries among parents like you, you know, typical supply-limited
strategy to hook you up. There will be a school for him eventually” Okay, the least
I need right now is another lecture on how terrible our education system is. It’s
even worse to have a calm, almost indifferent husband right now, because his composure
would make you look like a card-carrying hysteric mother, and your worries
about your son’s future kind of like a small, sad stone in your throat.

I know I wrote something about not make the worst assumption just like yesterday.
But if I leave everything to the hand of the fate, chances are my son might end
up in a school where girls would ask a stranger for cigarettes, and boys display
their tempers more than their talents. Just a thought of that sends terrified
chills racing down my spine and into my belly.

Deep breath and calm down.

Never take something for granted, because it is awful. In life, we are easy to be into that condition of feeling something good by no judgement. Out of mind, we do not even understand what is going on. Instead, we just make a decision by on means of practice. The impulse buy is such a thing to happen once we are in the mall, especially at the time for sale. Many items we hardly use as of we paid the bill many months ago. Meanwhile, it is a waste of money.To avoid that kind of problem, we are supposed to make a list before shopping. By writing down what kind of things we are surely to buy can save us time and avoid being in the mass of buying many things are not related to daily life. The best way to test if a thing is
good or not is to put it into practice. A programme, a book, a song and
so forth, if you want to see if it is just that good, you have to use
it. After that, the feedback is to give you back the information.

This evening, it started raining again. The umbrella I have always had it in the briefcase, so I did not care too much and just took it out and went all the way to the subway station.The weather does not stop the enthusiasm for the stock market. The Shanghai and Shenzhen index has soared greatly from yesterday. We really never know when it rises and when it falls. But we know the preparation we can make in advance just like the way I do on the umbrella. It could be clumsy to take the umbrella all the way, but it works when it rains. We have to be ready otherwise we can hardly seize any of chances we might have. If not, we may have nothing even in the potential bull market.

Wendnesday, Oct. 17, 2017 Cloudy

On the same date of Oct.17,ten years ago, I was called to meet at
Jiangbei International Airport with some volunteers. We were to fly Beijing for
training to teach Chinese in Indonesia. Before that, we had been trained at
Chongqing Normal University for a month. Due to some difficulties on visa, the
trip had been delayed for nearly two months. Now, we finally made it.

The school hired
a van to send two of us(another volunteer is my colleague) to Chonqqing. I met
with my wife and daughter, had dinner together with them and my father in law
and his family. I didn’t tell my parents that I would go abroad, I just told
them I would go to another province to teach. I would come home before the
Spring Festival.

Chen Minkui (
the other volunteer like me in our school) and I went to the airport. On
arriving at the airport, we saw some other volunteers had been there. My wife, my
daughter and my wife’s brother saw me off at the airport. The volunteers (
mainly from Sichuan and Chongqing) were excited. I was told that Chen Minkui
and I would be in the same city. I was
very happy on hearing that. But later, it was proved to be wrong.

After saying
goodbye to my family, I went on board with others at 10. P.m. We arrived at Beijing Nanyuan Airport at
midnight and were taken to the hotel(Xiyuan Hotel) at about 2 a. m. Soon after
checking in, we went to bed because we were too tired. I remember a volunteer
from Sichuan named Zheng Wenying was with me in the same room.

Not a thing is so easy to achieve. Sometimes we have been thinking too much and just do not act a lot. That is the main reason we are stuffing. We feel lame because of the sate of mediocrity is extraordinarily playing the important role in our recognition. We want to be a somebody or make a fortune or do something great. Anyway, what we want is to claim that we are not a nobody.Quite right, we are different from each other. We are individuals and have own thoughts. Every single person has the ideas of his own. The colorful world is getting more beautiful as we pursue our dreams and demonstrate the power of that ability to change and improve the surroundings.A loser is the one who fails to pick up the courage and never feels he could be back again. On the contrary, a hero is the one who can honestly accept his failures and say no to difficulties. Do not stop moving. We are on the way as of we were born. Till the last breath in life we can say it is the whole life we have and there are no regrets anymore. The glory twilight then draws the period on our lifetime. Then we can rest in peace.The meaning of life is like the river which is running forward and getting other rivers together to form a larger one, finally it is in the sea. Then its destiny is finished. But our spirits does not extinguish which are the gifts left for generations to generations.As long as long heartbeat is there, it never ends.

I have transferred to this fitness for two months,
General speaking it is so so. There are three floors inside, the facilities and
equipment is pretty old, and there are two locker rooms separately. The sauna room
is closed for long time, the slippers are not in ordered. Maybe I am too picky
for the tidy in the public, especially for the bath room expectation is much
higher than other areas, and I always compare with San Quan Japanese Club. The
Swimming pool is bigger I like it, the treadmill machines is ten pieces and it
is quite enough for the rush hour, and four of them are the new one I was told.

Every morning I come out a half hour early then it is opening,
just in order to catch up Tiger’s breakfast, normal I put my sport bag in front
of the door first, after I am running back, the bag has been in to the room,
after that I realized Mr. Liu who is almost 50 years old, the whole morning only
he is on duty of the club, in fact he is only in charge the clearing work for
the club, but sometime he is the receptionist at the counter or sometime he is
the engineer technical worker for electricity and machine maintenance. I always
receive a nice warm regard greeting from Mr. Liu when I am coming in. I can see
the floor is cleaned and mopping by him already, the machine has been made up
even some corners are not covered yet under my eyes. If you can see his smiling
face you would forgive him, due to he is a nice guy really.

At the last week, he said to me carefully, Can you
write a thanks letter for me to my leader? I asked him why, what for? He told
me honestly that he could get the special bonus base on the number of good
comments. This kind of managements to encourage staff motivation is good or not,
it is hard to say, I just a little surprised that he asked for the letter only
for the money, and it is not from guests voluntarily. But anyway I promised him
to say no problem.

At the second day I put my envelope with my warmly
words to their counter. He was so happy for my action. He is more warmth from
his face I can read.

Wearing winter coat already,

Winter is not coming yet

The heating has been came to each home

Winter is not coming yet

The autumn rain and wind haven’t gone on yet

Only yellow leaves on the tree is still dazzling and attractive

Sitting in front of the window

Thoughts is running through my head

How come the weather likes this?

The breath is only I can hear.

Want to drink a wine or sing a song

The terrible weather today, making me so lazy and
frustrated. This morning I got the complain from my daughter, let me drive baby
to the hospital, as plan taking the taxi is much easy and convenient than
driving, due to the bad traffic and parking at the rush hours, it is, the
weather of today is heavy air pollution and haze, it is really bad for the baby
outing I can understand, but I got the unfair comments was I am not a competent
person and I did not show my duty for the family. I cannot accept what she
said, I had done the complication procedure personally at the first day at the
hospital, at the following days will only need to have the treatment directly
for the baby, I have to go Heating Company for the payment today, even I was so
angry when I received the call from my daughter, I come to terms actively,
everything at the home the baby is the number one always. Maybe I should blame
the terrible weather which brings me not good of the day.

In Chinese, today belongs to the Kitchen God. In different region in China, people may have different customs to celebrate it.One of the traditions on this day is eating “Zheluo”(putting left-over of the dishes together into a meal.) This means that people will never waste food, in hoping that the Kitchen God could see this and may do good for people.     The Kitchen God is said to report his work to the Jade Emperor commenting on human good and evil, until the 4th day of New Year to return back to the earth.Chinese folk saying goes :” Send-off early, welcome late.” so that the Kitchen God need to be sent off in the morning, while to welcome at about four o’clock in the afternoon.     In the north area of China, a legend also said that, on this day, Kitchen God would be down checking the household, therefore , it should be not away from home, and there is also a similar custom which forbids closing doors in case the God not able get in.     Wish everyone have a happy new year.

“Notre-Dame de Paris, in particular, is a curious specimen of
this variety. Every surface, every stone of this venerable pile, is a page of
the history not only of the country, but of science and of art.” Victor Hugo
described this masterpiece in his famous . And Now,
everything, every coating of imprint left by wave of time, every layer on the
monuments deposited by each race was destroyed and turned into pieces in the
rage of a fire. The ghost of Quasimodo could no longer wait for his beloved
girl at the awakening of the bells. Notre-Dame was gone forever, and a piece of
Paris died.

Paris, with its Notre-Dame, has always been one of these cities I
wanted to visit. In fact, about two years ago, I did plan a family trip to
France and Italy. However, one of my friends happened to be robbed and got badly
injured in Rome at that time and this accident changed my mind. We went to
German and Switzerland instead. But I always thought, one day, I would go to Paris.
I would sip a cup of Latte at a café by Seine River, letting the beauty of
Notre-Dame taking my breath away. I forgot that life’s beauty is inseparable
from its fragility. You make a plan and think you’ve taken everything into
consideration, and one day something unexpected happen and change everything.
You comfort yourself with your maybe-one-day list, and all of sudden “maybe”
become “never”. You walk down the street with hope, but only find yourself in
the alley of despair. The only certainty in this world is uncertainty. The
point is to embrace this fragility, navigate this life with appreciation and
gratitude, and most of all, try to marry your dream, your desire with action as
best as you can, as soon as you can.