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| Last month | Last 3 months | All time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completed lessons | 0 | 1 | 130 |
| Attendance rate | 100% | 100% | 99% |
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- Thought after reading a short story "Somehow, deeply touching experience kept coming from the most unexpected places". The time was 1971, a 24-year-old man, Michael was going to build a cabin with two college friends. By then, he had been 'homeless' - living in a caravan - for almost a year, and none of them had a clue of how to build a house, the only one more 'professional' among them was a recent graduate with an Architecture degree. Despite the cluelessness, they "jumped right in with the abandonment of reason that belongs only to the young hippies and crazy people". Turned out these young graduates were not only fearless, but penniless, in the sense that they could only afford unprocessed timber, trees cut into chunks. The couple who owned the timber workshop helped them out a lot, and one day invited them over for dinner. The young graduates were absolutely over the moon, for that it would be the very first time in a year they could eat in a house, not barbecue in the wilderness. The sentence at the beginning was Michael’s reflection about the dinner. I didn’t have the luxury of taking any adventure nearly as dramatic and exhilarating as building a cabin in the woods fresh out of college, so that I was mostly deprived of deeply touching experience which usually manifests itself as someone gets out of a tough time. But this short story reminded me of my solo ski trip to Vail, of caring hostel staff who helped me when I tumbled on the floor in my ski boots, of a bus driver who speeded up so that I could catch the connecting bus, of a Vail native who carried my gear to the ticket office just to “make me feel welcomed”, of a ski patrol who gave me a free lesson voucher when he saw me hesitating before a “steep” slope on the piste. These seemingly small gestures were like a cup of hot chocolate in that icy winter which warded off the cold.April 23, 202040
- the Great Gatsby Curled up on my couch against fluffy cushions, I reached the last page of the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The gay and grotesque and gleaming Roaring Twenties housed innumerable fanatic parties of gaudy, joyful men and women, of indistinct innuendos and whisperings forgotten on the spot in the sweltering summer air, of enthusiastic chatter and laughter between extravagantly dressed girls who never knew each other’s names. The gaiety and distortion and intricate sensitivity repeating themselves today are overlooked in the absence of contrast. Day after day, young and exuberant men and women run faster and reach further for the incessantly swelling dreams of wealth, for that in various unutterable capacities they came into contact with glee and security that wealth carries and preserves. Perhaps all of us once dreamed to fly in our youth, yet in a dull moment in our 60s and 70s it dawned upon us that our feet were glued to the ground. The book received mixed reviews when it was published and was not an immediate commercial success, but experienced an unexpected resurgence of interest during the World War II. The letters sent home from soldiers on the front line must have glittered with hope that the same exhilarating world was awaiting them once the gruesome war was over, wrestled with the indignation that girls whose curious and smiling mouths they kissed had arms wrapped around someone else, scorned aristocrats and socialites who sat snobbishly and ignorantly over the bitter struggles of the poor. Fitzgerald had died before all that happened, with an agonising belief that his work was forgotten and his life was a failure.April 17, 202041
- Navigating through the crisis with random words Outside my window was a bustling roundabout, connected to a promenade by an artificial canal which accommodated an abundance of white, sumptuous yachts. Palm trees dotted the promenade were delicately wrapped around by glittering rope lights, whose warm, cheerful colour fell gently on the shoulders of pedestrians taking an evening stroll. The vibrancy ground to an abrupt halt as the fear of a novel virus loomed over the city. Devoid of cabs, the empty roundabout is now desolate with few bleakly lit palm trees. Red spot lights of motorbikes cut through the deadly quiet when delivery drivers flash down the street. I lost track of how many days I have been in solitary confinement. To my surprise, I made peace with it fairly quickly, after coming to realisation that this was my chance to kick off the things on my to-do list that I had been procrastinating. The internal struggle I feel has nothing to do with the quarantine but everything to do with the problem that has been lurking around for a long while. Since my window is my only connection with the outside world, I spend most of my day by its side. Every afternoon, a fit, bald man in a face mask would come out and walk his two dogs. The two dogs are apparently not coordinated, dragging the man to run back and forth on the pavement, and sometimes into the bush. That is such a lively scene which spices up the time of spiritlessness.April 9, 202010
- Can anyone help fix this / suggest better word choices? Thank you! Oct 12, 2019 I don't like reading and writing. Chinese was a dreadful class for me in high school and composition was my least favourite part of all Chinese exams. My mom bought me a series of encyclopaedia books when I was a little girl, but well, I barely turned a page. After I grew up, flights are almost the only place where I read and write, because there is no distraction and no alternative. I like to put thoughts and structure to things that happen in my life while I'm thousands of feet up in the sky. I have to admit that my student life was somewhat prescriptive. I did what I was told to do and I was pretty good at it. I was told to be a good student and to get into a top university, so I spent long nights solving math and physics questions, and memorising English vocabularies and grammars. At some point I was told that my fitness level would also be tested and contribute to my final score by testing running, long jumps, and throwing balls. Despite being skinny and physically weak, I trained myself with my classmates everyday and I barely slacked. Thanks to that, I run marathons now. Does this count as serendipity? :) My student life had been like a hurdle race, and I crossed the finish line once I entered college. So I stood there, bewildered. No one could tell me what to do anymore and the choices were all mine. There was no right or wrong, no black and white. That was when disorientation and frustration kicked in. Making decisions is an ability and like any other skill, you lose it if you don't practice. I struggled but I gradually came into peace with myself, or at least I'm trying.October 15, 201920
- Cancun holiday Can anyone help me fix this / suggest better word choices? Thanks a lot in advance! (?) are the ones I'm not so sure about. Oct 14, 2019 October is the rainy season as well as the low season in Cancun for tourists. I almost changed my flights seeing consecutive ten days of shower in the weather forecast. Yet the trip turned out to be amazing. The Hotel Zone, as indicated by its name, is where tourists stay. It is a long-strip island facing the Caribbean sea. Beyond the public beach area where the colourful 'Cancun' landmark is located, the beautiful white sand beach is carved up by extravagant hotels like vultures. The water is crystal, starting from navy blue in a distance to turquoise as it reaches the shore, and transforms (?) into white splash pushing (?) to the beach treasures from the ocean. The simmering light jumps from one wave to another, swiftly, splendidly. The Hotel Zone is gorgeous (?) but I also find it slightly sterile, because it is a delicate paradise built specifically for tourists, like a Las Vegas without casinos. Then I discovered cenotes, the highlight of my trip. Mexico boasts dozens of cenotes, each with its unique formation (?). I binge-visited cenotes the second day: Cenote Nicte Ha, Dos Ojos Cenote, Cenote Sac Actún. Cenote Nicte Ha is my favourite of all. It looks more like a pond than a cenote. Because it is overground (?), plants grow under the cool, clear water. Water lilies float (?) on the water, with tiny fish swimming around their stems. The bottom of the picturesque cenote is a mixture of emerald, turquoise, amber colours because of the vegetation and fallen leaves. Dos Ojos means two eyes in English. This cenote is a semi-open cave, therefore there is no vegetation in the water as the sunlight is blocked by rocks. Cenote Sac Actún is also a cave and I explored the deep of the cave with a guide. The experience was absolutely magical. Inside the cenote, tree roots come all the way down from the jungle above to touch the water, piercing hard rocks.October 15, 201930
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