Aimless things are valuable

As promised before, It is my second new year pose in February. Except losing weight and starting saving, I'm starting to make wish list into reality.

The first thing is learning German which I still feel a bit difficult. Since I already miss the first class, 3 hours German class becomes one of challenges for myself. I absolutely don't understand what the teacher is talking about at the beginning. He is an American from Arizona. His American accent of German is very funny. Luckily this teacher is a very patient and nice so I can speak few things now. New language always takes a long time to get used to it. In my German course, there are around 14 people, half of them are engineering students and majority of them learning German is because they want to exchange or study in German for engineering.

Some people ask me why do you learn German? I learn it because when I learn new things, I feel happy. Comparing to do things with pacific aims, I will admire people or myself to do some aimless things. For example reading, I never read any books about how to success. Everyone is different and I'm afraid be told to do things. I love reading aimlessly. Majority time I love reading literature books and poem. I read a lot about Marguerite Duras in younger ages, especially Hiroshima mon amour(French name) and L'Amant(French as well, I'm not sure the translation name in English). I'm addicted to some sentence maybe do not make any sense in the reality. I imagined I was a poet who has a rose garden. A lot of aimlessly reading and aimlessly actions will build a different life for yourself and aimlessly usually will bring a lot of surprises. As long as you are happy, aimlessly things have their values.

New year wish list

I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Every year I will write a post for my self to say goodbye to the old time and say hi to the new year. University life is fantastic, busy and quick. 2014 is great, 2015 will be better. I have made a wish list for myself. 

Here is my wish list:

1.Continue list with Mr.R and make it longer
2.Learn a new language
3.Travel in England/EU/Africa
4.Start saving
5.Lose weight 
6.Meet parents 
7.Graduate with distinction degree
8.Find a new job
9.Match my EP successfully
10.Practice writing by at least once a month blog post
11.Find a suitable accommodation after contract
12.Never late for lecture & work. Don't be late.
13. Talk more to my course mates and finish readying for every lecture handout
14.Start to learn baking when the oven is fixed
15.Bedtime reading
16.Don't be perfect, be yourself

Since there are too many wishes, I will pick up some to talk about.

1.Continue list with Mr.R and make it longer

It might because I have done a lot of good things in the past and god send this person to me. He is so great, funny, cute, honest and nice. The person I want to use every beautiful words to describe and do a lot of things to make him happy. Even he get upset or become like a ben dan, I still feel he is the cutest person in the world. We had great time in 2014. I like his magic trick, I challenged myself of weightlessness which is the most scaring thing for me. We walked along seaside and saved some jelly fishes. We celebrate Christmas together with family. Mr.R and I have a list with a lot of things we need to do together. I wish it can be longer and never end.

2.Learn a new language

Some people will ask me, how can you speak English. Every time I got these questions, I will think maybe they think Chinese people are all dinosaurs. I start to learn English when I was 7, grade one in primary school. Nowadays Chinese start to learn English since 3 years old from kindergarten. These foreign English teachers are from different countries with multiple accents. I feel I mix a lot of accents together. Every first class they will introduce their family and tell us their traditional holiday--christmas day. Luckily, I had a real English Christmas day with loads of happiness and finally understand why they miss christmas so much. We even watch the Queen's speech together.

I start to learn Japanese since I was 12, but obviously forgot everything since lacking of practice. Also, I bought some German language study books to try to learn german since I got some good German friends in the University and some of my best friends are all studying German or studying in Germany. I only get a piece of German and then stop it since lacking of time. 

I aways want to start a new language and this time I want to learn some French since it is used wider  than German and Japanese. Another reason is I just realise I had so much French products and I love them. Before the decision is made, I have already tasted how hard it is. I'm planning to find a language class in University to see if I can have some improvement or not.

3. Travel in England/EU/Africa

After stay in one place for a long time, I will feel I'm like a little bird in a cage. Since the visa problem, I haven't been to other places in the Europe(Actually it is because I'm lazy to apply, it is not hard to get visa. When I'm not lazy, the weather is cold.). There are a lot of places I want to visit such as Malta ( ：D)， France, German, Italy, Greece and others. These days I've got email that we will go field work in Netherland and Brussel in Mar(Change as alway). I'm still waiting for the finally conformation and I can use the rest days of visa to go somewhere else.

Santorini is a place in Greece where I've heard about it for a long time. I love seaside. Not only the Pacific ocean, I have been to Indian ocean and Atlantic ocean as well. Although Asian hate tan skin,I'm very brave to run, jump, walk, swim and do surfing and diving in the sea side.

(Santorini)

Also I want to visit some special friends called alpaca in England as well

Here they are. I like animals. I want to visit black face sheep as well as Alpaca.

Malta

I have no pictures in my mind about Malta before until I googled it. I was thinking it is a part of Italy as well(Sorry Malta). After seeing this, I heart already flies away to that beautiful island.

4.Start saving

I start to realise that I have spent too much money on things I will not use very often(Well, you cannot blame a girl because of that). I'm trying to reduce that and live simple life. I start to get an internship from November. There are thousands times I want to quit but I still insist to continue it. Apart of the reason is that I want to challenge myself.

Life is totally messy with this job, the worst time is when I see my friends travel around everywhere and I have get get up at 7:30am then go to work. This makes me believe deeper, don't do things you love the most as a job, you will hate it after sometimes.

Recently most colleagues and managers went to business visit and I'm dealing with operations. Gradually I found that I can deal with everything well after 2 month. I was very scared to face the situations that I have to deal with all the things only by myself but I did it. However, I still keep thinking about if I like this job or not. No matter what, I want to start saving from this job by buying less things and maximize my money. Hopefully I can have a big trip with my own money. I like the feeling of independent.

4. Lose weight

I know it is not hard for me if I stop eating. My lightest weight is 46 KG in second year of Uni. I won't tell you how many kg I'm now since I cannot face the number. I love food deeply. Cooking is a kind of entertainment for me. Salt, oil, vegetable, fish, meat, any of them mix together will create an art. I like a movie called Julie and Julia'Repeat after me, Bon Appetit, Bon Appetit, That's it' Food makes people happy and taste a bite of happiness.

Food is also the biggest enemy of weight. Although majority of time I eat healthily, it is hard to avoid adding weight since winter is coming. I'm plan to go back to gym and have a light diet. I'm currently challenge myself a month without rice and noodles. I don't know if I can do it or not, I have never leave rice for any reasons. I'm keeping updating my challenge in Ins to remind myself. It is the first day, vegetable tofu soup in the lunch time, without rice it is not as tasty as usual. I will try to insist for a month and see what will happen.

5. Don't be perfect, be yourself

I have 2 persons live in my heart, one is an angle another one is an evil. One is optimistic, happy all the time, another one is sad and dark. They often stand on my shoulder, talk to my 2 ears what's happing now. I'm trying to assist angle but I will be beaten by evil some times.

In this year, I wish I could try to accept my shortage, acknowledge that I'm not perfect. I want to change the goal 'be perfect' to the goal 'be happy'. I wish I could enjoy every seconds in my life. Don't look back and dare to go forward.

100 Doller Millionaire

Dear toastmaster and most welcoming guests, Today my topic is 100 dollar Millionaire.

Imagine If you have 100 USD, what will you do with that? 100 USD is around 60 pounds, I use 100 USD instead of 60 pounds because usually I take USD with me when I travel around other counties. To be honest I don't like to buy pound, they r too expensive and even I have 50 pound I was rejected by some supermarket since they said it is too much.

For ladies 60 pounds maybe equal to a new cloth, a perfume or a pair of shoes. I have no idea about how normal British man will use the money, but if Mr. Danny Riley gets 60 pounds, I bet he will spend all the money in a Chinese restaurant called red chili.

For me, 100 USD can be a 4 days 3 nights trip in Bali Island in Indonesia or a 4 days 3 nights trip in Malaysia. You might think it is really impossible.I don’t believe it neither after living in the Uk for these months.

But I did it 2 years ago. It is my first time to travel abroad alone. I have done a voluntary work in Jakarta Indonesia for 2 month. My job was teaching street Children. Before I left to Indonesia, I booked my return ticket from Bali Island to China because I want to push myself to see the island. So I must go to Bali island without excuses with out worries.

Usually when we travel abroad, there are 3 main things you need to consider about, transportation, accommodation and food. Enough research and quick decision about transportation are needed. I chose a cheap flight company and booked my ticket earlier so it only costed me 20 pound from Jakarta to Bali Island. 2 months ago, I was trying to find some accommodation in booking or agoda, I found some hotels but all extremely expensive. Luckily I got a Russian friend and a Chinese friend who went to Bali Island earlier than me. We know each other in voluntary work. So I decided to share accommodation with them. We got a kingsize bed with bathroom and balcony, there is a beautiful swimming pool downstairs, 14 pound per night. So I only spend 14 pound for accommodation in 3 days.

The Russian girl is a big fan of surfing. So in her 7 days, she get up at 8am, then go to seaside and do surfing. She will have lunch in 12 pm and then go to surfing again. she will surf until starts come out. In last few days, she burned her nose skin and hurt her leg. Then she decide to get up at 8am and seat to watch all the people surfing. 

So i decided to join other Chinese and do some AISA style trip. We went to rafting in Ayung Rive. We found a agency which offer 10 pound per person including a buffet for lunch, pick up service and rafting.  What’s more, if you can speak a little local language, everything will be so easy.

If you use english to ask how much is it, a meal will be 8 pound or 10 pound, but if you say it in Indonesian, you can use 2pound for a tasty south Asia dinner and 80p for a big fresh coco nut.

So, to sum up the price, 20 pound for flight, 14 pound for accommondation, 10 pound for rafting, 15 pound for all meals. it is 59 pound in total. Also We swimming and surfing in the sea, see sunset and stars in Pacific ocean, enjoy free and beautiful scenery from Nature.

After that, I start to explore more countries by myself. I start to try youth hostel and couch surfing. Using minimal money to maximize journey and life. Finally you will find not only 100 USD, but all the things in your life, if you use it in a proper way, admire about nature and people you have met. Even with 100 USD, you will feel you are a millionaire.

Old young lady

Thanks to Danny, I decide to continue writing and start to write in English.=D.
I named my blog Old Young Lady because it is exactly what I'm thinking about myself, a old lady lives in a young girl's body.

Since I'm the only Child in my family, I don't have so much neighbors to play with. Instead of that, I start reading in a young age. My aunty bought me some riddle books years ago. Every night I read for 30 mins and tried to figure out the answers. When I entered the junior high school, I started  to read some classic book, most were Chinese books since I don't like read translations. I read HOW THE STEEL WAS TEMPERED, written by Nikolai Ostrovsky. The young boy in the book was as naughty as me at that time. 

Another book which effects me a lot called A DREAM OF RED MANSIONS. At that time, I studied in a boarding school with a huge stress of study. Every weekends I went back home and started reading A DREAM OF RED MANSIONS immediately, sometimes even forgot to eat dinner XD.(You will know how hard it is for me to FORGOT eating lol) There are a lot of foreshadowing hiding in the book which makes it more attractive.

I started to read some modern writer's books, such like Zhang Ailing. I like her stories. She wrote a lot of stories which happened in Shanghai and Hongkong. So every time I will remember some sections from the book when I visited Shanghai and Hongkong.

Reading makes people grow in another way. Reading stories for me is like going through another kind of life. I followed the characters' life to feel and to experience. Finally, you will know if you do A, A will lead to B and the result of doing A is C. Reading makes your life easier. Even you don't have to experience a lot of tough things, you will understand reasons and truth behind them by reading. 

I can not tell if it is a good thing or not. Usually when I'm facing two roads in front of me, one is familiar for me and I know what will happen in the end, another one is totally a abyss for me. Every time, I will choose latter one. I'm more fascinate about unknown experience. So sometimes even you read a lot, you know a lot but life is still tough. You choose to be tough.:)

I still feel my english writing is like primary school level XD. I will try more to improve. It is also a unknown thing for me. At last, I want to pose a poem from Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other,as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one lees traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.