Mixed emotions

I just finished my finals today.

I used to be very excited about crossing out the last subject on the exam timetable every year because that means you can finally go out and celebrate your effort after a whole month's dull study time.

However, this year is a bit different.

In case you don't know me in person, this year is actually the last year that I will be studying in Hong Kong. I will be going to England in the coming September to continue my high school, without formally graduating with friends in the same form. The decision of pursuing education overseas was from me, myself. This idea was initiated after attending a summer camp in Cambridge two years ago. The two-week oversea experience was exceptionally enjoyable and I was appealed to the interactive learning style and relaxing environment. After a lot of research and consultations, my parents agreed to send me abroad. So I eventually worked on applications for boarding schools in the UK.

I have been in my school for nearly 5 years. The moment I completed my very last exam today gave me incredibly mixed emotions. I was happy because I seemed to did my paper well. All those stay-up-late revision did not seem to have gone in vain; yet a wave of sadness swirled inside me (literally) as I realized a comma is to be placed on my school life in Hong Kong.

This might sound cliche, but this school, where I have spent most of my teenage years, is where I acquired knowledge, built self-confidence, gained friendships and experienced youth. But most importantly, this is a place where I was guided to find myself. I believe it must not be hard to understand what I mean if you have had one of the most carefree times - high school times, in life. I was not exceptionally excited for finishing my finals this year. I guess the reason is, potentially, I did not wish to uplift my emotion too much so that I will not fall apart so hard on the day when I have to farewell to my school. Oh, and also my friends, family, and Hong Kong, this place where I am brought up and where I call home.

Well, it is not like I am never coming back to hometown ever in my life. I will be visiting my family and friends again, of course. What makes me feel most uncomfortable about today is that, Mum decided that my younger brother will follow her to study in the UK, too. All these mean, everyone in the family, except my dad, will be going abroad. After being told about the changes of plan for almost a day, I genuinely still feel intimidated. I can never imagine everyone in the family leaving my Dad alone in Hong Kong...

I actually know many people who are experiencing the same situations too - family being separated because of work or study, but it just makes me feel like relationship within the family will become fragile. People may agree that the advanced technology today eliminates geographical restraints and people will still be able to maintain relationships through video calls or phone calls. Maybe I am a pessimist, but what I immediately come to my mind is eventually, people will get tired of this way of living. The time difference, for example, will definitely deter people from communicating as frequent.

I don't know why I am typing all these out but I am really confused at the moment. On one hand I am really looking forward to my new life; on the other hand I do not want to bear any sacrifices, especially within my family.

I am sure this will be fine later, but right now, I just need some time to...digest.

xxx

Is there such thing as right and wrong?

There was a heated debate at the dining table between my dad and I about The Romance of Three Kingdoms (known as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature) when my dad tried to share his thoughts over the chapters he had gone through.

(Although I have not had the time to read the novel yet, so far my understanding to this book from Chinese lessons and my dad, is that the story is set in the restless years between the end of China's Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdom's era, where turbulent chaos and unceasing battles took place. The story is written based on myths and legends, but a significant parts are records of genuine history. It revolves around the struggles among the three power blocs over the dominance of China.)

My dad's sharing then came to the ways of how the three war leaders weakened and limited each others power with different strategies, to name a few, The Beauty Trap, Create Something from Nothing and Loot a Burning House (it may sound odd but these are translations I get from Wikipedia). As he told me more, I could only conclude that these strategies are about people playing off against each other, and being able to stay out of the troubles while neglecting the agonies of guilt. It slightly irritated me when my dad told me these were strategies that would equip me for life and that I should study them carefully when I have time. I did not get why he called these stratagems intelligent and sagacious so I came up with a question to challenge his idea.

'With all these behaviours, can those war leaders still be considered as a good person?', I asked.

At that moment, I strongly believed they were not because of their treacherous deeds in order to gain power.

My dad thought for a moment and answered, 'There is not a proper definition of good,' he continued, 'You have to investigate careful sources, and then find out which one best describes the human condition and reality.'

He further went on elaborating his ideas, citing examples and here are the ultimate message that I got from him:

There are no absolute sense such as right and wrong - What is right to you maybe wrong to me. It always stands on the the matter of values. Personal values. As for the right and wrong things that normal people refer to, are things that people consider them as social norms. They are either moral or immoral, while these ideas are shaped by the people in society over the years. Figuratively speaking, there are two hearts in every person. The heart of 'want' and the heart of 'desire': One is for one that loves to do the right thing while one that prefers to be selfish.

One example: Killing another human being. Not right or wrong. It depends on which point you are viewing from - war, self-defense, capital punishment...There are plenty of reasons for the taking of lives.

Eventually, you need to develop an awareness of the struggles going on inside you. As for the case in The Romances of the Three Kingdom, apparently the war leaders chose to follow their own values. They chose to be good to themselves by believing in oneself and pursue their dreams. It is all about benefit and loss.

In the end, I was partly convinced by him in the sense that he pointed out right and wrong is something subjective and there are different ways to define good. But then, I came up with one counter question which is the part that I held back and remained in doubt - Will you say it is right for a person to kill someone he dislikes simply to fulfill his desire and be loyal to himself? Because if you do, you’ll end up forcing your beliefs on others.

So, is there something wrong if we force our beliefs on others?

About me

Never bothered of doing anything to my “About me” section on social networking sites; but maybe I should try once. Here goes:

I treasure a lot the value of self-reflection. I evaluate on myself from time to time: mind, body, emotions. I do not believe in the idea of simply having the experience can contribute to your personal growth. This also comes to the reason of why I started blogging. This has eventually made me come to love philosophy, too.

I love the sudden feeling of being inspired. After a while, I feel that I am being unfolded, not newly in a way, but more and deeper every time, by my thoughts and understanding in mind through every beginning and end of experiences. It makes myself become more assure of my existence and place in this world and it presents a more positive and logical sense of life. I am still trying to lift the veil of life and I am seeing more of it in my heart, feeling it.

The worst part of me is that sometimes I care a lot about how people think of me. I think deeply in every aspect of circumstances or situation before I take an action. I envy people who do not base their identity on others’ judgment of us and that they can follow their heart effortlessly, just intuitively and freely being. Be confident and have faith in myself are something that I always fail to do. Here goes a quote by J. C. Watts that I always find it very true –

‘Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.’

So yeah, in most of the time, I am only me when I am with myself.

I also have a less serious side, though. I believe in hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I always get stunning ideas while doing routine chores, but I often just keep them running wild in my head. I truly appreciate people with a good sense of humour and wit, which they rarely say what exactly they mean and offending others, but making people get the messages they imply. Despite the fact that I have a strong desire of being special and uncommon, I am also, at the same time, the kind of person who is good at imitating actions, good and bad. Well, of course I can differentiate between the both and control myself sticking on the good side (hmm, sometimes).

I am an Asian and English is not my first language. Writing and reading are my indulgences. In some times, you may find my posts depressing and upsetting, but they are not designed to do that, I only want to show my feelings and thoughts - my fantasy. I think I have always spent too much time on the Internet. I often regret it after I find out I still got work left unfinished on my study desk, but will repeat the same action the other day. I love sharpening pencil and drawing straight lines with rulers. The smell of books from the school library always makes me feel good. I do not have a favourite celebrity, at the moment. I used to know a little Japanese but I almost forgot them all after not having lessons for a while. I am a true blue romantic at heart who will give more than I ought to to the right person. I refuse to yell at my significant other or being yelled at.

I think this is pretty much it (my apologies for the randomness above) and I should end now as I have a feeling this list will be an eternal work-in-progress. I am pretty shocked that I have revealed so much about myself because I do not consider myself as a chatty person in real life. I am thrilled and amazed that you have come to this far and tried to care about the thoughts of a stranger in your life. Thank you! I hope this will be a place where you can find your own voice in mine, if not -

Pardon my insensate rambling x

Post One

About three months ago, I met this girl through a common friend. She caught my attention at the very beginning as her English is excellent. She is an Asian yet speaks like a native English person. Eventually, I became more interested in her and discovered her Google blog while I was checking out her Facebook page (just to keep her user name secret for the time being). She writes about mundane aspects of life. Many of her entries also include her feelings, beliefs and things happened around her. Her blog is much like a personal blog; nothing commercial, nothing political. It is just about her.

As I see it, she has been writing for almost two years and her blog has been building reputation as it gains significant traffic from different parts of the world.  Later, I became amazed by her desirable content on her blog and have become a loyal fan of her terrific writing, too. At the same time, I remained curious about how a friend of mine, about the same age as me, can attract, and retain, quality readers to her blog. 

To me, a personal blog always seems like: People click into your site by chance, scan your entries once and won't return. It is hard to get right to readers. I mean, why would people be interested in a stranger's life when one's already so complicated? Yours must be exceptionally inspirational and unique if you get viewers coming back again after their initial visits. Popular blogs, like my friend's, give people a reason to return. People yearn for more of your posts and get enthusiastic about your content. Readers' anticipation become nearly an unquenchable thirst. I then thought that maybe I should start sharing my thoughts, too.

In risk of sounding cliché, I love inspiring people, as much as I love being inspired. I have a lot of ideas but often keep them locked in mind. Starting a blog enables me to share my thoughts and express my feelings. The interaction between readers and I (if I am ever going to have any readers) would be amazing because that implies that my words have built an instant connection among people.

I tried to create a more special domain name but apparently, it failed. Classywoody. Classy is nothing but one of my favourite word, while Woody is my best-loved cartoon character from Toy Story. And as for the blog title - 'Pardon my insensate rambling', again, it is just a random phrase I found in an article; But I believe the title itself does, more or less, suggest the intent of this blog.

I realize that writing constantly is a high-resistance activity, especially when there are so many temptations nowadays.We have all got plenty of excuses to avoid it. But I wish I can keep up the habit and update my blog as frequent as possible.

Peace out.