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Writing and Growing

Writing has always been magical in my life. I remember when I was in third grade, there was a writing competition in city, and I was asked to write about my country. As a eight year old girl, I knew nothing about the political side of my country, so that I just composed that essay with my own ordinary experiences and feelings. Compare to those students who stuffed their work with beautiful words and tedious news from the television, I even got better award. From that time, I started to realise that writing had much deeper meaning than words themselves. It is a kind of art that derives from life and flows with people’s minds. As a writer, I have crossed a huge step through these months' learning. When I read back my writings, there are not only my improvements in writing efficiency, depiction and analysis, but also the changes of perspective that occurred among the lines.

I have been in my Writing and Comp class for almost a whole semester, and this period of time provided me some unparalleled experiences that made me more experienced on dealing with little problems in writing. At the beginning of this year, my first blog post was about three songs. Ms. Guarino asked us to choose three of our favourite songs and write some comments. I was pretty excited because I did not know a writing class could be that fun.  I felt my brain was full of ideas when I began to do my writing homework. I spent almost half an hour on picking the songs and another half an hour on writing the comments. I posted my majestic work and waited for a fantastic score. However, the tragic happened--a bad grade showed up. I even could not believe my eyes! There were emotions, details, and comments in my writing, and those should have been some reliable guards of a good grade. I could not help wondering what caused the problems. Finally, I came up with three possible reasons: First, the number of words. A regular blog post should have more than five hundreds words, but in thirty minutes, I only typed three hundreds and sixty one words. Second, the situation or the emotion that the songs conveyed were not totally expressed by my depiction. Third, the mental analysis and the thesis in my writing could not be found clearly and directly. Yes, I spent another half an hour on figuring out the reasons above. Now, I suddenly realised that I have been doing this kind of thinking for my writings for the last whole eight months! These problems are typical in all of my writings. Since that time, I started to try my best to avoid them. I can even remember how many times I have complained for homework and in-class writings, but I never gave up. I hoped my work to be perfect no matter how much I did not want to do them, so that the essays and sentences usually need to be revised lots of times in order to let me to find the right structure and words. Finally, through countless practices, I can easily write an essay that is even above eight hundreds words, and my depiction and analysis also became more detailed and comprehensive.

Sometimes, I could feel my progress when typing down the sentences fluently, but sometimes, there were even more surprising improvements about thinking that hided behind the lines. In our writing class, writing was not all we did. By rereading the essays, doing peer checking, and amending drafts over and over again, I gradually became capable of handling even some tiny grammar or structural mistakes. We had many in-class brainstormings, which helped me to come up with more useful ideas through the communication with others. We have made stories, argumentative essays, diaries, and even videos. All of these different types of “writings” strengthened my ability of connecting sentences and understanding the magic among the combinations of letters. However, although I technically became a better words user, I do not regard this as my biggest achievement. In fact, thinking is the most welcomed guest in my writing world. Some changes became obvious during my 30-day challenge. It was not easy to excavate materials from my ordinary life, but five hundreds words blog were like the essay mountains that I had to climb. I even wanted to give up several times. However, through a whole month’s frustrating squeezing, I suddenly found out that I started to see things from a different point of view. That is a special new perspective that I have not touched before. For example, in one of my blogs, I described the process of analysing an ordinary calendar. Instead of writing the details of the patterns on the calendar, I explored the meaning of its composition and discussed its business strategies base on Psychology. See, I began to approach subjects by digging through the phenomenon and investigating the essence. If the improvements of writing skills are the inevitable results after abundant practices, then, this logical turning was the gift that I was not able to imagine before this semester.

“Live and learn.” This is an old dictum that I have knew for more than ten years. It means you should never stop gaining new knowledges no matter what you have achieved already. Indeed, this semester’s practices are not only a sign of my improvements, but also a beginning that inspires me to keep fighting. Besides my progresses on basic skills and thinking mode, there are still plenty of  spaces waiting for me to get better, and I may focus more on the word selection and sentence structure in next years’ writing class. Anything can be replaceable except what root in your brain. Those memorable writings have already became the nutritions that I garnered for myself, and this priceless period of time will always be remembered!

About My Lovely Camera and Thirty Days Challenge

Someone has told me challenges can always bring us surprises. After a whole year running challenge you might find yourself start to have the strength to work all day without a rest; after a summer’s breakfast plan you might be excited about how regular your life can be; after two months’ reading practice, the difficult essays and fictions could suddenly change to a joyful brook and flow into your mind. After you finishing the challenges, your life is still ordinary, and you are still the person who goes to school or rush to work everyday. However, nothing can replace the delightfulness that your insistence and that special period of time have brought to you.

What can I do in thirty days? I don’t like running, eating breakfast, or reading complicated research essays. Thus, I decided to pick up my old interests —photography. My dad is a amateur photographer and a big fan of Cannon. As I remember, he always took his huge cameras with him and pointing the lenses on me and my siblings. I liked to fiddle with the cameras around him when I was little. After I grew up, he started to take me to his “secret garden”. He knows where and when the most gorgeous tree would blossom and bear fruits in which unimpressive park; he taught me how to control the white balance in sunny, rainy and cloudy days; he introduced me aperture, shutter, iso, and raw format. However, I have lost them for years because of my heavy school work. I took my little black camera with me across the pacific ocean, and buried it in the deepest part of my drawer. I felt sorry for it, but I always consoled myself that I did not have the time to play with it anymore. “Cameras were born for holidays and Disneyland's.” I said this whenever I saw my dirty camera bag, although I knew I was wrong. This time, I felt like a new opportunity is running toward me, and I would catch it.

I thought about my camera the first time I saw the 30-day challenge. I needed a step to lead me back to the “secret garden” my dad opened. Therefore, I made a plan for myself--I will be taking five pictures a day for thirty days. It sounded easy, but to achieve it, I must take my camera with me all the time, since what I wanted to record is the beauty of life instead of my crazy little room. Photos can be everything. They can be a smile on my friend’s face, a bunch of boring newspaper, or even the way basketball dropped on the ground and rebounded up. For the most important, they are memories as well as treasures. On the other hand, this challenge is not only about photography, but also writing blogs. Ms. Guarino stipulated us to write five hundred words blogs three times a week. Compare to what we did before--one blog a week, this new homework was going to bring us much more pressure, and it has already shocked everyone in our class. What I should write about? I have been thinking about this problem for a whole afternoon. Finally, I came up with some ideas. The materials in my photos are great elements to be described. I may write about how I discover them, why I want to take photos for them, and what I should I prepare before pressing down the shutter. Also, some techniques of photography I learned before might be interesting in my blog. This program is going to challenge me comprehensively, since I need to totally mix it into my everyday life. But for now, I even can not wait to see how would I go through this!

It’s gonna be fun to look back my one hundred and fifty photos after the next thirty days. I may even photoshop them if my computer is glad to provide me enough space. People always say that you can form a habit in twenty one days. I hope my thirty days could help me strengthen the habit even firmer. So, I would start to wander over the campus with my camera from now. I might even get to explore my own “garden”, and never put my little machine down. Let’s see!

Mr.Tree And Hat--13/30D'C

Have you ever noticed any unforgettable scenes in your life that you wanted to share with others? What comments would you expect to receive from them? How would you react if no one understands you? One afternoon, I had an amazing journey with these questions. Things started to change with the arrival of spring. After several rainy days, I surprisingly found out that flowers constantly emerged out from the wet mud, and the plants who have already stood near people through the whole winter raised their new buds. Spring is a season of rebirth; people got off their thick winter clothes and began to dream about the enthusiasm of summer. In this energised season, beauty seemed like a eternal topic.

There was a tree near the road in front of Stop&Shop. Actually, there were almost hundreds of similar trees on that road, but I only chose that one as my protagonist. The first time I noticed him was a windy day in last week. I went to S&S to buy my favourite snackers. Suddenly, I just stopped walking and staring at an ordinary white plastic bag. She was floating, or flying. She came all the way from Marshall. She sometimes danced up and sometimes fell down, but she never touched the ground. I was curious when she was gonna reach its destination. My eyes followed her steps to a bald unknown tree. The tree seemed so cold because of the wind. He was shaking near those passing cars with roaring engines, and poured out its sadness. But the plastic bag came. She jumped on the top of the tree and voluntarily became his hat.

Yes, an old tree and a shabby hat, and I was standing right behind them looking at those two pathetic characters. When everything woke up from their hibernations, they still sunk in their deep dreams of winter. Even the most unnoticeable grasses under them had already bought their shining costume, but Mr.Tree only had a single hat as lonely as himself. You know what? I felt bad for them, but this scene, the combination of melancholy and vitality, was also beautiful to me as a photographer. I know you may think I was either so bored or crazy that would like to waste my time on observing and mourning for a tree. The truth is, it was neither the tree nor the plastic bag stopped me from approaching my favorite food, it was the inspiration, which reminded me of a similar spring years ago…

It was in  2013. I went to a park with my parents. Beijing was much warmer than Connecticut in April, and all the magnolia and sakura blossomed with their charming fragrance. I took pictures with my parents among those brilliant trees as usual, but when we were about to leave, my eyes were attracted by a typical sharp voice. I turned around; there was a middle age woman standing with her little daughter. The girl was about ten years old. She leaned on one of the sakura trees with a weird gesture and lowered her head to avoid eye contact with her mom. The woman kept yelling: “ You need to learn the beauty of nature! The aesthetics you know?! You are a girl. Why you just can't find a single elegant pose to take photos?! Look at yourself! ” She was angry, furiously angry. I looked around and found out I was not the only one noticed  them. Obviously, the woman was not affected by strangers at all. She walked closer to the girl and put her right hand under her chin to make her pretend to smell flowers. Then, she went backwards for about two meters and finally pressed the shutter.

“That is ridiculous.” I was glad my parent never did that to me. The girl was like a stiff robot all the time; she was indifferent and reluctant. What if she just like computers or sports? What if she was obsessed with cars and machines? I could not help wondering how the girl herself wanted to express before the camera. Since that, I started to keep thinking about the prototype hided in most of people. Why we can usually  be agreeable to what is beautiful? Do we really know what is the best?Or is that someone else imposed on us? Everyone was born like a pure paper. It was the environment that decided who you were going to be. What you contacted or surrounded with would  secretly influence your personality more or less, and what you favoured or disliked were just like the results of the combination of every plot around you. No one would ever know what suit you the most since no one shares every single second with you. The moment I looked toward to tree, those thoughts suddenly jumped out with that girl’s figure from two years ago. If I say that poor tree and its hat are beautiful, you probably not gonna agree with me, but if I say the flowers in front of the dorms are beautiful, I may immediately receive many approved voices. Apparently, you are free to choose anything you like. However, the point is: do not just deny the value of something disobeys your own wish while being the majority, because beauty has never been a rational thing with the absolute right or wrong answers. To the girl, or to the tree, they were beautiful the way they were, and if they want, they  need no approval.

Now, I think you understand what I mean, right? Everything exists for a reason, and they grow with the orbit they chose. I have seen many artists’ paintings and photos that have their original styles. They just insisted on what they thought was the best for them, no matter the fame or benefits they might miss for being atypical. So, be confident, even if you are only an old tree with a plastic hat.

Saw—16/30—D’C

I opened my eyes and saw the whole summer unfolded itself under the most brilliant light; I saw wind dancing through the gate of garden and hide under shadows; I saw birds’ feathers painting on the canvas of sky; I saw the river flowing all the way from yesterday; and myself in the pond, a tiny pale jasmine. I grown up near the bush—the most interesting neighbour in the world! You can’t really distinguish their differences, but they were all talkative. They had lots of friends and knew lots of stories. There were two thousands and eighty three leaves in the bush, and they told one story each night. Most of the stories were from ants, birds, and the new flowers.

Two weeks after my birthday, I left my old branch and bush to start my own adventure. One of the oldest leaves secretly told me that only wind can bring me to a bigger world. That was gonna be a new world beyond my imagination. I could fly and sing as much as I want. “Before you die in the mud, you are free to leave all the time.” He stared at me like the mud that provided us nutrition can swallow us at any minute.

That was a restless night at the end of May. I kissed good-bye with my siblings and shake myself over and over again. I was waiting for the wind. I did not remember how long I had been waiting in the dark, but I can still clearly recall the moment I got rid of the branch and flew up to sky. I was floating with millions of gas molecules hearing them murmured near my ears. They said I was the bravest jasmine they had ever seen and promised to stay with me all the time. I thought I was going to explode. Every petal of mine were yelling with the stars. I looked down to the garden that nurtured all of my friends and family gradually disappeared at the end of valley, but that old leave was still staring at me, with his exciting and nervous eyes. “Nothing can stop me now.”   

I flew over a small village and saw a woman with her lovely young boy playing near the lake.  The boy was seeking for flowers to make a garland for his mom; I saw a fisher sitting on the boat and sang an old rhythm; I saw teenage girls lying under the locust trees and looking for flyers like me. They found me and shown me their smiles. They were praying. I saw sweaty workers running through the factory and eating under the sunlight; I saw infants were delivered by soft and thick hands. I saw dancers dancing under the moon, stretching out their elegant necks, and raising up red ballet shoes; I saw brides walking into the church and grooms wearing the suits. I kept flying with the wind and seeking for my bigger world.

I hoped time would stop while I was in my adventure, but I started to feel my withering. One of my smallest petals disappeared without saying a word. I turned back and looked for it, but the water in my body were also evaporating. I knew I could not last longer. My gas molecule friends held me approached the ground. Ten meters, five meters, three meters…Oh my dear ground. I could even smell its familiar sweet odour. “ I am back.” After witnessing so many people and lives, I finally came back to my comfortable mud. Instead of hanging on the top of branch, I lay near the root of an unknown willow. One of its twigs passed by from the sky and brought me its blessings. Everything was breathing, and hearts were beating. Beetles had already slept, but cicadas were still crying. “What a beautiful world.” I felt so satisfied. Before I closed my eyes for good, the old leave’s voice appeared in my head again: “ Before you die in the mud, you are free to leave all the time.”

“But if you don’t, it is not mud that will swallow you.”

I suddenly opened my eyes. I am still that little flower on the tree. The old leave is staring at me like yesterday and the day before yesterday. I just knitted a fabulous journey with the only imagination and dream left in me…

What a wonderful world! God knows if it really exists! Maybe the bush was lying all the time, and maybe there is even no boundary of this beautiful garden! I am trembling. Should I leave? But I am a flower; Showing up in spring and die in summer is what we do, besides, my mom always told me only the losers would be exiled by our community... A kind of unknown fear suddenly grabs me. I realize that I even have not found an single answer of my short life. But it is too late. I see a woman with basket walking toward me; she bends down and reaches out her hands; I see her pick me up from the branch that I haven’t had the chance to leave yet; I see her put me into the basket and drive the car away.

I see the world that once appeared in my dreams.

And my whole plain life.

Then, that is myself in the tea cup, a tiny pale jasmine.

I still remember that old leave’s sigh when I was robbed away like a desperate moth. He was saying something, and now I finally figure out.

“ It is always you, who is meant to swallow yourself.”

The Calendar—22/30D'C

After I started working on my 30-day challenge, I realised that I began to understand things from a new angle, which is far more interesting. I gradually began to dig through the facts and look for the reasons behind the common results. Maybe it is another kind of observing skill that photography taught me.  

There is a lovely calendar in my room. Every page of it has a singular painting, and the bottom of the painting is a meaningful sentence. I stuck it on the wall in my dorm and used a little clip to hold all the used pages. The last day of every month is the day to start a new page. I would usually jump on my drawer and revealed the next month carefully. I kneeled in front of the calendar seriously, as a believer praying in the church. This Thursday was a big day for my routine fair. I did everything as usual, and then I just stopped there and stared at that brand new May page on my calendar. “ You need to let the little things that would ordinarily born you suddenly thrill you.” Isn’t that inspiring? I thought of my plain life and how I complain about it. I told myself it was exactly what I needed—to feel the thrill. After that, I jumped down to the floor and kept doing my homework. So boring. You might think I will be telling a story about how I came to the realisation of working hard and fighting for my future. The truth is, I did not came back to my desk and sink into the homework gift pack teachers prepared for me. Instead, I kept kneeling there and something else suddenly caught my mind.

“How could it inspire me?” I asked myself. “Why would I be inspired by such an ordinary sentence?” Imagine this, one day you received an email from your history teacher. You opened it and found out he asked you to do a reading about the scientists after WW2. You quickly read to the last paragraph, and then this sentence appeared as a part of the memoir of the scientists. How would you react? For me, the answer is definitely nothing. It is because as a literate human being, there are hundreds of similar informations waiting for me to absorb every day. I read books, do homework, google the questions and view the internet over and over again since I had the ability to look for the information independently. My brain got bored with this typical pattern. You understand what I am talking about? My attention is easier to be caught by by something novel and impressing. Apparently, art is the fastest way to extract the information out and arrange it into another form amusingly. What inspired me? It was actually not the old sentence on my calendar, but the painting that was regarded as the back ground.

Look at the photo, colourful flowers and exuberant grass combined to the classic Spring. It implied the rebirth, fighting, hope, and everything connected to the word “start”. This energetic scene is like a conspicuous signal that keeps yelling at me:" What a beautiful world! Don't you wanna do something meaningful?"  Obviously, to most of people, this efficient cooperation of graph and words is much more eyes-catching than the tedious dictums. When I saw the sentence, my brain automatically began to work on building up a bridge of the images in front of my eyes. Therefore,although the sentence helped me think rationally, it was actually the painting and colours that stimulated the emotional parts in my brain, and the combination of both of them finished the whole inspiring process in less than one second. Isn’t that amazing? Have you ever wondered about how images affect your life? The selling board in the market, the repetitive patterns in the TV shows, or the colour schemes of your cosmetics; they are capable of controlling your brain before you even realise it!

An ordinary Thursday night, I stared at my calendar, as looking through a masterpiece that combined with art and psychology. In this modern society, people's understanding and manipulating skills have always been improved with the whole human history. Businessmen and smart producers learned how to attract customers with every resource they owned even since agricultural and nomadic society. I was excited, for the fact that I just investigated a substantial rule that regulates the world by myself. However, I know none of this would happen if it was not the improvement that the endless writing and thinking that my 30-day challenge gave me. Something starts to root on my heart, and I feel I am approaching to the dawn at the end, step by step.

30-Day Challenge—A Precious Page of My Life--30/30D'C

Sometimes, when I stared at a brand new paper, I could not help wondering: “What can I do with this paper?” It can be filled with my Math homework, English essays, or lots of artistic little graffitis. What would someone else do with it? Some musicians? They may make the next world’s most beautiful rhythm on that piece of paper. The painters? Imagine this paper hanging in some museums. Scientists? God knows if Hawking would prove which theory of the universe on it! However, the paper is mine. I neither have the ability to decorate it with the most exquisite lines and words, nor came up with the equations that might help the human race to immigrant to other galaxies. But I do know, at least I am capable of making it special to me. If you see it from another angle, this brand new paper could also symbolise anyone’s new-born, a fresh start, a coming year, and even the challenging thirty days. During my valuable thirty days, I witnessed myself transforming from a student who did not know how to insist to a more experienced photographer and writer with continuously amazing products.  

About a month ago, Ms. Guarino shown our Writing and Comp class a short video on the TED about Matt Cutts and his challenges. I clearly remember what he said at the end of the video: “The next thirty days is gonna pass whether you like it or not. So why not think of something you have always wanted to try, and give it a shot?"(Youtube) I stared at that man on the screen as staring at that pure white paper that often appeared in my mind. “What do I always want to do?” I asked myself and felt excited about this new homework. I especially squeezed half an hour to think about my own life. I wanted to find something that lingered in my life all the time but did not even get the chance to start. Finally, my black little camera jumped into my head. “Photography!” I almost yelled out when this brilliant idea came into my mind. As I have mentioned before in the former blogs, photography is what I have touched years ago but abandoned for school work (Yang). I miss the old times when I stood near my dad with the camera and pretend to be professional. I like those delicate and advanced buttons on the camera and the excellent images that produced by myself. I needed a way to build a bridge between now and the photography in my childhood, and at that moments, I knew I found it.

Learning something you forgot years ago is not easy. I had to adjust all the settings of the camera one by one and figure out their relationships and connections. Big aperture value can emphasis the focus while blurring the background; slow shutter value can present the track of the motions; ISO is able to decide the tone of the photos; Program mode is like a good helper for every beginner… I called my dad and read some instructions of photography on the internet. Before the first day of my 30-day challenge, I finished all of the necessary lessons. To be honest, I suspected if I could finish this challenge from the first day, because there was nothing much that seemed meaningful to be recorded. My life was all about study, sports, eating and sleeping. “ How can I do my challenge today?” It was always the first question that jumped into my mind in the last thirty days. I took photos of the new Thai restaurant in the first weekend; after that was like a photo tour of my little dorm; then some stories about film in my childhood. Just when I thought writing blog and the challenge had already mixed well in my life, I was stuck.

Suddenly, I could find nothing to write about for the blog even though the photos in my camera were sufficient. I did not want to change my blog about photography challenge into a boring diary. I became annoyed to check the Writing and Comp assignment page and the notorious words “BLOG POST”. It made me feel like the whole project became meaningless since I was even reluctant to do it. The photos I took were all about some negligible stuffs such as grasses, cups, and clouds, which had no value to write about. However, things changed again. One day, my pessimism was broken by Sera. In the Writing class, Sera told me maybe I could write some imaginary stories base on the photos. Her advice was like a beam of sunlight that shot into my cloudy challenge. Stories! I like writing stories! In stories I can find the connection between lines that I have never experienced in prose or argumentative writing! I accepted Sera’s priceless opinion and started a interesting story that night. The protagonist was a cup of jasmine tea, and I wrote about a pathetic life of a tiny Jasmine that floated in the water. When I typed the last word of that story in my blog, I knew my passion came back. Not just the passion, I could feel my ideas also flew back into my head. I realized I could write something about the way I took photos, my skills, my understanding, my improvements, and how I deal with the products. The excitement inflated again in my heart, and supported me to the end of this long ran.

When this fantastic journey comes to the end, I start to think about what this part of time really brought me. Well, to me, the most obvious improvement is about my photography skill. The objects in my photos are not just some boring still life any more. They became motional and convincing. I gradually grew the ability of controlling over my emotion and what I want to convey through the images. Also, it is encouraging that I can bring all of my one hundred and fifty photos to my dad, who has always asked me to use my camera more often. I know that is gonna delight him. However, like the setbacks I encountered, this challenge is also about writing. One thousand and five hundred words a week seemed to surpass our abilities at the beginning. Apparently, everyone realised the difficulties in the first week, but the improvement we received from it only got to emerge with time. The way I think of things has secretly changed while I was fighting with the endless blog writings. To excavate materials from my seemingly ordinary life and photos, I had to train myself to dig through the simple and shallow facts and be rational with them. Therefore, I became a better photographer and writer with a more comprehensive and profound thinking pattern. Moreover, the annoying blogs finally became some great teachers who helped me accelerate my writing speed efficiently.

“What can I do with a brand new paper?” This question comes out again after thirty days. Now, I can answer it confidently without any philosophical long sentences, because what I have just experienced is the most powerful proof. After I filled the past month with hardworking, perseverance, and imagination, I see a gorgeous image unfolding in front of me. It is a combination of those one hundred and fifty photos and a miniature of all of my thoughts and ideas.  Now, I am grateful to myself for what I have insisted. Time is passing with our one lives; I have witnessed the power of activism, and I am ready to start a brilliant new page now!

work cited:

"30 Day Challenge by Matt Cutts." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 01 June 2015.