6 journal entries form Xuechen

Hi,guys

As there is something wrong with my computer,I have to upload my writing at one time in the classroom.And I don’t wanna bother you guys.So my writings are under one title. 

 

 

Good Job?

Now is the tail of the university to many students in China.Finding a job is the most important thing to the senior student.The recruiting war starts from the September to the next April.If you haven’t got a job,it’s much more to hunt one now.It’s the time for graduation parties.

Everyone wanna a good job.High salary,good welfare and shining company title,these are all that students dream for.

But is the life of those guys who works in big companies really fantasy?I ever talked with some friends who work for worldwide big companies. I asked them if they were happy in working. And then I found most answers were negative.I changed the question to if they were satisfied with their job.Then the answers are more positive than before.

They said most companies were proud that their employees were working and life balance. However, a guy pointed the point. ‘I’m confused how to balance the working and the life under such a press,’ he said, ‘and then my boss give me a lesson about balance. Balance is personal thing. If you think working for 8 hours is you limited line, so ‘working: life=1:2’ is your balance. That means if you think you can work 16 everyday, you are still in the balance.’ The truth is in
China there is a concept called ‘service overtime’,which means overtime is free. If the boss is in the office the employees will stay.

“I never have the idea of a vacancy as in
France. For many businessmen, the holiday is only a long weekend with the work possibly.�? my friend said.  

 

Blog Space, Unlimited Space

We are in such a time that we can know what our friends are thinking, what they are experiencing via an on-line space called blogs. I don’t know which genius invented this idea, it is really fantastic. Everybody would have some friends not in the same city as we are, even in the same city, we are so busy that we don’t have much time to get together to chat. Under this circumstance, you will find the idea of browsing friends’ blogs from time to time to understand their life is very attractive. 

Especially, if you have friends abroad, the space can provide a platform to know their life by looking at their articles, their photos, their preferred music. Compared to this, international call or mails can be time-consuming or money-consuming.  

To me, the blogs can be another important window for learning. For example, I am interested in Economics, it is exciting to see that people share the same interests when you encounter their blogs by chance. It’s a good opportunity to know other people’s perspective and sometimes you can have interactive communication with them when you left comments on their blogs.  

 

Have You Bought Your Own Apartment?

I don’t know buying one’s own apartment means what to friends from other countries, but it means a lot to current Chinese people.  

Maybe it was not so obvious to us living in the dormitory, but when I met my friends, this feeling grow stronger and stronger. Some of them have worked about 2 years in one city, to them, buying a apartment means not only they have stabilized their life in this city, also they can start to plan their marriage if they have. That’s typical. However, current Chinese people are facing rising price of their future home. In metropolis like Shanghai and
Beijing, apartment price has risen to abnormal extent when you are only looking at such a small place. Even in Ningbo which is my hometown, or
Hangzhou, this kind of provincial level cities, the price of apartment in the downtown also is scaring.  

I am wondering if it is the normal phase when a country’s economy enters into fast-speed growth. But this problem is the topic of economists instead of mine, the reasonable question is what we shall do to live in one’s own apartment. First question is, is it necessary to live in one’s own apartment? Can we rent an apartment? Yes, but there is a problem. If the apartment doesn’t belong to you, when you encounter some stuffs some day, like some decorations or some appliances that can be used in kitchen or in living room, you will be hesitated to buy that finally. Or else, you will be faced the challenge to bring all the belongings with you when you move from this apartment to another. The second question or the reasonable option for us is to buy the secondhand apartment. Even like this, you need to prepare a down payment from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands RMB which depends on the location and the potential appreciation value of the not-so-old apartment. When you have earned more money in the future, you can have the possibility to buy a newer and larger apartment with the income via selling the appreciated current apartment.  

Museum

Watching Ben Stiller encountering so many fascinating incidents in Night at the Museum, I am totally intrigued by the mysterious and interesting museum there in the story. 

Actually, there are a lot of museums make me enchanted, like The Louvre Museum in The Da Vinci Code or in The British Museum in The Mummy Returns. Sometimes I am wondering why I am so attracted by the museums? Apparently, I love those movies (joking). The real reason behind that can be concluded as follows.  

On the one side, I think I am the guy who loves to collect things, or “input�? things. For example, when I read a book, once I find the topic engaging, I would try my best to find all the related books, articles, or even blogs to know it better. Sometimes, it is just an impulse, since I may not read that additional information later on, but that feeling of possessing all the related knowledge is so good that I cannot stop doing that. Museums is just like an encyclopedia containing all the knowledge that I don’t know and I want to know, so being immersed in the museums give me such kind of “input�? feeling. On the other side, museum is such a place that you don’t need to go different places to get diversified knowledge. You can get to know the emperors’ life in the Palace Museum (China), you can also take a taste of various styles of famous ancient Chinese painters and calligraphers. You can know a lot of things just in one place. That efficiency of knowledge accumulation attracts me a lot.  

Short Journey

I like travel, travel is a very good experience which make you relax a lot after an exhausted period of time, like a term examination. To me, the journey between the starting point and destination is an important part of travel, also more fun.  

Imagine you sit in a comfortable flight seat, stretching yourself for a while by looking around to see who are sitting besides you. Then when you think of just in some couple of hours, you will be land on the dream place, you start to smile. By asking waitress to give you a cup of juice and a small blanket, the seat becomes a cozy nest. You start to read a book which you bring with you and haven’t time to read when you are busy with your work or study, you are amazed by the story in the book. From time to time, you will raise your head from the book and look at the clouds around your plane. That’s wonderful! You think. You are thousands miles away from the workplace or classroom you have become tired with recently.  

Actually, no matter you are in a flight, or in a train, or in a long-distance bus, or even in a small boat, the light-hearted feeling full your chest will make you feel all the things extremely wonderful. You are looking forward to seeing the more attractive destination.  

The Romantic Movement

Reading the book, The Romantic Movement by Alain de Botton, gives me a chance to look into the psychic world of a girl or a young man when they are in love with each other. Strictly speaking, this is not a novel, it is more like a thesis. Alain is very encyclopedically, when he is describing or analyzing the “romantic movement�?, he will use sociological, psychological knowledge to vivify the concept or the process.  

The story is very simple, to some extent, too normal.
Alice is an ordinary British girl who has been apart from previous relationship for a while, she met a young man named Eric in a party. The beginning stage of love is very sweet, while gradually,
Alice felt that they had some conflicts. After facing some torturous moments, they break up finally.  

Alain is more like a very meticulous, sensitive observer, standing around this couple, when the man says something; he is like a mind reader to interpret what will be the girl’s reaction in her mind. In the book, there is a very interesting metaphor of the eternality of love as a cable bridge. The commitment actions of love, e.g. a kiss or a sweet phone call, are just like the bridge towers which help to support the bridge. While “cold time�?, e.g. silence when eat together, or not answering the phone, are like the cables between two towers. Interestingly, some people would need very close towers to support their loves, while some have very long distance cable between two towers.