brendayy

We all know and look forward to the time after May 16th.—-since then we won’t have any classes, in another words, we’ll have a extra holiday! Yeah~~I don’t know if foreign teachers in our department are planning to go back home to enjoy it, we students surely cannot let the chance slide away!

however, nothing is perfect. After I check the time carefully I found it is not easy to arrange some good plan for that period of time. Usually I attend a course in Beijing New Oriental School, but there’s not any course fit the time between June and July.(For me the holiday starts in June because by the end of May I have to do volunteer work, and another volunteering in the end of July.) 

Then how about travel? I saw a summer camp programme several days ago which contains summer camps to Britain, U.S., Japan, HongKong, Singapore and some other places. I have interest but at the same time I have to take the “lack of freedom” into account. How about travel as a backpacker? The time is also not porper for the places I want to go—-I’ve dreamed about Nepal for long time but in June and July it is in rainy season, which makes the journey impractical. As to the places in China…one month seems a bit long for a domestic trip, and to be honest, I don’t want to travel along this time. A lonely trip is full of challenges but an interesting journey with some good friends is equally charming. The problem is that almost all of my friends’ timetables have no  vacancies for that time…

The ticklish holiday bring me many bubbles, but they  break easily. I really want to make full use of the holiday but an excellent idea has not come to my mind yet. Maybe …maybe I should wait a little longer and see how everything is going. Maybe it is just a matter of time and a plan would jump out happily in front of me at a correct time.

our listening teacher Kat gave us an assignment: find out whether “Chinese pyramids” exist. The Chinese pyramids are located in ShanXi province, near the city Xi’an. As known to all the great emperor Qin Shi Huang built the tremendous underground kingkom in which thousands of terra cotta warriors stand quitely for many centuries. Those “pyramids” have the very similar shape with those of Egypt, and are believed to be the tomb of emperors of Han Dynasty. However, what’s strange most is a “white pyramid” discovered by an American aviator during ww2. A German author went to ShanXi province but he didn’t find the rumorous white pyramid. He only took some pictures of the already known “pyramids”—-the tombs.

To me, the mysteries remained to be solved in the world are enormous and they may keep confusing people for many many years, at least in my generation I can’t wait for the answers…the UFOs, aliens, stars, the origin of the universe……those have been interested me since I first knew them. What human beings know about themselves are so little.  So I believe everything have reasons to appear, including the horrible ghost. Though many people don’t understand, I have my own standpoint that everything have some kind of relations, for example in the form of energy, thus there’s theory that  movement of planets  have strong influence on humans’ activities. If I have enough money and time and an ideal life, I would retire early and have some courses on astrology in London, for London has a very complete and old academic astrology system.

well…I can hardly have a busy life now because last week I was tired to death! First, the volunteer work for “Good Luck Beijing” race walking and marathon event. Though I worked in the famous “Bird Nest”, there’s not so much to envy…because the stadium hasn’t been completed yet, the roads sorrounding it are still in a mass and have no difference with other construction places. Everyday we have to pass through dry air and dirty dust. What’s more, my work is to help the judges to carry athletes who give up the match or offend rules to the post-event control centre, so I have to either walk between the road where the match was going and the control centre or stand uprightly, which made my waist ache heavily. Everyday my legs got swollen because the long time of stand and walk.

AND—-at the same time, just as I’ve mentioned in the last diary, I had to prepare for the exam of tennis referee…I was very nervous but the fact was that the exam only took me 15min. That day I was ran down completly.

That’s not the end! Don’t forget the most threatening—-TEM4! After taking 4-hour sleep for many days I still had to brace up. But what can I do? I didn’t have time to prepare like my friends in that very urgent week and one night cannot make any difference. So there was only one way to help—-go to bed early—-that’s the only thing I did without any complaint during the whole week! 

The good news is that now they are all over: TEM4 was not so difficult, and volunteering was rather an unforgetable experience. To some degree, the ending is satisfying.

However, I still can’t relax, for this week~~~we’ll have final exams!!! OK, after all those horrible things, an exam is not worth fearing, right?

Being a student in BSU, it must be a pity if I don’t make full use of the resources of our university!! There are all kinds of training cources related to sports, esp. all kinds of referees but I usually ignored them in the past 2 years.  People usually pay less attention to things that are easy to get. That’s a sad fact.

So…after I saw the note about referee course, I decided to grasp the chance, this time I am determined. Besides, Winnie also agreed to have the course by my instigation. ^_^

The course is for tennis referee of 3rd degree. Though I’m not so clear about the rules, I still love this sport. In 2006 I got a VIP ticket for China Open, which was my first time to have a close touch with tennis.

For students in BSU, such courses, which are quite difficult in other schools, are pretty easy and informal—-I mean, we just have 1 class altogether! And the next class will be the exam. If you pass it, then a certification flies directly to you, “not needing the slightest effort”, as the Chinese saying.

Therefore, how can I let the good chance slide away?? Though I was a little doubtful about the number of the lesson, I was still excited last night. The teacher is a middle-aged man who has written a number of books on tennis. It seems that he is a quite renowned professor and umpire. He didn’t teach us according to the book pages by pages or rules by rules. He just showed us questions on referee work and in this way he introduced the concept of tennis rule for us. I like his humorous way of speaking and good temper. He didn’t make the rules dull and tiresome. Through his introduction I got to know that tennis is a sport that pays much attention on “gentleman” spirit. One point of great significance in this sport is that if either of plays or umpires make mistakes, the solution is “Let bygones be bygones”. That sounded strange to me at first, but I think I can understand it soon with the deeper and deeper touch with tennis. This spirit is very important. May be it is a reflection of Britain.

The three-hour class finished soon, I still didn’t make the rules clear, but I really got something from the kind teacher. Every sport has its distinctive spirits and belief in it. Sports are also a kind of culture. Different kind of sports means various cultures, which have their respective history and characteristics. Knowing them is like leaning the life of people from different countries. Really really interesting.

well….let’s come back to the reality…

the next step is ….find ways to ensure that I can pass the exam next week!!!!!