命题作文

Since I didn't know what to write about in my first post, I asked R to give me a topic. Noticing today's date, I casually mentioned that today happens to be my 28.5th birthday. With his acute sense for numbers, R was quick to point out that 28.5 = 9.5 x 3, and he wanted me to write about my life at 9.5 and 19 yrs old, respectively.

It's funny how I have to map the ages to the grades I was in to remember what was happening in my life then.

At 9.5 years old, I had been in sixth grade for a semester. Life was simple, and good. We were living in the residential area of No. 821 millitary factory, surrounded by sprawling farming lands. The nearest big city, forty minutes away by shuttle, is Guangyuan (广元), an important stronghold on the northern border of Sichuan province. Jialing River (嘉陵江), accompanied by the vaguely famous Baoji-Chengdu Railway (宝成铁路), enters Sichuan here. This is a city I know very little about, yet dutifully fill in all kinds of forms as my "birth place". Incidentally, it is also the hometown of the only female Emperor in China's history, Wu Zetian (武则天).

At that time, we had been living in the same two bedroom apartment for almost 9 years, and were to live there for one more year before my parents moved to Shenzhen (深圳). Our apartment building was on a hill, with a good view of Bailong River (白龙江), a large tributary of Jialing River. All the neighbors were my parents' colleagues, and all my classmates were their children. I went to the First Elementary School, there was another elementary school, the Second, where all the kids looked weird to us. As R poignantly pointed out, I felt no stress about the upcoming middle school entrance exam, since there was only one middle/high school. I was going there no matter what.

The most notable thing in my life then, was probably a note passed to me by a boy. We were classmates in the fifth grade, but went to different classes in the sixth grade. I vividly remember how he stood at the door of our classroom, but at an angle so few people could see him. I saw him. He nodded and signaled me to go out. When I did, he gave me this small folded note and walked away. I didn't look at the note until I got home later that day. I locked myself in the bathroom, read and re-read the note, then as all good underground operatives do, tore the note into a thousand tiny pieces and flushed them down the drain.

The boy was fair, chubby, smart, and mature. Just for the record, I sent him a note first, in the fifth grade. My note had been concise and to the point, and I had asked the kids sitting between us to pass down the note. I was not a secretive person.

Now several months later, I got a note back. It told me to concentrate on my studies, and wait for 14 years.

If a man dares to ask a woman to wait for 14 years, he would get slapped in the face. 14 years is a long time. More than 5000 days.

14 years was nothing to me. I was a little more than 9. I could not comprehend the concept of 14 years. So I felt nothing, no sadness, no despair, no indignation. I went on with life, and almost forgot about it. One year later, we left 821 and never went back.

I don't remember exactly when, but approximately when I was 19, I received a letter from him, mailed from the same university R went to. Life is full of small coincidences. I forgot what he said in the letter. One thing is for sure. He didn't mention the note. Of course. It wasn't 14 years yet. I wistfully thought about where I would be at 23 for a while. I forgot whether I wrote back.

My 19th birthday was probably the first one I spent away from my parents. It was the summer of '96, I had completed 3 years at my college, 2 more to go. Just a few months earlier, my good friend Enid had planted this interesting idea of "going abroad" in my head, and here I was, staying in the university for the whole summer vacation, and studying for GRE.

My decision to apply for grad schools in the US came as a nice surprise to my parents. For a long time they had been suggesting that and I wasn't interested. It got to the point where the only subject they urged me to study more was English. I angrily asked why they didn't want me to study more math and physics. This had become a sensitive topic at home. Suddenly one day I told them I was going to a GRE class, just like that. They were amazed. They had underestimated the influence of friends.

Life again was simple and good. When you have a direction in your life, you feel happy. Everyday we got up early, ate breakfast, and went straight to the general reading room in the New Library. Once we got seats, they stayed ours for the whole day. We would only leave for lunch and dinner, spending 10 hours a day in the library. When I couldn't take it any longer, I got up and wandered in the other reading rooms, returning a few hours later feeling guilty.

On the way to and from the library, we fantasized about life in the US. We could cook together all the time! How exciting! It is a pity that Enid and I never got to live near each other after we came here. Now she happily teaches in OSU and keeps putting off her plan to visit us.

19 years old was an interesting point in my life. I had no concrete ideas about what my life would be like, but I had a lot of hopes. I had no worries, no concerns. I had great friends. I had it all and I was blissfully focused on just one mission, to learn all the words listed in the Red Book.