A Stone of Hope（原創(chuàng)）

Well, I can not depict how stupid and clumsy I am when I burn up the phone lines telling my Mom what I've been suffering; there is a cauldron of noodles on the fire. For what it's worth, I strongly recommend you not to cook things while making a call--or we are talking about disaster. My noodles got stuck together. There was a hunch--more exactly – the fact that I ruined my supper.

Following a not so satisfactory dinner was the contemplation that I am used to undertake every Thursday night. As is known, one man is not an island, so that's why we need religious belief. In more cases than one, I'm an atheist. But such a notion is doomed to be with me: I am talking to another myself from another world. This sounds a little bit weird. Yet indeed, it’s true. When I'm struggling between different kinds of offers, when I'm wondering why I am living at this moment of history rather than my favorite one, when I think I couldn't go on with my life and it is likely to be intolerable, it's him who comes to rescue me from the mental despair and cheers me up.

Everyone has a dream. One friend Terry is busy with his computer business. Star is exploring the linguistics world and wishes one day to become somebody in this arena. Cecilia is striving to make the impossible into the believable--being a totally independent pretty woman walking down the streets of Paris. I am a teaching Chinese as a foreign language major (just the name itself is capable for you to take a long, long breath). I seem to be so destined to become a teacher who will be meddling up with the disagreeable phonetics and grammar. Giving the condition that once I'm so determined and frantic to go abroad, taking a job or resolving to be a postgraduate here in China is a nuisance. I was smart-ass college freshman at that time, pretending the world is mine for the asking. Now you can never be way out on a limb, that’s how sober and calm I am now.

Since I always want to be a man of wit and broadmindedness, an interpreter would be a nice choice. That's why ever since I finished the job serving as a volunteer for FIFA, I've been burying my head into stacks of books in the library, dormitory as well as in the classroom. Everything is ok except my sudden emotional disorder: occasionally burst into fury or despair. This is really terrible 'cause I know what a challenge it is to become a qualified simultaneous interpreter. After all, a soul-consulting conversation with another myself helps me a lot. It suddenly dawns on me that it will never rain roses. and if we want to have more roses then we must plant trees. I will hew out the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

Yes, that stone of hope is going to accompany me till I run to the end of this world.

作者：天津外國語學院通訊員劉偉   外專Brendan審校