blog 8

We have just visited Singapore Art Museum and Museum of Singapore this Wednesday. It was an unforgettable experience to me, and I have some reflections about the journey.
In China, we also have many art museums. But few people like to go to such places for a journey. Most of people in China are not fond of art, like me. Thus, art has become minority of people’s appreciation. Art is a way to express a person’s feelings and reflect some special events. Only those who know arts or know a lot about the society and history can get the meaning of an art work.
Chinese art works seems gentler than those of Singapore. Many of our paintings or photos are on certain natural scenes while few of Singapore art works are about that. In Chinese art works, we usually express a person’s sufferings through his behavior. While, those art works of Singapore express one’s suffering through his facial expression, for example, I have seen a sculpture man whose face showed his great pain in SAM. Hence, I found the works in SAM a little scary. Also because of this, I found the works in SAM more interesting than those in China.
Since I know little about art both in Singapore and in China, I cannot appreciate the art works as others do. As for those abstract works, I really have no idea about those. Thus, I am more likely attracted by some painting of a person. I think I would know more about art if I had learn a lot about history and society. But in reality, I cannot know the meanings of lots of works. Thus, the journey seemed not meaningful to me.

my trip to Singapore Art Museum

     I had never been to an art museum before the trip to Singapore Art Museum. I used to view art as such a distant thing from me that I had no talent in appreciating art works. Therefore, I took the trip to Singapore Art Museum, excited but afraid of being unable to appreciate art.

       Once I entered the museum gallery, the first exhibit coming into my sight was a pair of huge wing, glittering under the light like angle’s wings. I excitedly ran towards it and asked my friend to take a picture for me in front of the wing.  However, when standing closer, I realized it was in fact made up of plastic slippers. Although this discovery a little bit destroyed my good feeling about it, I had to admit that it was a brilliant idea to use old slippers to create an art work. It promoted the idea of reusing things to protect our environment. I know in Singapore many people wear slippers and the worn-out slippers may be thrown away directly. This art work reminds us that we can make better use of such used things.

    Art is a tool for people to express their opinions and feelings. Artists rely on art to give their voice when they are not allowed to do so in public. Besides, their feelings are expressed more strongly by means of concrete art works. Appreciating art works can nurture my sensitivity to artists’ feelings hidden in the works and give me a glimpse of culture and history. It was a worthy trip to Singapore Art Museum.

Twisty Personality

I felt really shocked when I saw works of art in Singapore Art’s Museum. I have to see all the works in Singapore Art’s Museum were totally different from that in my home town’s museum. In China’s museums, I usually see exquisite ceramics and distinguished Chinese mountains-and-waters paintings. However, the works that I saw in Singapore Art’s Museum should reflect humans’ twisty personalities. Some artists use many skins of mice or snakes to cover a medium high column, and they made me feel sick. However, among all the works, what impressed me most was a video.
I did not see the video at the first sight; instead, I saw four pictures in a frame against the white wall. The four pictures all were Screenshots. Furthermore, they represented that a lady who worn a scarlet dress and whose facial expression was very strange. I did not really understand the works purpose, but by accident, I suddenly found there was a screen beside the wooden frame. After watching the video for a time, I realized the meaning of this work of art.
From the video, I could see the same lady in the picture worn a high-heel in her left foot (her high-heel had already broken). She stood on a smooth glass ground and the ground was full of smooth foams and surprising, she kept on walking on the glass. Therefore, she fell down on the ground again and again, but after each falling, she struggled to stand up and continued her walking and at the same time I can saw her face was dull as lead and her eyes were feeling listless. So, it was not hard to image how many wounds on her body, hence, I could not understand her purpose on doing this kind of thing. Anyhow, I felt really uncomfortable when I saw all of this. Moreover, in my own general view, I think this work of art wants to reveal some twisty personalities which are hidden in our mind but I could not really say out this.
All in all, this week’s tour to Singapore Art’s Museum and National Museum of Singapore really impressed me and made me calm down to ponder a lot about art and human personality.

my visit to SAM

This wedenesday, we went to the singapore arts museum. After this visti, I am more confirmed that modern arts only belong to a certain group of people. During the visit, I was looking at not appreciating the works of arts in the museum almost every moment because I cannot understand teh majority of them. Most of them especially those in the special exhibition gallery show more or less features of modernism or post-modernism. Their creators use broken parts of human body or twistted world to express their feelings such as the anger and sorrow towards the silent and tolerant people in the Pinkman, hatred towards the horrable, stupid and superstitous action of burning people and whatever. Moreover, one series of paintings nearly shocked me to death and I feel depressed even after I left the singapore arts museum.In the first picture, a fat man wears a very frightened and scared expression on his face and his right hand straight points to the right side of his body. I think this finger in thsi paainting is excellent because the finger leads you to look at the following painting when you when your curiosity is sparked by his expression. In the folowing painting, the man killes himself on his throat. Then, in the third painting, the fat man stands on four with some broken pieces of his organ split out. and his lower part of body is bocoming onr of a women. In the final painting, the man gets on his, maybe her is more proper because he turns into a woman, feet and walks forewards like a dull zombia. In my opinion, this series shows that nowadays an increasing number of people are very poor regarding to their spiritual wealth and some of them commit suicide and have a twisted spirit such as becoming a gay or becoming fond of abusing. Furthermore, the color in this series is wonderrful and expresses the core of the series and the painter's attitude. For eample, the white shirt on the man and his sick white facce make his sense of being scared and frightened more vivid. The wonderful combination of different colors polishes this series very well.

Is Arts for everyone?

After the painful progress test, we were expecting to go for a pleasant trip to Singapore Arts Museum and Singapore National Museum. Unfortunately, I totally had no idea about the Arts Museum. The exhibition was diverse and substantial, and the atmosphere there was quite satisfying. However, I felt fear and lacking of knowledge when appreciating them. Strictly, I was not appreciating them—I just watched them. I doubt that if Arts suits everyone to appreciate.

According to Wikipedia, the Arts are “a vast subdivision of culture, composed of many creative endeavors and disciplines.” So here are the problems. First, Arts involve specific cultural background and the artist’s personal experience. This makes Arts difficult to appreciate if we lack of those knowledge. Enhancing that knowledge may cope with this problem, but it takes long time, and seems boring at the same time. In addition, the viewpoints towards Arts vary individually, which cause about argument about them. Above all, Arts sometimes is treated being based on affluence life, so the importance of developing economy is stressed more than Arts, or mental life.

Arts is tough to understand for me, but I will try to make it if must.

Reflection of the visit to Art Museum

Days previously, my classmates and I went to Singapore Art Museum and National Museum of Singapore for a learning journey. To be frank, most of the works on exhibition are beyond my understanding, especially something like the big wings made of thousands of slippers, which is a little ridiculous according to my viewpoint. However, I think I learned something from my visit to Singapore Art Museum.

Despite the fact that most of the art works are not consistent with my taste, I marveled at some interesting designs. The first artwork on display is one of them. It is a bookshelf full of books in the form of cylinder and about one third of it is opened. When I put my head into the shelf, I surprisingly found that there was no bottom in the shelf! Then I instinctively looked up and found there was no top as well more surprisingly. After a second, I realized that there were two mirror at the top and bottom of the bookshelf respectively so that the image of the books could reflect again and again, thus, consequently, creating the look of no bottom.

Later during the visit, I saw some interesting and creative cups and saving boxes. They are very similar to the ones we use in our daily life, but there are some outstanding things as well. The piggy banks are in all kinds of strange shapes and the images on the cups perfectly add the artists’ inspirations to the works.

Compared to those abstract paintings and strange-shaped clothes, I think these common things are really the things that touch me. Although full of creations, they are common things in life, as if telling us that it is not impossible to become the artist of life, to design, create in life and to make our life more beautiful and fascinating.

Art for art’s sake

The trip to SAM (Singapore Art Museum) makes me think about what is art again. During the trip, one of my classmates claims that being an artist is so easy that all they need to do is only to create some abstract works to confuse their audience. Is that true? Art itself is actually the use of imagination to express ideas or feelings, particularly in painting, drawing or sculpture. We have to admit that there are few valueless classics from Asia. Maybe Asia has never really been a fertile soil for arts. But here in SMA we still can see some fascinating works that truly express Asians’ emotions through the thinking about culture, history society and can absolutely inspire the audience a lot.

Much contemporary art in the region, regardless of the genre or medium, continues to examine social, political and cultural issues. In my opinion, modern art should serve the society as a trigger for deep thoughts and exclaim of the real sound of the nation’s citizen. But when I see some items tagged with labels of price for sale. I was shocked. No wonder, according to SAM, the notion of art for art’s sake, has never really taken hold in Southeast Asia. One important focus of them has been the loss of or debates over, culture, tradition, and identity. The desire for art to communicate a narrative or story has also been a main factor behind the flourishing of realist and especially figurative paintings in Southeast Asia. In recent years, contemporary photography has also emerged as another way of painting stories.

One of the works that I appreciate most in SAM is a series of photographs called “horror in pink”. In the pictures, the pink shows up with modern objects while the whole scenario is set in the black and white past. In the series, the artist points to dramatic incidents in Thai contemporary history. The fragment of history at hand is what is known as the “6 October massacre” where dozens of left-wing students were killed when uniformed forces stormed the campus of Thammasat University in central Bangkok in 1976. Here, the artist inserts his mistrial “pink man”, an icon created to critique consumerist culture and capitalist in politics, which according to the artists, pervade Thai society today. Through the awkward juxtaposition of the pink man in historical press images, raising the question of the meaning and ownership of history.

Some of the woks are so easy formed but so hard to understand while some are so complex while the meanings behind them are so clear. Maybe that is the charm of art. Despite of all this, I can’t help but questioning, can we live without art? Yes, we absolutely can. Then why are there still so many works of art and people living on arts? Is it just a game of the rich or the performance of the insane? Maybe these questions themselves are already part of art.

Trip to SAM

Wednesday afternoon was sunny and lovely as usual but this time we were not at classroom but museums. I assumed this was a bonus after the progress test in the morning in which we suffered a lot both mentally and physically. And a little trip was just right for relaxation.

It was a trip of discovery and surprise though I have to confess that I do not understand many items on display, especially in the art museum. However I was impressed or shocked, more precisely, by a video. In the video, a heavy middle aged woman in black dress and bright-red high heel shoes danced on a piece of glass with butter on the surface. Her serious and glassy-eyed face in the dim light together with strange drumbeats created a frightening atmosphere. She twisted her body to the drumbeats like a snake and for many times she tumbled heavily down because of the slippery glass. The butter ruined her dress, shoes and make-up and finally she took off the shoes and walked away like a drowned mouse.

Feminist was the first word came to my mind after watching the video. The bright-red high heel shoes are like the symbol of discrimination to women. While the shoes are harmful to women’s health, they are willing to wear it mainly because men enjoy watching it and want them to do so. Moreover, the dancing woman in the video seemed to struggle hardly with such stereotype. She fell down over and over again to imply the unfair treatment women have been given. Although she took off the shoes eventually, the hurt could never be removed. This is the same as the hurt which gender discrimination causes to women as something can never be changed once it is done.

I could feel rage, pain, disappointment and fear from the dancing woman strongly and really. Perhaps this is the power of arts. People like it not because what it conveys but how it conveys to impact on you and make you feel real so that you will start thinking. To this degree, this piece of work is successful.

Exhausted was the best word to describe me after the trip but I was glad of it because I learned. And this is what matters.

Visit to the Singapore Art Museum

In the past, my opinion on art was that works of art usually represent people’s feelings. What is more, the feelings are usually positive, such as joy and appreciation. However, after the visit to the Singapore Art Museum today, there is some change to my attitude towards art.

The moment I stepped into the museum, I started to get confused as almost all the works of art seemed strange to me. There was a photo on which two strange-looking people stand on an isolated island. The two men were in rags and really ugly. I started to get confused why the author took such a picture. Does he want to tell us his feeling or reveal some unknown evil things? However, after going upstairs, I got more confused and even a bit scared.

On the second floor, I found many pictures or photos on which people are so scary. Some of them were even naked, panic and fear appeared on their faces. Moreover, in another video, a woman was dancing on butter, and she kept slipping down and standing up again and again. What did all of these want to tell us? According to my previous opinion on art, can all of these be called art?

Perhaps Singapore Art Museum is quite different from other art museums, and these works of art are disparate from art we commonly know. From my point of view, all of these works try to reveal some negative aspects in our lives. Perhaps they are related to poverty, famine and riot; perhaps they are associated with the dark side in our mind, such as prejudice, fear and selfishness; perhaps all of the works of art try to warn us to protect the environment or to notice unfairness in our society. Although I cannot understand it totally at present, I have to admit that they are a totally different kind of art.

My Visit to the Singapore Arts Museum

In the past, I seldom went to the museums to see the opuses of art. Because when I heard the word” museum”, the first perception coming into my mind is that I could not understand what the potential meanings behind the surface of the pictures and there is a long distance between my mind and the excellent artists’ minds. So when I knew there would be a journey to museum, I thought it must be a boring journey and did not post any expectation to it.
However, when I really went into the Singapore Art Museum, I changed my bias of museums. There are really some pictures that touched me a lot and the most impressing thing in my mind is that in an area where is circumambient by a large piece of white cloth. In this special room, there is a cupboard which is full of all kinds of books. There are also several people who are drawn on this large cloth. The common feature of these people is that they are related to the books. For example, on the corner of this cloth, there is a man whose eyes are fully covered by a piece of cloth and each of his feet is tied with several books. It seems that it is quite difficult for him to move, even just a small step. When I saw this, I feel touched a lot. I admit that books can provided us with plentiful information and can give us the elder’s experience and advice. However, sometimes because of these concepts that have already existed before, it becomes a kind of constraint to block humans’ develop. In simple terms, it may be a kind of reflection of the real lives on that time.
Though there are still some things that I could not understand, but I really learnt something from this journey. Maybe I will become to enjoy visiting the museums in the following days.

Reflection of Visiting Art Museum

We all the NUS SM3 batch 19^th students went to the second learning journey this Wednesday. While visiting the art museum, I felt confused from the beginning to the end. I have no idea if it is true art, for as far as I could understand, there are only PS pictures in the ground floor and some bloody disgusting and meaningless works of ‘art’ in the upper two floor. Despite this journey proved again I am isolated with art, I have to talk some about this trip.

When I finished watching the meaningless pictures and went up to the second floor, I did not notice the book shelf at the left hand side corner. It was not until we went through that floor and sharing what we had seen that I knew there is a bottomless book shelf at the entrance, and I went back to see it. It was a normal round book shelf when I saw from far away, and when I walked nearby and look down, it has no bottom! Thousands of storeys filled with books are down there which made me feel if I jumped down, I would be falling and never touch the ground.

I think this book shelf reflects the knowledge; innocent people ignore the all of this, thinking they have known everything, just like I passed by the book shelf without noticing it and believed that I had seen all the things. As I did not know the secret of the book shelf until the very moment I looked down in the book shelf, only when people get down to learn the knowledge do they know how broad the sea of knowledge is. Just as Newton says, ‘I feel like being a kid picking shells on the beach of the sea of knowledge.’

The journey to Singapore Art Museum

After taking the reading comprehension two in the morning, we were organized to Singapore Art Museum in the afternoon. I had learn it a little from the senior and I was very curious about it.
I have learnt from the Internet that the mission of the Singapore Art Museum is to preserve and promote contemporary art practices of Singapore and the Southeast Asian region. Opened in January 1996, Singapore Art Museum is an important component in international contemporary art. Although I am an Asian, I have to admit that I have a long way to go before I could understand it well.
The most impressive one for me might be the skin of different kinds of animals. There were squirrel skin, snake skin and so on. Besides, there were scenes of specimen of human body played by projector. I could not understand them as art actually, or they were just not the taste of us Chinese. There is also a small room on whose wall there were painted men constrainted by books. In my opinion, it reflects the trammel that books brings to us. Books are reference to us, but if we refer to books too much, it will fetter us. The one most to my taste might be the white rabbit called Walter. It returns to celebrate Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rabbit. It was created out of the artist's desire to "enable others to discover the extraordinary everyday". I think the rabbit is very cute, reminding me of childhood.
Although I know really little about art, I believe that art is something beautiful or something making us to think. Singapore Art Museum contains a lot, and I have learnt a lot from the learning journey. In addition, maybe I need to furnish myself something about art.

Sorry, Your Abstraction is Beyond My Understanding

Yesterday we visited the Singapore Art Museum which was having theme of contemporary art in Southeast Asia. To be frank, I can hardly understand those
abstract arts. I do not know how to describe what I just saw yesterday. I believe what I exactly saw yesterday is far beyond my description and understanding so l would like to just show you some pictures. One typical example is a work called Pink Man in which the artist put an extremely strange and even scary pink man into the pictures of a massacre happened in 1976. I thought its theme was anti-violence, but the introduction says it “critique consumerist culture and capitalist linkage in politics…..raise the question of the meaning and ownership of history”. Those artists always have extraordinary ways to see things.
Unlike that traditional and classic arts focus on the beauty of the world and present the beauty of the world to people from a lot of different angles, the contemporary arts often involve issues like violence, drugs, human nature and many other issues that people do not usually pay attention to. For a long time, art always sounds so holy and unfathomable to me, and my concept of contemporary art is a lot of strange and odd things which are created by artists to express their feelings. However, this journey gives me an even stranger feeling about the contemporary arts.
Some of the contemporary arts might initially intend to raise people’s awareness of a certain issue like abortion and they did successfully achieved that, but some other artists either present their good-intended idea in a too weird way or simply want to look enigmatic and not care too much about the content—and this has been a trend in contemporary art. Those artists seem not to care about whether their work is art as long as their work looks “contemporary”. Of course everybody can choose to express their ideas in their own way, especially the contemporary artist, but I don’t think a work that most people cannot figure out what exactly it is talking about is a good one. And isn’t it a bit cruel to let a tourist like me to feel uncomfortable the whole week after viewing those works with initial expectations to see something real fantastic and creative?

My visit to Art Museum

My visit to the Art museum

After the suffering progress-test 2 in the morning, we went to visit the Art Museum as compensate. To my delight, I really learnt a lot of things from the journey and the visit was rewarding.

In the art museum, I saw a lot of things which impressed me a lot. These things have a lot of features. First, they are all designed basing on real life. Some things on display are related to the history. They show the scene of war and remind people how hard life was during the war. Other things exhibited are related with some kind of modern things and explain a special meaning to people. Second, many items on display are made of commodity. For example, one thing on display with the shape of a bone is made of slippers. And another item on display is made of mirrors and lamps. The above two features really make the exhibition special and impressive.

What impressed me most was item made of lamps and mirrors mentioned above. It took a big place. A line of round mirrors were placed on the floor. Above the mirrors were lamps hung to a frame. There were machines on the frame to make the lamps to move up and down. When the lamps move to the mirror, they hit the mirrors and made sounds. You will have a special feeling when you are surrounded by the light and the sounds.

I think the benefits of going to museums are that it can help to expand your horizon. Museums are the conglomerations of great ideas which you have never known before. Going to museums can give you big ideas and great ideas which will help you a lot in your life.

Seeing the Kites again

I was totally confused in Singapore Art Museum because there are so many exhibitions that I cannot understand. The word “art” remains to be a vague image in my brain for a long time and hence I cannot tell exactly what “art” means. However, when I saw Seeing the Kites Again, I began to realize that I have finally found my favorite type of art.

These paintings were not painted in various colors but they are really impressive. Wu Guanzhong expressed his feelings with very simple drawings. I felt I was enjoying the beautiful scenery of South China when watching his paintings. I don’t know if his paintings belong to impressionism, but I really like this kind of painting because it makes me feel quite warm inside. For example, I appreciate Van Gogh’s Night Café most. Once I take a glance at it, I always have trouble moving my eyes away. That is why I adore Wu Guanzhong a lot because he gives me the same feeling. I used to read a book on Wu Guanzhong, from which I know that Wu Guanzhong’s famous saying is that“all techniques are slaves if the author can express what he thinks”. Those selected paintings in the exhibition really agree with his saying. I wish that CELC can put some of his paintings on the wall as well as these beautiful drawings of Van Gogh.

Though I got confused by what I see in Singapore Art Museum, I was still grateful that I was able to see Seeing the Kites Again. From what I saw this afternoon did I draw the conclusion that a true artist might not be the one who is most expert at drawing, but he must be someone who can express art best.

Akilina : Trip in Art Museum

  With such a hot and dry wether, before we get to the art museum, my heart had already been occupied by some fretfulness and impatient to some extent. However,I knew it would be worthy visiting because art is the reflection of reality and the conflict in one's mind. Which was beyond my imagination was the art that showed in art museum really frightened me and drove my feelings to most terrible, especially that so many dead people were exhibited both by pictures or videos. Anyway, though there were a great deal of scary scenes, I still found something drawing my attention------- the recycle glass and lamps.

                                                

                                    

   Among those horrible pictures, this creation could bring us some comfort and release in mind. With the help of modern invention, those useless materials come into our sight again.There would be a rhythm arising in our heart with the knock made between lamps and glass. I tried, and it succeeded finally. i thought it a method of changing my mood at the time.In addition,watching them jumping up and down with dynamic from electricity, I was also reminded of the phenomenon of resonance. It is said that there really are objects that could always move from one side to the other within a small angle if none of them were forced to change rate.To be frank, I also thought of it as an example of  resonance before I found the dynamic.Anyway, this visit which had been a memory deepened my understanding of the history and development of Singapore  once again. 

Make A Decision

Some of us have clicked the “submit” button, which transmits the decisions on undergraduate course. In fact, every detail of those NUS departments and its branches has been explored by us. We seem to have uncovered all little secrets inside. In sharp contrast, some of us are still immersed in doubt and hesitation. Science or Engineering? It remains a one century problem. I’m not a technical guy ever, but I force myself to calm down and pursue engineering. My decision is more likely based on the comparison between science and technology. In addition, reality in NUS is also taken into my consideration.

I totally believe that in most fully industrialized nation, science course performs a vital role in society, especially in the government and management area. Technical guys’ possible careers are narrowed to design, repairing and controlling machines. I have to admit that most engineers face an embarrassing situation that they can only avoid starving to death but cannot live a rich life. In sharp contrast, those who hold a science degree like math can pursue a financial job. Thus, they are able to be millionaires.

However, the reality in NUS is that it is almost impossible to pursue an overseas master or PHD degree after the undergraduate course because of the bond and the treaty. For me, I would rather hunt a job instead of spending time conducting research. As a result, engineering became my choice.

Make a decision! Finally, it is believed that with effort, every dream is to come true. What is required on how to be a success is right besides our hands—homework and countless books!

Tess of the d’Urbervilles The novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” tells the story of a beautiful pure country girl called Tess. Her family was the descendent of an ancient noble family but was poor. Her parents wanted her to claim relationship with their noble and rich relations to get some help after they know ancestors were same. Though Tess thought it was shameful to do this, to feed her little brothers and sisters she agreed. In the rich family Tess met Alec who was the son of this family. Alec was attracted by Tess’s beauty and attempted to possess her. Tess did not love him at all, but she did not know how to refuse him. After all he offered her a job. Since Tess was delicate, she was raped by Alec at last. With sorrow and anger Tess went back home. But her mother’s mind was not changed at all. As a result Tess left her home to another village to earn money. In that village she got a work in a farm. In that farm she met her true love Angel Clare. They fell in love with each other. When Angel asked Tess to marry him, Tess refused since her tragic past made her feel shameful. With Angel’s efforts, Tess decided to marry him at last. On their wedding Tess told Angel the reason why she always avoided him. Angel could not accept the truth. Finally Tess went back home and Angel went out to travel. During the period Tess spent at home, she met Alec, whom she hated very much, again. Alec tempted Tess to marry him utilizing her family’s need of money. Tess yielded at last. Before long Angel noticed his fault and went back to find Tess, but it was late obviously. This made Tess struggled between these two men. She killed Alec since his rude act to her and went to get her love. Though she was punished by law she gained what she really want. Tess’s miserable experience and tragic result relate to many factors such as the society, her family. I think her character is also one of the factors. She was kind and sensitive, so she thought it was her fault and could not go out from her past. Her mind was easily changed by others such as her parents Alec and Angel. If she set up her mind and never changed she would not meet Alec and would not suffer these miseries. But generally speaking, Tess was a pure faithful honest and hardworking girl.

Life goes on

Several days previously, a friend of mine told me that he came across a very frustrating thing. When he was watching cartoons with one of his roommates, he asked a question about what would happen later unmindfully. However, his roommate searched on the Internet and told him the answer which came out over 60 episodes later. It made my friend very disappointed and he lost the interest of watching onwards after having known the outcome.

On this matter, I quite agree with my friend. A story is not an exam, and the ending should not be the only thing that matters. Every part of a story plays an important role. Without them, however fascinating ending fades.

However, there are people like my friends’ roommate. What they want to know is: Does Conan(柯南) become bigger in the end? Does the girl in the story find her happiness? Does the guy in the movie have his dream come true? The ending is all they care about, both when watching and living. When they are at the point to make some choices, they always imagine hardly and finally come up with a most likely ending they are going to reach in the future correspondingly. Are there happiness at the end, they want to know.

I don’t know whether they are right or wrong. Maybe it is simply about a life choice, a philosophy that varies from person to person. But if someone were to ask me if my life will ends happily, I would not know how to answer. And I guess I may never find the answer. After all, life is not a movie. As I often say to myself: Life goes on, moving forward ceaselessly like a river, regardless of start, end, past, future, up or down.

I would not know how to answer the question, and I will not bother to. Comparatively, I prefer making choices basing on what I like, what I feel is the right thing to do. I do not what to bother worrying about the future because I believe that nothing will become doomed just for the reason that I make a choice. I do not know whether there will be a happy ending, but I believe there won’t be a regrettable one.

Harry Potter

    In July this year, the last part of “Harry Potter” series of movie will put on the screen. It marks the end of this fantasy novel which has captured our mind for tens of years. Maybe after some time, nobody will still remember it.

       I like “Harry Potter” for seven years and it is sad to say goodbye to it. Therefore, I feel a need to write down something about it, in memory of the past time “Harry” has accompanied me. “Harry Potter” is not aimed only for children. In fact, many characters in this book move me deeply. Besides the three main characters-Harry, Hermione and Ron’s great friendship, the other supporting roles also touch me and arouse my deep thought.

                                    Darco Malfoy: just a rebellious boy                                           

     Malfoy is considered as an arrogant, tricky and cowardly boy. He looks for every chance to destroy Harry. He joins the dark group of evil wizards and helps them break into the school and kill the headmaster-Albus Dumbledore. He appears to be very evil, but actually he is not.

      His father is sent to the prison of Azkaban by Harry Potter, but his revenge is only damaging Harry’s nose on the train. He always insults Hermione by calling her “mud seed”, but when the followers of the evil wizard Voldemort cast a deadly spell on Hermione, he prevents them. He helps the evil wizards come into school, but in front of dying Dumbledore, he drops down his wand.

     Yeah, he hates them, but he never thinks of killing them. He is just a rebellious boy, being envious of Harry Potter’s fame and popularity and struggling between his family’s loyalty to Voldmort and goodness hiding deep in his heart. Actually, he is a poor boy. He never chooses to follow Voldmort and kill anybody, but he has no choice but to be pushed to this position. We can feel his struggle, his pain, his regret and having no alternative.

     After nineteen years, when all battles have gone with the wind, he meets them on the Platform Nine and Three Quarters, but he just nods to them in the distance. Are you still unable to get through, Malfoy? I know, what you really wish and always wish so is to walk to them and say “hello, Harry, Hermione and Ron.”

Neville Longbottom: Loyalty Forever

       He could have been the one to save the world. Just by a narrow escape, he misses the destiny that once could be tied to him but now, belongs to Harry Potter. Therefore Harry becomes the great hero, while he is still the ordinary Neville Longbottom. But he has never complained about it. Has Dumbledore ever told him the plan of fighting against Voldemort? No, but he is still the most loyal member of the Dumbledore army. Has Harry ever told him the secret of deathly hallows? No, but when everybody thinks Harry has died, he still fights for him.

      He is not as smart as Hermione, even a little stupid, nor does he have the intimate relationship with Harry as Ron does. But when everybody loses hope in front of death, when people are in panic for the dark world, when others are fearful about the killing, he is the one to tell Harry “Do you know? We will all go on fighting.”

Severus Snape: the bravest man

       Before his role as a spy finally reveals, Snape is thought to be extremely cunning and cruel, for he helps Voldmort kill Harry’s mother, Dumbledore and more than once, Harry. He succeeds in hiding his true feelings and letting everyone hate him, but at last his heart betrays him. Still he cannot watch Harry die; at the last minute, he sacrifices his life for Potter without hesitation.

       I don’t quite understand why he does this, but I prefer to believe that it owes to love. He keeps his deep love for Lily Potter (Lily’s mother) until he dies, although Lily chooses Harry’s father instead of him. On one hand, he hates Harry; but on the other hand, he cannot help protecting Harry, because Harry is Lily’s son.

   He died at last. It is not surprising, for his destiny is doomed from the start. However, has Lily ever loved him? Has Voldmort ever trusted him? Has Harry already forgiven him? Does Dumbledore make use of him? Until he dies, he does not know the answers. The bravest man is not the one who rushes to the front, but the one who hides all his feelings and sacrifices without being known.

     “ Albus Severus, I named you after two great wizards. One of them is Severus, and he is the bravest man I have met.” When Harry Potter tells his son about you, Snape, do you hear that? This is Lily’s son’s judgment for you, but where are you?

We should never stop pursuing better personalities

As we talk more and more about personality, it seems what we should do is to accept who we are, both the good and bad side. It is wrong. We learn knowledge about personality to understand people as well as ourselves better, to know what the person’s advantages and disadvantages are, but not to accept. We accept the disadvantages only when we have to. Since we are young, we should straggle to change our personality and the more we straggle, the more we earn.

No person is perfect, but there must be someone is best. The best person is the one with more good features and less bad features. Excellent person also have shortages, but less. The reason why we attend university education is partly because our personalities are not good enough for us to be succeed in the society. We come here to learn and to develop. It’s our duty to fight against the shortages we have.

That we have too many shortages cannot be the reason to accept these shortages. If we accept the person who we are in our early 20s, we would be in the standard of this age during our whole life. That we play computer games in the past can’t be the reason of playing computer games tonight. That we used to be untidy can’t allow us don’t washing face tomorrow morning. We can’t be the friend of our shortages because once we accept them, we are defeated by ourselves.

Personality should not be an excuse. We can do a lot of things to change who we are. If we fight, we may lose. If we don’t fight, we already lose. We can be defeated, but cannot be defeated by ourselves.

Love Yourself before Others Love You

Everyone wants and needs to be loved by others. However, before we gain love from others, we need to love ourselves.

When I recall early years in my life, from the primary school all the way up to the university, I find there was always someone who was not brilliant or outstanding but could catch eyes of many other people. They were not distinguished by high marks or pretty faces but rather a charming quality which was released from every expression and movement. Usually, they are confident, friendly, humorous and generous and they are activists in school activities. People feel comfortable and happy when being with them. I think the reason for those people being attractive is that they love themselves or in other words, they are happy and satisfied with who they are. So they usually stay optimistic in life which has positive influence on people around them. Thus, people love them for the refreshing and pleasant feeling they bring.

Then it comes to my mind that there are also some people who were always forgot and isolated by the group. In most cases, they did not speak much or join any club or activity. And when they were asked to answer questions in the class, they would blush and speak in a low voice. Besides, they appeared cautious and would swallow insults from others which indicated that they were self-contemptuous and felt inferior to others. For me, I think their problem lies in the lack of self-love. They did not love themselves due to some weakness, for example, bad-looking appearance or limited intelligence. Hence, they left people with the impression that they were pessimistic, unmotivated and unfriendly. As nobody wanted to make friend with such kind of people, they stayed lonely and felt even worse about themselves.

However, the fact is that no one is perfect. Those who were popular had defects, too. The difference is that self-loved people can see their strength and use it while avoiding the weakness but the people who do not love themselves focus too much on their weakness and forget their strength. If they see the strength and think highly of it, they will start to love themselves, too. We are who we are. It is impossible for us to change into someone else. So is it better if we love ourselves and lead a happy life instead of looking down upon ourselves and stay sad?