Category: Life

I believe my new year will bloom in a more subtle way, for I feel really peaceful, happy, and in touch with my spiritual strength. Thanks to all the holiday blessings from my friends!

CASS buiding is blocked by Chang’an Theatre and 贡院六号。 奇形怪状的摩天楼让本来壮观的北京站和中信大厦显得渺小。

紫禁城被酒店包围啦！

Tried to finish the journal of my trip to Beijing by the end of 2008. During this holiday season, I have been wearing the agate from Rosa.

I only had the weekend to spend with my best friend in late October. Rosa picked the Tibetan resturant near American Embassy. As usual, our chat touched my heart and brought me mental retreat. I am proud of having Rosa as a close friend and admire her calm and elegant style in this hectic city. Leading the Asia-Pacific branches of this global corporation, she is not only successful but kind. Her next goal is to retire young and volunteer in the poor western region. Above all, she never stopped learning and thinking on how to act as a daughter, a wife, a mother and a friend. I am learning as I grow and hoping to work with her after ten years.

As 2008 comes to the end, I feel grateful and joyful. I am grateful to all my friends, new and old. I am joyful that I survived 2008, and I know in my heart that 2009 (and the years after that) will be a lot easier. In the past few days, I counted my blessings:

–My friends, from different part of the world and different part of the country, from different color, sex, race and age groups, comforted me, consoled me, held my hands, and pulled me through the darkest alley.
–My son, who toughed it out with me, still remains by my side when I act irrational and emotional.
–The authors who wrote so many wonderful books that made me cry, laugh, think and survive. I am so grateful that I can read.
–My workplaces and colleagues. Working makes me feel normal and valuable. Being busy at work is a blessing.

I also learned (and reaffirmed) some life lessions:
–Be kind and compassionate to others because the kindness and compassion will be returned many times over when you need them.
–Friends are my family and my backbone.
–God/Lord only helps those who help themselves.
–Do not feel sorry for yourself because it does not do any good.
–Count your blessings and be grateful for what you have.
–You don’t always get what you want, but you can decide what you do not want.
–Surround yourself with happy and positive people, and they will bring joy to your life.

All the best, friends! Take care.

A message from Shu brought loads of happiness to me, which I can’t wait to share with our folks here. She sent several pictures of her work place with the colleagues and her handsome husband, Chris. Please let me know if you want me to forward them to your mailbox. Shu lives in a newly bought house with a big backyard. Guess we will have a place to stay whenever we visit Collorado. Way to go girl! Again I feel really happy seeing her and her hubby’s big smile.

Apologies for the late greetings from Orlando to my dear fellow Chinese Canadian Librarians group out there, no matter where you happen to be right now – Vancouver, Montreal or China. After a long and tiring decision-making process “to go or not to go”, I finally chose to take the chance and arrived in Orlando, FL, on May 27th. I started my job as a Regional Campus Librarian with the University of Central Florida Libraries a week ago. Every thing was new to me: a new job in a new type of library setting in a new city in a new country, so you should understand why it took me so long to finally update you with my whereabouts. I bet some of you are still wondering “where is Min now?” 🙂

Right now I am getting my orientations at the Main campus of the UCF libraries. I will spend my first month here to get to know better the library system, more importantly, my colleagues with whom I will have mainly virtual contact with in my future work. I will still come for meetings once per week, but I will be based mainly on a regional campus 30 miles away from the main campus.

I bet you all know how ‘first week’ was like, no matter what type of ‘first week’ it was, so I don’t want to bore you with the details. I’d just like to let you know that actually it was generally a good feeling to experience changes. Most of us are scared of changes — and that’s why it took me so long to make the final relocation decision, but believe me, once you are clear that it is the right direction to go, then you won’t regret of going for it. Changes are accompanied with inconvenience and frustrations sometimes, but in the mean time, they bring along new opportunities to us. They enrich our life experience and refresh our tiring selves.

I know it sounds a little suspicious like that I am trying to talk you out of the beautiful British Columbia and come to the HOT Florida like me, but I am not (hmm, maybe a little 🙂

Please do come to visit me whenever you happen to come to the Disney World. You know I miss you all and will be thrilled to see you again in the near future… My gmail and hotmail accounts are still in use, so don’t hesitate to drop me a line whenever you’d like to get in touch with me. Best wishes to you all!

Share with you guys a few photos of beautiful Nanaimo. Wish all of you a great summer.
The neighborhood where I live

Vancouver Island Regional Library 1

Vancouver Island Regional Library 2

Nanaimo sky

Playground of a local primary school I pass by everyday

What a beautiful evening and what a happy annual meeting! Please look back our happy moment in video and photos.Happy moment:

Open Words (Video)
Smile
Call from Heather in Montreal
畅所欲言:
Jing
Jan
Ping
Linda
Ian
Min
Ying
Jian
Qi
Lei
Jie
Qiong
Wei
Ding

No matter where you are and what you do today, please take a moment to thank your mentors, teachers and professors.

My beloved Mentor, Thesis Advisor, and Professor, Rong Yilun laoshi, passed away on March 19th in Beijing. His friends, colleagues, and students live and work in many parts of China and in several other countries – a true teacher of 桃李满天下. I have learned from Rong laoshi a lot more about life than just the English Language and Literature from the graduate school curriculum. Rong laoshi emphasized 育人 more than 教书, and he taught by example. I learned from Rong laoshi that 育人 was a teacher’s sacred responsibility, and 教书 was an activity, a task, to reach for that goal. Rong laoshi taught us that one had to be true to oneself and to others no matter what the circumstances were.

I am grateful that I last talked with him in mid January. I promised that I would visit him again on my next trip to China and we would continue with our conversations. I will keep this promise and visit Rong laoshi at the cemetary when I am in China next time.

I am better than I was because of all my mentors, professors/teachers, and friends. In remembering Rong laoshi, I also want to thank all of you no matter where you are in the world!