Blog 2 : “The Lamp”

I hope you still remember the story I told in the class storytelling contest, my friends. But never mind if not, I’ll attach the text in the end. Here I’ll talk more about it.

Maybe the story sounds like cold humor at first sight; at least my roommate thinks so. In fact I didn’t intend to make it a funny story. I want to express (at least) two serious points through it.

The first one is a little negative, as well as realistic: The person you follow can be totally wrong, so be careful. You can see, in the end of the story, “I” finally knew that the girl regarded the washing room as a normal study room (please don’t doubt the possibility, her eyesight was really poor and she hadn’t been inside before) and that was the reason why she could insist staying up for study, also the indirect reason for me. She was encouraged by an imaginary student!

The second is: despite the fact that she was wrong, just believe in her, and then everything is Ok. If I hadn’t come to her house, I would still be impelled by her to study more hard. It’s a good thing for me. But I already knew, maybe after that, I would return to the original state. So on the contrary to the first point, sometimes when you have an unquestioning belief, things can be better. That is, it is how deeply you believe but not what you believe that matters.

So, which one do you agree? Or both (actually I do)? Or neither? Maybe you have better thoughts. Look forward to your comments!

The Lamp

When I was a junior high school student, I was not very hard-working until I found a girl study very late every night. Her room was always lit, even after I went to bed. I could see her through my windows every day since her house was opposite to mine. I had seen her in our Grade Conference before but only knew her name and her outstanding academic results in our grade.
One day, the lamp in her room was off as early as 9 pm, which was abnormal for her. But the next day was the same. I wondered whether she was ill or not and decided to visit her at the third day. After all, it was she who encouraged me to study hard though there was not one word. With some apples, I knocked at the door. Exactly, she opened the door after I said who I was and why I came. After simple greeting, I was in the living room and she told me that she surely had a cold but not serious. Then I asked her a question I thought of for a long time, “How can you stay up so late for study every night? It is not an easy thing. And you have already got so high marks. There is no need, I think.” Smiling, she replied, “I think I did not stay very late, because, you can see, there is a room outside my windows. It is always bright at night as I know. The person in that room stays up later than me every day.” After hearing that, I regretted for my question. How can you imagine the room she pointed at is a public washing room!