Confessions of a Cat-holic (26)

So what's wrong? Would they ever look inward and find out their inadequacies or blind spot instead of using conspiracy theories to discredit others' hard work? Would they ever bother to try any sort of a self-censorship?

This was what Miss Smartie wrote for her college application essays.

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The day after I finished my Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination

I needed inspiration. Especially at the moment when the examinations were all over. Some of my friends called me up, but they only contributed to some light-hearted chitchat. "Do you know that Espirit is on sale? Let's go and renew our wardrobe!" Some others said that they wanted to forget everything after the "struggle". Struggle. It was the word they used. They said that they were like split oranges that much of their juice had already been squeezed out by the examiners. I could not help wondering why we had to distort ourselves so as to fit into the square of examination and then turn to material things in order to obtain "relaxation". I felt that there was something wrong with our attitude.

I needed inspiration. Therefore, I headed for a bookstore after lunch. Those eye-catching places were all flooded with Harry Potters and Who-moved-my-cheeses. I went around and searched every possible corner for surprise. It was a book called "Photomosaics" from the bottom shelf that caught my attention. My eyes got stuck to its cover for a quite a few seconds, because it was a spectacular piece of creative art. I could not wait to find more. I turned over the cover and somehow came across two whole pages that I did not understand. It looked like a very mixed bowl of salad at first (please refer to attachment IVA), but the image of the lovely Bambi appeared pretty obvious when I looked at its condensed reproduction on the next page (please refer to attachment IV B). I knew I would not have got confused if I had looked at it from farther away.

The piece of photomosaic showed me something. A macroscopic sense, to be exact. I had been focusing too much on individual pictures and so unable to grasp the overall idea. Almost instinctively, I took out my journal and a pen. There I wrote, "Gulliver once stood in front of the breast of the queen, but he saw nothing except the pores on her skin!" Then I began to understand the kind of inadequacy I felt. It was because we had been focusing too much on examination and lost sight of the meaning of learning. Leaning should be enjoyable rather than stressful. Learning should not be limited only to the time before the examinations. I needed inspiration because I had an impetus---an impetus to go on seeking knowledge, an impetus to grasp the time to go beyond textbooks and the curriculum. Looking back, I have to say thank you to the tricky piece of photomosaic, because I know clearly that I will not let myself fall into the same pitfall again, at least not too easily.

That night, before I sleep, my brain was busy rearranging my childhood memories and grow-up experiences. They made up just another piece of photomosaic---my self-portrait. I looked at it with amazement, because life is must more beautiful if I can look at everything from a photomosaic perspective.

My most important non-academic activity is to lead in promoting environmental protection. Nature is an extension of my body. I cannot be indifferent to the welfare of it. Also, I want people to be inspired by my enthusiasm toward conservation. I enjoy the comradeship of sharing my vision with othe rpeople. Being the chairlady of environmental protection club, I often feel self-actualized through tackling problems with poise. I learned how to give my comrades a sense of direction so as to keep them moving. To me, leaderhship and environmental protection mean service---a service with honour.

After my teacher taught me about Pythagoras Theorem (withouth any detailed proof), I was not convinced. Yet, I did not want to refer to other people's proofs before I tried it myself. I constructed over a hundred right-angled triangles, but I could only show that the theorem held in those angles I had constructed, but not those I had not. Therefore, I told my teacher what I had done. He then taught me the technique "prove by contradiction". It is the most important intellectual experience to me because I learned that not all problems have to be solved directly.