The day before last day, I received the e-mail from Jennyyun (probably a friend from this forum as I suppose), and was asked to tell more details about my stories, therefore, I decide to write this article to let everybody here to have a better understanding of who is Joan.blue.
Born in 1982, I come from Huai’an of Jiangsu province (also the hometown of Premier Zhou’enlai). My father used to serve in the army, so our family moved from one place to another together with him. After his retirement, we went back to the bigger city near my hometown, which was called HuaiYing at that time. Some of you may feel familiar with this name, as one of the greatest generals of Han Dynasty, General Han’xi was entitled "King of Huai Ying". However, this name has already gone with the wind, since the previous three districts nearby (namely, Huai'an city, HuaiYing city, and Huaiying county) were combined into a new city as a whole and was renamed "Huai'an city" the year before last year.
Huai’an is located in the North Plain area of Jiangsu province. It was once very famous as one of the five key harbors along the Great Canal, and also a remarkable place producing outstanding people. Many famous historic figures were exactly born here. For instance, in literature, the author of “Journey to the West”(one of the four great classic novels in Chinese history); in military, besides General Hanxin, General LiangHongYu and GuanTianpei were as the very symbols of patriotic heroine and hero of Song and Qing Dynasty respectively; in politics, Premier Zhou is even well known all around the world. Nevertheless, as the major battlefield of the war against Japanese Invasion, it was greatly damaged by the war, and with the decline of transport via water, it gradually lost its previous advantageous position, and turned out to be backwards in many aspects, especially in economic.
I finished my high school and university education in this city, and I used to feel very embarrassed to speak out from which university I graduated, because the local teacher’s college in which I studied is far from prestigious. I must say I was born with high self-esteem, so the moment I think of it, I was surely very upset and diffident, but to my relief that I was the top student in my class, and passed TEM-8 (Test for English majors band 8) when I was only a junior. The more important thing was I got 7 band score in IELTS, and was able to go to the University of Sydney to work on my master degree. In fact, I also worked as a student teacher to give lessons to junior and senior students in middle school for about two months when I was a senior. I made such great endeavors in this teaching practice that I finally won the respect of all my 112 students, so the guidance teacher marked “excellence” (the only one in my group) for my performance. Of course, this was the greatest honor for me, which made me believe that I could be a good teacher, but as I had made up my mind to go abroad, I had to give up the occupation as a teacher temporarily. I must say it’s really a great pity for me that I failed to get my bachelor degree in a prestigious university (it’s actually the dream of mine when I was even a kid), however, I finally could jump at the opportunity to study abroad, and of course I will cherish it.
I know some of you may be interested in my self-description at the end of very article, actually I myself also find it interesting to have such complicated personalities. They are closely related to the life experience of mine. Some of you may have read my article “A conversation” in this forum, which reveals the unpleasant experience of mine in the junior high school. At that time I was poor in my study and with my teeth in disorder, and therefore a group of naughty male classmates just sneered at me, which made me hurt resulting in a sensitive and fragile state in psychology from that time on. Seven many years passed, suffering from the psychological problem, I always urged myself to do everything best to prove that nobody has the right to laugh at me, which made me go extremes. It’s not until I met my former best friend and had a conversation with her that I was aware that I shouldn’t have used others’ ignorance and fault to punish myself. I finally learnt how to forget and forgive and set free from the entire heavy spiritual burden I used to shoulder. One and a half years ago, I had my teeth straightened successfully, which made me worry nothing about my appearance, meanwhile, with what I’ve achieved I turned out to be more confident than ever.
I planed to go further study in journalism abroad this February; hence, I went to the local press (TV station first, and then shifted to the local Evening paper) to work as a trainee journalist since I graduated. I worked extremely hard like a sponge, absorbing everything new I saw, heard, and felt. From that time on, my life was occupied by various interview tasks, and I found I love meeting different people, sharing their marvelous stories and life experience, and this fulfilling and significant work enables me make progress everyday, resulting in a even more confident and optimistic attitude towards life.
I’m actually a typical Taurus girl, very obstinate or even self-indulgent, but very frank and faithful to my friends. I like the ocean and the sky so much that blue turns out to be my favorite color. Meanwhile Joan is my real English name, which has the same pronunciation as my Chinese name. These two factors account for the origin of my nickname as joan plus blue.
I take up so many hobbies that my life is full of boundless joy. I fell in love with writing and reading from primary school. I get so used to putting down what is happening around me in diary when I was a little girl, and I like to write short essays, novels in both English and Chinese. Besides writing, reading materials as modal composition books, cartoon series, all kinds of magazines, romantic stories, and English newspapers are all my cup of tea. I don’t merely read these things, but also take notes in the exercise books, with some beautiful pictures of cartoon character or movie stars pasted as decoration (I bet many girls like to do the same thing as I do). I like watching sports competition very much, especially the ball games, such as tennis, NBA, volleyball, badminton, and table tennis. Like other girls, I take fancy in shopping, especially these fashionable things. Then, working as a trainee journalist, I surprisingly found that I tend to accept things more easily, and are always curious and interested in things around me, even these things that I disliked in the past. I gradually like to listen to the noisy music, especially hip-hop, so is traveling, though I often suffer from carsickness, and the most important thing is I’m almost crazy about news items. I pick up such kind of programmers when watching TV. Finally, having a better understanding about the hardship of working, I explore boundless happiness when I am in the kitchen. I just find cooking a big and splendid meal for my beloved parents from hard work can always make me smile from the bottom of my heart.
All right, it seems I have talked too much, so much for my self-introduction, I sincerely hope that I can make more friends in this forum.
