Dear all, and dearest Mary,
I feel so sorry about your new one-line announcement. :P New visitors of this
forum may even think of you as a lousy "screen-refresher", which is seen now and
then on varied BBS's online. By the way, do you understand what I am saying about by "screen-refresher" here? I was referring to those boring guys who keep posting the same, or nearly the same, forum threads only to while away some time
or to have fun. "Screen-refresher" is a literal word from the way it is said in
Chinese.
It's indeed frustrating to see so few people are posting new articles lately. I
have no doubt about the enthusiasm our forum friends have in English, but why does it take so much effort to put on something as a root article? We always see
or read something that interest us, or annoy us, and our forum welcomes original articles about anything except what is seen no-no's for general mores. So why
so many find it the toughest thing in the world to write them down?
Actually it's about what's the toughest thing in this modern world for English learning. It's the difficulty to calm down from the hectic outside world to focus on what is welcome here: written English practice.
It's no longer the adults' privilege to have all kinds of worries, or temptations, desires, expectations, you name it, which literally constitute this bustling
world. True. The on-going exciting TV show is coming to an end soon ; the newest Hollywood thrillers have been downloaded and are to be enjoyed tonight; the damn exams are drawing nearer; they've been expecting you to join the cards game;
they say the latest version of Emperor Age is exciting; you've got to get prepared for the next week's vacation; the child's school grades are going from bad to worse; it's said that the position of the department dean is vacant; and your
long-anticipated online-purchased SONY PSP is already on its way...blah blah blash. The list of these items can never end. It's a colorful and thrilling life
to enjoy, so what is the fun in this language learning, which takes so much painstaking memorizing, so much attentive reading, and so much silly mimicking?
To reiterate, the toughest thing for English study is to calm down and to focus.
It's not that you have no time or have nothing to write about; and nor is it that your English is really that poor that you can't afford to parade your ignorance. The very truth behind all these various excuses is you just succumb to the
"lures of life". And another very simple truth is only those who struggle to resist the crazy temptations from the outside world have a chance to improve their English, the dream we've been long dreaming about.
To gain something, you've got to sacrifice something first; and it's the cost of
standing out of the crowd, and the rule of "coming up through the ranks".
So what are you rubbernecking around for? It's work time!
Pan.
