Yea, so I'm back from the Social Sciences Orientation Camp. Hi there.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart, my Group Dads and Moms and my groupmates, LeeKamLuen rocks!
I love my group, the games were good too, but I couldn't help indulging in the mixed emotion I have for HKU during the camp. I know I looked confused and lost during the activities, but that feeling, that weird imagination of placing myself in the backdrop of CU Psy O-Camp just keep intruding on my mind.
I couldn't help wondering, is my choice wrong? did I make the wrong decision?
It's not that I didn't enjoy myself in the O-Camp. It's not that I didn't get along well with the campers. It's just, I couldn't quite bend in the HKU culture and at a particular moment, I felt out of place. And right at that second, the thought of maybe I'm better off at CU Psy went through my mind.
It's strange coz despite how much I love SSSP and LeeKamLuen, I can't extend that warmth, that familiarity, to HKU. I can't identify myself as a HKU student. I love the cooperation and sharing between groupmates, but when the lights were off, dark and quiet, I felt lost. I felt lonely. Can I make my way through these three years?
Is this detachment only a momentary failure to adapt to a brand new environment?
It's a relief to find out that Fanny has this feeling too. I feel so grateful to have Fanny around. After all we're the same kind of person, similarly quiet at first, but will open up and be passionate and even go nuts when we meet the right kind of people.
Fanny's right. We do not have to conform, we do not have to change, just for the sake of being accepted by people, just to ease the fear of being different.
Somehow I think assimilation is not to agree on or compromise with the new culture entirely, it's about translation. The art of translating your indiviuality, your origin, into the new alienated culture, and then create your own version own principles to make sense of the world. Perhaps there's pressure to conform, but isn't university education supposed to make you an independent person with a critical mind? It's about how to assimilate into the new environment without losing your personality and your principles, it's about taking the good things in and bad things as warning, it's about how you can generate a road to success without losing your dignity.
And then my mind is clear. The knots which are stringing my mind are eased. I'm still confused. I'm still frustrated. Problems and difficulties are ahead of me, but I have a vague idea of what I'm going to do, how I can survive in this brand new environment which I know so little about. I have to assimilate, I have to learn to appreciate the differences, I have to change in the way I prefer, but I do not have to conform, I do not have to comply with and agree on everything in the new culture. Maybe conforming and surrending make things easier but I'll be myself. I'll be me.
It's true how my Group Dads and Moms said, you can choose to do what you want in university, just dun regret after the decision is made. Yea, so I won't regret choosing HKU, I won't regret choosing SS, because living in an environment which I'm familiar with for too long is never a good thing, you'll be become numb, you'll become lazy, you'll lose the sense to tackle crises.
There maybe much more challenges in HKU than CU, but that's what I've choosen and what I'm gonna do is to face the reality and make it a chance to grow, to learn, to mature.
Taking Dino's words, "向高望, 向前望, 唔好向後望", there's no use in pondering in the past, in the decision made, in the things that I'm powerless to change.
I'll move on. I'll develop into the Christy I wanna be. Because that's just me.
I'll have the Soler courage in me. Follow my dream, make it real.
It's miraculous how Soler has such impact on me, but everytime I listen to 海嘯, I feel so encouraged and touched, it's like a warm gentle yet enduring flame glowing in my heart my soul. Soler's always out there working so hard. Loving their music, loving Soler as who they are, I should be working my ass off too. I know, Soler's with me.
Oh I'm literally shedding tears.
海嘯 Soler
別要我洗去 我的雙腳泥濘
沉淪在這夢裡 我不想清醒
跳上這快車 終點方向未明
沿途上渴望可找到新風景
沒法去帶走 頃刻璀璨繁榮
寧願倦了一生 追趕超新星
意志經耗損 我的心卻未停
誰人又會了解究竟應不應
如海嘯 如山崩 仍不使我卻步
仍繼續尋找這片星宿
即使凍 即使重 前方充滿問號
仍甘心 仍堅守 猛風都吹不倒
別要我洗去 我的雙腳泥濘
沉淪在這夢裡 我不想清醒
跳上這快車 終點方向未明
沿途上渴望可找到新風景
即使多冷清
如海嘯 如山崩 仍不使我卻步
仍繼續尋找這片星宿
即使凍 即使重 前方充滿問號
仍甘心 仍堅守 猛風都吹不倒
怎都吹不倒 怎都吹不倒
I believe in the Soler dream.
