Week Three Assignment

I will do my assignment on Chapter 3:

There are times when I feel really low or feel that there are no way to get out of the situation. When those times come, it's really hard for me to get out of that depression by myself-therefore I often ask for help from my friends and mother. Talking to my mother is especially helpful for me to regain confidence, and after talking to her, I repeat again and again that "time will tell". Sometimes, I just can't find a good way to solve the problem, and in those times, I always tell myself that time will tell me, and that time will make the situation better. I also tell myself that this is no big deal, that I have gone through more hazardous times before in my life, so that I can manage this time too. Another thing I do is to smile in the mirror, even though I may feel like bursting out in tears. Even though I feel really depressed and feel that there is no way I can manage this in my own, at least I make an effort to smile and jump and try to act fun in front of the mirror, which often helps to lighten up my feelings. Moreover, when I am in plight situation, I try to think about how fortunate I am--for example, how fortunate I am that I have a great family, have a nice house and have things to eat, have friends who support me through the difficulties, and the fact the sun still shines and the wind gives me cool breeze, and so forth. By telling myself how fortunate I am that I exist in this world, have so many things, and there are many people who are suffering even more than I am, I feel that what I am worrying about is not that big issue at all. I feel that I am even fortunate to be worrying about that kind of problem, considering how many people struggle to make a living every day. I think about all the things I have, tell myself how thankful I should be instead of mourning over something that is out of my capacity, which enables me to get out from the depression.

The biggest issue I am facing now is the fear that I may fall behind in the Chinese class. To solve this problem, I found that optimism is not enough- to stay optimistic is important, but at the same time I have to make certain efforts to feel that I am doing the best I can, such as doing all the work given in the class plus the extra work which I do during the jog and after/before the class. By putting a lot of effort, I feel good that I am at least trying, and is helping me to stay with the class activities. Although it is hard to catch up with the class considering the disadvantage I have compared to other classmates, I try not to excuse myself and see the reality, that mourning over such disadvantages would not make the situation any better. I tell myself that "I am doing the best I can, this effort must be returned". Studying hard and staying optimistic really give me incentive to work harder, and by working harder I get the optimistic feelings.

Sometimes the situation is so harsh that I just want to escape from the reality. It was so when I was trying to establish the drama club, that I sometimes wished I had never tried to built such club in the first place. In order to get back to reality, again I always relied on my mother and my friends for support, who sympathized with all the works I had to do and who criticized me for throwing away responsibility. I guess I was not a good person who made people comfortable telling me bad news, because every time the members told me bad news, I panicked. But now, after experiencing a lot of difficulties and hard times, I feel that I have grown up a little, and maybe if the similar things happened again, this time I may be able to manage a little better as I learned that panicking would not change anything. I learned that instead of just panicking over what had happened, it is much more efficient to think about what I can do now, instead of what just happened. Although it is much easier said than done, I am trying really hard not to upset over bad news, as I want the people to tell me the truth even if it is a bad news.