First Year Writing

Xuan Guo
Self-portrait
Oh, caves. so many caves.
I think I've been to more caves than I can count. Although it is an exaggeration to say
that there are too many to count (the number is definitely within the number of my
fingers), indeed, I can't count exactly how many I visited. I rarely recall how many
placeless I have been and where I have been. Only the vague memory fragments
hidden in the depths of my mind can tell me that I have been on more journeys than I
remember.

Traveling with classmates and teachers.

Many trips I have been on are taken with teachers and classmates.
I rode a bicycle on the main road and followed a large group of troops to the next cave
among the mountains and forests. We walked through the dark and damp stairs,
watching the artificial light sources dye the stalactites with astounding colors. I
remembered that when I was riding back, I kept blowing air into the long bamboo
whistle in my mouth. I was immersed in the tremors caused by the bicycle when
going up and downhill, and I was unaware of how the sound I made could affect
others.

One time at a market in Guilin with classmates and teachers.

I was on a night market street lined with people and stalls, and I took a fancy to the
sticky pig-punching bag that the stall owner was trying to sell. At the exit of the night
market, we stood and watched the green laser pointer driving the passionate rhythm
on the peaceful street outside of the market. Behind us are the classic-styled buildings
of Guilin. Market stalls are between two rows of buildings. The flow of people going
back and forth is shining with red light in the dim night. Although I was in an
overwhelming crowd, following a team of people I was familiar with, I felt nothing
but excitement.

One time I woke up in a B&B in the mountains.

When I woke up after a day in the mountain, the teacher teased me about the dream
talking I made while sleeping. Her words brought me back to that dream, and it felt
like once again I shouted to a figure by the pool in between mountains and creeks,
"Jacob! Don't touch my fishing net!".

About that Jacob:

It was long after our family moved when I saw that guy again. I shouted in surprise,
waving my arms, and ran towards him: "Jacob! Is it you? Do you remember me?".
Unexpectedly, the response I received would be for him to retreat and evade in horror,
as if he had seen a human trafficker: "Who are you? I don't know you." His reaction
made me suddenly not recognize myself. I was very sure that I hadn't recognized the
wrong person, but his attitude of avoiding me kept me doubting myself. (Anyway, I
was very embarrassed at the time.) That was the last time we met.

Maybe it was after that that I started to recall things that I hadn't noticed in the past.
During that repeated immersion, I confirmed that many of my previous behaviors
could be called black history, and I made up my mind to forget them. The guilt and
inferiority complex I had at that time may have dissipated, but maybe only a small
part of it remains somewhere in my heart.

About my memory:
It's worth noting that reflection about time and memory can always impact my
perceptions of things around me. I have always believed that I am shaped by my
experiences and memories. I didn’t take into consideration that I ignored all the
behaviors I had done to escape my past. It was not until recently that I realized that I
had been thinking too much about my bad memories, and such things might be the
source of my lack of motive. So, the few paragraphs I put at the beginning of the
article are a talisman I want to build in my life. I hope that reliving happy memories
of the past will serve as a ray of light that can dilute my avoidance. What makes me
reflect is that I haven't recalled a happy memory like that in a long time. However,
because I pay too much attention to some negative things, many memories are stained
with negative emotions. Just like the memory about Jacob, many memories have
come to be associated with bad ends.

About me:
There will be too many things about me being left out in my perspective. So, to fully
address myself, I would want to try to use a third-person view.

Time is linear, just as language is. She, who has been unaware of the time she passed
by, is equally unaccustomed to the linear language. Words that follow words, and the
stacking up of phrases are things that she seldom uses. She is like a newbie starting to
knit, with threads tangled in confusion. Her mouth gives out sounds and tones twisted
like loose strings from a yarn ball. And her sensing of time, too, seems chaotic.

Think about it--- there is always a second before, a second now, and a second later.
Just like a spinning wheel, which humans can't break free. We are being carried along
by it, headed towards the end of our lives. Yet, upon closer thought, we don't move in
time as continuously as time is moving. The "us" from the last second is still the same
as the one in the next second. Though we experience time as it passes, our minds do
take time leaps all the time. There is at some point in our life, we can't accurately
sense the passing of time. Everything we go through is stored in software called
memory and this software that humans use is generally subpar.

Like this girl, who found that there was something wrong with her memory. There is
always something missing between her distant past and her recent present. She's
accustomed to linking her present with memories of the past, yet she forgets to build it
as a bridge that leads her to the future. In a sense, she still lives in the past. Not that in
her memory did she have ever told herself that she needed to move with the time.

This is something she didn't realize before. Fortunately, she still has time and energy
to construct her present, bridging the gap. Addressing the past from a different angle
gives her that energy. Hopefully, by this, she can gain what she never had in both her
past and future.

Thoughts on time 1
The tiredness from yesterday followed me into today. I suddenly found myself casting
a time voyager. Hiding away from the gentle spring rain on campus, fragments of past
days pop up before my eyes—the golden hues of autumn leaves, the crisp bite of
winter's snow under my shoes. At that moment, I revisited the campus under different
seasons. "Did I stay the whole semester on campus without a single night's rest just
now?" I wasted myself in a daydream, before shaking myself away from this fanciful
notion. Despite the efforts I made to brush it aside, I couldn't stop thinking about the
question left to me by this moment: “Why did time pass so fast?”

Thoughts on time 2
It is quite strange, sometimes our life seems endless, doesn't it? In between the start
and end of a semester, it feels like there are countless you walk around the campus.
On the contrary, it also is hard to not think about how our time has long started to tick
down. In ten years, I'll be thirty. By then, my knees might start to age sooner. If I don't
exercise, they'll surely start creaking in the future. After thirty, I might have another
good sixty years to live, or maybe just fifty. Then, as another ten years pass in time,
the time that is left in my life will also be subtracted by ten from my remaining days.

Think about it! My mom had me when she was around thirty. Now I'm in my
twenties, and she's almost at the age my grandmother was when I was a child. In a
few decades, I'll be like her again, until she fades away, and then until I follow her.

We're so different, but there's always a moment, or maybe all the time, when our time
in life overlaps.