It’s been a while since I last wrote a diary entry. Before I knew it, summer break is almost over, and I’m about to become a second-year student. Another year of memories has piled up, and we’re going to have juniors of our own!! Things have been really busy lately. I spent the first month of summer break just goofing off, so all the work piled up until August, and I only finally have a little time to rest today～
This month has been insanely busy. I have so much to deal with: a mountain of summer homework, articles to write, and the club recruitment and freshman welcome events after school starts. But under all this pressure, I finally built a basic sense of time management XD. At least I sometimes get up in the morning to study, as long as I don’t oversleep. With this “unstable” schedule, most things have made progress. Otherwise things would have been really bad…
First, let me put in a plug for our club～ On Saturday, 9/17, after school starts, there will be a joint freshman welcome event for the information research clubs of seven schools: Songshan, Songshang, the Affiliated High School (Fuzhong), Chenggong, Jianguo, Zhongshan, and Jingmei. The clubs will hand out flyers after school starts. I’m currently the president of the information research club at Songshang. So if any juniors want to learn computers, and want to learn programming before their classmates do, come join the club～
Summer break is ending, and the lovely summer homework is about half done, I guess. The accounting homework, which was the trickiest, is pretty much taken care of. Next I need to review math, and as for English… I’ll probably let that one go. The time I have left is only enough to get math and accounting ready and finish the summer homework. The school doesn’t know what it’s doing: they asked us to write seven book reports plus a reflection on visiting a religious museum. I heard the religious museum reflection is optional…?
I went to see the juniors today. They seem very well-behaved, and they’re different from our year. I remember last year, when we went hiking, we talked the whole time 0.0 This year’s juniors are very quiet, and there isn’t the tragedy I imagined. Although the scores dropped, the news media didn’t write about it as dramatically as I expected… After all, it’s the cursed Taipei area… I heard my direct junior was even elected class monitor XD. After school starts, we’re going to treat them to drinks～～
But seeing the juniors also means another year has passed (sigh). It means I’m a year older, and that we’re a year closer to the joint technical exam and to graduation. Good luck on your exams, seniors :)
Today I went to see the film from Giddens Ko, You Are the Apple of My Eye. I think it’s a movie that belongs to memories, and belongs to everyone. I thought that since it had been in its word-of-mouth screenings (8/12～8/18) for so long, very few people would go today. But when I got to the Breeze Guobin cinema, I found out I was wrong. The appeal of Those Years was far greater than I had imagined. Every screening was packed!!
I think the reason Those Years was such a box office hit isn’t the director’s skill, but the story. The story is everyone’s youth, the memories everyone has been through. Especially for someone like me, who took the entrance exams not that long ago, watching it stirred up a lot of feelings. Many scenes are funny, and many are really sad. For example, at the beginning the protagonist gets scolded by a military instructor: “Jerking off in class, I’ve never seen anyone as perverted as you guys.” And in my middle school class, there was actually someone who did that in class….. Then there’s a scene where the whole class cursing out the instructor, mm-hmm, ahh… My take is: “Like!” If the school instructors saw my post, it would be funny, so I won’t write too much XD. But what they say makes a lot of sense: losing money is a small matter, but why should we have to suspect our own classmates!? You jerk! The last ten minutes really are a classic, and on our side the whole theater applauded～～ I won’t spoil the content, but if I have spare money later, I might go see it a second time. It’s endlessly delicious.
Some of the scenes in it are actually things I went through myself, so I can really understand some of the feelings in it. It’s hard to put into words…
We can’t predict the future. Whatever decision we make, we might regret it. People who have been hurt usually avoid love, afraid of making the same mistake again, like me. But sometimes you just have to try… Neither choice is right or wrong. Once you make a choice, you have to be ready to bear the consequences, rather than regretting it in the end. At least during high school, I’ll keep avoiding it, because I’m still too immature, I get too deep too easily, and I can’t handle it. Since that’s the case, I’ll just keep my distance.
“People often say the most beautiful time in love is the ambiguous stage.” Some feelings don’t need to be spelled out. It’s enough to quietly stay by someone’s side. Even if the ambiguity leaves you feeling wronged, a confession only pushes the outcome to extremes. If they accept, you’re happy, but if you’re rejected, you may not even get the chance to stay friends.
“Do you want to know the answer? I can tell you right now.” “Please don’t tell me now. Let me keep liking you.” If I could have been this clever back then… The answer doesn’t matter. What matters is whether I can keep being by their side.
“You idiot, you don’t understand anything.” That line sounds so familiar. I thought the person who understood me best actually didn’t understand me at all. Or maybe she understood me well enough, but whenever it came to certain things, people just ignore them. In matters of the heart, we always want to control everything with willpower. It’s obvious we were only blessed with the friendship, yet we insist on forcing more. In front of love, everyone is a fool.
If the person you once loved became someone else’s bride, could you sincerely bless them? I’ve had the same thought. To be honest, whether in the past or now, I can’t do it. It really hurts.
The movie also has scenes of exams and graduation, which reminded me of junior high and elementary school. Strangely, I didn’t cry back then, but now I’m making up for the tears I didn’t shed at the time. After graduation we can’t see each other every day anymore. Some people I thought I disliked, I’ve now realized, aren’t so bad after all. I want to cherish those memories of the past, but it’s already too late. Life keeps moving forward, and there’s no time for us to regret things. After graduation, apart from saying a respectful goodbye, what else can we say? After graduation, my dream still hasn’t come true. It’s a dream hidden deep in my heart. In this world, there are always fools who study hard for love.
After watching Those Years, I think there are some things I have to let go of. Not by forgetting them or making them forbidden topics, but by releasing them. After all, they’re in the past. What I should do is cherish the time we can still be friends, and cherish those memories, with their laughter and tears. That’s life. There’s no life without hardship, and when you’re hurt, you heal. In the vocational high school life ahead, I hope I can truly make myself an outsider. Being friends is already a blessing. Maybe after graduation I’ll tell you who I like XDD.