When I was in Berea,
I enjoyed meeting friends very much,
I think most of Americans like to talk,
and like to share the views with each other,
From time to time,
I also liked to make conversation whenever I was at my leisure time,
from classroom to food service,
from professor's office to our field trips.......
we discussed a lot of things,
from course work, family, news to life.
Some conversations are unforgetable,
and some of them did inspire me and always stay in my mind............
~~~~~~~~~~~
In my sophomore year,
my room-mate introduced me to a pastor's family of her home-town,
a happy family with four young energetic kids,
the young couple had a farm far away from the city and the mom was the kids' primary teacher,
each kid had his/her own school curriculum according to each kids' progress,
as they stayed home and enjoyed a special free-style classes from their mom,
The mother was very talented, kind, humble and nice to people,
she was the teacher, nurse, chef, accountant, manger of the house,
she also trained the elders to help the younger.
Her husband also praised her for being a nice mom and beautiful wife.
I was told that she was a straight A's student when she was in College.
thus, I asked for her study skills and
asked how she could get all A's for all the subjects in four years' college life,
She told me she was not talented,
it was luck ( just a humble way),
she just paid attention in class, studied hard,
and got to know what the professors wanted her to know.
I like her answer very much,
"know what the professors wanted her to know" is not easy,
in one sense,
if I got all A's, that means there are still things that I didn't know,
because the professor asked for only a small portion of the course work,
that means I still need to keep on learning,
if I could not get A's,
that means I failed to know what the professors wanted me to know the important things,
thus I need to study harder,
She was a very humble and beautiful lady I met in W. Virginia,
I still keep her advice and apply this in my life!
~~~~~~~~
Another unforgetable conversation was with my major advisor,
my Math Professor G,
on one of our field trips in Chicago,
I was admired by a team 's presentation of one big actuarial firm,
especially a lady in red dress with very professonional out-look and make-up,
at that time,
for a poor college student,
I was really thinking get into the career of actuary.
I told Professor G of my thoughts and the reason,
he told me that we should not just focus on the earnings or working environment,
or being dressed nice,
we should think about the value of ourselves,
what we really wanted to be,
what we could do our best to contribute to the community,
and most of all, being happy and enjoying the job,
The lady in red dress is still in my mind,
she had a very attractive and successful job ( outlook)
but still,
I think I quite agree with Professor G's advice,
even though the advice was given many years's ago!
