Raymond’s College Life at Tsinghua University, Beijing China 清华大学的校园生活

I wish that my friends and family won’t mind if I forget their birthdays. Being a boy who always forgets or neglects his own birthday, it is a bit hard to memorize or value the birthdays of many other people. I know that tools like Facebook conveniently and constantly remind us whose birthday today is, but it also makes me feel that birthday celebrations become tasks recorded on a to-do list. I should try to put myself in others’ shoes, but it is hard for me to imagine how happy one can really feel when many friends just spend a few seconds and type a few words and create a long list of stereotyped responses on Facebook. I do not deliberately forget their birthdays. I just feel my “Happy Birthday” is not necessary if they have already received a lot of congratulations on the birthday. Instead, I should deliver the “happy” messages on days other than a birthday, when the email box is not bombed with celebrating messages.

I also wish that they can forgive me if I am too busy on study or work to contact them. That is my fault. Love has to be expressed in words, and I am trying to make a change on my lifestyle.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the differece.
– Reinhold Niebuhr

When Einstein was working at Princeton, two students asked him after the final exam, “Why are the questions exactly the same as those of last year?”

Einstein replied, “Yes, but the answer has changed.”