Nostalgia: A Trip Back Home and More

                  Hiking with my classmates reminded me of a time when I was younger. Every summer my dad would drive me up to Yosemite, and we would hike and explore the various scenery the park offered. My father is a very knowledgeable man; during our hikes he would often stop to tell me all the names of the plants. Jim McGarry reminded me of my dad when he began telling us about the the trees, and the moss and fungus on the rocks. All those memories came flooding back.
                 Hiking as a group brought me back two years ago: junior year in high school. It was by far the best year of my life. In China, my school planned hiking trips for every place we visited. All 50 students climbed up a mountain to get to the Great Wall, then continued to trek along it.  We stood at the boarder where Beijing meets Inner Mongolia. The view was amazing. All 50 students walked the plateau of Gansu (a  Tibetan area) to a monastery. Standing on the top of the hill gave view to the horizon ahead. All 50 students hiked a mountain in Yunnan (on the boarder of Laos and Myanmar) and on our way up, only rice patty fields filled our vision.
                 The hike up to all those places were exhausting, but the view of the landscapes were well worth every second of pain that ran through my legs. While this hike our Freshman Seminar class went on was nothing extraordinary, it was nostalgic. It was a nice get away from the city. It was relaxing to be surrounded by nature again. I wish I hiked more often.

Enrichment #1

             Confucius said, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."  After working in my aunt’s law office over the summer, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. It seemed like the most practical choice of field to study; the pay is great, my aunt could help me establish a network and gain connection, but there was something missing. It wasn’t until after I attended a group event for History/Political Science majors that I realized what I was lacking: passion. The speaker that came to our meeting was a lawyer, a very passionate lawyer. He talked about the type of law he pursued, cases he defended, and the different clientele. There was a particular case he felt strongly about, a woman being tried for welfare fraud. She was illiterate, and it wasn’t her fault; he won the case. The way he spoke about his feelings for the case and for his client showed that he truly loved what he was doing. I knew I couldn’t follow a degree in law; it would be a chore. That event helped me re-establish my reason for majoring in history

Enrichment #2

            I’m not one to voice my opinions (but that doesn’t mean I don’t have any). I rather listen to what others have to say. I chose to attend the Syrian dinner the Spirituality center was holding, because I was interested in what the guest speaker, a Syrian man, had to say about the civil war happening in Syria. He told us a scary story about the government. There was a lady talking on the phone to her friend saying "Syria should have an uprising like Eygpt". A guard overheard this and she was later arrested, along with her friend she had been speaking with, and also relatives of the lady. It was scary to know that the government would have the power to jail not only the person who said those words, but people who were not involved with the conversation. Attending this dinner gave me a new insight into the life of Syrians.