For a recent journal entry my sophomore students wrote about their feelings on love. Dating on campus seems to be a little less popular than dating on college campuses in the U.S. and it is definitely more clandestine. It is common to see couples walking together or sharing a bike but their biggest challenge is finding a time and place to be alone together. That being said, if you walk around campus at night (before the 11pm curfew, of course) you can see couples camped out in dark and secluded places engaging in 'aggressive hugging,' a term coined by previous teachers used to describe what the students do instead of 'making out.' With that in mind, here are two journal entries about love:

"Campus Love"

"In this day and age campus love is appearing in more and more colleges. Meanwhile, there are still some college students breaking up with each other. From my perspective, I stand firmly that campus love is not recommendable.

First of all, on the occasion of falling in love, it takes students much more time to focus on it. Instead of concentrating on studying they probably will neglect the significance of learning. As a student, it goes without saying that we should spend our precious time on study. Every single minute is extremely important to us. What's more, for young people, being young is the greatest treasure for us students. Only by seizing every minute to learn, to develop the skills, and to promote ourselves can we get fully prepared for tomorrow's fierce competition and take advantage of it.

Secondary, it is common to see that lovers are sensitive about each others feelings so that they are easy to feel down in the dumps. Obviously moods do affect themselves and others a lot. Some day if they quarrel with each other, will they behave normally as usual? Their roommates must be influenced which makes the air heavy in the dorm. Besides, breaking up is the worst end of the lovers' relationship. Silhouettes of romantic stories that happened before haunt time and time again in the mind. Love is gone but not forgotten. Don't they think they are profoundly affected by him or her?

Last but not least, during out college time, the money we spend is almost from our parents. They pay for us to study here not to make campus love. Every time when we spend the money on worthless campus love, we need to fathom out why we are here in college. We grow old by deserting our ideas, but the fact is that we shouldn't forget our anticipated outlook; otherwise we are falling short of the goals of being successful.

As an old saying goes, separated as we are thousands of miles apart, we come together as if by predestination. Campus is still the place where we get our batteries charging. We will find our beloved someday, somewhere."

"My ideal husband"

"I think every girl in the world has lots of opinions about this topic. When we are just little girls, all dreams come out. When we read fairy tales, we think the fate of the beautiful princess is our future. When we grow up, we know that the tales about the princess and prince are not true, but the dreams still exist.

I have a dream that one day some guy whom I really love, hold my hands, fix his eyes on me and says 'be my wife, I will take care of you and be true to you. I will make sure that you have a strong roof over your head. If your answer is yes then no one will ever love you as much as I love you. If your answer is yes you will make me the happiest man in the world.

I have a dream that one day I will sit beside the window reading my favorite book. Suddenly a cup of tea appears to my sight, I look over my shoulder and smile because I know he is behind me. Then I relax myself in his arms listening to the rain hitting the leaves.

I have a dream that one day when I would be sad for something about work, he will make a wonderful dish for me, tell some funny things in order to make me smile and after dinner we could wash dishes together in soft music.

I have a dream that one day when we are both grow old, with gray hair over our head, we walk shoulder by should along the street and look back our time together while enjoy warm sunshine in the winter. Maybe we buy a bunch of beautiful flowers in a little shop to pretty our house.

Of course there will be some quarrels between us, some difficulties in our way, some news making us frustrated and so on. But we will overcome these. We could trust each other, help each other and love each other forever."

2 comments

1. Catherine on December 6, 2009 at 12:55 PM

   That is beautiful. And I have to say that "They pay for us to study here not to make campus love" made me laugh out loud.

    
2. Unknown on December 9, 2009 at 5:19 AM

   Agreed. I for one am haunted by "silhouettes of romantic stories" every day. Actually, I would ask the first student to consider this:
   "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
   
   I'd ask the second student to YouTube a speech I know of that uses the exact same anaphora: "I have a dream..." Pretty cool that she is on the same wavelength there. I might also teach her the term "anaphora"