Annual summary and review of 2018, part A.

It's time to make a summary for the past whole year. To be honest, I had to say I exprienced a really momerabe year, during which happened a lot of things, all of them are mainly about my further education. Here, I will use some words to write these memories down, for myself and also for all of you. Because of the length of this article, I divided it into three parts, named part A, B and C. The first part (A) is as follows.

At the beginning of last year, of course the big point was the Chinese traditional festival, last year, I spent the festival day with my family in our home instead of returning back to the hometown, although we planned to do this for several years, however last year we did that for the first time, so that I didn't spent the festival with my grandma, I don't know her thoughts but, for myself, absolutely I want to stay with them as before. The new festival is approaching again, I don't know the arrangement of my parents, speaking out my own thought is seemly a very tough task for me.

Well, time went to the new semester, during this whole semester, the biggest problem surrounding me was that if I need to apply for a PhD education, which spent my a lot of time to think about. Another thing I need to mention is that I built this website as my own blog, which I think, is a perfect way to show my thoughts of my daily life, comparing with using the IM applications or the open blogs offered by the third publisher, I think this kind of independence blog, like HEXO, is quiet easy to use, because I don't care about the end components, e.g., database, of this blog, and there is no trouble about the advertisement, which means the mainly weakness of those public open blogs, such as csdn.net, would not be appeared in my blog. Back to the topic, I spent much time to maintain the blog, which I think, is worth to do.

In the middle of this semester, I also experienced a very remarkable trip in Wuhan. Originally, I went back there for my driving test, but finally, I met my old friend and tutor of my Alma Mater. Specially, I asked my previous tutor for help about the matter of applying PhD, and he gave me an extremely encouragement. At that time, however I didn't have any confidence about the application, as a consequence we discuss a lot about the necessity of PhD, the main idea of my tutor was that PhD is an essential step for a high quality life, especially beneficial for the next generation, which I fully understand now. Now, actually, I am working hard for the PhD as he told me.

Several days later, my cousin's wedding was coming. In last Labor Day, I came back home and attended his wedding, this was the first time for me to take planes. Such as the airport, check-in, etc. these things are all fresh for me, at that moment I didn't imagine that in the rest of last year, I went outside by plane for nine times and flying distances exceeded tens of thousands of kilometers. I spent a happy time in my cousin's wedding, and I took some photos of landscape there, which let me start to determine to buy a professional equipment, just like a camera.

At the end of March, we started to prepare the final check of the project we working on from 2017 to 2018. After then, several students including me were asked to re-build the whole platform in the customer's machines. The whole process executed in a very slow speed, and after finishing this re-construction, actually the summer vocation was coming. For usual students, this vocation was the time to practice their technical abilities in companies, but for me, as the plan I've made, I need to prepare for the PhD, so those days, I almost used the SWW (small wood worm), a specific application about scientific research, in which has many advertisement about PhD. At the same time, I found the news about the China Scholarship Council, which had a most important impression for me. After that, I realized that I need to have an English score at first, if I apply for the CSC program. So, an extremely hot, hardworking summer vocation was coming.

On July 23th, I took my first English lesson in the IELTS training institution. Every morning, I need to spend about one hour to go across several district to arrive the classroom due to the location of my university. What's more, last summer, the whole Shenyang was in a realty high temperature, which gave me a deep impression that I need to change the clothes every day. We six guys spent about twenty days together to study for the IELTS test, during which, there were four teachers teach us reading, listening, speaking and writing respectively. This training let me learn more about IELTS, though the first test after that was failed.

About this test happened on October 20th, I‘ve to say that the nervousness indeed made a negative impact for me, especially when I attended the speaking test. I almost couldn't fluently speak a complete sentence when I first sat in front of the examiner, which, of course, was the first time for me to talk with the real foreigner. So that it was no surprising that the score of my first speaking test was just 4.5, which was a quiet low score for examinees. Besides, the score of other parts of the test were not good as well, e.g. the listening score was just 5.5, which normally, I need to get 6.5 to reach my target. If I have to find a key reason for this failure, I would say that my preparation was obviously not enough. Also, the failure taught me a lesson that, no pain no gain.

Time came to the second half of the year, new semester was approaching, and I told my whole plan to my supervisor, which was a quiet difficult thing for me. But, surprisingly, my supervisor showed a fully encouragement to my idea. It seems that people with high-level knowledge always reach the same view. After that, I return back to the classroom to prepare the IELTS test again. When others prepared their graduated thesis, I spent almost whole time to learn English and contact with foreign supervisor. During this time, I always suffer from the sense of lonely. Trying to imagine that everyone was working in a specific direction except yourself, and you didn't know what would happen in the future. What a complex feeling! With this feeling, I spent the last two month of last year.

In November, there were four things need to remember, the first one was that I took a speaking lesson form taobao.com, which made my speaking ability up to a new level. My speaking teacher named Daisy, a kind lady, was always talking warmly with me and taught me speak English sentence by sentence with a great patience. We spent exactly 16 class hours together in about half a month. Almost every day at that moment, I spent about one hour to practice my speaking with Daisy. Another important thing is that I bought my first camera, a second-hand ICLE-6000 with the 16-50mm lens. But I didn't take any formal photos until Dec. The last one was the order of taking IELTS test in Vietnam, and as a consequence, I flied back to my hometown to handle the document, i.e. passport.

In the last month, I experienced too many FIRST things in my life. Mainly speaking, I attended IELTS test twice in one month, which was the first maybe also the last time for me about IELTS test. Then the first time to go to Beijing International Airport, the first time to use my passport, the first time to arrive Macao, the first time to travel at first class (as a gift from China International Airline) and the first time to go abroad (Hanoi, Vietnam). At that time, too many fresh things came into my life in a very short time, approximately seven days. During this travel or test travel, I had two partners with me, two enthusiastic little girl, actually they both elder than me. We three people spent this week together in Hanoi. The biggest problem for us was to decide what to eat. In these days, they spent much time to prepare test, but I actually walked around in Hanoi with my camera every day time or evening time. Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, has very crowded streets, and you can see motorbikes anywhere. And there are most foreign visitors, of course there are restaurants in every corner of street. This 7-days exprience maybe the most remarkable trip in my life, because I'm not really into traveling as usual. As for the IELTS test, the final result was that I reached the required score. Generally, I was a little bit excited when I got the final transcript, before that, I sometimes suspected that if it was right for me to walk into this way, but now, the result gave me a big courage.

Above all, I simply write important point here to make a summary for the past year, alternatively, this is also a good way, I think, to share my experience to every reader. 2018 has gone in the wind, and we all walk into the new year whether we want or not. In the past twenty days, which also belong to this semester, there also happened many things, participating the Graduation Ceremony, seeing graduated classmates off or receiving the invited letter from foreign supervisor of Utrecht University, every left me a deep impression.

Totally, by this time, I've probably finished all I want to say. Everything above was a long story and all of them impressed me deeply, as I said, maybe, many of them would not happen again in my rest life. So, I told myself I need to write something to record them, since memories could dissipate in my brain, but these words don't.
In the new year, I also have many things to do, have many problems to solve, have many challenges to overcome, perhaps I would be anxious before to face the situation, but now, I don't fear them anymore, and I will make full of my afford to beat every monster in the road to the final success! Come on, 2019!!!

Note:

I spent about six hours to finish this long article in one time, so perhaps there are some wrong places in sentences, after that I spend about 5 hours to collect these previous photos and make them into one picture. BTW, what I need to clarify is that I published these three parts in three dates, cause I want them to be arranged in order. Now, the time is as follows, obviously it’s time to sleep, see you tomorrow!