Wish you bad luck today

MaryJoy Sun ' 11

Once my friend asked me: " Do you know why the earth turns?" I shook my head. She laughed: " it turns so that I would not get stuck in a bad-luckspot forever."

Actually, she was right. Nobody wants to have anything to do with bad luck. That's probably the reason why we only wish each other good luck. Have you ever heard anybody wish another person bad luck?

Despite the fact that we try so hard to avoid bad luck, it is still inevitable. Here are some examples of bad luck that I have already experienced.

To become a human being, in the first place, is definitely bad luck. Our ancestors created this thing called society and made up repressing tools called laws. Sadly, we were born to be oppressed and restricted, loaded up with responsibilities, too. However, I used to debate whether it is better to be a human or to be a bug. Being a little bug means to be hated by majority of females, especially beautiful teenage girls. Compared to being screamed at and getting squashed all the time, I would rather just be a human, follow a few rules and lead a relatively secure life. Humans are the only animals that have the concept of future. Although thinking about tomorrow and planning ahead might make us panic or overwhelmed, I still regard this thinking ahead ability as a gift. I would rather worry about whether the world will end in 2012 or getting tangled in TOK class, than having to search for food, starving and running for life all the time. Therefore, in a sense it's better to be a human being. I feel my existence more valuable and significant. Well, maybe it's not such bad luck after all.

There are certain things we can do nothing about; one of them is a wall falling on you. May 12th, 2008 is a day I will never forget. When that huge 8.0 earthquake hit my hometown, I experienced the frailty of human lives. I was lucky enough to survive and later on volunteered in the hospital where my parents were both working. No wards or surgery rooms were available, because the buildings might collapse any second during the aftershocks. People died in the tent outside under the burning sun every single day. Our whole town did not have water, electricity or cell phone signals for 3 days. As time went by, the town started to stink, that was because countless dead people could not be identified or buried right away. I carried patients on the stretchers, occasionally gasped under my breathing mask, looked at the gray dusty sky and helplessly waited for the next wave of aftershocks. Nevertheless, it was also during those dark moments that I felt the power of united wills. The survived restaurants had people cook in half-collapsed kitchens and deliver food to the hospital every day. People from all over China and around the world came to support us. There was even a French medical team helping out. All of a sudden I felt so close to other individuals and so close to the vivid energy of life. I learnt to be calm and brave during difficult situations. I also learnt to be loving and helpful for others, because we are all humans, we have the same color of blood, and we are never alone. I always believed this bad luck brought me strong will power and faith in life.

Last but not least, the IB we are all facing or going to face is another example of bad luck. I hope everybody agrees with me. Juniors, don't giggle yet, this is just the first month. Wait till you reach the point when you hold a piece of cake in one hand, and a coke in the other, trying to load yourself up with sugar and caffeine at 3am, and then realizing there is going to be a biology test and history book review due tomorrow. Then you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, I personally think this is still a valuable experience, because we are challenged both physically and academically by the competitive sports and IB program. We acquire so much knowledge and learn how to arrange time wisely. We gain confidence while we become more mature. We are going to be the master of our lives at age 16 or 17 rather than 35. It is good to be prepared and ahead of our contemporaries. You will feel it after you go to college.

The inevitable bad luck in our lives is not there to fail us. It is there to make us better, because the things that don't beat us make us stronger, just like my cycling coach said.

Some people are born smart, just like some are born beautiful, but nobody is perfect. That's why we all get bad luck, so we can make mistakes, and learn from them. Bad luck is a actually a treasure of life.

So, please do me a huge favor now. Put your right hand up in the air, point to the person next to you, smile, and say: " wish you bad luck today".

They appear.They disappear

by Lauren Kessler

They appear. They disappear.

I have always envied women their friendships. It’s not that I don’t have friends. I do. But I don’t have a friend I’ve known since first grade , someone I could call at 4 a.m. who would hop on the next plane to come hold my hand through disasters great and small. I don’t have a friend I’ve known for so many years that I can’t remember life without her. I don’t have a friend who knows all my secrets.

I know of such friendships. We all do. They are the stuff of fiction and melodrama: the YaYa sisterhood, Judy Blume’s “summer sisters,” Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey on the beach. But these are not real women, women, like me, who have moved eight times and lived in six different states since graduating high school and with each move have shed more people from the past; women who have had to trade friends for kids because there wasn’t time to be good and true to both; women who have mostly kept their own counsel.

But it’s hard to be jealous of fictional pals.

Then I read a story in a magazine about five women who have been meeting for dinner once a month for twenty-seven years, and I was, for a moment, truly envious. These were real women. I cannot imagine the stability of a group friendship like that, the sense of history — the marriages, divorces, births and deaths, toddlers and teenagers that must have come and gone — the ease, the comfort, the fullness of time. I will never have that.