confusion about my future

     I don’t know I should say it is a blessing for me to be distributed to the foreign language and literature department or not. Actually, the department I previously urgently would like to get in is international business department, for I somehow had an inexplicable affection to the works in the commercial. However, now I am a student of foreign language and literature department, a department whose students have a very wide range of future development. And as I read more books, talk with more distinct friends, and join in more lectures, I start to see more possibility of my future. I want to be a host of a traveling program for me initial desire of traveling around the world. I want to work in the architecture field thanks to a lecture’s inspiration. I want to work in a non-profit organization, helping the people who are in desperate need. I also want to be an interpreter, making it easy for two people speaking different languages to speak fluently. The possibility is unlimited, but I am not sure which one is most suitable, or beneficial to me. I am really confused.

What does travel really mean to me?

“I like travel.”

When someone ask me about what I like to do, one of the answers will be this. But to tell the truth, I seldom go travel. So why? Why I like travel?
Recently I have been asked about the reason why I like travel, but I can’t answer it quite well, and this force me to face the question seriously. WHY?

I feel a lot of happiness when traveling out. Especially one time in Kenting, I lied on the lying bench, feeling the soft breeze blew over my face, appreciating the clear blue water, and enjoyed the tranquility in my small space. I felt a great satisfaction at that time. And I think maybe it is that leisure time that makes me want to travel to other places more, and enjoy the fulfilling satisfaction again and again.

Besides, I really enjoy reading travel books. Through the writer’s words, I experience the atmosphere in certain places, and feel the fine of humans, appreciated the beauty of their architecture and landscapes. But I still want to have a visit to the place in person! Therefore, I want to travel.

So, to sum up, I think my original intention about going travel is to feel the happiness of travel, and wanting to experience the different atmosphere of distinct places. But I am challenged again. My teacher questions if the two reasons would be too superficial, and would it be too selfish that we bring a lot of damage and waste to the place I visit? I am totally confused again now. What does travel really mean to me? Maybe it takes time for me to really go on a travel, and finds out the answer by myself.

reflections after reading Ride Around Taiwan Island(島內出走

Ride Around Taiwan Island(島內出走) is a travel book written by FROG(蛙大). He traveled around Taiwan with three friends by bicycle in 16 days in 2007. After the trip, he wrote down the hard but precious process, and then combined with his delicate picture photographed during the journey, he published out this books.

After I finished reading this book, I felt a strong sense of wanting to travel around Taiwan detailedly.
I aspired to travel, but the place in Taiwan was never an ideal destination for me previously.
Thinking back, it is truly stupid of me. People usually praise Taiwan for “Formosa”, a beautiful island, but I, just regarded it as a title, and never try to carefully appreciated it, and cherish it.
I think I am greatly influenced by my vanity and the world’s predominant viewpoint; people are talking about romantic Paris, prosperous New York, or modern Tokyo, and then I romanticize them, and dream of going there. I just anticipate going to foreign cities, and forget to appreciate the beauty of where I stand.

Now, I will not be so stupid anymore, and will start to taste the wonderfulness of Taiwan from now on.