My Corner for Education

The other day one of my long lost university classmates accidently came across my old blog at another web site and she emailed me immediately. What a surprise! Internet has made the world a little bit smaller and brought people closer to each other. My friend found out that I did not bring any old university photos with me. Immediately, she made up a PowerPoint slide show for me with many of her personal photos. At the end of her email, she said that she could not find me visible in any of those photos. I was always missing in action? (Hahahaha…. NO WAY! I guess she just purchased those photos with "her" in the photos.) I was there in most of those events, but I was always in the background. I guess I felt more comfortable to be the “mother hen” who organized the events, but I was often in hiding or shy away from group photos. I am not really photogenic anyway. Hehehe. The slide show definitely brought back lots of memories. Thank you again my friend (O.F.) for your thoughtful slide show and the effort.

I felt at ease when I was at Fu Jen. We lived in Yung Ho city at the time and I had to commute to Hsin Zhuan everyday. The only way for me to be close to the campus life was to get a job by the university campus or in the university. I was lucky enough to find part time jobs and later on a full time position within the campus. My first two years of university life was evolved around the campus.

I was very active in extra curricular activities, student clubs and student council. For the freshman year, I was in cheerleading team. I still remember that skimpy outfit we had to wear while doing those Can-Can kicks with two pom-poms and dancing to the song, Eye of the Tiger. (I never liked that song anyway.) I had a great experience participating in the team but also realized the cheerleading thing was not really my cup of tea. The outfit sure got some unwanted attention, though. Hehehe.

The main student club I was actively involved was very small and on the verge of extinction. I didn’t really know how I got dragged into it. I just remember I was at the Extracurricular Clubs Fair organized by the student council. Somehow, without much knowledge of all the clubs, I got signed on to the International Philately and Pen pal Club. Later on, the Club chair, a guy from the Math Department, kept calling me up at home and asked me to help him out. I did not really like the way he organized the event and how he managed the club, so I did help him out a bit to do the leg-work. Eventually, I became the chair a year later. Go figure!

One of the jobs as a chairperson was to visit the Taipei Post Office Head Office regularly to help organize and sort mails sent to Taiwan from all over the world, from people who wanted to make friends with youth in Taiwan. I was good at doing that because I already had a few pen pals by then, so it was quite interesting for me to do the filing and sorting for the post office and to publish a monthly list for the club. I think I had up to 35 pen pals from all over the world at one time.

The major event that we had to organize every year was to set up an exhibition for our stamps collections and pen pals display. We consider the show an advertisement and a major event for our club. Every year our little club would put up a big display and invite fellow club members from all universities and colleges all over Taiwan to come visit us. The exhibition was quite professionally done. We would rent these display cases, design the setting and setup the display panels like a trade show for the week long event. That experience actually helped me get my first job as a convention and conference organizer after my graduation.

When a club was small with few members, the funding and support for the club was stretched thin. However, we all got to know the members in this tight-knit circle very well. I got along quite well with a few guys from the clubs. I often think of my old buddies and wonder how they are doing right now.

I don’t collect stamps any more but I still keep the albums from the old days. I lost touch with almost all of my old pen pals. I got to meet one Japanese girl Miyuki about seven years ago. She was engaged to a Taiwanese and studying Chinese in Taiwan. Later she broke off the engagement and I have not heard from her since. The only pen pal that I still keep in touch with is my first ever pen pal Thomas from Germany. I know he also reads my blog. I will definitely have to write about him and his family for another day.


To Be Continued…