"My Way" 征文大赛二等奖作品  作者：对外经贸大学 研究生院06级法学专业 赵海乐

UIBE was beautiful. Almost poetically so. Looking down from the window of my dorm there' s the Contemporary Literacy Museum. The first time I saw it from the dorm window it was sunset, a shimmering of golden evening sunlight reflecting from the white roofs. The blue houses towered over each other, with the shadows of trees swaying in the early autumn breeze. It almost felt like being in a fairy tale.

I still remember the first time I stumbled off a bus only to glimpse at the future graduate school, which I was applying to. It was a breezy day in July, with azure sky and whisps of clouds. I still remember patches upon patches of lawns, the tiny lake, the light purple water lilies with the lightest hint of pink on their petals, the willows, and the sound of wings in flight that greeted my ears. Maybe it's my eagerness to be here, or maybe it's only my natural love for anything peaceful------ but then, at the first glimpse of UIBE, I know that deep-down, some melody struck my heart. I just so much wanted to be here.

Ten months later, I was really here, with an admission letter and a taxi full of luggage. Finally I was one of those actually here, walking by the lawns with my books in hand, watching the doves as I sat by the tiny lake. UIBE WAS beautiful, but I just felt something was missing.

Surely I lived here, but watching the people coming by and going in and out of various buildings, I just felt there's nobody I could say 'hello' to. I was here, but I had no idea why I was here. I had wanted to come here, but all of a sudden I simply had no idea what to hope for, now that I was really here. I was suddenly lost.

Following the autumn was soon winter. Watching the leaves falling. Then just around the corner it was another spring. I busied myself in my schoolwork like a primary school pupil does. Graduate school was so demanding that I hardly had time to find out if I really was "lost" or simply 'mis-placed'. And only in the start of another semester did I have time to appreciate how beautiful UIBE was, once again. It was my first early spring in UIBE, watching the flowers, with buds barely poking out, then blossom, large patches of pure white, yolk yellow, light pink or tender purple littering the lawns.

As I extended my vision to the willows that started with the faintest trace of green, a familiar melody re-emerged. The very similar melody that struck my heart one year before, with dreams and yearning, hopes and determination.

All of a sudden I felt like part of this school. It was hard to explain why, but as I idly roamed the greening campus, I started to wonder which part of UIBE I had cast my endeavors upon, and answers started to surface. The stadium, on which I had passionately given presentations to my fellow students. The library, which I frequented at least once a week. The various classrooms, in which I soaked in so many things new and completely unknown. Westlaw, where I plunged into a new pool of knowledge. The list would go on and on. For me the campus was no longer a piece of land with impressive buildings, carefully mowed grass and busy people. It was in those "impressive buildings" that I shared laughs and jests with my classmates. It was on those lawns I walked by with the excitement of presenting my newest research to a full panel. And I WAS one of those 'busy people'.
I still couldn't say hello to everyone, but together we form the rhythm of UIBE. We are part of each other's life.

All of a sudden, I got to know what that melody really was. It wasn't only my melody, but a melody that connected me with UIBE.

I was not blindly accepting everything of UIBE, nor was I trying to change myself to meet her standards. UIBE was still here, with her beauty, her people, and her wisdom. What I had finally done was to embrace her in my favorite way, and to welcome her embrace in return… coexisting, inexorably inter-twined, a quiet peacefulness.