房婧 深圳外国语高二AP1班 Fang Jing, Class AP1, Senior 2, Shenzhen Foreign Languages School

    Since I was a little girl, I have been hoping to travel to places outside of the city where I live, places that are really fascinating, in order to enlarge the scope of my view.

    This summer, my dream came true.

    As a senior student who doesn’t have to take the college entrance exams next year, I was scheduled to spend a worry-free summer vacation on a huge island in the Pacific Ocean near Australia.

    My mom made a decision to stay in a small wooden villa there for about two weeks. I was quite impressed by the blue sky, deep sea and soft beach sand there, and felt complete relaxation in that fresh environment.

    When I indulged myself in the beautiful scenery, I simply forgot to worry about my task – learning to dive. It’s the craziest thing my mom has ever made me do. It wasn’t that I was unable to swim, but rather the thought of the bottomless, dark blue sea that frightened me.

    I couldn’t stop thinking about its scariness after my mom told me that she had signed me up for a diving course on the Great Barrier Reef. I even had a hard time falling asleep in my cozy bed.

    I spoke to my mom about my worries, but my attempts at dissuasion seemed not to work well. My mom said, laughing: “No need to worry, my dear, sharks don’t like thin people!”

    I lost my mood for vacation and tried to convince myself not to be concerned about possible dangers, to just keep alert when diving.

    I thought I was ready to face the music when I was standing on the deck of the big boat that brought me and other people to the island.

    I thought we would immediately learn how to dive, but the instructor first asked me to do a few health examinations. When I walked out of the health check-up room I saw my mom talking to the instructor with a stern face. When the instructor walked out of my sight, my mom walked to me with heavy steps. She told me that I couldn’t dive because of my history of asthma. I had asthma a long time ago and was soon cured, but that didn’t matter.

    I should have felt relieved when I heard that my dive training had to be canceled. But strangely, I didn’t, and instead was somewhat disappointed.

    I suddenly realized that it was not the fear of the sea that made me unable to fall asleep, but the excitement of trying a new challenge and the worry that I was inexperienced with diving.

    I discovered my weakness of being a coward through this incident, and also found my disappointment of being unable to feel the water in the deep sea.

    Since I’ve been back in China, I’ve always reminded myself to try and not be afraid of new things. I think I am starting to change and, little by little, be a brave girl in my life.