My Embodied Player

My idea of my embodied player comes from the movie "Rise of the Guardians" in which Children's sweat dreams are protected by several guardians. And my embodied player is in the same corner with them, somewhat differently, her mission is to protect children's innocence and imagination.

Her name is Petite, she is a cute little angel with special attributes and powers a normal angel should have. She can fly fast, stay in the air, and is invisible to human beings. Maybe she is not the most powerful angel, however, she is the only one assigned to protect children's innocent world. Her two most powerful enemies are time and reality; with her weapon, jasmine light beam, time will be stopped and reality will be immediately transformed into phantasmagoria.

Although she should be always alert to her enemies, she knows how to enjoy her spare time. She lives in a cozy, comfortable wooden house built on the clouds. She really enjoys standing on the balcony, watching how children's innocent world is being constructed by their imagination where anything is possible and beautiful; She also likes lying on the sofa, reading books while listening to some light music.

She protects children's innocent world; simultaneously, she refuses to grow up. Although she knows how sophisticated and sometimes ugly the adults' world can be, she protect her own innocence cautiously from the invasion of her enemies.

(To be continued ...)

Happy Chinese New Year

Last Saturday, Feb 9th, is Chinese Spring Festival, also known as Chinese New Year based on the lunar

calendar. One of my friends, Jie, invited me together with some other friends to his apartment to spend the festival together. It is a great opportunity for us international students far away from hometown to celebrate the traditional festival together and meet new friends from different parts of China. The party started from 11 AM and we had hot pot for lunch. Since it's the first time to meet for some of us. The lunchtime talk is basically focused on self-introduction and ice breaking. After that, we divided into two groups to play. One group (5 persons) played a card game called "Wars within Three Kingdoms (Sanguosha)", a very popular game among Chinese international students; the other group (5 persons) played Wii U games, and I am one of them. Our favorite Wii U game is called  "Ghost Hunter". Basically, one person needs to be the "ghost", the rest 4 should constitute a group of ghost hunters. During the game, the ghost is invisible by the hunters and can attack the hunters without being noticed; what need to be done for the hunters to win is to use the flashlight to shine the ghost for several times (when the ghost approaches, the others' game handles will vibrate).  

Playing games together is really a good opportunity to build friendship within a short time. Since we are so involved in the game, what we care most is teamwork, efficiency, competition and, most important, fun. Playing games is also a chance to better know others. After several rounds, I have a better idea about who is even-tempered, who is imprudent, who is tactical and who is weak/innocent. No matter how mach we differ from each other, what we have in common is that we are all pretty serious about and enjoying what we are doing. The "ghost" will scream extremely loud while being shined; in the same way, hunters will jump up and cheer and hi  five.  These emotional expressions are our spontaneous reactions to what is happening to the characters in the game, who are also the projections of ourselves. 

And for the New Year Eve dinner/ Family Reunion Dinner, which is the most important part for Chinese to celebrate the festival, we made North China style dumplings. We Southerners often won't make dumplings, so it was a lot of fun for us from the South to watch the Northerners making dough. And we were so excited to learn from them.

This week's "play assignment" brought me so much fun and most important, new friends! 

Ice Skating

Last week, I went ice-skating with my friends. I don't know exactly the name of the rink, but it is in town.
I know how to roller-skate and had abundant experience of doing that when I was young; while ice-skating is a totally new experience for me. Therefore I was so excited and really looking forward to it.

During the first 20 minutes in the rink, all I could do is to catch the wall and move extremely slowly with great care. Sometimes, I'll nerve myself to move without the help of wall. But I can only insist for several seconds and ran back to the wall. Especially when somebody was skating towards me while I have nothing to depend on, I would be scared to death. And to avoid being knocked down by others, I'll slowly kneeled down and then just lied down on the ice. This is the only way I can think of to keep myself safe at that kind of hopeless situation.

After several rounds of going back and forth from the wall to the lane, my roller-skating experience stored somewhere in my brain was becoming strong enough to conquer my fear. Finally, I can skate! Although my gesture is a little bit wired, I become enjoying the freedom on the ice. Maybe because of human being's inherent desire for speed, I just cannot help to speed up.

We stayed there for around an hour. My feeling is from excitement to fear, and from fear to enjoyment. I think if more time is allowed, it it possible for me to reach the peak experience called "flow". I had the feeling that I was close to that stage because while I was skating, I didn't pay any attention on how my legs move, I was more concerned about my joyful feelings that freedom and speed brought to me.

I am looking forward to the next time :)

Childhood Play Story: Hide-and-Seek

Actually this week I didn't play much! Because one of my close girlfriends just broke up with her boyfriend whom she loved so much and are extremely depressed; to help her, I asked her to live with me for a few days.

The other night, she was too sad to go to sleep, to cheer her up, I shared some of my funny and sweet childhood stories with her. One of the story I told her is the "Hide-and-seek" game:

I have several friends growing up with me together. We had lived in the same living quarters built for the staff working in a medicine company where our parents worked for for around 18 years. When I was in primary school, we spent a lot of time playing hide-and-seek in our yard. We set up our rules that: 1) Do not run out of the front door of the living quarters; 2) If you find someone, you should also catch him to win. One time when I was the "cat", I found two targets, one is a boy, named Hang; the other is a girl, named Jiao. Once I found them, I quickly ran to them and almost back them into the front door which is the boundary we first set up. It was at that time that Hang played a trick, he suddenly took off his pants while still running. I didn't realize that he could be so "shameless"; I instinctively covered my eyes with my hands and stopped chasing them. Therefore, they got a chance to run away. 

I also told her some other funny stories, like field trip organized by ourselves with our parents sponsoring us financially every winter and summer vacation; peeking adults taking shower in public bathroom; playing pranks on odd neighbors we didn't like ......

After two hours of storytelling, my heartbroken girlfriend finally fell asleep, BUT, pathetically, I was too excited to fall asleep, still soaking myself in those sweet childhood memories. It took me at least another hour to finally go to sleep.

The reason why I value play so much is not only because of it's developmental and educational function which I cherish as a graduate student in Early Childhood Education, but also due to my authentic play experience from which I gained tremendous happiness and intimacy with my friends at that time when I was a child and these experiences continue to bring me positive energy along the way.

Winter Vacation

This winter vacation, My boyfriend Xuan and I visited my uncle and his family in San Jose, CA. We really had a great time there. Being with family members in a foreign country can heal my homesick to a great deal ^^, which DOES NOT mean I am not loving US :)

We've taken a lot of pictures, but don't have time to organize them (too busy with traveling). Therefore, this weekend, Xuan and I spent sometime to sort them out. While we were going through these pictures, sweet memories jumped out from time to time. And we laughed a lot! 

We planed to choose some pictures to make a heart-shaped photo wall in my bedroom; however, maybe due to the size of these pictures, we failed to print them out. Although feeling a little bit upset without finishing the photo wall, we enjoyed a lot during the selection process. 

I like being with the ones I love, even doing nothing. It is them that make me fell safe and accomplished. Especially when I am suffering from self-doubt, while thinking of having them in my life, my worries just extinguishes.