Wandering in the Fields
By Orson Yu, freshman of Medical Department
On November 30 1985, exactly 150 years after Mark Twain had come to the world, I was born to a middle-class family. I believed that since the person who vivified Tom Sawyer and I share the same birthday, I had somehow inherited much of the curiosity and naughtiness from him.
The similarity between the wayward novel character and I were evident even when I was just a little child. Soon after I learned how to walk, I used to play hide-and-seek with my parents in our small house. Later, as I had learned the ropes to ride a bicycle, my family finally recognized that they ought to set regulations for me, otherwise they might soon be tired of seeking me, just as Tom's relatives.
However, things began to change before long. After my father taught me how to read and count, I started to lead a more sedentary life. I have read or daydreamed instead of causing troubles. It seemed that education was a good way to distract a small demon.
Among the daydreams I had, the one I found it hard to forget occurred to me when I was 6 years old. On that special morning, I miraculously began wondering whether my actions and thoughts were set before I ever acted it out, just as an actor acted in accordance with a written script. Were this true, the fact that "I was thinking of whether my actions were fixed in a script" was also written in the same scenario. Therefore, my realization regarding "contemplations about what I was considering was set in a script were also written in the same scenario" was typed in the script, too. And the sequence went into infinity. After the headache arose from this discourse finally faded away, I decided to be more realistic about my daydreams.
Very soon, I had reached school age and started my education in schools. Luckily, I was admitted to the honored class, getting plenty of extracurricular courses such as monographic studies and scientific experiments with students in higher grades. And one of the experiments has decisively turned my daydreams into another direction up to now.
It is a chemistry experiment entitled "Simulating the Phenomena of Life". Following the directions, we concocted a certain electrolyte with care, and then put a grain of metal into the liquid. The instructor asked us to observe and take down all the observable changes inside the test tube. During the next hour, what amazed us were the branches and leaf-like parts growing from the granule. As the plant-like stuff grew more and more luxuriant, the whole thing bore more and more resemblance to a waterweed. Most of us even expect it to blossom and to bear fruits as we waited for the slow but steady growth.
Although our expectations continued to bloom, the instructor requested our attention and threw in a question that I find too hard to answer: "Is the thing you observed any less than a being? Justify your answer." "What a difficult question!" I exclaimed. Before I could come up with well-grounded reasons, the teacher conducted a survey of our answers. "Raise your hand if you think it is a living thing." I could see that most of my senior classmates chose this option. "And for those who consider the whole thing should not be viewed as an organism, please raise your hand." I raised my hand hesitatingly, wondering whether this was the correct choice or not. Maybe I was the only one who selected this choice, the teacher asked my reasons.
"I just think that life can not be made so simply." After I said this, I felt an embarrassing pause pervaded the laboratory. As Rabindranath Tagore wrote, I firmly believed that life is a perpetual surprise. Every creature was made with dignity, and all living things received their lives elegantly. After a bewildering explanation that followed, I finally realized that the stems and leaves were merely crystals of chemical compounds. Although I had guessed correctly, I began to make head or tail of what Isaac Newton had once said:" To myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me." Studying science is like reading detective stories, and I was looking forward to be one of the detectives.
Later, I have participated not only in science fairs, but also in all kinds of academic contests, hoping to sharpen research abilities. I have won the third prize in school science fair, got a bronze medal in National Computer Science Contest for High School Students held by the Ministry of Education, and been awarded for excellence service in Computer Network Center of Chien-Kuo Senior High School. I have also been elected as an Academic Department commissioner of Information Club during my high school years, and the Minister of Academic Department of Philosophical Thinking Club in college. Moreover, I had been admitted to enter the imperial examination hall as a student representative to examine the test questions on JCEE in 2004. To me, these credits very much resemble postcards with majestic scenery photos on it. They are nothing more than encouragements deriving from some glorious past. What is really magnificent is the real scene where the photos were taken. Genuine knowledge is the scenery, and that is what I pursue.
As Jonathan the seagull put it: "The gull sees farthest who flies highest". Once I was a Huck Finn who troubled my family a lot. And now I wish I would be a Peter Pan in the field of life science and realize my dreams concerning unraveling the mystery of life. I am still on the way to the hall of knowledge, playing and wandering around the fields, just as a naughty boy would do.
http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~avwrite/consultation/Yu.htm
