Let’s Be Thankful!

Last Friday, my teacher gave an ikebana demonstration at Ikebana International San Francisco branch’s monthly meeting at County Fairy building inside Golden Gate Park. I, with12 other members, displayed arrangement there. Before the demo started, each displayer was asked to give few words about her own arrangement and their thoughts of being thankful.


When it was my turn, I gave the name of the materials I used: eucalyptus bark, California buckeye, winter bud, and heliconia. There are too many people and things in my life I am thankful, I had no enough time to list all. I always discover something special to thank for. At that moment, I was so thankful that the buckeye fruits did not fall, since without the fruits, the arrangement would look very bad. Actually, two fruits had fall down earlier, my teacher and my friend helped me tied them back while I was making the arrangement.

Since the Thanksgiving holiday 4 years ago, every night before I go to bed, I think about the people and things to thank that day. I have benefited from the practice. I noticed that the level of my gratitude to my surroundings had significantly increased and that contributes to my over all happiness. In the beginning, my gratitude was limited to what I have and what others have done for me. Later, the list to thank keeps expending, I have more and more to appreciate.

This April, I attended a writing workshop. At the workshop, the students were given writing assignments to finish within limited time. I had attended the same workshop few times before. In the past, I had no problem to finish the assignments on time using a notepad and a pen. However, that time, I had my laptop with me and used Word, the spelling and grammar checks were on by default, that made the spelling and grammar mistakes visible to me. When I saw the red underline, I kept going back to make corrections. I failed to finish at list half of my assignments within the time limits. That was when I first realized how unpleasant for you, the Happy Monday readers, to read my grammatically incorrect essay every Monday. With the distraction, you have read my essays, gave me feedbacks and encouraged me to keep up. I deeply appreciate. It has been my motivation to improve my English writing. With the help and encourage from all of you, I will write good English some day.

Enjoy the arrangement, Happy Monday and Happy Thanksgiving!

In Friendship Through Flowers,
Yirou.

(11/30/2008)

本文有中文版。

A reader passed me an interesting article:
Fall of the Buckeye Ball