01
I went to elementary school in the village. The village is very shabby and needs to bring his own desk and stool to class. The school's only clock hangs at the door of the principal's office.
At that time, I always felt that the recess time was short, I didn't play enough, and I was often punished by the teacher for not being able to complete my homework on time.
My parents were simple farmers, my grades were always average, and I was never a good student in the eyes of my teachers.
When I waited for the middle school entrance examination, I naturally failed to be admitted to the county no. 1 Middle School with relatively good teaching quality. I was very disappointed, riding my bicycle to the fields, feeling very useless.
This sense of loss did not last long. A few days later, I was going out with a junior high school classmate. We went to the county to find an agent who said he would introduce us to Beijing to work and put air conditioning on people.
We are very excited to go to Beijing, and for those of us who have never been out of the county, Beijing has always been a dream.
On our first night in Beijing, we stayed in a dormitory of more than 30 people. At 6 a.m. the next morning, I set off with my master, rode my bike for nearly two hours to the air-conditioned location, and returned to my place of accommodation at 10 p.m. At 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, I was pulled up again for a meeting.
After the meeting, I couldn't sleep, lying in bed thinking about where I should go.
A fellow who was a little older than me talked and asked me why I came out to work at such a young age, and I said I didn't want to go to school. He said that for rural children, going to school is the only way out, and if they just give up, they can only work like him for a lifetime.
02
The next day, I resigned and went home.
After returning to my hometown, according to the story routine, I should open the open and hanging mode, pick the lamp to read at night, work hard, and finally be admitted to a prestigious university.
But this is not the case, I just went to high school at the county vocational education center, and I am still not a good student.
The management mode and education level of the vocational education center are very general, and I am very dissatisfied and often make trouble. As a result, I was not admitted to a prestigious university in the college entrance examination, and I was not even admitted to a specialist.
This time, instead of riding my bike to the fields, I went to my uncle's house for a few days.
My uncle had been a soldier and had seen the world, and he said to me: "Go back to re-study and take the exam again, if you can't pass the exam again, you will admit your fate and go to work in a down-to-earth manner." ”
The next year, after the college entrance examination score came down, after passing the second line, I was admitted to a university in Tianjin.
Although it is not a famous school, it is a serious university, and I have a lot of face in the village.
Before entering school, in order to earn a part of the tuition and miscellaneous fees, and at the same time exercise myself, I went to the county construction site, moved bricks, sifted sand, plastered ash, and did everything.
03
When I entered the university, although I received a scholarship, I also followed the crowd, skipped classes, and hung up on subjects. In the four years of college, I was very confused inside, I didn't know where my future was, I wanted to change the status quo, but I couldn't find a breakthrough.
I like to read biographies in magazines, and it's much easier to see other people trying harder than they are.
But the more I saw successful people, the more uncomfortable I felt, angry at my own indisputable anger, and more desperate for the future I could not envision.
One Friday, after taking a nap in the afternoon, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling in a daze, thinking of my college days, great youth, such a self is a waste of life, I want to do something different.
Cycling to Beijing is a good idea.
I bought a map that afternoon, and at 5 a.m. the next morning, I carried the map on my back and rode my bicycle through the city center, past Wuqing District, through Langfang City, through Tongzhou, and finally at 5 p.m. I cycled past Tiananmen.
In the four years of college, I did such a thing that could make a splash.
04
Towards the end of my college career, I was in a state of confusion and decided to go to graduate school.
During the revision period, I was very decadent and couldn't calm down. At the last moment of the graduate school, my roommates came out early and returned late every day, and I played cards in the dormitory every day. On the surface, I am going to let go of my life, but in fact, I hold my breath in my heart, thinking, when I graduate, I will go to do a big career, and everyone will be impressed in the future. I also posted a "talk" on the QQ space: Don't look at me for a while, and look at me for a lifetime.
On the day of registration, I gave up, I knew my level, and I didn't have the confidence to walk into the exam room.
When I went home for the Winter Break of my senior year, I went to my aunt's house. My aunt asked me how I was doing in the graduate school entrance examination, and I said that I had not signed up. My aunt was disappointed to hear it.
Graduation season is on schedule, and my idea is to find a job that can solve the urban hukou. This means that I have survived from the countryside and can live in the city. But their own university is not 211, 985, just a teacher training college, the major is not popular, high or low.
At that time, there was a policy of direct enlistment of college students, and I was ready to become a soldier. But after telling my aunt, she said to me fiercely: "The road of becoming a soldier is not suitable for you, you should go to graduate school again." ”
This time, I listened to my aunt. The day after I left school, I packed my bags and took a train to Beijing to the university I was preparing to apply for.
05
After arriving in Beijing, I changed my mobile phone number, deleted QQ, and wanted to find a place where no one knew me and prepare for the exam.
In the six months of the second graduate school, I hardly spoke, I did not belong to this school, and there was no one around me who knew. Every morning, when other people in the rental house are still sleeping, I get up to wash up and then go to the classroom to study by myself; When I came back in the evening, they had already slept.
When I was tired of learning, I went to a small forest to watch the old man play chess, which was all my spare time. For 6 months, I prepared wholeheartedly just like when I was re-enrolled in college.
The first day of graduate school was math and politics, and I felt that I had done well. The next morning, I took the English test, which was my most confident subject, but I didn't feel at all when I did the question, and when I finally wrote the essay, I could hardly write a complete word.
After taking the English test, my mentality collapsed, and I felt that I was finished when I came out of the examination room. Like a zombie, I walked to the cafeteria to eat something and came to the playground, as if it were a movie plot, and the sky was raining lightly.
I walked in circles on the playground, feeling that I had no job, that I had failed again in world war II, and that I had no skills, and that my future was bleak. I was flustered, like falling off a cliff, all the way down, not knowing where I was going to fall.
For two hours at noon, I had been struggling with whether to take the afternoon subjects or not. In the end, I decided to go, even if I failed, I had to leave a whole corpse. In the last section, I want to open, since I have already lost, I don't have to be afraid of anything, I can't answer it if I can't answer it, and I will do a few courses.
After the exam, I did not dare to call my aunt, but my aunt called me and asked me how I was doing. I said, "I guess I didn't take the test, and I feel very bad." ”
After the exam, I went to a good friend in Tianjin to stay until almost the New Year. I thought out a way out for myself, I wanted to check the score, see how I died, and then I went to Shenzhen, although I didn't know what I could do there.
After checking the scores, my score is more than 30 points higher than the score line of previous years. At that moment, I felt a rush of blood rushing to my brain, almost breaking through the Tianling Cover, and quickly called my aunt to tell me the good news. The re-examination was also smooth, and in the end, I was admitted with a seventh place score.
I can finally take the meal card and go to the school cafeteria to eat. In the past, every time I looked for someone else to borrow a card to help me cook, and then give people money.
06
A child like me, who comes from a rural area and has a difficult family, has never fantasized about going abroad. But going to graduate school in Beijing, studying and living in the city I longed for as a child, the confidence I built up made me feel like I could try to keep going. I also gradually realized that going abroad was not out of reach, and I might be able to succeed if I tried hard.
I think people have to always set goals for themselves so that they can be motivated. In this life, people still have to take advantage of the time when they are young and have no burden, toss it, in order to be worthy of themselves.
I began to slowly pay attention to some information related to studying abroad online.
The first thing I did when I was ready to go abroad was to take the English test, and I chose to take the IELTS test and go to Europe.
I started doing IELTS questions over and over again, practicing listening.
I chose to listen to "Friends", which I have always loved, whether it was walking, taking a car, taking a lunch break or sleeping at night, I had to listen to it and fall asleep.
I don't know how much this practice has done to improve my hearing, but there is better than nothing.
In the final IELTS score, I took 3 6 points, reading 8.5 points, a total score of 6.5 points. Although the other grades were average except for reading, they met the requirements of the average school.
At this time, a tutor in the United Kingdom was preparing to recruit a doctoral student, and wanted to let a teacher in China recommend it, and it just so happened that the teacher and my supervisor knew each other, and my supervisor recommended me.
I was competing with a student from one of the top schools in the country, but his IELTS had not yet passed, and the opportunity came to me. In the end, I passed the interview and got this PhD position with a full scholarship.
The first time I went abroad, my family cobbled together l million yuan for living expenses, and also borrowed l million from my aunt.
I didn't ask my parents to come to Beijing to drop me off, they just asked them to take me to the county's train station. If I went straight from home to the Beijing airport, I was afraid that they would be too reluctant and I couldn't stand that kind of scene.
07
On the morning of departure, 3 good graduate students and a doctoral brother drove me to the airport. On the way from school to the airport, I looked at the cars, buses, and familiar tall buildings outside, and suddenly realized that I was going to live in a completely unfamiliar place, different languages, different cultures, and even different eating habits.
I was looking forward to the next life and challenges, but I didn't know when I would be able to come back from this walk, and I suddenly had the urge to cry.
I said, "Brothers, I'm going to Edinburgh on a colorful cloud." The classmate said: "You are not driving a colorful cloud, but a colorful 'xiang'." ”
The tears in my eyes were smothered back, and everyone laughed.
After going abroad, I tried a lot of new things, learned golf, worked as the president of the student federation in school for a year, organized some activities, and also participated in some embassy activities.
Several papers were published during his doctoral period, and the final doctoral dissertation won the department's outstanding doctoral dissertation award.
08
In the three years of doctoral career, I saved some living expenses, and finally gave my family 20,000 yuan, returned the 10,000 yuan given to me by my aunt, and lived on my own strength.
I got my PhD and most importantly, I seem to finally know what I want and how to reach my goals.
I studied in the UK, and when I chose my postdoctoral school, I wanted to change countries. "Read thousands of books, travel thousands of miles", the words written by the junior high school class teacher in my classmates' records, I always remember.
I am no longer the rural child who thought that the work that could solve the urban hukou was the ideal job, and there was a different way of life, as if I could still do something meaningful.
If a certain research you do can create some value and be remembered by later generations, then this life is not in vain.
Article source: "Reader · Campus Edition" sharing content is limited to reading promotion and auxiliary purchase decision-making, the resource copyright belongs to the original publishing institution, friends who like magazines, you can subscribe to the magazine store!