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border-top:1px solid #393939; clear:both; display:none; width:100%!important; position:relative; z-index:999999!important; height:90px!important"> <div class="adCenterClass" style="display:block!important; overflow:hidden; width:916px;"> <div id="footerAd_container" style="display:block!important; float:left; width:728px"> <iframe id="lycosFooterAdiFrame" style="border:0; display:block; float:left; height:96px; overflow:hidden; padding:0; width:750px"></iframe> </div> </div> </div>  <p align="center"><font size="4"><strong>On My 26th Birthday ...</strong></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="4"><strong><img src="../grapics/bd1.gif" width="148" height="100"></strong></font></p> <p><font size="4">As a matter of fact, for every year, my birthday is the day when my friends want to cheer me up as we all can have some dinner and some fun. But for me it is a day for me to feel ease. </font></p> <p><font size="4">I can feel some lively rhythm is beating inside me, and something is pushing persistently me to face myself... </font></p> <p><font size="4">On July 21 of last year 1996, friends and I also had a dinner in Flushing, NY, in a noisy Chinese restaurant. Then we also played some pool. It seems very routine in a sense. Nevertheless, as I recall the very same day of last year when I just left Bellcore but still waiting for the legal clearance from AT&T; when I was still 25 now is 26, I have to take a note at the invisible waves of time passing by... </font></p> <p><font size="4">And, I have to look back, to look at what happened to me within this year. It doesn't quite matter whether it qualifies as a good or bad year, it matters more for how far I have "travelled" from my "root". </font></p> <p><font size="4">This afternoon, strangely I started to picture that Manhattan neighborhood called "Yorkville" where I used to deliver Chinese food on bike, and that Chinese restaurant where I spent a big part of my age of 19 and 20. </font></p> <p><font size="4">I felt the impulse to revisit them, alone, for a strange reason that I could not understand until thesedays. I just came to realization that it is the period of time while I just landed this country and NYC, when I started to grow up out of naiveness and innocence, but at a price of feeling sour and bitter later now,after which I moved away from my "root", then onto my career as I am currently climbing up the ladder in this society. </font></p> <p><font size="4">Obviously, I would like to regard my first a few years spent in NYC as a "reference point", and attempt to see how much I have achieved on the top of it. That explains why my memories of that time have been burnt onto my heart, and how it can make me cherish whatever I have now. </font></p> <p><font size="4">Thus I can not helping thinking about what I will be on the very same day of next year 1998. I believe I will be better off than now, more mature, more charming ...... as I made wishes in Ste-anne-de-beaupre church of Quebec City. </font></p> <p><font size="4">It should conclude my random thoughts today. But I just remember among these wishes, I didn't merely wish myself well, instead, I wished all people that I love would be much better off, and wished God would bring joy and new opportunities to them, because even if I gained the world, isn't it meaningless if no one is going to share it with me ? </font></p> <p><font size="4">On this beautiful day of the 21st of July, 1997, I believe I have learned something as I am one year older.<br> </font></p> <p><font size="4">Yifan Wang</font></p> <p><font size="4">7/21/97</font></p>  </body>