Cao Jingxing, Class 3, Senior 1, Shenzhen Foreign Languages School Instructed by Fan Yichen When it comes to my favorite things, I have come up with a lot of ideas: my favorite book, my favorite movie, my favorite sport and so on. But finally, I’ve made up my mind to share something with you closer to my life — “my favorite transport,” which is the underground. One of the reasons why I am fond of this means of transportation is that taking the underground is convenient. There are more and more private vehicles on the road, leading to traffic congestion and environmental issues. Taking the underground, however, does not only save time, but is also environmentally friendly. What’s more, inside the underground can we do some reading in order to kill time, which we hardly can do on a bus or in a taxi. However, this is not the main reason. Taking the underground offers me an opportunity to look at its passengers: some are students like me, some are white-collar workers, and some are builders who work on construction sites. When I look at them, I can’t help thinking that no matter what do they do, they are all taking the underground for their dreams; so are we senior high school students. Sometimes we might ask ourselves: Why would we try our best to get in a train even if it’s already full of people? Won’t we have difficulty breathing in a crowded underground station? Of course. But the underground is actually a bridge, connecting our present and our future. We students take the underground because we’re going to school to study so that we’ll have a brighter future. As for those workers from all walks of life, they take the underground because they’re shouldering responsibility to support their families. We’re both competing with time to achieve our dreams. Life is like traveling by underground. However, there’s a slight difference between traveling by underground and living our life, because there’s no destination in real life. If I use the simile more accurately, it will be: Life is like traveling by underground without knowing our destination. We’ll never know what the next stop will be like. Some places are too crowded to endure with, and others might be so attractive that you wish to stay for at least one more minute. Sadly, the train schedule won’t wait for anyone. Time won’t wait for anyone, either. What we should do is to enjoy the magnificent sceneries during the trip. As long as we spare no effort to make good use of our journey, no matter what the destination is, we won’t regret our choices. Now and then we will find someone working “too hard” as we might describe them, but I don’t think there’s really a degree of working “too hard.” Studying and taking exams is like going into a crowded carriage of the underground. There are so many people around us, but the carriage can’t hold that many people, so all we can do is to work hard and make our way through the carriage, since we all hope to reach our destinations sooner. There’s a famous saying by Karl Marx:, “Life is like an ocean. Only those with strong will can reach the other shore.” That may be the most important life lesson I’ve learn from the underground. I bet as long as we have our dreams and are determined to achieve them, they’re sure to come true. | 