My friend, Catice, has been an important part of my life since we were senior high school students. I met her when I was in my third year in junior high school, and she was my classmate, but we didn’t know each other very well until we became first-year students in senior high school. We not only entered the same senior high school but also were classmates again! In the beginning, we know nobody but each other in senior high school classmates, therefore, we became closer. Then, the more I knew about her, the more I liked her and was touched by her attitude toward life. She had positive thinking and unique ways toward things most of the time. something that most people dislike is often turned into something enjoyable. For example, there were chores like decorating athletes’ rest places when the senior high school held the sports meet, and many of my classmates felt impatient at these chores. However, Catice told me that although she didn’t like doing these either, it might be a good opportunity to improve artistic skills and learn something.

      Catice is good at dancing. She joined the aerobic club of our school, and need to practice three afternoons a week. Although the dancing master was very strict and the practice was hard, she still persevered in practicing and loved dancing. Every time I watched her performance, I was always astonished by the dancing full of power and beauty. From her dance movements, people could see her conscientious attitude and enthusiasm for dancing. 

She has good knowledge in Chinese literature although her major is electrical engineering. The games that we played most frequently were “the relay of Chinese ancient poetry” and “a couplet written on gate posts.” In “the relay of Chinese ancient poetry,” we chose one sentence of a Chinese ancient poem and then tried to think of the other sentence where the first word was the same as the last word in the previous sentence. As for “a couplet written on gate posts,” it is a traditional game between intellectuals in traditional Chinese society. In the third year of senior high school, a depressing year because of the exams, we often played these games while walking around the playground after dinner. Although we had much stress at that year, we felt relax and happy at that time.

We both love reading, but the books we loved were a little different. Her favorite kind of novel is science fiction and her favorite writer of science fiction is Kuang Ni while my favorite kind of novels is romantic novel and I love many writers. Nevertheless, we often exchanged our opinions of those novels to each other, and enjoyed debating. I think it is a good way to learn something more from reading.  

In the free time, we sometimes played computer games together. Our favorite kind of games were RPG games. When we played, we discussed how to finish the missions that the game gave us, the roles we liked and the good or the bad part of the games’ design. Although our opinions were often different, we still had a good time.

Because she joined the Chinese shadow boxing club of her university, she would teach me to practice boxing in the vacation. I was really not good at exercising, so she often need to teach me again and again. However, she still taught me patiently and guided me practicing the movements repeatedly until I got the right actions.

Catice has a characteristic which can calm anxious people down. Every time I felt anxious and was on the edge of hysteria, she would come and listen to me. Sometimes she would give me advice but most of the time she just listened carefully and didn’t say anything. With her, I always felt calm, comfortable and happy.

      Catice is such a gentle and sincere friend to let me feel relax. She is always with me when I feel depressed and she tries to make me think in a positive way. To me, she is my very important friend and the days with her are precious parts of my life.