Under The Same Blue Sky

—–to my friend xiaonan

It was a special day. Because I was there in a chat room of OICQ. I seldom get into any of the chat rooms because I feel it boring after my time at high school.

That day， I didn’t know why,Perhaps it’s god who wanted me to meet you there， and then let us be good friends online.
　　
I still remember that I left my name“Nikita” there in the English chat room but was doing other things ， such as reading news， writing acticles ， chatting with old friends.I just didn’t remember that I’ve got a name there.

　But then I came back， and saw your message to me ：Hi， can we chat ？
　And I replied to you saying sorry ， but you seemed off line because you gave me no answer.
　“Are you there？Angry？Sorry， would you please forgive me？”
　“Hello ！”
　　
Still no answer. You must be very angry with me. Then I read your information. You were a girl. Strange!On OICQ ， there are few girls wanting to talk to the same gender. This made me happy and I did want to make friends with you from then on. But I thought you were angry.
　　
Well，when I was just about to leave, you replied： Still
there？
　“Yes ！” I was more than excited at that time.
　“Sorry ， I was answering a phone. ：）”
　“It’s ok. Nice to meet you. May I know why you wanna chat with me？”
“I like your logo” was her answer.
So that was the first time we met.
　
Then we chatted more through OICQ，after knowing you，I was myself again， seldom get into the chat rooms. But we were both happy， we talked just like oldfriends.Remember？
　　
Then one day I asked if we could exchange letters in ink.
Happy that you wanted so， too.
　　
We contacted each other like that all the time ， we don’t care whe–ther the letters are “snail ” or not. Yeah ， that’s why I called it“snail-letter”. It’s slow， you know. But the joy when we heard from each other is further special.
　　
Even now， we chatted online and write to each other，
just like real friends.
　　
I just wanna tell you that I really happy to know you ，
I am happy that you chose my name to chat， and I am happy
that you treat me the way I like.
　　
Let me tell you that I really want our friendship last forever！

The task given by the teacher dispersed my mood of laziness, which, in some way, is embedded in my nature. So, I have to write, and more importantly, to think. It has been a long time since I picked up my pen to write and to think with numerous stars blinking their eyes at me. Writing, long ago, was by no means a hard thing for me since I once enjoyed it so much that even my dream, my feelings and my life can only be realized by the ink flowed out from my pen at that time. Those writing days are moving, exciting and glorious part of my life.
That fantastic time began with my sentimental love for a girl in high school. That girl lifted the strobe of my feelings which flowed out from my pen, so clear and clean, that even many years later I still could recall my first poem without a pause, like watching an old movie, real though vague.
The love has been washed away by the river of time, but the feelings, is still there the moment I read this poem. I still can feel the innocent love of that boy, which sometimes console my heart and my soul, and encourage me to purify my feelings when I got hurt. If you have the experience of watching an old movie that once moved your tears out and still could touch you many years later, you will understand my feelings.
When I watched the shining stars in the dark sky, the idea comes to me that each of us once was born so pure, just like that star, shining out the innocent hope for the world. However, we grew up and matured with the day replaced by the night, the sun giving way to the moon. We came to know that besides the word “joy” there is also one called “sad”. We were struggling to stay the warmth of the sun, to evade the coldness of the night, only to find out inability and insignificance before this world. The spring never stays longer and the winter never comes later. We, finally, find that we are deserted on a place called earth, lonely and hopelessly. Have you ever thought why a child is afraid of darkness and why a man in agony always murmur a word “Mum”? We are weak, not strong in nature. We feel cold and afraid in this planet, and so we turn our telescope into the space, not only to search out, but also to search in.
We are born with many dreams and hopes, which, however, in some way are too heavy for us to continue our journey. We, therefor, have to abandon many, carry few. Nevertheless, even these few are not easy for us to realize. Some will succeed, but most will fail. Paradoxically, the joy brought by the success for which we are willing to sacrifice a lot is always ephemeral. We sacrifice a lot, but get a little. More often we will find the things we give up are more important than the goal we pursue. Is a meeting more important than the birthday of your wife, or a contract more emergent than your mother’s longing heart? To live a sober and full life, these things are worth our thinking.
Thank God, once again I can sit down to write and, more importantly, to think. I guess what I am writing here is neither an academic essay nor a research paper which may be preferred by my professor. However, since I have to write, I want write something valuable, if not valuable, at least real. Maybe I do not know the world, but I do know my heart. I know if I can choose, I would rather be an eagle circling lonely in the sky than to be a sparrow flying aimlessly in the crowd.

Facebook has formed a new Safety Advisory Board to make the site more secure for minors, following a growing number of threats from sex offenders on what is now the world’s largest social network.

As it has ballooned to more than 350m users, Facebook has attracted a growing number of registered sex offenders.

Earlier this year several thousand likely matches were identified on Facebook, prompting the company to suspend or remove the accounts.

“They couldn’t any longer hide the face that they were running into the same situation that every other site was,” said John Cardillo, a former New York City police officer who now runs Sentinel, a company that helps social networks identify sex offenders. Facebook is not a client of Sentinel.

Last May, Facebook struck a deal with the attorney generals of 49 states that included an agreement to find and delete the profiles of all registered sex offenders.

As part of this effort, New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo announced that more than 3,500 registered sex offenders had been identified and removed from Facebook and MySpace as part of a new effort to police online predators.

Mr Cuomo’s office said that 2,782 registered New York sex offenders were found on Facebook, while 1,796 were found on MySpace.

“Social networking websites have become the private hunting grounds for sexual predators and they often use the safety and anonymity of the internet to groom their next victims,” said John Walsh, co-founder of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and host of “America’s Most Wanted”, in a statement last week.

Facebook’s new safety advisory board will consist of representatives from five leading internet safety organisations from North America and Europe – Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, WiredSafety, Childnet International and The Family Online Safety Institute.

Facebook said it planned to meet the board regularly to review existing safety measures and design new ways to make the site more secure. The first task for the board will be to help develop a new safety resource with educational content for parents, teachers and teenagers.

“The only way to keep kids safe online is for everyone who wants to protect them to work together,” said Elliot Schrage, vice-president of public policy at Facebook. “The formation of a board to advise specifically on safety issues is a positive, innovative and collaborative step towards creating a more robust safety environment.”

But as Facebook continues to grow – adding more than 50m users a quarter – Mr Cardillo said Facebook would have to be proactive in its efforts to keep predators off the site. “The web is a microcosm of the real world,” said Mr Cardillo. “There are sex offenders in the real world and there are sex offenders on Facebook.”