Every time we came into Ring House, we could encounter an elderly who always wanted us to show her some pictures of flowers online. On our last Ring House activity, I was lucky to help her.  
Her name is Rose, which is identical to her favorite flower.  
Without hesitation, I logged on to the computer, repeatedly searching for pictures of flowers in the following 40 minutes. It seems that Mrs. Rose was a connoisseur of gardening, for she was quite familiar with most of the species and planting techniques.
“Are you eager to learn, young man? Or are you uninterested?” she would ask me. Through our conversation, I could see that Mrs. Rose was quite eager to share her knowledge on plants with others.
At the end of the activities, Mrs. Zhang, surprisingly, told us that Mrs. Rose actually suffered from Senile Dementia, a syndrome that confined her memory within two decades ago, in which she was strongly interested in gardening.
Mrs. Rose’s handicap is unfortunate, but it coincidently extracted her most glorious point. If one had to abandon all but one memory in his life, would they make their decision by their passion rather than rational consideration?
Mrs. Rose’s story reminds me of a Chinese benevolent commercial about a senior, who also suffered from extensive loss of memory. In a banquet, he fortuitously grabbed a dumpling in his pocket, claiming it was his son’s favorite food.  
Such things are essential for a contented life. One needs to have something that he ardently loved.
 
By Leo Li
Edited by Justin Zhou

​Ms. Rose is a senior citizen who lives in Ring House. She is a lovely person. She wanted to see photos of different kinds of flowers the first time I met her in the library. I felt surprised at that time because we are here to help with technology, but our job is to be patient and polite, so I started to research photos of many kinds of flowers. I searched rose first, like her name. It's a very beautiful flower, and she felt happy when she saw the beautiful roses. But she told me that her favorite is the flower with pink and purple. Ms. Rose told me that she wants to see beautiful garden in her hometown, Brownsville. It's in New York, and she seemed very excited as she talked about a fun story of her childhood to me. We were watching the beautiful flowers while we were chatting. Ms Rose felt tired after a while, and she fell asleep on the chair, so I told her assistant to bring her to the room. After a short conversation, I found out that Ms. Rose has Alzheimer’s disease, and she could only remember the things when she was young. She loves to see flower all the time, probably because of the love and dedication to flowers from the past. Memory is a really rare thing in your life, and it will be lost easily if you are not careful. Although Ms. Rose will forget me very easily, her story has been engraved in my heart deeply.
 
By Cassie Shi
Edited by Justin Zhou

On Mother’s Day, we brought many beautiful roses to the Ring House, and we handed them out to every lady we met. The elderly people were really happy and grateful when we handed them a flower, and their happiness spread, and made me happy too. After we handed out all flowers, an elderly lady showed us her artwork. The artwork was really neat and beautiful. I especially liked the one where she used q-tips to make a painting. I could tell she spent a lot of time on that painting. I learned a lot from my experiences at the Ring House last week, and I liked the elders’ heart-warming reaction when we gave them a flower.
​
By Kaiwen Song
Edited by Justin Zhou

​因为我们这次活动是在五月的母亲节进行的，所以很多老人都被家人接出去吃饭了。但我发现还是有一些老人在门口等他们的家人来, 我决定陪他们聊聊天。聊了一些关于他们的儿女，有的老人甚至都有grandson或者granddaughter了。还有他们家里的宠物，以及对 马上要见到自己家人的高兴。我可以感到，他们是非常想聊天的，因为或许很久没人跟他们这样聊天了。另外还有一件事，就是这些老人都早早出来等，而他们的家人却往往比预定时间晚。 很多老人都比预定时间提前二十分钟出来等，他们的家人却会晚到二三十分钟。我碰见的，就有五六位老人。在我们来这之前，可能还有更多。而据我所知，当天的 交通状况并不至于那么差。
 
这让我更了解我们这个活动的意义，老人是非常想让我们来的。而从另一方面讲，为什么那些子女让自己的母亲等那么久？是因为他们真的很忙吗？但无论如何，我们更应该认真对待这个活动了。
 
By YuQiao Zhang
Edited by Xiaorong Zhang

Last Sunday, I went to a nursing apartment called the “Ring House” to help some older people solve their questions on the computer, clean the library, and to talk with the senior people.
That morning, an elderly woman with her nurse came to library. I saw them and asked them “Do you need some help?” Maybe that old woman could not hear very clearly, so her nurse replied to me “Oh yes, um… she lost her all memory, so there is only one thing can make her happy, she wants to look at some garden photos on the computer.” “OK, I’ll do that for her,” I said back. After the old woman sat down, I began to find pictures for her. When she looked the pictures, I saw she was happy, as if she was in that garden. She kept saying “That’s really beautiful, look at that, so amazing, there is pink, orange, purple, oh and red over there!” Maybe most people thought that it was a normal sentence, but when you get older, maybe you could not remember everything in your life and maybe there was only one thing that can bring you joy. For younger people, a garden photo is just something not worth mentioning, but what I want to point out that it is important to understand and help older people not to laugh at them!
By Tony Zhang
Edited by Justin Zhou

Yesterday, I waited a little for directions, and then we went into the library. I stayed there until a lady wanted help.  When this lady came, she said she had trouble getting her internet back on her TV for input HDM2. We went to help her. When we arrived at her room on the fourth floor, we started helping right away. Leo and I tried a lot of strategies, but it still didn't work. We tried restarting the TV several times, and restarting the xfinity box. After we tried, and it didn't work, Leo and I came back down. When we arrived at the lobby, I held the elevator door for an elderly, so the door didn’t close before he got in there. Lastly, I just stayed at the library for the rest of the time. I also got a compliment from a lady saying thank you for helping. 
​
By Daniel Wu
Edited by Justin Zhou

When I first went to the Ring House, I was kind of skeptical. I wasn’t that excited because I had never done this before. However, when I was on the way to the Ring House, I met some of my friends. We talked on the way there and it was fun. When we arrived at the ring house, I was a bit more excited because I had my friends with me. When we went inside the Ring House, I felt different. I’ve never felt this way before and I wanted to experience more of it. When the entire group arrived, we started helping out different seniors. They had a large variety of problems but we managed to help fix most of their problems. Some seniors had problems hearing or short patience span but overall they were incredibly nice and patient. I believe everyone who went benefited from this event, not only was this helpful towards the students but also to the seniors. It taught us students that as you grow older, you’ll miss a lot of things you used to do when you were younger and it is always generous to help others in need. I believe this is definitely a great moment for students to get along with others.
​
By Erde Wei
​Edited by Justin Zhou

It was an unforgettable experience for me. We went to an old people's home on Sunday morning. By a friend's car, I arrived there. I met lots of friends who have already been a part of activity for a long time. There were only a few people who did this as their first time, like me. Incidentally, it was Valentine's Day that day. So the teachers bought with us several bunch of roses and we gave them to the old men and women. And, of course, they were really happy about being sent flowers. After sending roses, we began to solve their technology problems which our leader said they usually did in the past. For me, personally, I helped a lady figure out how to attach pictures in an email and something about media transfer to different terminals. These were small things for teenagers, but difficult and complex for old people. 
This experience let me know how old people’s daily lives are like so that we should give more warmth to them and help them with what we can do. Besides, I knew lots of friends with sincere hearts. It was my pleasure to meet them and join them. I'm really looking forward for next time.
​
By YuQiao Zhang
Edited by Justin Zhou

节假4周后，Ring House忘年交的 Tech Helpers在今天1月10日迎来了2016年的第一个服务日， 今天也是一个趣事多多、收获满满的日子。
 
首先，欢迎新成员Tony。看着有些拘谨的他，想起了每一位Tech Helper初来Ring House时的样子。Vincent以老带新，领着Toney去老人Juliet女士的房间服务。Juliet准备的问题很快地一一得到了解决，她满意得赞不绝口，表示下次要多准备一些问题。再见到Tony 时，他已完全没了拘谨，正笑眯眯地和好朋友Ryan交谈。
 
在Ring House 工作的特点之一是服务和需要服务的人员比例经常在变，有时供过于求，而有时则供不应求。今天这两种情况都有出现，我们的Tech Helpers表现出了良好的应对能力。闲时，自觉地去帮助将散书规整到书架上；忙时，则迅速各就各位，相互帮助。
 
Justin和Kaiwen 继续着年前的项目，帮助102房的Julius老先生。由于网购的彩色打印胶带迟迟不到，计算机又出现了新问题，老先生有些急躁，而我们的两位Tech Helpers不慌不乱、有条不紊地为他消除了故障。青年时代就酷爱园艺的老人Rose女士又来到了图书馆，今天为她在网上谷哥花卉的是Cassie。看着Rose专注的神情，不尽让人去遐想她年轻时的样子。如Steven去年曾描述过的，一定美如“玫瑰”。住在241房间的老人走下来，虽有些气喘气喘嘘嘘，但依旧优雅地请求我们派人到她房间。本应派两位Tech Helpers，但当时人手不够，Leo二话没说，单枪匹马就上任了。 因交通堵塞迟到的Jerry,得知情况后， 马不停蹄地去增援Leo及其他伙伴。 急着外出的老人Susan女士，夹着她的iPad来到图书馆，她有个问题，希望能马上得到答案。我们的Kaiwen对答如流，Susan满意而去。Ms. Deborah 考虑到其他老人可能会有同样的问题，给Kaiwen又布置了一个工作，将解决Susan问题的程序输进计算机，并将文件打印出来备用。一眨眼的工夫，Kaiwen将工整的程序递到Ms. Deborah 面前，“我的上帝，神速！”
 
随着Tech Helper “名声”的增大，要求技术指导的老人多起来，服务的区域已不仅仅局限在图书馆里。走进Ring House，一幅幅“忘年交”画面点缀着大厅。随着Tech Helper出色的工作，忘年交的互动也不仅仅局限于简单的一问一答。技术服务之余，一老一少已开始了交谈各自的生活和阅历。Nathan老先生在大厅里与Peter亲切交谈后，露出孩子般的笑容，灿烂无比。Leo今天虽没有机会继续他上次的课题访谈，但心中己有目标和计划的他，会耐心等待。相信，机会属于有准备的人。
 
一小时的服务时间到了，Vincent已在召集Tech Helpers开小结会。而Cassie 与Jerry 还在为老人Leslie 女士的第二个问题，紧锁眉头。什么状况把他们难住了？不甘放弃的他们，在Leslie的暖言安慰下，答应两星期后，再来尝试。
 
Be Polite, Be Professional, Be Patient. 简单的6个字，是 C&T对外出做公益同学的希望和嘱托。今天，我们每一位Tech Helper都能用心地去体验和实践，忘年交的互动越发有生气。新的一年里，希望每一位Tech Helper不断超越自我。进步，是不断超越自我的结果。加油，Tech Helper never stops！
 
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
                                         —Philip James Bailey
 
Ms. Xiaorong Zhang 张晓榕
Draft January 10， 2016
Edition January 21， 2016

尊敬的同学们，家长们大家好 ：
 
经过短短十天的圣诞假期，新的学期也即将到来。同样，我们 “ Ring House 忘年交 ” 也迎来第二个季度。
 
首先很感谢各位同学的积极参与，认真准备，倾听和解决问题；每一位家长的热心配合，按时并提前送学生到达，甚至来C&T 帮助接送学生；张老师一次一次的悉心回答解决学生和家长的问题，和敬老院沟通。每个人都是那么的认真。
 
第二是抱歉，在上个学年我个人也有做的不好的地方，比如由于我的原因延误了SSL表格时间的统计，对此深表歉意。任何对我个人建议和意见，对团队，对项目的建议，都可以直接没有任何顾虑的跟我、张老师或者滕老师直接沟通。
 
在过去的半年里，回想每一个周日上午与老人交流，与同学们的互相讨论、帮助，是否有很多感慨和收获？我想，每位同学的答案都会是肯定的的。
 
人生其实是很短暂的，我们每个人都会经历从孩童到青年，从青年到老年的过程，经历生与死。我们现在还是青年阶段，未来亦还有相当长的一段要走，如何走下去，我想，每个人都应该心中有数。也许当我们走完我们的人生旅程，该休息时，是否也会像敬老院的求知欲那样快乐开心地度过自己的晚年呢？
 
新的学期，2016年一月十日作为第一个服务日：我们将会实行新的签到表格制度，也希望各位学生和家长继续积极配合。随着更多的学生加入这个项目，也欢迎更多的家长帮助来C&T接送学生。
  
马钰博 Vincent Ma