"After years of wondering, questioning, seeking and struggling, you finally found the one you were looking for, built the connection between both of you, made a commitment for now and the future, and stepped into a new era. This is not doubt one of the biggest decision in your life, and I believe you made an absolutely right one." - to Phoebe

Phoebe was one the 4 princesses in room 414, who was like a real princess the most. She was the cutest, the sweetest, the most caring, the most innocent, and the most parenting one, with the most watchful eyes, the warmest smile, the most affecting laugh, and a lot of cloths, shoes and (male) servants. We had all agreed that she would be the first to step into the holy plaza of marriage (also known as the crypt of love).

Room 414 was famous for two things, both of which Phoebe took a lot of credit of - good cook and better gossip. I had been wondering for a long time why she could just put everything casually in the cooker and then made the most delicious chicken soup,  which solved all our IT problems, well indirectly. As we all knew, boys in computer science department liked chicken soup. But luckily, most of our visitors were girls, who stopped by to diffuse and collect latest update of everyone in our law school and people in our college. A girl who we didn't even have any class together with could just step in our room casually after lunch on a Wednesday, and started the conversation like this:" I am bored, anything new?" We had a lot of friends, really a lot.

The only people hated us, we believed, were the girls who lived downstairs beneath our room. I remember it was the night before final, the four princesses were so stressed out and couldn't study any more, so we decided to have our routine entertainment - a small close door dancing party. We turned off the light and turned out the music. When we were having a little fun, some one knocked at the door. Phoebe opened the door and a girl who looked kind of familiar but we didn't know stood there, and said politely, with very impatient expression on her face:"I am one of the girls living downstairs. For the whole semester, we have been very tolerant to you, but we are having a final tomorrow." After she left, we were amused enough and didn't need to dance anymore.

Phoebe was also the our clock alarm for 3 years - the first to wake up in the morning and her action of climbing down from bed, which was on top of the desk and closet, and getting ready to go to class was always so loud that we could never manage to stay asleep. We ignored, we complaint, we yelled, and we even tried to seduce her to get up late by occupying her in our conversation until very late at night. But to the professors' fortune, none of these worked. We were all annoyed every morning, and ended up going to classes on time.

However, being the first to get up didn't necessary ensure Phoebe being on time for the class because it could take a lot of time to "get ready", meaning to pack books, comb hair, put on skin care, pick appropriate clothes, find a pair of proper shoes, choose lip stick of fit color, and sometimes to change for another pair of nicer shoes. In order to make sure she would have enough cloths and shoes to choose from, Phoebe liked taking us out for shopping. Once during our sophomore year, the four princesses, under the leadership of Phoebe, went shopping together from noon until all the shops were close. Besides all the shirts, skirts, dresses, and accessories, to make up for the wore up part of her shoes, Phoebe got an new pair.

Above all, what made Phoebe so special was that she could be surprisingly lovely annoying. She annoyed me the most always before the "room inspection" when other students come into our room to see whether it was clean and neat. Phoebe was a perfectionist, and I was an opportunist. She wouldn't stop asking me to put my stuff away, so I yelled at her for being demanding to me and then for moving my stuffs, and then felt terribly regretted about yelling at her after 5 minutes. But she would listen to me, always listen to me, wherever she was and whatever she was doing, as soon as she could spear herself, she would come to me, and give me however much support I needed.

With a doubt that her nose might be too big, which we finally convinced her was sexy, Phoebe never had a second thought about her profound belief in romance, true love, and soul mate. More importantly, I believe, from the facts above, Phoebe is fully prepared to be a perfect wife, and, potentially, an outstanding mum .

Deep inside, as all other girls, I knew I was a princess; but I was not convinced until I met my prince at a dance.

It was a contra dancing night. I was having a lot of fun swinging. The music was delightful, my partners were skillful, and my shoes were hurting me, so I got rid of them and danced barefoot.

I was dancing with my friend while the prince, whom I happened to partner with for one swing, asked me, with a warm smile, “Do you want dance with me the next song?” He was tall, bony, no glasses, wearing a blue and green shirt and a pair of dark green trousers, had dark brown short hair and large watchful eyes. If I had not been swinging so hard, I would not have delayed 5 seconds to say “sure”.

“I would like to dance with you because you are the only one here besides me dancing bear foot here.” And then I noticed he was not wearing any shoes either. “People with shoes wouldn’t know how we feel.” He said to my ear. “Just  like a leaf flowing on the water” I was like a flower flowing on a small steam through a hidden forest with birds singing, butterflies surrounding, and frogs jumping; I was like a rainbow hanging on the sunny blue sky with cloud cuddling me, wind playing my hair, and air touching my face; I was like a drop of drew dripped from the tip of a leaf and then dropped into a deep deep pond at the first shine of drawn.

So, we danced one song after another. Then came the last song, and I had to leave right away with my friends. He smiled to me, but I had to go.

All a sudden, I realized, my prince had nothing that he could use to find me in the crowd, not a crystal shoe, not even my email or my phone number.

Then, I grew up. Every ordinary girl is Cinderella, but not all of us have the crystal shoe.

Finally, I start to understand those women who spend at least half of their salary on shoes.