Day 28: "Work" by Rihanna

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3-2 class minus 大卫

Another busy day at NTHU! In class, we learned about Wu Baochun, a famous Taiwanese baker that only received a middle school education prior to rising to fame. It was interesting discussing in Chinese whether he deserved to skip right to graduate school so he can earn his EMBA; it reminded me of the United States “affirmative action” case. We incorporated the new vocab words and grammar structures from today into our argument, and everyone had different takes on Wu Baochun’s situation. 

During our break, Maria and I sprinted to Seven Eleven to grab our much-needed caffeine, and I also ended up buying a signature rice ball from one of the restaurants as well. After grabbing our breakfast, we were ready to continue learning about Wu Baochun! After class ended, I parted ways with my classmates and went to Café Louisa to do work. I worked on my Chinese final essay for a bit before deciding that I needed a small break from all the writing. I ended up catching up with one of my closest friends over FaceTime, and it was nice hearing everything that’s going on back in Boston.


Kevin got a new haircut!

Karyna and I made plans the night before to go workout, so we met up at the other school’s gym and plowed through our leg day (quad-focused) exercises. It was very exciting to work out after a three-month long hiatus, and I hope Karyna also enjoyed going through my routine! After our workout, we went to the track, and I got to hurdle! I was able to reminisce to my track days; even though my legs felt like they were going pop off like Barbie limbs, I managed to hurdle for the next hour. Kevin ended up stopping by to meet up with Karyna to go swimming, and I just stayed behind. The university’s track team pulled up for practice and I was able to talk to them for a bit. I got to learn a lot about their athletics program, and they were ~lowkey~ trying to recruit me… (at least that’s what it seemed like to me). Overall, it felt so nice to work out again and I’ll probably stop by again before we leave Hsinchu. I know I’m going wake up feeling very sore tomorrow, but I definitely feel more prepared to hike up and down the stairs to the Qing dorm from now on. 

Afterwards, I met up with Maria in the library to do more homework while we waited for our Uber Eats order. We ordered beef noodle soup and some sides from Duan Chun Zhen. Unfortunately, we didn’t plan it out too well since our delivery driver got to the pickup location (Qing dorm) while we were still in the library…she was very sweet and ended up delivering the food to the library. After saying “thank you” and “sorry” a thousand times to the driver, Maria and I FEASTED. We devoured the 牛肉面 in the food court area where our other classmates were sitting. 


Shlumped. Period.

The rest of the night was spent in the food court trying to finish all the work that’s due in the next few days. Many of us camped there for hours on end trying to finish our Chinese 报告文章; it was nice knowing that we were all in the same boat because I would’ve otherwise had no motivation to do anything. This day was clearly busy for all of us, and we’re all pulling through for the final stretch now!


-Annie Lin

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