spooky szn

part one: midterms and typhoon #2

so it's midterm season and it's not too terrible – i only have them for two classes. one is just a proposal. the catch is that for the other one, it's both a presentation and a paper. as for my other classes, i have just a normal group presentation and a write up for a practical from research methods. but yeah, you could say i'm busy heh.

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before the typhoon, i tried out a cruiser skateboard by which i mean i stood on it and got pushed haha. it's harder than it looks! i gotta learn how to not lock my knees (in the gym too for that matter). also chatted with previous coworkers from my time at UO.

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and then we get another typhoon day on halloween. this is super late in the year for typhoons. yay ✨climate change✨ i guess. this one actually is a storm here in the north as compared to krathon. like we got heavy rainfall and high wind alerts all this week. and then it hit. i'm one of the only ones in the doors whose window faces the trees and the rest of the mountain so my window just gets pounded. the wind is so loud – the loudest i've ever heard for sure. it sounds almost like revving an engine. something about the air in my room also makes the bathroom door creak a bit which is honestly a bit creepy. i had prepped food, water and such but to my surprise, people actually came up the mountain to open the café and the canteen in the other dorm across the street. i kept saying thanks and 加油 (like "keep it up"/"you got this"). with all this wind and rain, we got warning for mudslides and landslides just up the mountain from us too.

videos from my dorm room window

the storm progressed over the course of the day, hitting the middle of the island in the afternoon. lights flickered, elevators were closed and there is debris all over the courtyard. here's some more images:

part two: 在台灣看美國總統大選

election day in taiwan. so we all know what happens but whoa the timing here was actually quite great. woke up and numbers were already coming in from the east coast. knew the result before i went to sleep. during my morning class's break we chatted about it and actually it was also relevant to our topic today where talked about political participation and the OSROR model which discusses what mediates the end product (political participation). i was kind of called out because i was one of the two americans in that class and everyone knew about the election. it was by the end of my second class that i'd lost hope. the race wasn't called yet, but i'd seen the numbers all day and his speech and then a bunch of sources called it. i was stressed all day and eventually livid so i got boba to drown my sorrows and ranted with my american friends. maybe not the most healthy way to spend election day but i couldn't help myself.

part three: dying of midterms

i've been holed up in the IMICS study room every free moment to write the methods and results section of a qualitative study. it ended up being 18 pages with two appendices 😅. then i worked on a big midterm paper for my digital disruption, news media and citizens class. the gym has been my only escape. after these midterms though, i have two presentations coming up almost immediately.

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i have made some time for some fun though too. i saw the wild robot (highly recommend!) and spend an obscene amount on a claw machine (oops). i also went to an izakaya in one of the japanese parts of town and had a drink much like the one i make with soju and yakult! after, we went to a record store that has live jazz music.

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also school is oddly pushing the use of gen AI in our library research. not to completely replace our research for lit reviews but as a tool. i guess they've just accepted that AI is just gonna be here and they've found a way to work with it. it's just a bit weird i guess because at UO i feel like it was very anti-AI and they were working on ways to detect AI. that being said, IMICS and one of our profs in particular is very into gen AI. i'm not complaining, it does make the sorting of journals and sources so much more smooth.

rainbow just for fun

part four: 新竹 hsinchu

a friend and i got into the photo club's s 外拍 (outside shooting = field trip) last minute! it was too good of an opportunity to pass up that we are cramming work into the week oops. but we had such a good time and saw some great palces that i wouldn't have known to go to even if i'd planned a trip to hsinchu. and to be honest, hsinchu wasn't really on my list of places to go but dang, when it's all planned out for you and all for under $80USD, even with perks, you seize the chance. this is even more crazy because we had to pay for the tour bus, entry to one of the locations, lodging for one night and two meals (one was a giant lunch on the second day). anyway, it was so nice to take my camera out and about. we went to a hakka cultural center, beimen street, hsinchu general village, crescent bay (which is just the seaside so idk why the name is "bay"), dongmen market and a kinda forested area called the green symphony. between my friend and i, we took 458 photos in two days, oops haha. good indicator that we were having fun but i can't put them all here 😅. check my instagram and flickr for some of the other favorites!

*note: sorry the posts here are more sporadic. if you want to chat or know more in between, hit me up on socials. they're all linked on the "contact" page here!

♡蘇晨