零點的邀約

Sunset Boulevard  -Film Noir
1950
Director: Billy Wilder
Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim

Joe Gillis is an unsuccessful young scriptwriter and facing financial difficulties. Once he was chased by debtors, he ran into Norma Desmond's house. Norma is an ageing silent film star, but she wants to get back in the limelight, so she asked Joe to help her with her script. Norma makes Joe stay in the house with her, later on, she falls in love with him. Joe doesn't feel happy with the situation, but he struggles between freedom and money. 

The Toys that Made us - LEGO

Starting from term 1, Oliver has kept encouraging us to watch films to learn both English and culture, he also strongly supported us to watch Netflix. Since Netflix has a trial service for 1 month, I gave it a try. After the trial expired, I found that Netflix's Advanced plan allows families and friends sharing one account, also allows 4 people to watch different programs simultaneously. I asked other 3 classmates to share the cost with me. However after the first 2 months, the workload in ITI started to increase, I was afraid I will get addicted to the endless TV drama. I ended up becoming " the denominator." During this term break, I finally re-opened my Netflix, and continued watching a documentary " The Toys that Made us." I tended to choose episodes that I had played with in my childhood, so I skipped some episodes and chose to watch "Lego."

4/7 Cycling in Feng Yuan

During Tomb-sweeping holiday, Madeline and I finally fulfilled our promise in term 1. The promise was to go cycling at Feng Yuan, which is near Madeline's home. She had told me she had been cycling there when she was a child. On Wednesday, I took the train to Feng Yuan, and Madeline was waiting for me at Feng Yuan train station. She drove me to the entrance of the bicycle trails. We rented the bicycles, and it cost 150 dollars for each bike. We started to ride the bicycles around 10.30. The weather was great and at that time only a few people were riding. We didn't stop much on our way to Dong Shi since I just finished my breakfast and didn't feel hungry. Madeline planned to reach Dong Shi around 1 o'clock, so we could reach the restaurant before it closed. There were trees on both sides of the path, but the weather still got a bit hot when it was around noon. Fortunately, we reached the restaurant before it closed. It sold dumplings, and Madelin and her family always come to this restaurant for their dumplings after cycling. She recommended me to order dumplings and sour and spicy soup. I also ordered pickles which Madeline hadn't ordered before. At first, we assumed it would be Korean Kimchi, however, it turned out to be Taiwanese pickled vegetables. It was a bit sour but crisp. Both of us liked it a lot. The dumplings were also great, the skin was chewy, not soft. 

2/23 Trip to Malaysia

I had a frustrating holiday. During Chinese New Year, I spent half of my time on taking transportation. Not only because I went home, but also my family went on a group tour to Malaysia. My travel started from 2.14 afternoon. I went to the bus station right after class. It took me about 3 hours to get to Taipei. When I got home, it was almost 10 o' clock. But, I couldn't go to bed until I finished packing. 

The next day, my family and I left home at 9 o'clock. We decided to take the MRT to Taoyuan airport. This was my first time to take the Airport MRT, as we used to drive to the airport. We worried that there would be a traffic jam on the high way. We arrived at the airport 3 hours earlier than the departure time. Our plane took off at 13.20, and we arrived in Malaysia at around 6 o'clock. Our group spent an hour to go through customs and to exchange currency. Then, we got on the bus, it took another 3 hours to Melaka. My first day in Malaysia was full of transfers.

1/20 Betrayal at House on the Hill

At the beginning of this term, Alex brought his board game 'Citadels' to the campus. After this, I found some of my classmates liked to play board games as well. So, I also bought 'Betrayal at House on the Hill', which I played at college. After a few days of waiting, I finally got the game and brought it to campus. It's a type of roleplay game. The background of the story is players came to the house to avoid bad weather. When they all entered the house, the front gate was locked!  They only thing they could do was to explore the house. Soon, they found the house was haunted. The game was divided into 2 sections. The first section of the game is to explore the house. Players try to open as many rooms possible, and they would try to upgrade their abilities. However, the more rooms were being opened, they found some special rooms with 'OMENs' inside. 'OMENs' are some powerful items, which can help your character has better abilities. But, every time the players found an 'OMEN', they needed to do a dice test. If the result is smaller than the numbers of 'OMEN' that had been discovered, the game will turn to section two. At the second section, one of the players will turn in to a betrayer, and the others will fight against him. There are 50 stories in total, players should find out which story they get by checking the 'OMEN' and 'Room'. Then, they will follow the story, and try to become the winner. It's a very interesting game with very beautiful illustrations. Every time you play, you will discover a new story. The house will appear differently, which is the part I liked most. The only shortcoming is it's too time-consuming.