零點的邀約

7/27 Film Study

In the second year of ITI, we don't have clubs anymore, whereas having elective courses. I've chosen film study in order to learn more about movie history and culture. In the first class, Oliver introduced the first movie " A Trip to the Moon" made in 1902. It's the first time that people tried to create a story rather than filming daily life. The plot and characters' outfits are hilarious. The main story is about a group of scientists creating a big bullet, and firing it to the moon carrying 6 of them inside. The scientists were dressed in wizard costumes, but mot laboratory clothing. After Oliver had shown the film to the class, I found that I've watched it before in an exhibition.

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. 

1/20

Since we only had BBC class on Tuesday, Madeline and I decided to have a little trip nearby. Madeline had searched online and found the bicycle path on Xing Da road has trees on both sides, which gave riders a good view. On Tuesday, we went on our journey after the BBC class. We rode through the Dong-Feng park, which was a bigger park than I expected. There were some fitness equipment and a wide grass field. We both agreed that if someday we need to hold an outdoor activity, we can use the field. After passing through the park, we kept on cycling. It was a path in the middle of the road that looked like a huge safety island. It only allowed cyclist and pedestrians, so it was quite safe. We only needed to be aware of cars and scooters while we were passing through intersections. We were riding slowly. When we encountered some interesting sculptures, we stopped to take photos. I helped Madeline to take some very nice ones, and she uploaded them to her IG.

1/6 Perfect Strangers

Last Thursday, Madeline, Trista, Laura and I were supposed to go shopping in Yi Zhong street. Unfortunately, it was raining. We decided not to go shopping, so we wouldn't get wet. Instead of shopping, we chose to watch a movie, which was borrowed from the library. The movie we watched was 'Our Brand is Crisis.' The movie wasn't bad, but the ending wasn't a happy ending. We felt upset about the president who won the election, but he didn't keep his promise. On the same night, Freddy and Shenna also watched another movie, and they also thought the movie sucked. The next day, Freddy recommended another movie 'Perfect Strangers', that he had watched before, and guaranteed it was a good one. Alex searched for it's review on Rotten Tomatoes, and found it ranked 83. The story was about how mobile phones influences our lives. There was a line ' The mobile phone is just like our black boxes, it records all our lives and secrets,' which I totally agree with. Another special point about this movie was 80% of the scenes were in the same apartment, and the audience wouldn't get bored. The movie turned out to be good and thought-provoking. Just like the character said: " We shouldn't treat private texts and phone calls as a joke and show them to public."

1/2

In this term break, I visited National Palace Museum for it's special exhibition, Egyptian Mummies. The exhibition was held by The British Museum, so I had had high expectations. The whole exhibition was organised around the main 6 mummies, which died at different ages and held different occupations. They were a noblewoman, a man, a priest, a singer, a young man, and a boy. In the first area, they told you how a mummy had been made. In ancient Egypt, there was a group of people called 'Embalmers' who knew how to make mummies. They also introduced the divinity related to life and death. This exhibition used the latest method to study mummies. Instead of unwrapping the mummies, the historians now use CT scanners to avoid damaging the mummies. It's a machine able to scan the mummies' details and draw it into 3D models showing the different layers. Beside each mummy, there was a TV screen that showed it's animation from the CT scanner, from cover to bones. At the same time, it also showed us the high lights of it, for instance, how many amulets were put inside the mummy, or how healthy the body was. Overall, I learned a lot from this exhibition, but I had to say it was quite far from what I expected. Moreover, three hundred and fifty dollars as entrance fee was quite expensive. 

12/11 Murder on the Orient Express

       Last Saturday, parts of our classmates had a whole day course, and after the course, Shenna and I decided to go for a movie. Shenna heard that the film 'Murder on the Orient Express' had great scenery. The story started in Jerusalem which has appeared in BBC headlines recently. Hercule Poirot was a well-known detective in the world, and he was invited to solve the crime of the missing holy relics. After he found out who the criminal was, he wanted to continue his holiday. However, there was a request from London asking him to go back to solve another crime. So, he had to get back to London by the Orient Express, and while he was changing trains, he met his old friend, Bouc, in Istanbul. Luckily, Bouc was the boss of the Orient Express, so he helped Hercule to get a seat on the train. However, the trip on the train didn't go smoothly. They were travelling in a snowstorm, and there was a snowslide that caused the train to run out of its tracks. Even worse, there was a murder that happened on the same night. Bouc had no choice but to ask Hercule to find out who the murderer was, otherwise the police might have assumed one of the passengers was the criminal because he was black. After watching this film, I think it was a good film, and I was amused by the great scenery and the suspenseful plot. But, Shenna didn't think so. Perhaps it's only because there wasn't a romantic plot in the story.

12/2  The benefit living in cities

    Having more job opportunities is the most obvious benefit of living in a city. It's true that everyone needs to work for a living, but living in a city will surely give you more flexible choices. Moreover, more medium to larger companies tend to set up their offices or headquarters in main cities, so you can ask for a higher salary there. In contrast, small towns may not have job vacancies suitable for your major or expertise. You might face some difficulties to work in your ideal industry. For example, technology or science- related jobs are rarely seen in rural towns.

     Secondly, there is no doubt that big cities have more complete infrastructures. Take commuting for instance, you'll have transportation options, such as buses, subways, even taxis. They are built in a better network, which makes it easier to let you move around. Furthermore, having more complete internet penetration is another advantage of living in a big city. You never want to wait 30 minutes for a youtube video to download, but it might happen if you were living in a small town. In addition, it's faster when it comes to delivery. It may take 2 days to receive a package living in Penghu, but it only takes 6 hours in Taipei. 

     Finally, big cities can offer a better health care system than small towns. There are many options in a big city if you are under the weather. If it's only a small cold, you may end up going to a clinic or pharmacy at the corner of our neighborhood. However, if it turns out to be a more serious disease, you may go to a national hospital, where you can have access to the best healthcare. Moreover, if you have a terrible accident, it's easier to find an emergency room in large cities. Meanwhile, you may suffer from changing hospitals in a small town, and it also may cause a delay of rescue.

11/12 A Time with Friends

         I will never forget the first time I went to Formosa Water Park with my high school friends. That was 2 years after we graduated, so we had a lots to talk about. We chose Wednesday afternoon to go there because the park had a special discount for girls. It was my first time to enter a water amusement park, so everything was new to me, and I felt elated. Some of my friends had gone before, and they showed me around and told me which facilities were worth trying out. We slid down a water slide and tried the lazy river. Soon, the sun went down and the lights of the amusement park started to light up, which was a new experience for me. This was the first time I had stayed in an amusement park until night. Before the closing time, all of us soaked in the big wave pool and relaxed. It was a great time hanging out  with friends, but after that we haven't got a chance to meet up. 

11/12 Scooters and Pollution

         Without a doubt, scooters are one of the main reasons for air pollution in Taiwan. It is true that the smoke from scooters caused CO2 in the cities, and it has caused the severe air in Taiwan. However, in my point of view, scooters are an important transportation method to Taiwanese commuters. It is obvious that if we ban all scooters, many people will have trouble getting to work. We could create a new law that doesn't allow gasoline engine scooters on the road. By replacing gasoline engines with electronic engines, we can reduce the amount of CO2 in the urban areas. In conclusion, we don't have to ban scooters, in order to lower the air pollution in cities.

10/20 Size of Zoo's enclosures

        Considering the needs of both Zoo animals and visitors. I believe all zoos must provide spacious enclosures. The most obvious reason is zoo animals need enough space to exercise. Just like humans have obesity problems, animals also can experience this. Regarding mammals such as elephants, apes, and zebras, science research shows that captive animals are 4 times more susceptible to cardiovascular disease than wild ones. My second reason is some of the animals are so sensitive. They have better sensors than humans. If the visitors are making a loud noise and engaging in bad behavior, these animals may get stressed or anxious. For these important reasons above, I think zoos should build bigger enclosures for zoo animals.

10/17 The Pianist

        Elaine introduced a novel called 'The Pianist' to us during our reading circle last term. Shenna and I were so interested that we borrowed the movie from the library. The movie is about a story that happened during World War Two. The main character, Wladystaw Szpilman, was a well-known Jewish Polish pianist, and he had a tough time through the wartime. First, the Nazi government took away their properties and forced them to move to the ghetto. Finally, most of the Jews were gathered and sent away. However, Szpilman was fortunately saved by one of his friends, who was a Jewish policeman. He was alive, but unfortunately, he still had to suffer from Nazis. Luckily, there were still some Poles who helped him to escape from the ghetto. He started to hide from the secret police. While we were watching the movie, we felt sad and worried for Szpilman. However, we had already been told the final plot. For the whole movie, we were waiting for the most important character. The character didn't show up until the very last 20 minutes. In the end, we thought that we were misled by Elaine's story, which the movie is very far from what we expected. It was still a great movie.

10/10

          Last term, some of my classmates went hiking on Mt. Da Keng, while I went back to Taipei. After that week I told Shenna, "Let's go to Mt. Da Keng together next Saturday!" However, all of our following Saturdays were full of makeup classes. So, we couldn't fulfill our promise last term. I finally went to Mt. Da Keng last Saturday with Lou, Madeline, Tommy, and Author. Since I hadn't been hiking for years, we chose the easiest level. When we arrived at the entrance, the number ten path had been blocked; therefore, we had to choose the number nine path instead. It was a very hot sunny day with no wind, and the road which has less shade is quite wide. I felt like I was on fire, and I was too tired to talk. When we almost reached the end of the path, there was a small truck selling aiyu. Then, I bought a cup from them, which made me feel relaxed.

Beverage Shops around Chung Hsing University

ITI Taichung campus is located at National Chung Hsing University, and the university is always surround by beverage shops. As a beverage lover, my top mission is to search for the best beverage shops in my neighbor hood. My top 3 shops are below; let’s have a look at them together.

• Huiqun Fresh Milk Station 惠群鮮奶站

Huiqun Fresh Milk Station is one of the most popular beverage shops for Chung Hsing University’s students. It’s famous for its fresh fruit and milk, and the drinks are thick. Although the cost of the drink is slightly higher than at other beverage shops, the quality of its drink is better. The shop is self-service. First, take an empty cup on the counter, and write the code of the drink you want on your cup. Then, the shop owner will follow the code from the cup to prepare your drink. Once your drink is ready, the owner will give you a small cup of your drink. So, you can drink the drink, then you can decide how sweet you want it. Allowing buyers to try the sweetness at first is a great idea. Next time when your friends visit you in Taichung City, bring them to try the most famous beverage shop.

          Address: No.8-1, Renyi Street, Southern District, Taichung City

         Opening hours: 12:00~21:00 (Tuesday~Sunday)

         Cost & Price: ★★★★

9/3 

      Last Friday night, Laura, Trista and I were going to watch the about Coco Chanel. However, Laura said she was afraid if she watched a biography, she will fall asleep. Then, Freddy just recommended us to watch the file ' Nocturnal Animals'. The story started with Susan, the main female character, receiving a novel written by her ex-husband, Edward. Susan didn't have a good relationship with her current husband. Even worse, she often suffered from insomnia. So, she decided to read the novel while she couldn't sleep. The movie combined three different times which were Susan's current life；the story of the novel and Susan's memories with Edward. While Susan read the novel, she was reminded of the time that she had been through with Edward. So, she made the decision to accept Edward's request. Edward sent an e-mail to Susan asking to get back together. Susan showed up at the restaurant, but Edward never showed up.

8/6

       When we were chatting about what our weekend plans are in Listening and Speaking class, Lou told me he was going cycling. I didn't join his cycling last time, so I asked him to count me in. On Sunday there was only Lou, Madeline, and I at the meeting point. I doubted if everyone was destroyed by accounting class. However, we still had to continue our ride. Lou took us to New Grass Lake Creek Bike Path in Dali District. Th entire length is about 14km. We rode through a traditional market that was full of people. It was kind of scary that pedestrians suddenly step in front of you and start shopping. After we passed the traditional market, we kept riding down the road. A few minutes later, I found our group has become longer and longer. I also felt that my peddling had become heavier, so I started to worry if my tire was flat or not. Then, Lou stopped at a Family mart where we all decided to rest for a while. Madeline told me that we just rode over a gentle slope. No wonder I felt so tired. Lou also told us that we almost reached our destination, and there won't be any hills. I was so glad to hear that.

7/30 

       This was my first time to stay in Taichung while a typhoon hit Taiwan. On Saturday morning, it was a hot shiny day, and I had a nice breakfast at a branch shop. After finishing my breakfast, I went to Taichung IKEA to shop. When I left IKEA, it started to rain slightly. I thought the rain may become heavier, so I went back to the dorm. However, the rain didn't turn into heavy rain, but it still rained for a whole night. While I was thinking that Sunday might be Typhoon. NESAT's biggest attack, it turned out to be another sunny morning on Sunday! I must say that we have the most unpredictable weather in Taiwan.

7/24

     Mangoes are my favorite fruit. I like its taste, which is juicy and sweet. When we eat Mango in our home, we will cut it into sharp of squares. It looks like an ice cube, and it makes me want to eat more. Besides Mango itself, I also like desserts which contain mango, for example, mango cake, mango ice-cream, and mango milkshake. I was very happy to find there is a famous juice shop just at the front gate of Chung Hsing University. I'm going for mango milkshake once a week.