Today, tomorrow

I finally figured out Creative Commons attribution — Wikimedia Commons puts the proper attribution in HTML form for you to copy-and-paste when you download an image. This one’s the “end of a world” — feels epic. Somehow, I’m in the mood for that kind of thing at the moment.

Courtesy of Wardiverde, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

It’s already been a week since I came back from home for spring break, so it’s true what they say about time flying — it happens all the time, and you can’t do anything about it.

I’m not complaining, being that I have some exciting things coming up in the next few months (I hope) — I’m pretty certain that that research role I may have mentioned before (and which I’ve been after for about a month now) is just about mine, but you know, I still think an internship in industry is probably better and worth keeping on trying to find. Oh, well — it’s not like this is really a compromise for me, I really want to do research while I’m still an undergraduate — I want to have a hand in this kind of thing but can’t really see myself staying for grad school — so I’m still looking forward to it.

About a week before then, I’ll have that trip I’m so excited about. Last week I discovered the drinking water museum and I’m certain that this is the first plan on the docket for day 1, before the actual program begins and I’m actually busy. This is history, and it’s water, and that’s cool.

We’re about ten weeks in, but I think that it’s really now that my semester is settling down and getting steadily better — at least, as of right now — and what I mostly mean is that, yesterday, I discovered that one of the practice rooms below the student union has a mic & speakers in the wall. I can now duet with myself as freely as I please. Like this

That, and I recently started using Yellowbridge flash cards & I realize that this (flash cards in general, I know someone else who uses Anki but I couldn’t find any decks that I liked) is probably most people’s default learning resource for getting far — while I’ve always felt like the Chinese classes I take at school move slowly, I think you’re meant to find external resources for self-learning like this. I like Yellowbridge because the site is very nice-looking, there aren’t any ads if you pay (there are if you don’t, but it’s still worth using) and most of the HSK flashcard sets are free (not the 6 and 7-9 ones, but if you’re that good already, you might as well just become a paid subscriber because this is clearly part of your lifestyle).

Sold by the fact that Yellowbridge has an option to study HSK flashcards in traditional characters and that you can use the arrow keys to move through the flashcard viewer, I became a paid subscriber after using the decks for only a few days. It’s $25 for six months. I’d rather have flashcards than groceries, anyway. Besides, this is part of my lifestyle.

With all of these recent discoveries on my side, I’ve been having a good week.

So far, this morning, I’ve managed to wake up cold again, realize that the thermostat’s been off since we had nice weather that one time on Wednesday and that the inside temperature has dropped to ten degrees below what that thermostat is set to (so I turned it back on), do some of those easy-points reading assignments for my circuits class, and this morning, I drove to Starbucks because I still have several dozen dollars in Starbucks credit given to me across Christmases and birthdays of past years & now that I have a car, I can explore around town going to different Starbucks and getting coffee and food for free.

That store on the right side of the picture in my view out the window — Joy Mart — is excellent. My favorite store. They sell four or five different flavors of 大白兔. I might drop by on my way out the Starbucks to get some more of that. That’s also where I got the cheese latte of thumbnail-image quality those few weeks ago, too.

It’s probably going to rain later today, but at least it’s not snow and it’s about fifty degrees (F) outside — this is my personal preferred kind of weather, although that’s definitely because I’ve just resigned to nostalgia over practicality as far as what I consider to be a “nice day” — this is what a springtime birthday in the northeastern US does to your soul.

Speaking of views of streets, one of my hobbies as of late’s been going on to Google Street View and examining the area around the hotel we’ll be staying at for the one-week program — and beyond (because I need to do more on my two days off than just go to a water museum).

Definitely out-of-the way, but an excuse for a first 高鐵 ride — it’s a wonder how some places even manage to make street corners look cute.

That’s in the “Like Taipei, but more humid” … “Like Taipei, but with Cs instead of Qs” … land of fable. Regardless, visiting a place like Kaohsiung would be cool, despite people’s reports of “It was nice, but there was nothing to do there so I just got back on the train and went back to Taipei”.

The world is small, and distances are short, but time is shorter. Hopefully, I’ll be able to put these plans into action soon.

I should probably get out of the Starbucks before the rain starts.

I’ll be back here (on the site and probably at the Starbucks, too) next week.

Thanks!