June 2013

The month just passed by quickly! It was one of my busy months because it was the last of the semester. Here’s another bullet list of how my month went and some of my thoughts during the month:

• I accidentally spilled acetone on my 5-year-old Macbook and it left an ugly mark on the area beside my trackpad. Huhuhu! I’ll just look for a large and cute sticker to cover it up!
• I found out in one of my classes that the capital to make something in factories (like shoes and bags) is usually very small, but then the retail price of the product will multiply by a loooot at the end of the process when the tag of the brand (for branded items) is placed on the item. It only becomes super expensive because of the brand. I feel sorry for the factory workers/basic suppliers/those at the start of the supply chain because there are times they just get ripped off.
• Some of my classmates and I had dinner at Juicy Bun Burger. We’d been having a pretty rough week and so we decided to give in to comfort food, in the form of giant and very filling (and unhealthy!) burgers.
• Why should the professor be the one to adjust for the exchange students? Why should the rest suffer just because of 1 student? UGHHH.
• Why is it so hard to look for internship opportunities here? Why am I even looking? Am I looking in the right places? Do I really want it? I seriously think I wouldn’t have these problems if I were in the Philippines. Siiigh.
• There are times I dislike people reaching where they are or doing what they’re doing only because they have the right connections. Sometimes though, you can’t really blame them because it’s not as if they planned it on purpose that they were given those connections or those opportunities.
• Be not afraid of moving slowly, be afraid of standing still. Something like that. Okay, baby steps Thea, baby steps.
• We had an IMPIS tea gathering at Maokong. A bunch of us hitched a ride with Timothy up to the mountains, and then we had a really nice lunch along with our mentors. Not everyone were there, and that was probably a good thing, because the event was more intimate, in my opinion.
• Our IMPIS batch is made up of people from the following countries: Colombia, El Salvador, France, Gambia, Honduras, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Philippines, Slovakia, Spain, Taiwan, and USA. The new batch will have people from Belize, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Jordan, Korea, Mongolia, Palau, Poland, South Africa, and United Kingdom. This is truly an international program!
• The boy got a luggage as a gift from his credit card application, and he gave it to me because he thought I would put it to better use. It’s a 20-inch blue 4-wheel luggage. Wee!
• We went to Bitan to walk around and see what the area had. Turns out, it didn’t have a lot. There’s just a lake, a bridge, some food stalls, and some restaurants. It was pretty hot that day so we ended up sitting near one of the electric fans in the public seating area beside the restaurants.
• The boy is still in Kaohsiung for work so I went there to visit him. We also went to Tainan because he had to work there for 1 day. Then, Lorraine and Daryl came down to Tainan and we stayed at Queena Plaza Hotel for one night. The next day, we went to Carrefour to buy some groceries and then we were on our way to Kenting. We stayed at Happy Panda resort, where they have camping areas for you to pitch your own tents, or you can rent tents. We chose the better tents that had its own comfort room, refrigerator, television, and air conditioning! Hihihi. It wasn’t expensive, and it was perfect for us! At night, we cooked barbecue, and this group of middle-aged and senior citizens beside us lent us their grill after they were done. That way, we could grill our food faster. Yum! We also went to the beach for a while. The waves were huge! The next day, we had free breakfast care of the resort, and we also brought milk and cereals. We had barbecue again for lunch and then we went to the beach to play for a while again. Then, we washed off and then headed to the southernmost point of Taiwan, since it was only around half an hour drive away.
• After our last SCCD class, we had dinner (along with other IMPIS students) at this Thai restaurant near our school. It’s surprising how people you used to dislike suddenly become your friends and you realize that you will miss seeing them because of summer break. It’s good to take a break though!
• Goku went to the hospital to undergo an operation, and so Roxane and I spent most of the week in the hospital looking after him.
• Summer’s just around the corner and I’m going to the Philippines! Other than enjoying and relaxing, I’m gonna have to start reading those Coursera class materials that I signed up for, and I have to start reading up on for thesis.
• I may sound weird, but I’m actually looking forward to being busy next semester. I’ve decided to choose harder and more challenging subjects under stricter professors because I feel like it’s going to be better for me. They haven’t released the list of subjects but I’m determined to choose better subjects and better professors. I’m also going to look for internship or volunteer opportunities. Huzzah!
• “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” – Jalaluddin Rumi, 13th century Persian poet. I forgot where I saw this quote, but according to that person who quoted Rumi, Rumi’s challenge is to stop acting so small because we have the power to achieve great things if we embrace our opportunities, and if we build on our experiences.
• Timothy and I had lunch with our TA professor, along with his other RAs. We ate lunch at Mita pasta, exchanged a few stories, and went our separate ways. I met up with Bomu after that because he was back in Taiwan. We went to Starbucks, where he treated me to an order of Green Tea White Pudding Frap. The drink lacked flavor, in my opinion.
• The free trade classes are done, and I can say that overall, I learned a couple of things. I won’t say that it was a total waste of time, but towards the end, there was this professor who just kept talking about his company’s software. Personally, I think that it was a waste of time because we wouldn’t even use the same software if ever we go into an international trading company. Unless of course we worked at his. This was still a good opportunity and there were things I did learn, so all’s good.