The Vault folder was a bit messy, especially the Obsidian templates and project folders. Did a quick tidy-up and also added a reading log template to encourage myself to read more.

11:00 Feel pretty good

Today, my body feels fine with no discomfort, which has lifted my mood quite a bit. The courier called to notify me to pick up my ID card. After retrieving it, I strolled to the market and bought rice noodles, spinach, and cilantro. I ended up cooking too much rice noodles and ate until my stomach was bulging.

16:27 Read Zweig’s The Governess and Moonbeam Alley (Abandoned)

The reflection of human nature and the influence of societal norms in The Governess is not just a tragedy of that era. Similar things exist widely in any era. The two kind-hearted little girls might have been versions of ourselves in the past. Our attitude toward the world gradually turns indifferent simply because we’ve witnessed its coldness.

Both the English and Chinese translations of Moonbeam Alley are particularly obscure, and I think they’re poorly translated. I couldn’t get through it at all, so I gave up. That said, I do agree with the idea that factors like money, desire, and indifference can lead love to ruin. It’s not worth reading—whether the Chinese or English version—as it’s just a pile of flowery words.

21:12 Went Out for a Walk and Got a Haircut

The Fun Barber

I really cooked too much rice noodles today, but since I have a medical check-up tomorrow and then need to go to Guiyang, I forced myself to finish it all. Feeling overly full, I decided to go out for a walk and get a haircut along the way.

I figured that for job interviews, one’s appearance and demeanor are quite important. Hairstyle plays a big role in personal image, so even though my hair wasn’t very long, I thought I’d get a trim for the sake of interviews. The barber said the last cut was too short and didn’t look great, so she felt a bit awkward bringing it up, but I actually thought it looked fine. This barber has a great attitude and decent skills.

After the haircut, there were still a lot of loose hairs on my face, so the barber gave me a quick wash. When I asked how much it cost, she said 15 yuan. I said, “Thank you,” and she replied, “No, thank you.” I joked, “Now that my hair’s cut, I’m even more handsome.” She laughed and said, “Hearing your compliment will make my dreams sweet tonight.” Haha, that caught me off guard. Next time, I’ll bring Huanhuan along to get a haircut and introduce them.

The Uncle Who Asked for Help Charging His Car

After the haircut, I walked to the charging station, where an uncle in a worn-out leather jacket stopped me. He said he didn’t know how to charge his car and asked for my help. At first, I scanned the QR code on the public account for a while before realizing it wasn’t working—there was another one on the display screen. Then he asked me to help bind his car model info. He drove a seven-seater Changan van, and when the list popped up, there were way too many options. I randomly picked one, and it worked, so we went with that. He thanked me profusely and even offered me a cigarette, which I declined since I don’t smoke.

Called Fei Ge

Helping others felt pretty good. I thought about visiting my mom, but it was getting late. Then I realized I hadn’t called Fei Ge in a while, so I video-called him directly. Turns out, the job someone promised him fell through, and he’s been lying low in Xiamen for a month. I imagine it must be tough for him.

Around 9 p.m., Huanhuan finished work. I thought chatting with more people might help, so I pulled both of them into a call, completely ignoring their awkwardness. It was pretty fun and also helped Huanhuan integrate better with my circle of friends.

Ledger

Haha, Fei Ge said that while he still has money, I should hurry to Xiamen to visit him. I joked about my usual “Australian lobster” bit, and Fei Ge said he’d budget 10k to treat us—rent a car and take a trip out to sea. I’ll hold him to that for now.

In the morning, I watched some English videos for a while and played some games. I steamed and ate the rice cakes I bought yesterday, and then, before I knew it, noon had passed without me realizing what else I had done.

Afternoon

This afternoon, I read Letter from an Unknown Woman. I listened to the audiobook¹ while following along with the English translation I bought on Duozhuayu. The narration of the audiobook was very emotional and captivating, so I finished it quickly. Since I’m not yet very familiar with English, I suspected I might have missed some details. So I searched further, thinking of checking others’ interpretations, and came across this video².

I learned that this novel reflects certain psychological and human nature-related themes. Through AI, I saw keywords like Freud’s “death drive,” which piqued my curiosity. I then delved deeper into the meaning of the death drive and its counterpart, the life drive, which intertwine within human nature, forming intricate psychological and behavioral patterns.

I can’t yet comment on whether the love displayed by the female protagonist in the novel is great, humble, or even real love. I do agree, however, that it is more of a form of self-deception and an escape from both herself and reality.

Evening

Lately, I haven’t had much of an appetite, let alone the motivation to go to the market to buy groceries. For dinner, I casually boiled some noodles and fried two eggs to make do. The eggs ended up burnt and didn’t taste very good.

After finishing the meal and washing the dishes, I thought about going out for a walk. As I approached Zhongshan District No. 2 Primary School, I called my mom to come down and join me. For a while, we couldn’t find each other—the root cause being that I couldn’t understand her directional adverbs like “this side,” “that side,” “up there,” “down there,” “behind,” or “in front.” After finally meeting up, I decided to teach her how to use WeChat’s location-sharing feature. We passed an intersection, and I intentionally walked separately from her, asking her to observe the changes in the avatar’s position on her phone. She seemed to half-understand. At the next intersection, I did the same, telling her to come find me.

After two forks in the road, she still hadn’t found me. I called her to correct her directions, and she finally managed to locate me—though she looked exhausted and impatiently swiped WeChat into the background, returning to her home screen. I then asked her where she wanted to walk, and I followed her lead.

Somewhat expectedly yet unexpectedly, she took a wrong turn and ended up in another residential area, but we corrected it eventually. I think from now on, I’ll just follow her and let her lead the way.

123

282 Dr.google

physicians

expertise

determining

preliminary

untrained

150

calcium, electricity, investigators, stressed, mechanism

164

hygiene, childhood, respiratory

Reading & Writing：Fill in the blanks (FIB)

1. In addition tohis own research activities, Professor Couch has worked to support young researchers and provide public comment on astronomy internationally.
2. These doodles helped him develop his classic style and he grew so prolific, doing up to 40 drawings a day, that it was not long before fame and a measure of fortune followed
3. People are living longer and this longevity is good news for sales teams. It results in a much more right(答案：precise) customer base for them to work from. Why we are living longer is not the issue for anyone linked(答案：involved) in drawing up plans to market a product. What they focus on is the fact that there are now more age groups to target, which means that a sales pitch can be re-worked a number of times to more exactly fit each one. For example, by(答案：rather than) referring simply to ‘adults’, there are now ‘starting adults’, ‘young adults’ and ’established adults’. Similarly(答案：Similarly) , markets no longer talk about ‘children’, but tend to refer to a fuller range of categories that includes ‘kids’, ’tweens’, ‘pre-teens’ and ’teenagers’. We now have a very diverse population in terms of age, and that can only be a favour(答案：bonus) for business.
4. Some of the factors that motivate people to move including(答案：include) seeking a better climate, finding more affordable housing, looking for work or retiring from work, leaving the congestion (答案：congestion) of city living, wanting a more pleasant environment, and wanting to be near to family and friends. 从句仍需要至少一个谓语动词，其本质仍是一个独立的句子
5. This attitude is understandable, but it means that many local languages are dying out before anyone would have (答案：has had) the opportunity to study them. According to linguists, some of these languages could reveal a great deal of useful information about language learning and cognitive development.

Summarize Spoken Text

You will hear a short report. Write a summary for a fellow student who was not present. You should write 50-70 words. You have 10 minutes to finish this task. Your response will be judged on the quality of your writing and on how well your response presents the key points presented in the lecture.

2 Criminal Trials