Normally, the sophomore year is the busiest year of NTUEE, but I’m actually busier this semester.

Last semester is the hardest semester of the first 4 semesters of mine, but I still managed to go to both Taekwondo club and Judo club (and the football team of our department of course). However, in the bottom half of this semester, I only managed to go to a total of 1 time to Taekwondo club and Judo club (still played football week-in-week-out tho).

Before, I could spent all my time not doing coursework related things on extracurricular activities, but this semester, I also had to do what my boss from my internship wanted me to do and some internship preparations, like writing resume, cover letters and leetcoding, and these things took a lot of my time. Actually, during final exam weeks, the subject I’d spent most time on, is leetcode.

About the courses I took, they’re generally much easier and funner than the mandatory courses in the first two years. Therefore, even though I wan’t less busy than before, I’m definitely much happier.

Below I’ll write some thoughts about the courses I took. Note that they are not in any way intended to be helpful. I just write what I want.

I’ve read some Hugo Award for Best Short Story winners, and only like 1 is good, others are either mediocre or just straight-up trash.

To be fair, I didn’t really read the winners of Hugo Award for longer stories, because most of them don’t have Chinese translations, and reading them raw would just take me so much time. Short stories, on the other hand, are really really short, like I could finish most of them in 30-40 minutes, sometimes less, and book publishers often just post them for free on their websites, like a blog post, so reading them is really a fast and convenient way to absorb some Hugo Awardees.

Unfortunately, although reading short stories in a quiet room with some chill music on really gives me some precious peaceful time, most of the stories are very bad, or at least don’t deserve the award. The following is what I’ve read:

It’s unorganized and not sorted by my preference, tho it kind of is.

EE is not useless, I am.

I’m crying

I mean, I know it’s impressive. I am, in fact, impressed by it everyday, since it’s the Obsidian theme I use. But seeing others enjoying is another thing.

This dude didn’t give me any star tho. So disrespectful.

See my personal book wiki entry for more.

I finished the prequel, Words of Radiance at 2018 January. At that time, Oathbringer had just been published (2017 November), and I knew I would have to wait perhaps a year or more if I decided to wait for the Chinese translation. I was also pretty confident about my English skills at that time, so, I decided to just buy the original version online.

I thought I would finish before the translation was out.

I was wrong.

There’s no harmony without harm

wait
how about
there’s no harmony without money

so there’s no harmony without harm & money

lmao

The best kind of monopoly - targeted ads monopoly.

It’s like superheroes destroying every military in the world, so that only they can kill you.

Author: Philip K. Dick

It’s not a long story, but it still took me quite some time to finish, because I have no idea what Philip K. Dick is trying to say, especially toward the end of the book.

author: Amal El-Mohtar

year: 2016

2016 Nebula Award for Best Short Story
2017 Hugo Award for Best Short Story
2017 Locus Award for Best Short Story

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