I guess I’m as hipster as I ever was. I’m back at the Park Avenue Starbucks, which I haven’t been to in a while. It’s pretty chill, this is a nice area.

After I posted on Wednesday about the bike trails I was so happy to discover, I continued biking all around town every afternoon after work. I’ve been doing it for the past three days in total — on day two, I didn’t go too far, but I went further again yesterday — I went back to the center city on the bike and took a somewhat roundabout route — I’m still not great with directions.

Impressed with my ability to keep it up so well, I woke up today feeling like a complete lump. All movement was hard, and I stayed in bed for all of the morning, even though I woke up at 6:30 AM. I regretted my previous high degree of enthusiasm.

But, anyway, I guess I wasn’t tired for the worst reason. I took a shower and did some house chores around noon, and then I decided I’d like to go somewhere to sit/blog/read — my collection of physical books and novels about historical Taiwan is still growing. I’m now in possession of my copy of Heaven Lake by John Dalton — I’m three chapters in and it’s already better than I ever imagined it would be. I had assumed it would be set in the 1960s or 1970s, because the main character is a missionary — it’s actually set in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which is even more interesting to me (an interesting time to be set in that place, for sure).

And the biggest hesitation that I had about reading the book — that the main character, a fairly sterile-sounding Christian missionary figure about my age — would be too unrelatable seems to also be not quite the case. The author maybe predicted that someone like that would be a hard sell to get readers to really connect with on an emotional level, so it was nice that that main character has his moments very early on that make him a more impressive presence in the story (like the short interaction where he buys his first motor scooter).

I guess I won’t spoil too much (I can’t, I’m not that far in myself). I had one left over Chunghwa Republic bill to my name leaving the island those two months ago, so I’m now using it as a bookmark.

Anyway, the way that I got here was by car. I really didn’t feel like biking all the way into the city center again, assuming I’d wake up tomorrow feeling even more thoroughly gutted — maybe I’ll buy an e-bike someday. They’re pretty expensive, though. If I had more internship money, maybe it’d be possible.

I’ve been reminded this by many friends now and really need to start taking it to heart in a more permanent way — I keep worrying a lot about these issues that, in the end, it seems like I don’t have much control over. I still feel bad driving cars because I can see and feel the CO2 leaving into the atmosphere — sure, it’s not optimal, but someday I’ll be able to move to a different city. For the few years I’m in college, I guess I shouldn’t worry about it so much that it cripples me.

And it’s a nice reminder to myself that I have yet to meet somebody my age who doesn’t feel the same way about that issue, so the further we push into the future, the more people my age get into positions of power, the more we’ll be able to do something. They say it’s on Gen Z to fix the problems that the 20th-century world generated. I guess that’s not the worst thing. It always takes time — 「慢慢的改變」 (that phrase is in my head from a Mandopop song I know, I’m sure, but I’m forgetting which one).

Anyway, at least I have a bicycle now, so when I’m not too tired I can go most places I’d ever want to without burning gasoline.

I still haven’t heard back about my application for the biomedical research lab internship through IIPP — the more I bike and get exercise, the better my mental state becomes and the more hopeful I am. It seems like they may not have sent out any acceptance letters just yet, so that I haven’t received one doesn’t seem to indicate anything, although that’ll change soon. I have no way of knowing whether I’m doing well in the running or if I’m about to be cut for the quota…

I’d like not to get my hopes up too much, but the potential reward is just too high. I still can’t stop thinking about the possibility.

As far as my current research lab internship goes, I got my to-do list done this week much more easily than I ever anticipated that I would. I even got almost half of my presentation done, which is due at the end of the month — I wrote the abstract in about half an hour (ten minutes for the first draft, ten minutes of revision during the weekly meeting, and then ten more minutes of revision the next day with the professor sitting right next to me). It might not be the best or most descriptive, but it’s the best I can get right now and now it’s done. So that’s at least good.

So all that remains to be done is to finish my first process/trial and to get some results (at least that’s the fun part). I’m making plenty of connections with the relevant people to help me with design and organization and those types of things, so I’m even able to write down my process in the tracking system for myself now and for future use — I even got an account on Fabublox yesterday, a software for making diagrams that show the process steps and a little 3-D visual of the silicon as it goes through.

I think I’m getting better at all this — my undergraduate research experience might actually be becoming worthwhile career development!

I’m also promising myself and all my friends to stop complaining about my inability to find an internship. If I stop complaining, the universe might finally forgive me and let me have one (that’s the only idea I have left after all these many months). Also, complaining kind of rubs on my emotions after a while. The more negative things I say, the more I believe them.

It’s kind of like remembering to be a good person and smile more often — it’s actually helpful, as much as you might not believe it, but it’s way harder than you might think.

But then, I think that the universe rewards people that work hard to have a positive outlook, because after all, the universe is all perception, anyway.

(Have I ever mentioned the time that a friend told me about the theory that all of our universe is inside of a black hole inside of another universe, which is another black hole inside of a larger universe…)?

「要感謝
這條小蟲，給我機會…」

Here’s a nice dog shot to help lift your mood and prepare you for whatever potential internship rejection letters you might have coming into your own email inbox.

The world is hard. It’s always been hard. That never stopped decent people from living their lives in it, anyway.

(I’ve been turning a lot of blog posts into therapy sessions lately — maybe I should go out and take some more photos).

I’ll try to be more regular soon — I’ll probably be back within a few days or a week.

So I’ll see you all then!