YIVAN

Just like time travel. I meant going back to the everyday life after hard working 🤣 Time flies when your google calendar is filled with colors.

But Whatever. If life continues, recording the daily stories will have its value.

I'm now stuck in classroom 307, writing my assignments. I really need to finish this stupid homework today... They were little essays and total word count was required.

No complaints, very reasonable. Till you find out the topic is about transitional justice.

Oh! jeez! I super not good at this kind of topic. I love to think and write about the way I think of it, But for people who have already picked sides to read my questioning murmurs... not to mention Ms.Lin, Who loves to ask students "have you heard his/her name ? If you heard of the name before, please raise your hand (some victims or democracy heroes or infamous politicians figures form the Authoritarian Period Taiwan)". Most of the time only few students will raise their hand. And after it, Ms.Lin might ask you where did you know this person, did your high school teacher teach you? or read form a book? Which book? etc.

I think she's just utterly curious, but it really feels like some kind of humiliation ritual in a cult. In this scenario, I really have 0 motivation to throw questions out on my little essays. We as students must have questions! Some stories are so over-the-top cruel and sad. But never mentioned by my parents or elders. Is it because the stories actually were exaggerated by the DPP for some political purpose? As a gen Z, it's not my wound; It's not my blood on the floor...Do I have the right to cry out for them? Perhaps most of them already put it behind them and try to move on...

I, personally, I believe all the cruel stories I have heard. And of course I think the nationalist government is a vile and evil regime. I raise both hands to approve and comfort the progresses of transitional justice. But I doubt the way they are educating us about it.

I think I mentioned I read "怒濤" in the past few entries. The story really made me think a lot about the 228 incident. But it also give me time(I mean the book took me near a month to finish XD) and space to digest the emotions contained in the book. And most of all, I never felt I was pushed to answer any moral questions. But yet, I have a feeling that my senses has become sharper, and this miserable history has become more comprehensible to me...

Went camping with my friends at Hsinchu 羅山 Logging Road. Looking back on the trip, the craziest part must have been the journey there instead of the camping itself XD.

We spent almost 4 or 5 hours on our scooters/ motorbikes. Departed from our campus. When we got there, I felt like my butt had cracked into four pieces... Listening to my other friends' crying, I was pretty sure they felt the same. We then took a little lunch break, and made some preparations.

The ride was over 100 km.The last time I took this kind of crazy journey was nearly 2 years ago, when I attempted to camp at 古魯 Logging Road, Yilan. Tho because of the typhoon had just left for like two days, the river was still rushing with rapids and was dangerous. I met a nice middle-aged guy, who told me the route to the summit was destroyed by the typhoon. He was there because he and his friends had planned to visit the abandoned elementary school ruin, located in the middle of the logging road. Which had abandoned since the '60s.

Both of us considered it impossible to continue the exploration, we turned back and chatted along. We exchanged our Line accounts, He said that maybe in the future if I want to challenge this route again, feel free to contact him. Despite his kindness, I have never contacted him since then... Aside from the joy of having a new friend, I felt scared...Since last summer I got scammed 1000 Euro in France, I have indeed lost some of the ability to trust middle-aged men. Tho I couldn't fully get rid of the guilt, we still need to maintain extra awareness. Sometimes the worst-case scenario is just too horrible. Sigh!

Anyway, we entered the gate and started the Epic. After another 2 hours of walking, we finally arrived at the campsite, we located. Boo! the tents were all set up! To be honest, there wasn't really much worth writing down. The stupid topics we chatted, the process of setting the camp, the landscape there...everything was just that, just normal. But don't you think that's the whole point of camping? It's not about doing some crazy stuff, but the experience, the sense of EmBodiMent...OK, enough of the nonsense LOL

Egh...I give up, I was trying to smoothly and interestingly move the story to the part when the day was late, a few of us went to sleep and a few of us stayed under the tarp.

"Time for THE late-night talks." Hua said.

I panicked.

There was always an urge in me, wanting to tell my friends/ family that...what did you say? I'm GAY? NO, sadly no XD. It was that I wanted to tell someone I've had a secret crush on my classmate P. It has passed for nearly 2 years since I defined this feeling as love. I still sometimes think we were kind of made for each other, Sigh! How arrogant! And her current boyfriend was a nice guy and is my friend too. I didn't know why it was so hard for me to even pick-up this topic, couldn't even say to Craig.

This is normal. Who doesn't have a secret crush? The thing that bothered me the most is why it's so hard for me to confess it to others! Probably my good old high school needed to take the responsibility, the messed-up things in that school could let me talk days. Ahh! And also the society.

What a peaceful day! Doing some daily work, helping my senior carry wood trunks he chainsawed up to his studio, going to the weekly meeting of our club...Then lying on the floor typing my diary. Normal routine, saikou!(Tho haven't opened the Japanese learning game and gone to the gym, still in the high pressure state yet technically😣 ) .

Few days ago, we were going to shoot our senior's school group portraits, all the fourth-grade students were there. Except for some...My roommate Craig was one of them. He and I both forgot it was the "shooting day" and had promised our alumna we could help her de-install her stuff...

Oh crap in fact it's midnight of the 17th, but so many things have happened these past few days, I want to write them all down!

OK, it's now late on the 18th, no energy left. So I'm just going to list what we did on 14th.

.1. Went to the 富邦FAM with Craig and Yang.

.2. I rushed to some place to take photos for NTUAF's personal official portrait.

.3.I Met one of my group members. He said"you know weekends are kind of personal time, so can you like...set the meetings or other works at weekdays?". My little thin but high pressure blood vessel almost exploded. You Know we are students, right? The only time when most of our group members available were weekands. And we had all voted for it! If you had no time then don't come here to volunteer!

.4.bruh...

MARCH 17th

Just finished the book 怒濤 , written by 鍾肇政. Its story happened in that turbulent times, in the mid-1940s...The Tenno had just broadcast the surrender of the Japanese Emperor worldwide. The last power of the Axis finally had fallen. The people living in Taiwan all cheered! Welcoming the reunion with China --- "mother land".

But everything began to go wrong rapidly. The cultural differences and the corruption of the Nationalist Government both increased the tension between the locals and the newcomers. The book's name directly translate to English will be Anger Waves. Eventually with the 228 Incident happened, the dike couldn't hold the flood of people's indignation...

Most of the Taiwanese characters in this book use Japanese (and their local dialect), It made me question was the general communication all in Japanese? Oh, and because there was multiple languages used by the Characters, the pages would cut to half, the top half was the language they're now using(like if they are chatting in Japanese, the text will be written in JP)and the bottom half was the translation. You can see 3 even 4 different languages in one conversation. Never seen it elsewhere XD

I didn't know...The story was so different from the 228 Incident I had imagined, or rather, what I had learned. It was so much more blood and horror and conflict. The scale of 228 Incident had always been a bit controversial. And because it had often become the battlefield for politicians, the stinky mist caused by the mouth farts made the truth vague...and I don't know what to believe.

This semester one of the ed courses I joined was about Transitional Justice. Ms.Lin had been in the committee of the government transitional justice. She told us Taiwan was a strange country, you can see the horrible things done by the government, in the authoritarian period at the National Human Rights Museum. And within biking distance you can see the Chiang Kai-shek memorial hall.

"The victims and their surviving families see those landmarks everywhere and every day, I can't imagine how they feel! "she said.

I opened my hazy eyes and searched for my phone. It was sitting right behind my pillow(actually... I lied, I don't sleep with pillow)… " hOlY! I'm going to be late for class. And that can't happen!"

It's the Music Appreciation , a general ed course. The teacher said the classroom is not big enough and bla bla bla, so he won't let students add the class. But after my continuous, proactive harassment and my promise to never be late or miss a session . He finally agreed to let me in XD. The class sounds really fun and him the teacher feels passionate, it would have been a real miss if I hadn't successfully added it. And because I want to keep the promise, I was panicking of the fact I might be late until I realize today is the graduate entrance exam of our school, so most classes today won't open. Sheesh….

worked till the first light broke. I Came back at 1AM and started helping Craig printing his portfolio for the graduate entrance interview.

MARCH 13 (afternoon)

Craig didn't perform will in his graduate entrance interview. I met some friends who were chatting in the clay sculpture studio. After greeting they mentioned that Craig's portfolio was hilarious, only had six or eight pages and was clearly printed by some home printer(haha really nailed it, printed by my little red printer).

"that's called style, OK?" I replied like I'm very serious.

But to be honest, It did have some references. It's format was base on one of the zines he had, and the low quality vary much suited his personality and artworks, anti-capitalism and kind of outsider-art type(tho he had stayed in this ACadEmIa for 4 years). Different from the majority, thick and sleek made by the professional printing companies. Pretty and cool too~ What does the professors think? after some simple info exchange with them I immediately called Craig. He sounded fine and said the professors was laughing too. Cool, If I didn't Know He had forgotten to bring a big part of the essential documents! I mentioned it and tell him that I had heard from other classmates, his voice suddenly became a bit depressed, he was trying to pretend this mistake had never happened...How come he be so absent-mind! But it happened so it happened, I told him it was fine...

MARCH 13 (bonus)

Man really is a pathetic creature. Yesterday, while I was zoning out in the clay sculpture studio, she walked in with vary weary footsteps... we've been friends since the first year of college, but never really close(aside from Craig and some guys I can't say I've ever gotten really close with others tho). She had been injured by the machine in the woodworking shop. Oh! how horrible that was! she now needed to take some medicine after every meal, and its side-effect made her feel bad. She told me, I didn't replied anything worth noting at that time, just some cliche comforting.

"What the fuck am I saying?" After she left, I reflected. She had only come down for some tools she needed, She reminded me of my sis, my sis has suffered for her period pain for years, hope the surgery last month will give this a end... There was once It was just so painful my sister just passed out on the street... sigh...

I messaged her that I was going to get a Americano and did you want a hot cocoa or milktea. Because she hadn't replied after a few minutes, and just happened that another classmate went down for something too. I asked my classmate if she could asked her do she want a hot coco or milktea or something else...I was willing to get her one. And I had sent her a message.

Few minute later she messaged me back saying it was fine her stomach didn't feel right and thanks for asking. I felt vary happy.

"At least my concern has been delivered to her; hope it makes her feel a bit better"I thought. Very wholesome right?

Yeah, but the MAN weakness begins to kick in... At night I just think I might have a crush on her. Wait, Wait, Wait I know the logic here seems totally stupid and make no sense. I too feel the same so here is my theory about this phenomenon. It's because my addiction of the garbage male narrative... I'm so in to the "because I treat you good, you should repay me your love" plot. And as a hopeless narcissist my mind don't even need to care about what she thought, just follow the story line in my pathetic head"so the next phase is I will too fall in love with her"

I think that's what happened in my subconscious. I love and read a lot of fictions, including a bunch of shonen manga and man's fiction. most of which imply positive ideologies and proactive meaning, but also have that cliche "girl fall in love with the male protagonist after he saves her" plot. How romantic! but also oversimplified and outdated, relationships in real life should never viewed as a goods traded for helps.

Tho it's already March 10th. Lately I've still been working on my TUNAF project. Making the molds. Running around my studio and the molding classroom till midnight...Hey! Do you know I used to go to bed at 20:00. What a torture!

It's been a while that this urge came up to me since last time; the impulse of sleeping on some random building's roof... When lying up there, when the dark sky fills my entire vision... Paired with a big long sigh, everything just becomes less important you know.

The overwhelming stress! every time after days of late work I'll naturally fall in to this state, and a bit of the dissatisfaction of the interpersonal relationships... Err...It's not hard to go along with people, but it's difficult to have a deeper relationship with them for me. But I want to clarify it's not only caused by passive thoughts or some depression shit, sometimes If I was happy or excited I will climb to the roof too. I just want to emphasize this feeling's complexity, maybe I will slowly forget this kind of juvenile sensibility and then misjudge my memories...

Crap... A few days ago, I had accidentally kicked the wall, and the nail of my left foot's middle toe turned black. OK, thanks to that, the way I walk lately was like captain Hook just got his new wood-made limb on... But except for the pain it was still fine(yeah, visually), till last night. It began to bleed oh my geez the seriousness immediately increased 2 levels and crossed the red zone---the "panicking zone". Didn't sleep so well last night ehh...

I went to the hospital this morning, shot a X-ray to make sure I didn't hurt my bone. Took some of my precious time, but turned out every thing was fine, and the bleeding was caused by the nail can't hold the build-up of blood pressure underneath anymore. The doc said it's a natural phase of this type of injury, when the blood is all out ,the pain, in fact, will decrease.

Anyway, today I do have something want to talk about, that is "what's avant-garde". This Friday, in the class "History of Taiwanese Theater", which I was trying to get an add code(since I'm a Fine Arts major and the online course registration system for other majors is locked for us . FUOK YOU TUNA). And while the teacher was talking about the modern movements, she threw out a question:"there's a art reviewer said the avant-garde was dead, is it dead?", of course no my mind immediately responded. But why? I ask myself.

"Is avant-garde anti-public? see, mostly we saw plays that label themselves as avant-garde usually took place in some experimental theater or some kind of alternative spaces"

One of the students replied that he knows there's a "avant-garde" theater group, their plays always have some creative side and also famous, went to many big theaters in Europe. "But isn't that just some gimmick, that art reviewer said that because he thinks that in this post-modern society, everything will be consumed in some way..."

The student asked back that then the artists want to do new thing won't be allowed to fill their bellies? I was confused, yeah, what's the point of being "avant-garde"?

MOM! I'm on TV!

I've been a volunteer in a project that goes to tribes teaching little kids art, since last year! it's been a year, wow, time flies XD. And we had hosted a exhibition last month, showcaseing our phased results. At 台北記憶倉庫,near taipie trainstation. A little and lovely Exhabition about the works we and the children made together. Our techer mr. Lin has some friends in TITV, and they have some interest too, so this progarm was born. Except for me, kind of representing the other college student teachers, there's the TA, miss Hsu、mr. Lin and ms. Pagung Tomi, indigenous partner who help us hold the entire art class project. Very happy to have this chance to say something about the things we're doing in front of the camera.

I've just finished the laundry, ehh, I must have left some paper thing in my jeans pocket...After hanging all the clothes, the paper bits are now everywhere on the floor. Shit.

Recently one of my good old friend Liao was trying to gather us, our middle school classmates, and hold a reunion. And yesterday was the reunion day. It's hard to imagine it's been 7 years since last time I saw him, his voice has become much lower, but still that guy in my memory 7 years ago, nothing really changed, and neither have I... later all the classmates who were able to come had arrived, We all been through much more, but still the same guys, It made me emotional tho I didn't show it. (Sigh), is this what they call "human inertia"?

we went to the ktV after finishing our dinner. Till 3 a.m today so this is technically counts as today's diary XD.

So many things have happen in these two days, so overwhelming that I don't know where to begin…there are some happy moments, like hanging out with my friend at the sports shop. Chatting about which mountain/Ancient trail should we go next. He said that maybe we can shoot some photo of us put on the graduation gown walking in the woods. I don't have much to put in the yearbook so, definitely going to do that.

Then there are the exhausting things... I want to complain about. OHHHH! I truly hate college students in Taiwan. despite they are full grown-ups, still act like kids. Not saying about naive(innocent) or bold(proactive) that kind of "childlike", that usually makes kids cute and adorable... It's that they are easily bored、lack of passion and don't like to take responsibility. Just learned a new word from Gemini---"childish". OK, done with the emotion, now to put up some context. My good old friend Leo in NTU asks me could I help the NTU art festival, as a team leader of one of the art projects. He's the festival director. It began in last year's December, but till now we have only had 5 meeting with all the members present, and the group members are so passive, and like to G-H-O-S-T me. At least tell me what are you thinking, right? Or how the hell should I adjust the leading compass? I know I have some problems too but from writing the projects proposal to practice it, I did it all by myself and I'm tired!

FEBRUARY 27TH

Last night my lovely friend listend to my complaints of the NTUAF stuff to midnight, she's too grabbed by Leo to help out the festival. Just looking at her title, she's my top Superior XD tho her duty is more about the whole production progresses aspect and communicating with Leo and other projects teams. thanks her again for willing to listen all this crap. ehh, hard to keep my eyes open, so it's time to rewatch My Broken Mariko(???). such a masterpiece. I was going to write an essay talking how good is this manga but I'm going to bed bubuy~

In the morning,my room, my roommate and I were chatting. He was watching some kind of Chinese Tokusatsu superman movie.

"It's a rip-off of the Kamen Rider that came out in the 70s... Kamen Rider franchise was really popular in china at that time. Oh, and this movie is famous in the mockbuster genre" he said. truly a weird guy with a weird taste. Always watching some "famous" movies I doubt even 10 people at our school have heard of it (We're in art school, fill with some performative peoples like to announce they had watched a bunch of indie-movie or what fuck, but in fact have zero passion for those movies...sorry I have been carried away XD)

Tho the chinese superman thing has a mediocre plot, the over-the-top cringeness caused by the badly aged typical chinese cultural reference and the Kamen Rider-like style hybrid aesthetic make it kind of interesting to watch. I was lying on my sofa trying to finish The Sorrows of Young Werther, ehh, I have been reading it for months...The book is interesting but the goofy movie kept distracting me XD

Maybe because the book I was reading, I mentioned that recently I'm just started to write dairy everyday(Werther writes letters, kind of similar?). And as a literature lover, I can't bear what I'm writing is continuously like a boring laundry-list shit.

He replied to me with a question mark face,"I too some time write diary, it's always a laundry-list. I think it's just natural"

What a happy day, tho for most people, today is the back-to-work day or back-to-school day and definitely won't be describe as a delightful day... I thought I will be a little bit depressed too because missing the course registration day made me kind of stressed out. Turn out that meeting the good old classmates and say hi to each other can already make my brain produce some dopamine. I won't say(and I don't think too) I'm an outcast but too can't deny the fact I really don't have that much topic to chat about with my classmates and have few close friends. but still greeting with them makes me feel happy😁

To improve my English writing and spelling, I have decided to begin writing diary. today truly is a bizarre day, met my senior slash roommate while walking back home from the gym,12 A.M.

Because our routine is hilariously opposite, we ain't really close though we live Under the same roof for almost a year. As the fucking weird guy I get up at 4 or 5 a.m. and sleep at 8 p.m. and him, truly a night owl. After an easy and polite greeting, while I was just going to continue to head back home/dorm.

"I'm going to the human right museum, the one that located in Jingmei District. Do you want to come?" He asked.

no idea where and what is it, sounds interesting so I just said let's go. Oh, love the randomness in life, right guys?

The place we went was used to be a barracks, and also a prison for political prisoner in the White Terror era. Woke points +1 XD There was a guided tour and an escape room party game that has the theme of the White Terror. I love reading historical fiction but somehow my subconscious kind of skipping stories that based on that era. I think 楊逵 綠島家書 is the only book I read that have a strong connection with the White Terror, maybe it's because every time I saw someone discussing about the White Terror, it always come with some kind of political view I can't tell is it true or false, I'm scared I might be misguided and formed a bias opinion... OK, get sidetracked. What I'm trying to mention is that walking through the old buildings that appears in the history text book really cause a weird feeling... It makes the pale historic photos and documents feels more realistic but also feels Surreal(OK sorry i don't know what I'm typing too XD).

(just escaped from X XD, maybe here's the right place to stay~)