Year Three, Almost Free 18: Occupied and Busy

Hello, Tim!
The ever-dreadful GSAT has crept considerably nearer with its pitter-pattering feet, and not even the pending new year will be able to fend it off!
Look, here comes four consecutive days of holiday! Too bad it will all be spent on studying. Four days later, right after or breaks are over, our semester finals will be here, and shortly afterwards, it's the GSAT.
This is going to be surprising, but this might have to be the end for this week.
My bad.

Year Three, Almost Free 17: Merry Christmas and a Hot Pot

Hello, Tim!
With the countdown for the GSAT reaching thirty-four days, we have only less than five weeks to prepare.
Before that, however, comes Christmas.
(This will be yet another short letter.)

Third Christmas with EHP

Let's stroll a little down memory lane. The first year we entered EHP, we were asked to hold a Christmas party for us and the seniors from both the in the second year and the third. The year after that, Patrick came to school in his own Santa costume, and we had a present exchange, in which Amy gave me a book I really wanted, and Angela helped me pick out a purple purse for Candy. This year was almost going to be lacking any sort of celebration. We didn't even have the spare time for buying presents this time!
One day, by the Christmas tree and under the glowing lights, an idea came to us.
"Christmas is coming, and so is the winter solstice... let's have a hot pot party." One said. Maybe it was meant to be a half-hearted idea, so it was strictly forbidden to have a fire lit up in the classroom and is also against the rules to have any other sort of heating device. Nevertheless, the idea caught on before long. I guess we were all desperate for something to do to make this Christmas special, and the fire in our heart kindled excitedly but gently.
It was winter solstice. A very sunny, beaming, hot winter solstice.
In an eccentric efficiency for is, we all had brought what we were supposed to prepare. A hot pot in the making has never been hard. All there is to do is turn on the fire and put all ingredients into the pot. The difficult part about cooking in the classroom when it was illegal in school is to hide the portable gas stove and the pot together. (Well, o forgot to mention that we still asked for Ms. Summer's permission, who simply told us to be careful and have fun. She is a cool teacher, isn't she?) There are no curtains to block the pot from the view of the outsiders, so whenever a teacher walls past our classroom, we would make a wall out of ourselves circling the pot to cover it lest it be seen.
This winter solstice is hot, but it wasn't the reason our hearts were warm.

Merry Christmas, Tim!

Sincerely,
Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 16: Christmas and Mock Tests Pending

Hello, Tim!

What's my status?
Still alive, still struggling.
In two days, we will have our second mock test, and just a little more than a month, we will hopefully be able to extricate ourselves from the burden.

Pending Christmas

There is really nothing Christmas-y about burying our heads in books.
With our heads filled with maps and Chinese articles, formulae to solve equations and years when different wars took place, I say we still managed to put our hearts in classroom decorations.
In the storage unit of a school that is not normally accessible, we fished out a forgotten Christmas tree. Like kids who were just about to celebrate their first Christmas, we bounced through the corridors all the way back to our classroom, barely registering the fact that there were people watching us with judging eyes. For the third consecutive year, we hung the led lights in the classroom. This time, we were blatant. We hung it on the frame of our blackboard, and it was blinking and shining all day long, and no one complained! Angela wrapped some tinsels around the chalks, one of which pricked our math teacher on the thumb.
I brought a chocolate advent calendar given by my cousin, and every day, we would take turns open one little door on the calendar, counting down the days until Christmas comes to us.
This Christmas is bound to be the least festive in the three years of high school life, with the test pressure that has been interfering with our free time to an extent that we all became accustomed to the perturbance. But I dare say our classroom is the most festive in the whole school. This is the last year we will be doing this as a family of over a dozen people, and we do not want to miss out on it because we have a test to deal with.

Yeah, we also spent time decorating William.

Christmas Presents

It is unrealistic to prepare presents for everyone in the class, but I have one prepared for Candy. One day, we were taking the MRT together, which was a rare occasion, with me living just forty minutes of walking from school. Several changes of topics later, and we somehow touched the conversation about books. She told me that she loved the story of Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, and that she cherished the book with her heart, but after a small accident, her book was ripped apart. She didn't get a replacement of it afterward, so I figured this Christmas is a good time to do so. I got her an English copy of Little Women, even when the one she lost was translated into Chinese.
Hope that she will like my gift.

Christmas Music

Being such a globally popular festival, the music industry would not lose grasp of the chance to produce some modern Christmas music.
Music has been an endearing friend when I am studying. The block out the hustling of the world and replace it with rhythms that I am familiar with. These days, a lot of my chosen songs have been Christmas themed. No matter if it is some classics like Last Christmas or even Twelve Days of Christmas or some more modern ones like Meghan Trainor's I'll be Home or Owl City's Kiss Me Babe, It's Christmas Time, I welcome them all.
Just a week or two ago, I came across some more of them, like Michael Bublé's rendition of Santa Baby and Sia's Snowman along with a dozen others; I couldn't be happier than to expand my storage of Christmas songs.

Musing and End

Of course, I am running out of time again. One last thing.
One day, I was on the bus heading home with Allison, and I said to her with a tone quite forlorn, "I really do wish to be in an old tavern or cafe that has nothing but decorations that scream Christmas." She was nonplussed.
"Save those sentiments for later. You'll have plenty of Christmas to be cheerful about when you're abroad. Enjoy the not-so-Christmas when you can."
Her tone was cool and neutral, and she did make sense. I don't think about it that often, but there is absolutely no doubt that I would be missing home like crazy when nostalgia hit.
This is all for this week.

Second blood donation!

With Mom.

Sincerely,
Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 15: Thanks for This Blog and a French Riot

Hello, Tim!
I’ve been falling more and more into the category of a stereotypical Taiwanese student (or in some cases, an Asian student) who, in accord with/against his will, will study whenever morsels of time are scattered around, scolding myself severely if I don’t. I would threaten myself with ominous future predictions, trying desperately to rein my mind in and buckle it onto my studies.
The temperatures have dropped two days ago, and even when the sun is present, it would still make you feel vulnerable from the nipping winds. It’s better; at least it’s feeling a lot more like winter.

What This Blog Has Given Me

Almost two years had fleeted by since I started with this blog, but it was only recently had I thought about all the benefits it, writing an update of my life on at least a weekly basis, has given me.
First of all, my entries are like weekly journals, for they alone can paint a general image of what my life in Taiwan is like. If I departed for a trip rather far from my house, that particular trip is very likely going to be on my blog. Having this kind of records is very convenient, for example, if you are one day suspected of a murder case that would require your alibi on the second Thursday of June, I wouldn’t have to think until my brain cracked and still unable to recall anything.
Just kidding. I, for one, believe that twenty-four hours a day is not enough for us to both live in the moment and trying to remember some details in your memory. Writing them down basically means that you are having a computer work for you and it will remember every word you feed it with no effort.
Keeping a blog also helps me with my writing, both on the English ones and the Chinese ones. When writing events like telling a story, I found myself more and more capable of arranging the paragraphs in a more fluid order; forming similes and metaphors has also become relatively easier. In the past, trying to put some abstract ideas on paper would require me squeezing my brain until all the fluids inside are forced out, but now it’s more like twisting open a water tap; some can be done with rapid succession, while some others would need more strength, meaning that there’s no more mission impossible.
I know half of the effects come from my profuse amount of reading, but I would like to credit the other half to my blog keeping.

French on Riot in Their ‘gilets jaunes’

In our school, especially in civics classes, we mention the current president Emmanuel Macron with an attitude that is either neutral or positive, like how he had joined hands with Merkel at a monument to commemorate a conflict in the past that pitted France and Germany against each other. Therefore, I believe we all have subconsciously registered that he should be adored by the French people.
Oh, wait.
Due to a recent project in our English writing courses, I went to the website of BBC news. It came as a surprise that the Europe section of the media was bombarded with numerous close-up following reports of an anti-government movement in France called the “gilets jaunes,” or “yellow vests.”
I read through several of the reports, including one that says that due to a recent damage of monument by some of the more extreme rioters, most of the tourist sites in Paris like the Eiffel Tower and the Musée d’Orsay will be closed for now.
This movement of angry citizens, according to the reports, had once reached a peak of over 280,000 protesters throughout the nation. Their discontent was clearly aimed at the French government and its president, Emanuel Macron. What had lit up the fuse of the people on the streets with their reflective yellow vests, however, was initially a rise in the diesel tax. This issue sparked another, and it went on and on, until people of all walks marched the streets, crying out their demands for the government to listen. The students wanted President Macron to abolish his plans to change the baccalaureate, a college entrance exam for them; people in poor living conditions wanted a new and friendlier tax system, etc.
It sure is very different in Taiwan. The people here are also constantly having problems with the government, but what we do more often, take my father as an instance, is to turn on the TV and switch to the political commentary program and listen to the people on the show raving about the incompetence of the government. There are occasional demonstrations that happen on streets, but never with such an impressive crowd. Note how even though the yellow vests protesters don’t have a central leadership, they still connected through social media and stood in unity. I know that setting off riots, burning cars, and destroying national treasures should not be praised with merits, but when you are practically several oceans away from the place, you would find it quite fascinating.
Luckily, it seems that the crowd has been temporarily appeased by the PM and his promise that the President would address the problems on the desk in the near future. I don't usually follow politics, but I think I would be interested in seeing what Mr Macron could do as to prevent another French Revolution.

End

I think writing about news also does a great deal of help on my writing. Maybe I should do it more often.

Year Three, Almost Free 14: Grandpa and a Busy Week

Hello, Tim.

This week is the first time I’m not really able to write a lot, for this week is my grandfather’s cremation and funeral, which took up a whole weekend.

Maybe I can put some highlights in bullet points and call it a day for this week’s letter?

• There are sixteen days left before our second and final mock test of GSAT, and less than two months before our actual GSAT.

• Christmas is coming! I got a chocolate advent calendar from my cousin and I plan to bring it to school to count down Christmas together.

• The cremation was relatively calm; my grandma, my aunt, and my mother teared up a bit when my grandpa’s body was brought out. A dozen of relatives came for the ceremony.

• A while later, his body was taken to a cremation center. I, the eldest of his grandsons, was in charge of holding the urn that contained his bones.

• Later, his bones will be taken up to a mountain where his urn will be placed in a building reserved for people who were in the army.

This is all I can manage for this week.

As for Christmas, I don’t think we can afford the luxury of the two previous years; the GSAT sits upon us, pressing into our backs like it was a stone with very sharp edges.

This is all for this week.

Sincerely,

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 13: Referendum Voting and Gay Rights

Hello, Tim!

I only have about an hour today, so I have to be quick.

Tomorrow is our second midterm, and I’m, as per usual, far from prepared. I had made a schedule for studying that would take up a whole day, and now is time for letter writing!

There is only one thing I want to talk about today, and that is the referendum voting that took place yesterday.

As you must have heard, Tim, the results are, in my eyes, a total loss.

This is the first year the government had lowered the age requirements to vote for the referendum, from twenty to a lower eighteen. A younger generation is brought into the world of voting, and in their first year (Sadly, I’m still seventeen) they are already bombarded with ten questions that can make big differences to the society in Taiwan. More than ten million people are eligible to vote, and from the words you had sent to Summer, I understand that you are already more or less well-acquainted with the issues, so I’m just going to go to the results.

All referendums concerning LGBTQ rights are going against the supporters will. Three of them against gay people and education on gender equality passed with enormous success, while two issues voting for gay people and giving same-sex couples the rights to be under the protection of the civics law went down in flames. With an overview of all five issues, the proportions can be simplified like this: Among those who have voted, three out of two people express disapproval towards the rights of gay people.

What do I think about this? Immensely upset, of course, but I cannot say that I didn’t expect this would happen. Taiwan is a country with a high elderly rate, and even though this might sound a bit biased, but most of them still have traditional thoughts, and this is what Hu Jiah Meng, a group working to convince people to vote against gay marriage, is aiming at. With the elders taking up a great deal of Taiwan’s population, their opinions matter much more than those who just turned 18. “We are voting for our children,” they said. “Teaching children about gay people will turn all of them gay, and Taiwan will fall when everyone is gay, and we won’t have kids anymore,” they were sure to add. I’m not even kidding! That is what they had told my grandmother and my aunt! They told them that when the two pro-gay referenda are passed with green lights, EVERYONE would have to get married to a person of the same sex! What is the logic in that? On the off chance that people are going to fear the unknown, they portrayed gay people like wild beasts that are better rounded up altogether, hid under a cellar, and never let them see sunlight again. I know fully well that I sound like a whiny loser right now, but the more I typed down the words, the more indignant I had become, thinking about how in the world can they ever justify doing so, a practical public witch hunt!

At this moment, people from the Hu Jiah Meng must be sipping on their pride from their crystal wine glass, a dark-red liquid tasting rather salty in a glass container taken from a dusty attic, in a box that is labeled with the words ‘dilapidated but perfectly justifiable traditions we must keep’. It just made me even angrier.

Still, we can’t bury our heads in the sand, convincing ourselves that the reality at this moment is something we have envisioned when it really isn’t. We stand up, we step up. We shout out, we exclaim!

A Google Image.

We keep faith. And wait when our version of justice can take over.

This is all for this week.

Sincerely yours,

Hugo

Letter for Week 12

Hello, Tim!

I have a story to tell. One I think that people don’t talk about very often.

Yesterday was a normal, chilly morning for Taiwan. There were small raindrops from the sky, but it didn’t stop me from heading out of the house along with my mother, who had to be at the convenience by seven o’clock. After seeing her zoom off into the distance on her electronic motorbike, I went the opposite direction, crossed the streets, and into the big park to exercise. 

I jogged until my legs were worn out, and I headed home. Only at the door did it come to me that I had left my keys at home. I trekked all the way to my mom’s workplace for her keys; I just crashed on the sofa immediately.

It was lunchtime. I entertained myself by cooking a meal. It was splendid. I had barely gulped down the last spoon of soup when I got a phone call from my aunt.

My grandfather was dying.

The sobbing and wavering tones on the other side of the phone indicated that my aunt was weeping. I tried to stay calm, and my aunt told me to go over as soon as possible. “Be quick, he’s not going to stay for long...” she said. 

There stands a rather long distance between the hospital and my house, so the steady but slow MRT wouldn’t suffice. By the road, I flagged down a taxicab, knowing that the money I had brought along would be ample to pay for the fee. The driver asked why I was in such a hurry, and I told him vaguely that my grandfather was ‘seriously ill.’ He then engaged me in several hearty conversations, but I could focus on that.

When I arrived, Grandpa was already gone.

His eyes were closed and his mouth agape. What pinkish color in his face that indicated life had already drained away and was replaced with a waxy yellow. In the aged lighting in the ED, his face was expressionless as if nothing could rouse him anymore. Tears fell from my grandma’s eyes as she lifted my grandfather’s face, weeping. Desperate but in vain, she held his chin, asking him to hold it to look more handsome. Don’t worry about us, don’t worry about me, she said. Go with the Buddha and live a wealthy life in the other world.

My aunt and even the maid hired to take care of my grandparents were crying. I held his hand, now without any remaining temperature. His hands were incredibly soft as per usual, which is a result of several decades of labor-free life — tears threatened, but they just wouldn’t fall. Mom was still at work at the moment, and there was no way we could reach her then. The people of the hospital came and informed us that they had to move the body from the ED to the mortuary. Requested by the people tending to the business, I helped grab the waistband of my grandpa and helped him onto the white plastic duffel bag. Before the zippers were zipped up, they draped another layer of silky cloth that had a shade of chamomile. On the all-covering blanket were symbols of Buddhism, laid upon the dead as a part of the tradition.

Whenever a turn is made, whenever we passed a door, my aunt and my grandma, along with the undertakers would utter a brisk “We are making a turn/ passing a door” which I later learned to follow suit. It must also be a part of the ritual.

It was much easier to talk about death in fictional works or on the media… The people were far from an acquaintance, and hence you will not feel the blow in your stomach when you heard that they had passed. A relative… It is different.

More relatives arrived, and they all filed into the office to arrange the funeral business. I sat alone in the breezy air-conditioned mortuary – I then registered that I had left the house in my indoor outfit: a casually thin shirt and a pair of red shorts. My trainers were worn without socks, and the discomfort kept reminding me of the fact. I sat at one of the stools in the room, barely minding the cool air hitting my skin. I was alone with my grandpa. It was a lot more serene than I thought, being in contact with a dead person. Maybe it was because of the fact that the person in front of me was my grandpa, and there was nothing I needed to be afraid of. I tried recalling the last holiday I spent at my grandparent’s place, with my grandpa still present. At a staggering age of 95, Grandpa could do nothing more than lie in bed or at most, walk a step or two to the wheelchair. The interaction between him and I would only be a greeting at arrival, a warm hug, and some cozy, family version of staring contest, and a similar greeting done before leaving. There wasn’t once in my memory, that I had seen him look at us with happy, caring eyes that needed no words of exchange. I vaguely remembered a picture found in one of my cabinets, a picture of him holding me in infanthood by both hands, steadying me as I walked. Of course, I had no recollection of this trip, but those are, however, unfortunately, one of the few interactions I had with him when I was a kid.

A ritual performer came, followed by all the present relatives. With two palms making contact, we prayed as the man started to chant the words from a Buddhist hymn. He held a bell in his hand, jingling it in tempo with the chanting. In the small cubic and reclusive room, the bell chimed, resonating our eardrums from both sides. I know it wasn’t the prime purpose, but I believe that the bell had an effect on us, calming us down as it sang its soothing monotone.

Mom rushed in. She got my message and left the moment she could and headed right over to the hospital. Amid whimpers of remorse, I heard her say that she was sorry that she was late. Seeing her beating herself up was like having glass shards pressed into me, breaking skin and into the veins. I held her as we listened to the music with no melody. She called Dad, and he was torn as well. He just got on the ship and couldn’t leave right away. Their solution was to put the phone on speaker as Mom held the phone near Grandpa’s body while Dad spoke his regretting apologies with tears in his voice. All this was overwhelming, and a bitterness rose in my nose as I took in the reality.

This is all I can offer for this week. Surely, there should be more than just this, but after the news, nothing else seems critical or appropriate of bringing up. Next week would be another big ritual, which marks the seventh day of death, a rather important ritual in the Chinese culture.

All I wanted to say now is that every day, dozens of thousands die, moving on to the last phase of their current life. You know the numbers, the statistics many of us like to analyze. You might get from the statistics the probabilities on death for tomorrow and the day after, but you can never be sure. It could be you, it could be us. It could be someone you love dearly or someone you couldn’t care less about. It could be a person who makes your reality possible or someone who had once torn your life to pieces. It could be any of us. We cannot complain or fight against it as much as we can demand Time to slow down its pace. Death happens, and it is something every living being needs to process. There is a school, a belief whose principle is to view life and death as an equal entity. Only until this Saturday had I realized how much nonsense this principle is. Death is to remind us that we who are still blinking, still talking, still reading, are alive. Seeing it with our naked eyes without any form of veil draping across is help us understand that we are not beings with infinite time. We love, we hate, we walk, we swim. But we live all the same.

.

Outside, the sunset shone the color of a yellowish color of a chamomile, like the color of the cloth covered over my grandfather.

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 11: More Poe and School Fair

Hello, Tim!

This is the week of our school anniversary!

Trying More of some Gothic Poe Story

If you can still recall, a year or so back, I wrote an article on the American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, more specifically, one of his most intriguing stories, The Telltale Heart. Because of our recent reading and writing courses, I had the motive to pick up my collection of Poe story once again. This time, through reading the story again, I got new understandings as well as new questions formed.

I found out that this short story of only two-and-a-half thousand words has a profound theatrical succession. It needs reading out loud or speculation of the intonations between sentences as much as you need to shout in an enclosed and quiet space. You process the words you read and the voice inside your head increases in volume and picks up in speed when the steady and marginally narcissistic musings gradually morph into an internal monologue of panic and paranoia. You would, as the word used by the main character, hearken the heartbeat of the old man he killed ringing in your ears, and the last uproar of the man would leave a raspy echo in resonance. This kind of storytelling left me in awe.

I then continued with his other short stories, like Berenice, M.S. in the Bottle, and Ligeia. Berenice is the name of the main character whose story was narrated by her fiancé. Troubled by OCD, the man told us that he could only focus on a very intricate detail at a time. One day, Berenice fell ill, and when the narrator was supposed to mourn for the imminent death of his to-be-wife, he could only focus on her white teeth. Oh, how he wished for her teeth! His obsession grew in drastic degrees, and before he could even register his actions, he had *gross alert* plucked out, as in the original text, “thirty-two small, white and ivory substances”. In the other story featuring a dying woman, Ligeia is a story about a woman who owned a seemingly endless sagacity. The story then borderlines on witchcraft, and after a dozen minutes staring at the text with eyes of confusion, I went on the Internet and found out that this story explored the possibility of one living on solely by willpower. I do know that I am not the only one who’s bewildered by the odd and morbid stories of Edgar Allan Poe. I can’t say that I understand fully the idea the author wanted to convey through the short stories composed by his mysterious and imaginative mind, but it intrigued me and many people alike.

School Fair = Volleyball Tournament + Classroom Chilling Out

This Saturday was the school’s 55^th school fair, and we the third graders were obligated to participate the events despite the coming exams. The volleyball tournaments, for example, is a tradition in our school. For three days we had wakened up especially early to get to school by seven in the morning, one hour before school starts. We would practice as the sun rose and peeked out from between the clouds, and I would bring more than three T-shirts because I knew I would need each of them by the end of the day.

We won the first match but lost the next two. I played more horribly than when we were practicing, and I resent the fact that I performed so badly.

Then, after the tournaments, is the school fair time, where the juniors sold their goods prepared on their own, like the way we did in the previous two years. Because of the sun, the defeat in volleyball, and the lack of variety in choices, I didn’t get much to eat, and instead, stayed in the cool recluse of our classroom and awaited the time to pass.

William happened to bring his guitar with him, and he played the adaptions of several pop songs in Chinese and English and Spanish. We sang along to the flitting notes, and the hot autumn air became tamer all of a sudden.

Us.

Why End Now?

The same old problem.

I don’t have enough time to keep up with the busy schedule. I’ll have more time when the tests are over, and only then will I have time to leisurely sit at my desk with the screen on, with a cup of coffee on my left-hand side of the desk on a colorful owl coaster Mom bought for me. Only then will I be able to close my eyes and recall the events of the whole week, trying to find the right word to describe the sound of William’s guitar, the precise language to use for my ever-changing mood, and the unobtrusively inserted literal devices to furnish the sentence. Only then will I be able to proudly show the world that this is, with a smile on my lips and a glint in my eyes, indeed all for this week.

Extra: Walking the kids home.

Sincerely,

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 10: Hair and Hedgehog (Oh, Look, Alliteration)

Hello Tim!

Yes, it is the recurring theme for this week:

The decreasing temperatures of recent days, the relentless countdown still right in front of us, and we are in no way ready for the impact now.

A Hedgehog

But still, despite all the stress pouring over us, I don’t see the reason to stop reading novels as a hobby. Quite the opposite, in fact. After spending a practical thirteen hours in school, I found that it is therapeutic to have something extracurricular to read.

People aim for stars, and they end up like godfish in a bowl.

However, I’m not sure if we should classify The Elegance of a Hedgehog as a novel. True, it’s got characters, plots, and settings, but it is also largely proportioned with philosophical essays. There are two main characters, Paloma, a thirteen-year-old girl who saw the world in its ugliest form and thus has been cynical. She was so upset at the word that she had decided, on her coming birthday, she would burn down the whole department and go down in flames with the bricks and walls, in which the act represents her malcontent for the world. But just you wait...

There was also Renée, the seemingly quotidian concierge of the Parisian apartment Paloma lived in. She was not what most others in the book thought she was, though. She was born with great intelligence, but a tragedy in her childhood times convinced her to shy away from the gazing eyes of the world and resolved to become a concierge who had to deal with all the antics of the rich residents who took her “inferior job” for granted.

The two of them had nearly given in to the thought that the world is in its final form- beyond fixing. Now let’s introduce a crucial secondary character to the story!

Like how the whole universe works, when something seems to go wrong, one would appear and, like a cogwheel that spurs the machine to go on once again, or a wrench that screws a loose bolt tight to stop the gadget from making an orchestra of disconcerting creaking sounds, and fix the problem. The said cogwheel in this book is named Kakuro Ozu, a Japanese businessman who moved into the department, he sees people for who they really are, under the façade named money that people have been hiding behind.

I cannot say I understand the whole book. The parts involving philosophy are just too incomprehensible for me, either if it’s from a monologue of Paloma or Renée. They took turns talking about concepts like art, the perception of the world, and eccentric behaviors of people in the upper class, all of which were accompanied by a myriad of symbolism and metaphors. Sometimes I get what they are talking about, but for many of the cases, I would have the puzzled scowl on my face even after reading the same passage for two times. Throughout the book, I was curious where the title of the book, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” (in its original language, « L’élégance du hérisson ») came from. The inquiry was solved when Paloma offered her first opinion on Renée the concierge, “Madame Michel (Renée) has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she’s covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside she has the same simple refinement of the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent creature, fiercely solitary – and terribly elegant,” I liked the slight tinge of poetry mingled within.

I forgot to mention how this book ended up on my shelves. Back in middle school, I had a classmate who introduced me to this book, in a translated version. Right then, he wanted to improve his spoken English skills, so in English, he told me that it is a book about a girl who was upset with the world and decided to commit suicide on her birthday. There’s nothing more than that, but since he was a classmate with a rather mysterious aura around him, I knew that what he reads must be something worth a try.

I Cut My Hair

Or more specifically, I went and had my hair cut.

As I recall, the last time I had gone to a barbershop was the beginning of June! I have deliberately let them grow like untended vines; I heartily took in any derisive account or negative comments the others (i.e. basically everyone I know) because I know what they say must be true. It is not normally obvious, but I have the natural curls once my hair grows to a certain length, and it usually starts with my overgrown sideburns. I didn’t know what gave me the idea at first, but I was just insistent on letting them grow until winter. Now it’s November, and I went to the barbershop in the morning, and after a dozy thirty minutes, accompanied by the distinctive sound of the buzzing razors and the snipping scissors, I got a new hairstyle!

It’s still horrible, apparently.

I didn’t get a good look at myself in the mirror, so I wasn’t sure. But when I noticed that no one was willing to offer a comment other than a simplistic ‘Oh, you got your hair cut’ and I got that clear.

Other than the fact that our photo shoot would take place tomorrow, I was unfazed by my supposedly ‘terrible hair,’ for there was literally no way I could have made it better; What is cut off is cut off.

End

I just came back from a stuffy mini hotpot dinner, and I am too full to eat even a breadcrumb. I need to go out for a walk.

Extra: Patrick in his banana suit on Halloween, eating a banana.

When Sophie grows up and found out that I had posted pictures of her on my blog, she's going to kill me.

Sincerely,

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 9: Early Halloween and Mom at Work

Greetings, Tim!

The temperatures these days have gone down at a remarkably fast pace. In the early morning, when the sun is barely out, you would probably shiver in your blankets when you wake up. My case, however. Was quite different. I managed to untangle from my blankets and cast it away from my bed, sending a pillow not far behind. It’s been a while that this kind of tossing and turning had happened, but why did it have to be today? I am sitting in the metro, with my jacket zipped up to the chest and the hood is on as well. Facing the sun, I’m typing out this letter, sniffing my runny nose and living in the prospect of catching a cold.

Halloween Season!

There is one person in my class who’s visibly more excited about this festival of distinct characters, and that is Allison.

I recall her telling me about her happy memories in America and how she used to celebrate Halloween here and there. She kept trying to subtly suggest that we hold another Halloween costume party in school like how we did in the previous two years, but much to her dismay, no one was in the high spirits of Halloween celebrations with the tests so near.

On Saturday morning, not long after I had awakened, I received a message from Allison to check out the Halloween parade/fun fair that is held across the street our houses are on, in a park.

I looked out from the window. There were already parents bringing kids with some Halloween costume on, walking over for the park. I squinted a little, letting my eyes travel down along the roads and then located some workers setting up poles and cones on the road, cutting off half of the wide road for the Halloween parade to pass through.

This is just a part of the small crowd, some distance away from the park.

At around one in the after I got a call from Angela, who was also in the area at the moment. She was looking for a study buddy, but that evening, I had something else to go to, so instead, I asked her if she wanted to check out the park with activities together.

Before I met Angela, I saw a little boy dressed as a bag of jelly beans and was taking pictures. He was so cute that I felt the need to take a picture of him. Afterward, I had my phone in my hands at all times, always ready to take pictures. Along the swarming crowds Angela and I went, we pointed out some outstanding and/or adorable costumes the kids had on. The best one we saw, as we both agreed, was a green traditional Taiwanese electronic steamer that used to be the kind of appliance that is present in every household. It looked like this, but neither of us had the time to take a shot at the boy who apparently has innovative parents before he disappeared into the crowds.

Focus on the jelly bean kid. NOT on the Annabelle girl on the left hand side.

We were convinced that you couldn’t find a place more crowded than the streets were than the Saturday afternoon Tianmu streets, but we were proved wrong by the even larger crowd crammed into the park that is more often empty than not. There must be over a thousand of kids in it, all of which were dragging their parents, either quite reluctant or looking at their children with loving, smiling eyes as they obligingly followed in the warm afternoon sun.

When the Incredibles meet the zombie family

We understood that the holders of the event really gave the best they got when we saw there was a small area rounded up on the grass fields, with nylon ropes. The area was reserved for pony riding! I don’t know whose idea it was, but it was brilliant. We already had Halloween in the afternoon; why not add several horses?

This one deserved mentioning. I was just wondering if there will be a kid dressed as a horse and he went right in fron of me!

One of the perks about living in Tian-mu is that this is one of the several parts of Taiwan where you can actually describe as cosmopolitan. This is the place where Taipei American and Taipei European School are located, and being international schools, international students are all living around this district. It would be weird if you don’t see over ten foreign-looking faces a day. This is the reason why this large Halloween event is held here.

Halloween isn’t officially here yet, but Happy Halloween, everyone.

End

Too soon? Sorry, I feel like I have just crammed a whole semester’s worth of textbook into my head, and it is kind of swirling now. I think I need a rest. I planned to write another entry about checking out Mom at work in her new workplace at nine in the evening, but I think now I can only put up the pictures:

 

Mom at work

Sorry again about the halt.

Sincerely,

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 8: Hundred Days and a Birthday (that was not Mine)

Hello Tim!

This week, we were touched by the number of days left before our GSAT takes place.

There are less than a hundred days left.

In Retrospect......

Current days of intense studying brought up memories about three years ago. I was still a middle schooler, supposedly preparing my high school entrance exams. Let me say that again, with an obvious emphasis on the word “supposedly,”  for I really wasn’t. Even up until the impending and possibly dreadful thirty-day countdown, I was sitting at the desk, playing computer games, singing along with the music I was playing (I could still remember which songs I had played the most often right then) and staying up until at least three in the morning watching American TV shows. Those were some atrociously corroding and decadent days stuck in the swamp of the Internet and the devices that came with it. With the neglecting attitude I held, I would say that I deserved worse scores. I didn’t get into my first and second most wanted school, only to become a student in ZZSH (which later proves to be one of the best decisions I have made in my life) I recalled the 70% distant and upset, 30% true concern tone of my mother when I called her at school to inform her about the score I ended up with.

Come to think of it, entering EHP could easily be interpreted as a second chance. Although I haven’t really fit into the descriptions of a diligent student in the past two years, with slight improvements made day by day, I’m determined to move toward it.

Matriochka: A Word That Now Means More To me than just a Russian Doll

I’m not sure if any of you remembered my entry about the French duo Fréro Delavega and their woeful separation that broke hearts of countless fans (add me into the crowd), but while one of them left the media for personal issues, the other half of the Fréros stayed active. Just recently, on October 12th, Jérémy Frérot released his solo album, Matriochka. The word (which can also be spelled as 'Matryoshka') originally meant a specific sort of Russian dolls, predominantly carved out of wood, and when you open it, you will find a smaller version of the doll (often with the exact same design), snugged girly with the previous and bigger, hollower one. You open the one found inside and would not be surprised to find a similar pattern. You might end up with six or five of the said wooden dolls.

Russian dolls

The prelude of this album of Jérémy was entitled, “Ouvre cette poupée ”, which is easily translated into “open this doll”.

The music sounded, and when the voice of the chanteur chimes in, the silky voice that we have all been waiting for, sang:

« Ouvre cette poupée

Qui est le messager

D’une autre poupée... »

(Open this doll

The herald of

Another doll)

I finished listening to the whole album, deliberately spent two days on it. Some of the songs included inside were in resonance with some of my heartstrings and when his voice plucked them, I couldn’t help but writhing in my bed, mentally doing happy dances while relishing in the fact that I have the CD with me, forever.

From the time I had spent on finding a way to buy the album online, I would say the only way to get an album of a French singer not really well-known in Taiwan is to resort to Amazon.com. It took me a great deal of time pondering, whether to buy the album even if the shipping fee was more expensive than the album itself, but now I knew that I won’t regret the choice.

J'aime.

Braces Off!

From the straightforward title, you can tell what this entry is about.

After four inexplicably long years, I finally had my braces taken off! I have to state that it wasn’t my idea to go through this treatment in the first place, despite my full acknowledgment on how crooked and unruly my teeth were. I didn’t know the procedure was so long as it reaches back four years; I thought it was just two and a half years or so. The first week wearing the braces, though, is something that was ingrained deep to my long-term memory. I was throwing a tantrum for I constantly felt the iron-grip metal clasps clung to my teeth as if there was instant glue attached (wait, it WAS some sort of instant glue, I think) and it was the last thing I would describe comfortable, with it pushing and urging my teeth to stand upright and stay in line. There was a meal, with the hotdog bread and clam chowder we bought from Costco. I cut the bread into morsels able to fit in my mouth, which, by the way, was plagued with dull, throbbing pain that was apparently not caused by cavities. The bread was dipped into the chowder soup, all softer than tofu at the point, but my teeth still gave in, reiterating their protests when they surrendered to the meal that was mostly fluids at the point. It was frustrating. Dinner that day took place at my Grandma’s, with plates that are filled with some of my favorite Grandma’s signature dishes. It was the day I learned what an actual tantalization meant: It’s right in front of you, the things you wanted most at the moment, but no, sorry, sir, you just can’t have them.

I am glad that they are now off, as now I can lick at my teeth as much as I want to, and it wouldn’t be met with any scraping or pointy metal pieces that could easily cut into my tongue. Still, it was still a bit disconcerting and made me unaccustomed to my teeth now, because now I can lick at my teeth as much as I want to, and it wouldn’t be met with any scraping or metal pieces that could easily cut into my tongue. As liberating as it is, I still need some time to get used to this “new set” of teeth I was bestowed upon.

This toothy adventure is not yet over, though!

Next Monday, I have another appointment with a dentist for two things: I have several minor cavities to fix, and I have to go fetch my retainers. The latter said item spells another year of awkward encounters with people. I will have to keep the retainers on for 24/7 for a whole year (except meal time) until I can reduce the time needed to bedtimes. I’ll decide if it’s also a torture after I have them on.

Mom’s Birthday

This Thursday was my mother’s birthday, though a dinner celebrating the day was the day before that. As the whole universe should be well-informed, we students are less than a hundred days before our GSAT, so I really didn’t have much time to plan for Mom’s day of birth. I wound up calling the power of my friends for help. Being an absolute idiot on any sort of handicraft, I asked Allison for help with the card itself. I printed some pictures of my mom, eating melted chocolate off a sheet of a baking sheet (DON’T TELL HER I WROTE THIS DOWN IN MY BLOG. SHE MOST DEFINITELY WILL KILL ME,) and there was also a picture of her knitting, another one featured her trying on the shawl she just finished knitting.

 I cut them out, now without the usual background, and I pasted the pictures onto the card Allison promptly made and then wrote some silly texts next to them. It was a three-paged card, and I asked Angela, Selena, and Melody to write something on it. They all have seen my mom for a time or two, and they were willing to offer some greetings and congratulations.

Mom.

I asked William to draw something for my mom, and he decided to draw one of her. The outcome was… Well, he wasn’t trying to ruin it or anything, but it was just… not like her, and whether to give it to her or not made me numb of anything else for at least an hour.

My mother could easily rise up to the top hundred mothers in the world, while she is and will always be my #1 mom in the world because she is my mom and she loves me and I her.

She had quite a severe cold these days, and I really wished she would have to go through all that. The tears I saw streaking down her face when she also read the words from Melody and Angela, accompanied by Selena’s ‘Happy Birthday’ and a sketch was priceless. She then looked at the portrait of her by William, choked and went into a peal of laughter which was followed by several coughs and even more laughter. The worried scowl on my face melted into relief and joined in the laughter. I was just worried that she might react badly when she saw it.

I was just being paranoid, as it turned out.

End

This is it for this week. I need to go now, go back into the sessions of studies, however reluctantly.

Extra: CPR lessons at school. Modeling: Candy and Cathy

Cracking the hard nut of geography today.

Had a luscious and beautiful sesame cake to compensate for the loss of brain cells.

Sincerely,

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 7: Midterm and Personal Means of Stress-Relief

Hello, Tim!

Our midterm is over, and right after that, we have to plunge ourselves into other numerous sessions of studies, for our GSAT is around a hundred days away. 

We have an alternate weather these days. It can be blazing-sun hot this day and biting-winds cold on the next. Rain is present throughout the week, so it would be wise for us if we have an umbrella in a hand’s distance and very unwise of us if we don’t. 

Semblance of Ragnarok 

I’m not sure if anyone here is familiar with the Ragnarok, but in short, it’s just the Norse version of the apocalypse. One notable difference is that the mythical beings in Norse mythology are said had spent their entire lives preparing for the eventual doom. Their concept of doom was, surprisingly, more creative than the other versions of the end of the world: Loki, the trickster god would launch an attack on the collective other gods, leading his own army of malicious intentions. The fire giant would burn the world as a sea serpent named Jömungandr would eat up the world from the bottoms of the sea. The warriors and the other gods that were fated to tackle the whole myriad of chaos, trained for the eventuality even though they knew that the world would have to be burnt down to the ash, taking along lives of both gods and warriors before a new world can rise. 

Well, one day it dawned on me that we are in some way similar to the warriors in the myths. We are faced with an imminent adversary (the GSAT), knowing it would bring down some of us while some remaining survivors. We bury our heads in the books, ‘training’ to stand out in the one-on-one combats (with the subjects,) but the whole of it just sounds a drastic step down to the heroic and epic-worthy striving for survival. 

A Book Bought is a Heap of Stress Relieved

Let’s wind up a bit and go back to two days before our midterm when I was at my desk studying history. For reasons, we had an inexplicable wide range needed to study. I felt like swimming through a sea of cotton with all the incidents, named, and wars, etc. swarming around in my head, and suddenly I felt a weird feeling that I was falling, like a pebble rolling off a cliff without the knowledge of how much longer it would take to reach the bottom. Despite the raging wind and incessant rain both visible and audible indoors, I grabbed a small paper pouch and an umbrella after a small contemplation of my destination. I hastily laid a thin layer of a vest on my shoulders and took off right after telling my parents I’m going out for a walk. 

It was only a little past seven, but the winds were already picking up; another hint winter dropped for us to notice his presence creeping near. The streets, dimly lit by the yellowish white lights coming from the street lamps, were more isolated than it normally is at the time of day, supposedly because of the rain and the gushes of wind that would very likely tear up the metallic joints of your feeble umbrella. I sauntered down the streets and took in the lonely streets as much as I could, with a view to soothe myself, probably on the margin of panic. I ended up at the doors of the nearest bookstore while content washed over me with the knowledge I get to look at books that are not textbooks for a change. There were no English novels that caught my eye in the particular bookstore, so determined as I was to bring at least one book home with me, I chose a Japanese novel translated into Chinese and bought it with the vouchers I kept in the said paper envelope. 

I chose the one on the left; I just cannot resist classy covers.

I am glad that I have my own mechanism of keeping my sanity intact when troubled by stress: When something feels off, leave and go buy a book. I felt substantially better afterward. 

End

This is the end of the week. It is quite brief, compared to the previous two letters, and while as much as I wanted to write another column about my book that I'm currently reading, I figured I should only have one entry for a book; that's fairer for the books.

Extra: Mom focusing on her knitting.

Sincerely, 

Hugo

Year Three Almost Free 6: Studying and Family Gathering

Hello Tim!

We all knew autumn was creeping nearer and nearer as days progress, the winds blow a little harder every day; the sun riser a bit later every day, and there hadn’t been a day that passed in which I hadn’t heard at least one of my classmates complaining about the cold weather (It’s mostly William. He can look tough, but he is, in fact, sensitive to temperature change.)

Writing Class

Throughout the two years of our high school lives, we have had a foreign teacher for company. He’s an Australian English teacher who teaches us different skills for English every year, and for this year, we have writing courses. If I were still the several-years-ago me, I would have cringed the instant I hear the phrase “writing courses,” but guess who has changed and was the only person bouncing and excited before the class starts? Me. It always feels nice to be able to write or type out a lengthy article of over several thousands of words and feel good about myself, but along the way, there could be some very horrible grammar mistakes, some inappropriate choice of words, or some atrocious sentence structures lurking in a dark corner. I would try doing a self-inspection but never could pick out many problems. Now we have a teacher who could spot over twenty places needed fixing, Ind i was very grateful. Writing stories by describing a four column comic, describing myself, and give a tour around my bedroom, etc. I put all my heart writing these articles and I would still be so surprised when I have come to love writing so much. Alex, our teacher taught us to avoid wordiness, as in to make every word in your paragraphs serve a purpose, among which avoiding hollow words like “very” and so on. I find that very helpf... no, I find that helpful. Avoid wordiness!

Ways to Keep Myself Focused

As I subtly mentioned last week, I am quite a cell phone addict. I have been looking for ways to reduce my time of using the little irresistible gadget, and I was presented with a solution just this week. With a new system adopted in my phone, I am now able to keep track of my screen time. This is where Matt comes into the game. When I find it hard to concentrate, I take a look at my diary which I had named Matthews. He has become the standard of my conscience, pushing me forward and watch me so that I don’t stray. With the time record on my phone, I can set a time limit for cell phone usage. When you give an object a name and a strict personality, you might find it easier to abide by the rules you set for yourself. I can see the bizarred looks on my classmates’ faces when I tell them about my naming a palm-sized notebook and treating it like it were a mentor, but I don’t care. As long as I get to concentrate on my studies for the remaining hundred days before the college entrance exam, I won’t care about the eccentricity.

Matthews and his rules for me to act upon

Family Gathering and a Sick and Cuddly Sophie

For some reasons, Sophie’s parents had invited half of the family members for dinner in a Taiwanese restaurant that serves traditional local cuisine. Arriving late at the table, I inquired them the whereabouts of Sophie and her mother. It turned out that they were both sick and lying in bed with a fever. Aiden was sitting next to my mother with his head hanging low, little thumbs swiping and tapping furiously as he was trying not to lose the game he was playing on his grandma’s cell phone. He was wearing a too formal for this occasion, though. A sky-blue suit with a miniature tie. His father told us that the five-year-old had picked the outfit on his own, mistakenly thinking that he was attending a wedding feast. 

Head up, Aiden. You'll break your neck.

Five minutes later, Aiden was requested to return the cell phone (Mom said he had only played on it for ten minutes), and without the games that had been occupying him, he became restless and twitchy, goofing around and poking the person sitting next to him — me.

He was basically sitting like this throughout dinner.

His antics could be very annoying, and I chose to ignore him as the dishes were served, hoping to bore him into behaving (which, ultimately, didn’t work at all.) With more than ten people around the roundtable, we still couldn’t finish all the dishes as they kept coming, each dish more exquisite than the next. I bet we all were looking at the plates with tantalization; we were too full to put more food in our stomachs but were silently considering if we should try.

I still had a lot of math equations to solve, and since they were due Sunday, I had to go back home soon to deal with them. I followed the family upstairs to Sophie’s house. She was awake. Awake with a burning forehead. She looked so weak; the smile was still there, and her eyes still shone with a mischievous glint, but her arms were lump and inactive. She got out of bed and walked around when she heard so many people filing into her house, and I just set her on the couch and just held onto her, feeling sorry for her little furnace of a child’s frame. Get well soon, Sophie!

I like kids. No, I LOVE kids. I can be very harsh and unrelenting with them, but at the same time, I can be almost everything they want me to be. I adore the idea of having kids in the future, but that was not technically possible for me… Maybe adoption?

End

The National Holiday of Taiwan is on Wednesday this year, and there will be a national day-off. For us high schoolers, though…

Out midterm takes place on the two consecutive days after the holiday, making the holiday a lot less it’s-holiday-let’s-spend-some-wonderful-quality-time-with-my-family but a lot more it’s-holiday-let-me-spend-more-time-burying-my-head-in-books-and-pray-that-I-don’t-flunk-my-geography-this-semester.

Extra: A sunny view from downstairs

Delightful.

Despite all, have a happy week, Tim!

Best of all wishes,

Hugo

Year Three, Almost Free 5: Circe and Tim's Birthday

Hello, Tim!

Sorry that I have not been as active as I used to be, but with the college entrance exam in mind, finding time for all my entertainment is no longer as easy as squeezing water from a soaked sponge.

The sun was still there, basking the lands of Taiwan with its welcoming warmth, but with the winds and rain in the week, the temperature has slowly lowered; I think the weather for thin jackets are soon to come.

Circe, Witch of Aiaia

There are a million ways that I could have finished this book long ago. Chucking my cell phone away, ignoring my studies, bringing my book with me wherever I go despite the recent rainy weather, and etc. However, I couldn’t have done all of them, for (quite sadly,) I’m also quite a cell phone addict; I have my studies to take care of; I wouldn’t risk having my books get in contact with even a small drop of water.

Here is what I do instead. In my diary, I remind myself every day that I am supposed to spend thirty minutes reading, however busy the days are. It worked even though there still are days I would be too tired to take in anything. Just yesterday, I finally finished reading my first book since the summer break.

Circe, a book written by Madeline Miller, the author of the life-changing The song of Achilles, is a book about a witch that was portrayed as more sinister than not on the epics of the Greeks. The instant I saw the book on the Internet as well as the reflective metallic orange design and the elegant, sleek black used to entwine with the color on the cover that makes the book shine with luster, I knew then that I would need her in my shelves.

Aren't they beautiful?

Circe in the original myths was more of a jealous and vengeful sea spirit born to the sun god, Helios. She turned a man she loved to a god by accident, and intentionally turned another sea spirit into a sea monster because the man Circe loved left her for the sea nymph. The sea monster, by the way, was an infamous Scylla. The men at sea feared her for gulping down six of the crew in a swift motion every time you go past her.

Afraid of her new-found power in witchcraft and to where lied the extent of her capabilities, the gods exiled her to an island where she could interfere with the lives of no one unless people found their way to the island. According to the original myths, Circe was practically fuming when escorted to the small island of Aiaia and turned all the ship members washed on shore into pigs until she was defeated by Odysseus and served him and his crew for a year before they went on with his thrilling expedition for the way back home.

In the retelling version of Madeline, however, focused more on the reasons or the events that led the once naive sea spirit on the path she later took. Yeas, Circe was a character with a flawed personality, and it seemed dangerous for the others that she possessed such an unmeasurable power. She did transform Scylla into a monstrosity that we all come to know from the myths, but in the novel, she never stopped mourning for the lives lost in the ferocious jaws of the monster she created, ‘Those men she had eaten were sailors as Glaucos had been, ragged, desperate, worn thin with fear. All dead. All of them cold smoke, marked with my name.’ She perceived the world unsuccessfully, for she was practical and outcast to the whole world. She unveiled the ugliness of the human world the hard way and hence the rather cynical perception she held for the world.

The author, Miller, writes about love like she was carving words into stones, wrapping it up with a generous amount of prose. Her previous work painted a picture of love between men so heart-wrenching I had buzzing in my head. Circe, on the other hand, is a book in which she portrayed more of the love a mother holds for her son. How much one could do just to kept one’s child safe: Setting herself in front of a goddess so that she couldn’t take him away; staying sane even if the kid wails about the world for seven incessant years; willing to suffer eternal pain and torment just in view of providing the infant further protection. I knew the weight of it all, all the toil that must be taken into responsibility, and how much love it takes to endure and to eventually let go, but I think it was just because I don’t have a kid of my own yet that I don’t know how much it would relate to a parent.

Before reading this book, I was convinced that Circe was just a witch working by a cauldron, satisfied with her power, cackling while plotting to turn more men into pigs. Madeline Miller’s works on Greek mythology never fails to cask a different light on the heroes that originated from the Greek eras. Just like she did with the swift-foot Achilles, I fell in love with the character of Circe.

 

This has officially become my favorite leisure activity.

End

I would like to elaborate more on the week that I had, but I apparently had no time.

Sorry, this is all I could ever muster.

Tim: Happy Birthday! Here is my digital birthday card as promised! I have to say that I am never good at designing things, but I do wish you take care of yourself even though you have such a tight schedule now.

Bonne Anniversaire! Have a happy year as a happy seventy-year-old!

 

Extra: Mom with her new-knitted shawl.

Best wishes,

Hugo