50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 202: I feel tired after not studying for a week

After looting the British Museum, Sun Zhiwei achieved one of his goals in coming to the UK.

Because of what happened last month, the embassy has tightened its management of international students and has adopted new measures.

On the organizational life day at the end of November, the embassy organized their first batch of international students and several activists from the junior class to visit Highgate Cemetery to pay homage to the tomb of the revolutionary mentor Marx.

In front of the cemetery, they also saw many people from other countries coming to pay their respects.

Sun Zhiwei and his colleagues strictly followed the embassy staff's instructions, not contacting or talking, and not communicating when they met, just pretending not to see anything.

Shortly after this life meeting, another group of science students came from China, two of whom were assigned to Cambridge.

Sun Zhiwei's solitary life ended early because the embassy insisted on adhering to the three-person principle and arranged for the three of them to live together in the International Student Building in London.

This student building, also known as the "International Student House", was built with Queen Elizabeth II as the first patron.

Normally, there are more than 100 international students from over 500 countries living here.

The facilities here are actually very good. There is a library, reading room, restaurant, 3 TV rooms corresponding to different TV channels, a dance hall, an indoor gym and a movie theater.

Moreover, these facilities are provided free of charge. Compared with this, the conditions here are much better than Susan's home.

However, thanks to Aunt Susan's care in the past few months, they have been getting along quite well. Now that he has moved suddenly, Aunt Susan has lost some income.

Sun Zhiwei was naturally a little embarrassed, so before moving out, he went to an antique shop on Lord Street (London's Chinatown) and bought a Chinese-style dinner plate as a gift for Susan.

After moving into the International Student Building, although we were a group of three, we were actually only traveling together from the Student Building to Cambridge.

After entering the school, since we were not studying the same major and had different teachers, we naturally went our separate ways.

Of course, if you need to go out outside of class time, the three-person rule still applies.

The biggest impact on Sun Zhiwei after moving was the problem of food. The 40-pence lunch and dinner he used to have at Susan's house were no longer available.

Because they ate and lived together, Sun Zhiwei had no way to add meals privately, so he could only live a bland life with everyone else for several months.

Every day when he returned to the apartment, he would feel hungry if he studied too late. Because he ate very little for dinner and had no money for a midnight snack, he often went to bed hungry during this period, which was very uncomfortable.

Fortunately, he could still go to the embassy for extra meals every two weeks. Every time at this time, Sun Zhiwei would eat as much as he could, often making the embassy's food not enough and putting the embassy's chef in a very passive position.

The matter was soon reported to the embassy leadership, who sent someone to talk to Sun Zhiwei.

Sun Zhiwei's answer was always powerful. "I have a big appetite. Either give me enough food to eat, or give me a piece of land so I can grow my own food."

Are international students farming? This depends on how they are understood in China. A good interpretation is to be self-reliant and have enough food and clothing, while a bad interpretation is to be idle. In any case, if they spread this back home, they will most likely not end up well.

The embassy had no choice but to accept the situation and asked the cook to prepare more food each time. Thanks to Sun Zhiwei, the other international students were able to eat more each time.

However, the intervals between meals every two weeks are still too long, and many people can't stand it.

Soon, Sun Zhiwei came up with a new idea. It was a weekend in late December, which was right between two study days.

Early in the morning, Sun Zhiwei called the two technology students he lived with and said, "Let's go back to the embassy to study."

The two technology students were worrying about today's meals. They were smart people too, and their eyes lit up when they heard what Sun Zhiwei said.

"Yes, study. We international students are very enthusiastic about learning. We will feel tired if we don't study for a week. We can't wait until next week, so we will go today." So, after breakfast, the three of them packed up a few books and headed straight to the embassy.

When I arrived at the embassy, ​​I found the secretary who was usually in charge of them to report on my studies for the week.

The secretary thought they had something big to do, but it turned out to be nothing. They just reported everything according to the routine and applied to change the study time from once every two weeks to once a week.

The secretary couldn't refuse such a request and had to arrange it for them.

At noon, several secretaries and leaders were busy in meetings and were late for lunch. When he arrived at the cafeteria, he was told that there was no food.

When asked the reason, it turned out that there were three more people today and they had eaten their meal.

The cook had no intention of hiding anything from them, and even specifically pointed out that Sun Zhiwei, a big-bellied man, ate the food of three people by himself.

So, for the first time ever, the embassy leaders all went hungry. In the afternoon, they had to give the three troublemakers ideological lessons while still hungry and under a fire.

When it was time for dinner, the chef prepared more food this time so that everyone could have enough to eat.

Sun Zhiwei and the other two returned to the International Students Building with bulging bellies, feeling contented.

The news about the three of them quickly spread among the international students.

When another intermediate week came and the three of them went back to eat again, they found that all the international students had returned. They used the same excuse as them: they felt unmotivated because they hadn't studied for a week.

By January, the embassy had no choice but to adjust the study time to once a week to meet everyone's high enthusiasm for learning.

As for the huge increase in the embassy's food expenses, the leaders can only make adjustments here and there.

In 1, the Spring Festival came particularly early, with January 22 being New Year's Eve.

The school was on winter vacation at that time, and Sun Zhiwei and his classmates spent almost every day in the embassy, ​​and would return to the International Students Building after dinner every day.

The leader asked everyone to come over for dinner on the 22nd. Nowadays, no one cares about the Spring Festival, so we can't use the Spring Festival as an excuse. We can only say it's a dinner. In fact, everyone knows it.

Sun Zhiwei came early in the morning on the 22nd. He also helped the embassy clean up. He was very diligent. His main point was that we eat a lot and work a lot.

While working, he was thinking about having dumplings for lunch.

As a result, when we arrived at the cafeteria at noon, after everyone lined up and sat down, the cafeteria was still not open for food.

Just when everyone was confused, the leaders arrived and gave a half-hour speech with the theme of "Remembering the bitterness and thinking of the sweetness".

"So, let's have a 'remembering the bitterness and thinking of the sweetness' meal at noon today."

After the leader finished his speech, the chefs began to serve food to each table.

This rice looks colorful and pretty. Many people have never eaten this kind of strange rice.

There are two types of porridge: one is made from rotten vegetable leaves, taro flowers, pumpkin flowers, radish leaves, wild vegetables, rice bran, and dried sweet potatoes;

The other type is steamed cornbread made from cornmeal, dried sweet potatoes, sweet potato flour, bran, etc.

(End of this chapter)