Change Of Taste(BL).

The Science and Technology Congress had been scheduled for the first three weeks of November. College students from around the world gathered in Berlin to showcase their talents and knowledge by creating projects and presenting them with an aim to get acknowledged worldwide or have some precious trophy land in their hands as immediate acknowledgement of their work.

In the first week of the Congress,Gu Shan,a software engineering student from the University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) came up with his solo project in which he focused on creating a Smart Personal Assistant application, leveraging AI and machine learning to provide a highly personalized user experience.

In that same week,Gu Shan conducted a brainstorming session to list features which included voice recognition, task management, reminders and weather updates.

- He prioritized features based on feasibility impact and created user stories and use cases.

He then chose the technology stack ,set up version control and then installed necessary tools and libraries.

By the end of the week he had already designed the overall system architecture, created data flow diagrams and entity-relationship diagrams. Finally he planned the database schema.

In the second week which he dwelled majorly on development and implementation - he developed the user interface .

-He implemented user authentication and profile management and created basic functionalities like task management and reminders.

-He then integrated voice recognition , developed a recommendation system for tasks and reminders and implemented natural language processing (NLP) for understanding user commands.

For basic functionality he ensured the app could handle user inputs and provide appropriate responses. He tested the core features for bugs and usability issues.

He concluded the week's task by collecting feedback from initial users for improvements.

The third week was all about Testing, Optimization, and Presentation. He performed unit testing for individual components,conducted integration testing to ensure all parts work together and carried out user acceptance testing with a small group of users within Berlin.

- He optimized the app for performance and speed,improved the AI models based on user feedback and ensured the app was secure and able to handle data privacy correctly.

*****

And now Gu Shan was tackling the last part which was presentation . He had created a compelling presentation highlighting the project's features and benefits and prepared a demo showcasing the app's functionality.

Gu Shan stood at the center of the podium with the projected screen behind him. His big doe eyes scanned the whole auditorium where a sea of students of all races settled in their seats. He felt a little nervous not because it was his first time to do such kind of presentation but because the number of audience was slightly massive and higher than the ones who attended his former project presentations. His long slender fingers firmly held the edges of the pulpit he was standing behind -secretly trying his best to calm himself down. When he was sure he had attained their attention,he did a short introduction about himself - his identity and what his project entailed. He then turned to the projector and occasionally glanced at the audience as he explained the displayed features of his project.

When Gu Shan concluded his presentation he was escorted by a sea of applauses as he walked down from the podium back to his seat. He cast furtive glances at the college professors now assuming new roles as judges who sat in the front row. Being applauded by fellow students was merely a courtesy to appreciate one's ability to be able to express themselves publicly. What mattered to him was the judges' reactions towards his presentation.

His professor back at his university was highly expectant of him to succeed in the Congress. Apart from that he was anticipating to win yet another trophy to add to his trophy collection as collecting trophies had become his hobby lately. Ever since high school he had attended technology related contests and managed to fish out some trophies from most of them. They were tangible reminders of his achievement and the fact that everything to do with technology greatly awoke the living sense in him.

After several presentations one of the professors present walked up to the platform as usual to announce the rest of the day's schedule. An unexpected turn of events had occured and the award ceremony which had been scheduled for the following day was pushed back to take place in the afternoon. Some of the participants had been caught up in emergencies and were in a rush to tackle them back in their home countries. The professor dismissed them to a short lunch break as he and the other professors gathered to grade the projects and draft a list of the winners.

*****

Gu Shan wanted to go back to the hotel he was currently staying at but with his extremely fatigued body he knew he would end up napping the whole afternoon once his slender body landed on the soft thick mattress at the hotel room and most importantly he couldn't afford to miss the award ceremony. He followed others to the Congress Center's cafeteria and served his food before settling down alone at a table at the farthest corner of the hall.

The food looked invitingly delicious but he merely had the appetite to take even a bite. He opened the small backpack he was carrying and shoved out a bottle of strawberry milk. He opened the cap and drank a mouthful of the flavoured milk. As the sweet familiar taste hit his taste buds he couldn't help but smack his lips satisfactorily relishing the taste. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed his slightly peculiar manners but he was glad no one was even paying attention to him.

*****

After lunch the students marched their way back to the auditorium for the award ceremony which was probably the last session before they could resume their former lives. After drinking his favourite milk,Gu Shan had felt insanely relaxed. He dedicated his attention to playing games on his phone as the professors gave their monotonously long speeches. His phone almost slipped out of his hand when his name echoed throughout the auditorium walls and everyone kept glancing around confusingly in search of him even when most of them were entirely sure they didn't have the faintest idea of how he looked like.