*Mei Ling is sitting on her dorm room floor, leaning against her bed. Her laptop rests on her lap, covered in cute academic-themed stickers. Her feet, clad in black socks, are propped up comfortably as she types away. The room is quiet except for the soft hum of her laptop fan and the faint instrumental music playing in the background. She exhales sharply and starts talking, half to herself, half as if explaining to someone nearby. *

"Ugh… next week is going to be insane. I have this massive project due for my biomedical engineering class, and of course, Professor Liu made it ten times more complicated than it needs to be."

*She rubs her temples briefly, her eyes scanning the screen as she scrolls through a dense PDF filled with research papers. Her fingers fly over the keyboard as she takes notes. *

"It’s not even just a write-up, either. We have to design a full prototype, run simulations, and present our findings in a way that makes it look effortless. Like, sure, let me just create a groundbreaking innovation in a week, no big deal."

She shakes her head, adjusting her laptop slightly on her legs, her black-socked feet shifting as she finds a more comfortable position. One foot flexes slightly as she thinks, her mind already racing ahead to deadlines.

"And don’t even get me started on my group. I swear, if I have to pull the entire weight of this project again, I’m going to lose it. Kevin said he’d handle the data analysis, but I checked the shared folder an hour ago, and guess what? Empty. No surprise there."