A university lecturer in Linyi, Shandong province, has shone a light on the difficulties of food delivery drivers by taking on the role himself for a month and sharing his trials and sufferings online.

Last December, Xing Bin, a lecturer at the College of Literature at Linyi University, was so eager to know about what life and work must be like for a delivery driver, so he decided to sign up and be one from December to January this year. The gig economy (临时工), for better or worse, has exploded in China in recent years, and though many members of the workforce choose to work in the gig economy because of its flexibility (灵活性), others prefer full-time employment.

During the month, Xing worked more than 10 hours and took 30,000 steps a day. He lost 6 kilograms and earned a total of 7,000 yuan. On average, he earned 10 yuan each hour, and 20 yuan at most. “ I was delivering food from early morning till late at night for around 13 hours a day. When I had classes, I delivered food for two hours early in the morning, and after dinner I continued delivering until one or two in the morning,” Xing said.

“Before, if I got a call from a delivery worker, I might delay answering it. But now I will always answer it immediately because I know they might be riding an electric bike while making the call, which is very dangerous,” said Xing, adding that he now understands the difficulties of delivery workers better and realizes how hard they work to make a living.

“During that month, I tasted the bitterness and the happiness of this job with my heart. I delivered over 2,000 orders, and three of the people who ordered impressed me a lot.” he said.

The student arrived early, sat front and center, and stood out in my classroom in more ways than one. I’d say that he was about 40 years older than his classmates in my undergraduate communications class. He eagerly jumped into class discussions, with his humor and wisdom of experience. And he was always respectful of the other students’ perspectives, as if each of them were a teacher. Jerry Valencia walked in with a smile — and he left with one too.

“These students gave me the confidence that I didn’t need to feel bad about my age,” Valencia says.

One day, I spotted Valencia on campus. He said he would have to stop taking classes that semester and reapply for next year. By then, he hoped to have earned enough money from construction jobs and have his student-loan papers in order. But he said he was still coming to campus to attend events or see friends. He asked seriously whether he could still sit in on my communications class.

Sure, I said. But he wouldn’t get any credit.

No problem, he said.

Soon there he was again, back at his old desk, front and center, jumping into our discussions on how to find and tell stories in Los Angeles — a 63-year-old man with as much energy and curiosity as any of the youngsters in class. For an assignment on changing neighborhoods, Valencia wrote about a favorite local chain restaurant that was “unceremoniously closed.” He called it a theft of childhood. “It is almost as if someone has stolen that childhood and rudely replaced it with a slippery hill where everything they treasure will slide away,” he wrote.

A lot of Valencia’s classmates apparently knew he couldn’t afford that semester’s tuition but was still doing the homework. “Here he is, willingly taking a class for the delight of it and benefit of learning,” says Jessica Espinosa, a 25-year-old junior. Afterward, I overheard Valencia wanted to stay in school until he earned a master’s degree, but it had taken him 12 years to finish community college, so he had a long way to go. He had earned his associate of arts degree over the summer, then transferred to LA to start on his bachelor’s.

There is something splendidly unreasonable about Valencia’s determination to get a four-year degree and then a master’s. At his current pace, he’ll be 90 when he finally hangs all that paper on the wall. But that doesn’t seem especially relevant. He’s found all the youthful energy and academic opportunity stimulating. Valencia’s grade in my class this semester will not show up on his transcripts (成绩单). But I’m giving him an A — and in the most important ways, it counts.

20-year-old Colen Nulgit and his girlfriend, Shantelle Johnson, had gone out for a daytime fishing trip at Keep River National Park in Australia last week when their car became stuck in some mud (淤泥).

When they were unable to free the car from the mud, they began to worry. The park’s waterways are usually full of crocodiles, and the couple had already seen plenty of crocodile tracks running through the mud. Not only that, they had only brought a few bottles of water and little food for the trip.

Nulgit and Johnson tried to fall asleep in their car, but as the sun set and the nearby water levels began to rise, they feared that the high tide (潮水) would bring the crocodiles closer to their car. The young couple then moved towards dry land and hoped for rescue. They even used a piece of wood to write the word “HELP” into the mud along with a line pointed towards their car.

Thankfully, the couple had been careful to tell Nulgit’s parents where they were going and when they expected to be home; so when they failed to return the very same night, his worried mother called the police. Rescuers began searching the area by airplane the next morning. Upon hearing the sound of the plane, the couple started a fire so the rescuers would see the smoke. As the plane drew closer to the smoke, rescuers successfully located the couple after they caught sight of the “HELP” sign pointing towards the car.

Nulgit and Johnson were very thankful for the rescue. They now plan on putting together a set of emergency survival tools for the car.