Weekly Review #21 - Life Picked Up Again

Preface

This is a record and reflection of my life from 2022-11-28 to 2022-12-06.

They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, yet by the 21st weekly review, I still haven’t managed to update on schedule. Each week brings a creative excuse for the delay.

The past week wasn’t particularly busy work-wise, with features developed for events successfully launched and entering the routine maintenance phase. However, my sleep patterns remained concerning, with bedtime still mostly after 3 AM. The project I mentioned earlier, undertaken with a junior, is well-prepared and gradually launching. It feels more like I’m busy with things I enjoy, so it’s a happy burden. But with things piling up here and there, even someone accustomed to multitasking like myself often feels overwhelmed. Fortunately, my physical health seems fine.

Still working remotely from home due to the pandemic (it’s been exactly 15 days since I last went out), continuing to spend time with Nie Nie. In contrast to a previous weekly review theme “Life and Self Put on Hold”, my life seems to have been picked up again, filled with many bright moments.

Life Picked Up Again

Even though I hadn’t really noticed it myself, in the 40 days since bringing Nie Nie home, I’ve undergone many changes. Due to being busy with work recently, I hadn’t been in touch with a friend for over a month. This time, I happened to help solve a computer issue, and we chatted briefly, resulting in the following conversation:

Although it’s not as dramatic as the melancholic temperament mentioned, I am generally not a particularly positive or sunny person. I have a sense of detachment from life and many things. It’s not that I don’t care or can’t empathize, but I don’t have such strong emotional investment. It’s like a role-playing game where I’m playing myself. In conversations with others, I don’t tend to reveal much of my inner self. Again, it’s not due to distrust or deliberate concealment to create some persona, I’m just not accustomed to it.

Now, even though I don’t seem to have consciously changed anything, people can sense emotions even in casual conversations. It’s a kind of satisfaction and fullness that gradually overflows from my words. Although the decision to adopt a cat again involved repeated consideration and weighing of options, I never imagined it would be something that would change me so much. Beyond being a pet and a roommate with responsibilities and concerns, she has become an inseparable part of my life.

While chatting with another close friend, I was asked:

“After getting Nie Nie, will you become more content with your current life and unwilling to make any changes?”

My perception is actually quite the opposite. Recently, I’ve been more frequently and proactively re-planning my life rhythm and future goals, including future work forms, locations, and content. It seems that for the previous me, as long as I was doing what I liked and was with people I cared about, it was satisfying enough, regardless of which city I was in or what kind of work I was doing. Other things didn’t matter much. Now, I’m gradually finding a more comfortable state and mode of life in my solitude and “idle time” with Nie Nie. I’m also more concerned with the meaning of life itself. Life is not just an appendage to my hobbies and work, but a precious existence that deserves respect and exploration in its own right.

Although I don’t want to sound too profound, Nie Nie seems like a sudden redemption appearing in the gloomy moments of my life. I’ve invested too many emotions and feelings in caring for her. So, I actually have more expectations for the future life we’ll spend together. At the very least, I’ll work harder to earn money for cat food and strive for more control over my time to provide more companionship.

Daily Life with “Nie Nie”

I watched a documentary before, “The Secret Life of Cats”, which interprets cats’ behaviors and the thoughts behind them. Recently, I seem to have developed a similar tendency. In some interesting moments of life, I would take a photo and caption it with my interpretation of cat language. It’s a very interesting experience, as if both cats and humans are trying to guess each other’s thoughts.

Because her eye secretions were quite heavy, I consulted a doctor who said it might be due to excessive protein intake. So I started changing her food and reducing some treats. On the first day, when she found that her meals weren’t as lavish as before, she kept lying on my computer and looking at me with the expression in the picture below.

Others

This section will record my input and output, as well as other things I find interesting.

Output

I realized it’s been a long time since I wrote a proper technical blog. Actually, I’ve drafted and taken notes on many topics, but haven’t organized them into articles yet. I need to speed up my output. However, recently I’ve been translating the “Google Go Style Guide” with my colleagues from GoCN. Along with the previously translated “How To Code In Go”, we’ve published online and PDF versions. Today, we even received a collaboration invitation from GeekTime (and incidentally, all team members can get a free column). It’s quite a happy little achievement.

Without realizing it, my Telegram channel “Yu’s Life” just reached 200 subscribers. It’s quite amazing actually. It’s just a small channel that automatically synchronizes my input and output from various platforms, but it has slowly accumulated some followers. I often receive private messages or friend requests from readers on various platforms, saying that the channel has brought them some different perspectives and thoughts. I’m quite honored that a small idea at the time could produce such interesting results. I’ve had less input and output in the past few weeks due to being busy with work, but I hope to continue persevering.

Another small hobby this week is teasing ChatGPT. The AI chatbots now are too powerful. While GitHub Copilot might be more helpful in writing some utility methods, ChatGPT can actually write out the entire program (and it correctly understood my intention despite my spelling errors). We might be out of jobs soon.

Input

TV Series

• The Untamed, recommended by a friend. I haven’t watched much of this genre, so it was quite a pleasant surprise. I binge-watched it over a weekend. Most of the plot holds up to scrutiny, and the characters are all very likable. Xiao Xue Huan and Xi Jun are too cute!
• Periphery, the first few episodes seemed a bit patchwork but the presentation was quite good. It got more chaotic as it went on, lacking both the thrill of something like Ready Player One and any real depth. It ended up being a bit of a flop in the end.
• Wednesday, I forgot where I saw the recommendation. I finished it during work breaks. Apart from the initial setting being relatively novel, it became somewhat confusing later on. It was a bit disappointing, but I still finished it.
• Silence of Snow, currently watching. It focuses on emotional rendering, so the subsequent pace is also slower. I just hope they stop torturing the second male lead.