Preface
Today is the last day of 2022. As I mentioned in my previous weekly review:
There will be an annual summary, covering various events of my year - things lost, things gained, things to be grateful for, and inevitable regrets. Though I hesitated about bringing up certain topics again, I decided to face them truthfully. After all, everything expires, even canned pineapples. This year too shall pass. It was these joys and sorrows that shaped my 2022, and shaped a more complete version of myself.
I set the goal of writing a year-end review early on, intending to spend a few days crafting it carefully. Yet I (unsurprisingly) procrastinated until the afternoon of the 31st.
During my gap year in 2019, my job at the time often required travel. In half a year, I flew over 30 times. When the trips were frequent, I would often wake up disoriented on planes, not knowing which city I was in or what I was doing for a few seconds. Though I spent most of this year in my little room, I experienced a similar feeling.
It seems that ever since graduating from university, unexpected events occur every year that can easily alter the course of my life. But perhaps that’s what makes life interesting.
Maybe it’s because I’ve found an outlet for my desire to share through the people around me. In previous years, I felt life was already beautiful and sufficient, so I didn’t treat the new year as a particularly meaningful milestone. But this year, I feel compelled to record something. I suppose I’ve reached the age where I use words to combat forgetfulness. As I began writing this review, I realized this past year has been a turning point for me in various aspects, in a curious way.
Although I couldn’t attend the graduation ceremony in person, I received my degree and international student certification from HKU in January, officially leaving school. Also in early January, I applied for a permanent position, starting my first blockchain development job. In April, I successfully delivered my first project as the technical lead. In May, I went through a breakup. In June, I revived my long-abandoned blog, started writing weekly reviews, and began using Twitter to document my daily life. In July, I went back home for a visit, regaining a sense of belonging in life. In October, I adopted a cat - a lovely silver tabby - which brightened up my life considerably. In December, due to the pandemic, I’ve been staying at home spending time with “Nini” and started working on some side projects, bringing me a little closer to my dream of independent development.
It seems I’ve taken on many new identities and experienced numerous emotional changes this year, from the confusion of starting work to the lowest point in my life, then to regaining my spirits and making changes. Looking back from this vantage point, I’m surprised at how much can happen in just a few short months. If I had to choose a theme for this year, I would pick “Transitions.”
People I’m Grateful For
There are many people I’m thankful for in my life this year.
I’m grateful to my sweet partner for accompanying me through the most confusing and anxious period in the first half of the year. Even though we couldn’t continue our journey together, I hope she’s doing well. Despite being in three different locations, Ni and Zhan listened to my confessions during many late nights, keeping me company in my sadness. Many of my subsequent thoughts on life and relationships stem from their encouragement. Although Xiaoyu and I often disappear from each other’s lives, it seems we can always have a heart-to-heart conversation that lasts all night with just one phone call. Each time we talk, I regain my anticipation for life. At the same time, she has both assisted and witnessed the budding and fruition of a relationship - I hope she continues to be happy. My parents’ daily care always makes me feel warm, and chatting with my sister Xuanxuan brings me a lot of joy. Every time I return to Hangzhou, I look forward to meeting with my middle school homeroom teacher, Brother Chun. It seems only this kind of friendship-like interaction that has remained unchanged for over a decade can make me feel as if time has stood still (although he’s always most curious about my romantic experiences and then scolds me for being a scoundrel).
The daily interactions and somewhat literary exchanges with Ledi make us feel as if we’ve returned to our university days. We also strategize for each other’s “relationships,” although they all end in tragedy. Senior Xiaoyu and Xuchong accompanied me to drink and vent at my emotional low point. Of course, I gradually realized that alcohol doesn’t solve problems, so I quit. The care from Xiaoyu, Caomuhuii, Jingru, and Tu’er makes me feel that I’m still worthy of having some friends. Senior Boyi’s lifestyle makes me believe that work and life can truly be balanced. I’m also grateful for the several times she hosted me for meals, making me feel that Beijing isn’t so lonely after all. And many, many more.
I’m thankful for everyone’s companionship and the emotions they’ve stirred in me this year. I hope in the days to come, you’ll all be safe and happy, and that life treats you gently.
Relationships and Renewed Living
In the days after parting, I spent several months slowing down, sincerely experiencing and feeling life itself, trying to recover those bits and pieces I had lost while moving forward in confusion.
Starting from the birthday summary “A Confession at 25: Love Like a Bouquet” that I wrote with great emotional turmoil at the time but now seems somewhat overly ornate in retrospect, I pondered on “Emotions, Security, and Living Seriously”, attempting to regain my “Health, Goals, and Rhythm of Life”.
Taking advantage of a short holiday after a project ended, I went back to Hangzhou and reflected on “Family Bonds and the Sense of Belonging to a City”. Occasionally, there would be emotional ripples caused by the quiet erasure of traces of our time together. After discovering that those past lives and connections were “404 Not Found”, I began planning to adopt another cat to give myself something to look forward to and depend on.
Inspired by a book by Murakami, I started to contemplate my “Personality and the Essence of Life”. Several sleepless nights of chatting with old friends made me think of the more distant past, reminiscing about “The Past, Regrets, and the Present”.
During an unexpected business trip to Qingdao, I designed “An Unexpected Journey” for myself, experiencing beauty during the trip and reconciling with a part of my inner obsessions. During the National Day holiday, due to a sudden emotional fluctuation, my life that had just started to improve took a noticeable downturn. I went through a difficult time, “Putting Life and Self on Hold”.
I increasingly realized the weight of accumulated emotions. So shortly after returning to Beijing, I went to a cat shelter and, due to an instant connection, adopted a lovely silver tabby that week, returning to “The Life of Him and His Cat”.
The days spent with the cat are quiet and beautiful. I’ve experienced “Companionship and Another Kind of Life”, and slowly started to pick up my phone and camera again to casually record the beautiful moments in life. I never imagined a cat could bring such a big change to me, as if I had “Picked Up Life Again”. On Christmas Eve, I watched “Love Actually” and reconsidered love and life.
I’m somewhat glad that I decided to start recording everything in the form of weekly reviews at that time. When looking back, I can string together the scattered thoughts and feelings I recorded over the past six months into a line, seeing my changes and the flow of life. I don’t know where and how I’ll feel in the new year, how I’ll change in various aspects, but I’ll continue to record these fragments of my growth.
Personality and Change
Last night, I suddenly realized it had been a long time since I took a personality test. I might have changed quite a bit, so I took one. I remember being an ENTJ in college, then briefly changing to INTJ, but often wavering. After all the events of the past year or two, I’ve surprisingly become an INFJ. I was quite shocked.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve turned more of my self-pursuit and exploration towards “introspection rather than external seeking”, and my weekly reviews also lean more towards inner thoughts and emotions. My introverted tendencies and inclination towards feelings have become increasingly apparent.
I used to be someone who perhaps pursued self-interest excessively, sometimes rational to the point of seeming cold. I would only show polite concern for others’ lives, even for those closest to me, often prioritizing myself. This trait might have been helpful when forging ahead alone, but life is complex and fluid. Relationships between people are often not just about one-sided compromise. It’s a simple truth, but difficult to achieve when you’re in the midst of it.
The Three Things That Changed the Most
I often see people summarizing their changes over the year during year-end reviews. I’ll follow suit and list three items. These aren’t carefully considered major events, just some things that stood out in my memory upon reflection. Of course, I’ve already mentioned a lot about relationships above, so I don’t want to dwell on that topic too much.
Raising Nini
“Nini” is my cat. We’ve been living together for two months since I brought her home on October 30th.
Raising a cat alone is actually quite a challenge for me (after all, I’m truly capable of not eating for two or three days, barely sleeping, and being immersed in my own world in front of the computer, living an extremely rough life). I went through a lot of hesitation, but the moment I saw her, I had almost made up my mind.
Everything seemed to start from scratch. I’ve learned a lot in these two months, and it has changed me in many ways. I hope we can continue to live healthily in the new year.
The Christmas decorations were delayed due to shipping, so they haven’t arrived yet. Tomorrow I’ll update with a series of “Cat In the Box” photos I took earlier. (If you’re only interested in seeing Nini, you can stop reading now.)
Using Shuangpin Input Method
Since I first encountered computers in elementary school, I’ve been using pinyin input method (full pinyin), which is the common nine-key or 26-key layout we’re used to. This habit had persisted for over a decade. In May, I suddenly wanted to make a change. It wasn’t purely about improving typing speed, I just wanted to try something new, to see how hard it is to change a habit that has become second nature (this person keeps saying he’s not talking about relationships, but every sentence is about relationships).
Shuangpin is a different key layout where you only need to press two keys (initial consonant + final vowel) to type any character. So there were many things to get used to at first. Although it only took an afternoon to memorize the key positions, it took about half a month to convert the habit. I wanted to switch back countless times, but after getting through the painful period, it turned out not to be that difficult.
See? It’s not that difficult after all.
New Hair Color
I rarely have photos of myself, and I only realized after taking this that the mirror was so dirty it didn’t need to be censored.
This change itself isn’t a big one, but I rarely make such attempts. In July, I dyed my hair green, and after it faded, I changed to blue in October. The latter makes me feel more like an anime otaku, fulfilling a sort of second dimension dream. I suppose I can only experiment like this now while I still have a lot of hair. For now, I’ll keep the blue color.
It’s also a way to change my mood through change.
Learning, Input, and Output
Work
This year, I had less contact with my leader, Tao, on projects, but his ideas and attitudes towards technology still deeply influence me. I’ve probably improved my Go development engineering skills quite a bit under the torment of several projects, and I’ve also gained a good foundation in docker, k8s, and various CI/CD tools, as well as doing a lot of exploration on my own.
I systematically learned some knowledge about Solidity smart contract development and produced a related introductory tutorial series - “Blockchain Beginner’s Guide”. In the second half of the year’s projects, I also did some work tasks related to contract development and chain interaction. Overall, it’s been a happy and growth-filled year.
Although the work atmosphere and methods are already quite free, I often feel some drain from work. I’m considering some forms of Web3 remote work or new opportunities, and I might possibly return to Hong Kong. In the new year, it might be appropriate to make some changes.
Technology
Outside of work, I’ve done some fun explorations, unlocking some basic frontend development skills. I can now do some small projects and tools combining with my existing technology stack. In the future, I can introduce myself as “a backend developer who can cobble together some frontend” or maybe shamelessly add “pseudo full-stack”.
It’s not that learning frontend technology itself is particularly exciting, but it allows me to independently create some of my own products and better solve some problems, getting closer to my original intention of doing technology.
I’ve learned the basics of Rust, but haven’t used it in practice yet. I hope to make some progress in the new year. As for the planned LeetCode algorithm practice, I haven’t implemented it yet. It’s also a key plan for the new year, although it’s indeed hard to persist.
I continued to contribute nearly 10 articles and participated in two books in the GoCN translation team, and also took charge of various CI/CD tasks. I participated in the English translation team for SlowMist’s “Blockchain Dark Forest Self-Rescue Manual”, making some small contributions to Web3.
Language
This year, I focused a lot on cultivating my English listening, reading, and writing skills. I’ve made some progress. I can watch English tutorials and podcasts at 1.5x speed, watch the American TV series “Silicon Valley” without subtitles, and handle some technical translations and writings quite well. However, my spoken English is still somewhat lacking. Plus, I rarely practice, so it’s a relatively weak link. Improving outside an English environment really depends on willpower.
The originally planned Japanese review (which is basically equivalent to preview) has been put on hold. I’ll start tracking my learning progress in the weekly review in the new year.
I’ve only reviewed some basic German vocabulary and phrases. If only I had been more serious when learning a second foreign language back then. Now I really regret it. I won’t set any goals for this one, it’ll be up to fate.
Reading and Media
To synchronize with my Telegram channel, I started using Douban this year to record my reading, media consumption, and gaming. The media data isn’t very meaningful as some of it was retroactively added, so I won’t include it here.
I read quite a few books in the second half of this year, mostly during commutes and lunch breaks. I didn’t deliberately pursue any quantity, but when I organized it, I suddenly found that I had already read 30 books. I feel like I’ve regained some of the mood and joy of reading and writing. My favorite author is Maugham. In one of his reading essays, there’s a line that says “Reading is a portable sanctuary”, which I’ve deeply felt in the past half year. In books, you can see many different worlds and many different lives. It’s wonderful.
I’ve also watched quite a few shows. Various movies, TV series, and anime add up to probably over 100. I’ve tried to appreciate them seriously. I guess my Douban literary persona is pretty solid now. I received two Douban movie calendars and a movie screening weekly calendar from two different friends. I’ll continue to watch more in the coming year.
Because I wanted to record these traces, I also started adding my thoughts on Douban after finishing books and media. I feel this method also makes me more attentive when watching or reading. Although they’re all short comments, they’ve accumulated to 8,932 words without me realizing it.
Year-End Data
I guess I’ve been influenced by her to some extent. My formerly casual and disorderly self seems to want to present some small growth in a data-driven way this year.
Revived Blog
I started writing on WeChat Official Accounts and blogs very early on, but given the frequency of updates and content in the past, it could hardly be called an independent blog. Starting with an article “It’s 2022, Let’s Talk About Why I’m Still Blogging” in May, I revived my blog. This year, I updated exactly 48 blog posts, although almost all were updated in the second half of the year (but rounded up, I updated weekly). About half of these were weekly reviews and articles related to thoughts and emotions, while the other half were technical blogs and articles about productivity tools. This aligns well with my positioning for content output and desire to share. It’s a good start.
With the continuous update of blog posts, I’ve gained some readers’ attention. From mid-June, I set up a data statistics system through umami. As I put more effort into output each month, the monthly page views (PV) have reached 12k+, and monthly unique visitors (UV) have reached 4k+, maintaining a good growth trend. It’s gratifying to see that my output has received some recognition. I often smile when I open the statistics interface at midnight and see prompts like “5 people currently online”.
I also often receive comments of thanks or encouragement. Before I knew it, there were many pages of comments. I’m very grateful for the heartfelt messages and comments from these strangers I’ve never met. I’m happy that my words can change or inspire some people. I also appreciate that in an era when blogs are declining, they are still willing to “waste” some of their time to convey some thoughts to me in this way, even if it’s just a simple blessing or thanks. I’ve selected some to share at the end of this annual review. I hope you’ll continue to accompany me in the coming year.
Perhaps it’s because I gradually got used to the way of outputting to the outside world through my blog, or perhaps it’s because my desire to share had nowhere to go as my life changed. I activated my Twitter account in the middle of the year. Originally, I just wanted it to be like a private Weibo. In the early stages, I only posted some late-night emotions.
Later, as I shared my weekly reports and chatted with friends like STRRL, Homura, Manjusaka, Xinyi and Xuanwo, I felt everyone’s friendliness and started sharing more of my daily life. Before I knew it, I had posted 514 tweets (this person talks quite a lot), gained 600+ followers, and even managed to mutually follow tech bloggers like yihong and GeekPlux who were previously only in my aspirational following list. Occasionally, we have some very interesting interactions.
Thank you to these friends for not minding me.
Telegram Channel
In a previous weekly review “Weekly Review #12 - Cyberspace, Self-Definition and Boundaries”, I mentioned that I had set up my own Telegram channel to synchronize my various Twitter posts, comments, likes, etc. Originally, it was just an archive for me to find material for my weekly reports, but before I knew it, it had 251 subscribers. I’ve also received thanks from some of them for my channel. It seems that some things I did unintentionally have created some value for others. I’m surprised and will continue to persist in outputting.
GitHub
I only started using GitHub properly in the middle of the year. In 2022, I had 1.1k code commits, contributed 36 PRs to 12 projects, and gained 260 followers. What made me happiest was submitting some PRs for optimizations and new features to the hugo theme project I had been using for several years. After some communication with the developers, it was merged into the main branch. There’s a curious sense of participation, perhaps this is the charm of open source.
My toolbox project “GitHub - yu-tools” also earned me 400+ stars (don’t scold me, it’s a markdown project). Along with some blockchain-related projects I did, my total stars finally broke 500, which I’m quite happy about. In the new year, I’ll write a website for this toolbox project, presenting more tool introductions and user experiences.
Sspai
Sspai is a platform I’ve been reading for several years. It has many high-quality articles about productivity tools. I actually didn’t expect to become a resident author. This year, I wrote 12 articles (including a few that were moved from my blog), totaling 38,660 words. I received 7 recommendations, including 4 homepage recommendations and 1 member-exclusive. The total reading volume of the articles reached 200k+, and I gained about 150 followers, as well as a few thousand in remuneration. In the new year, I will continue to produce some articles. The cat food is secured (I’ve really become a working warrior for the sake of raising a cat). I’m very grateful to the editor of Sspai, “Bei Xiao”, who is very patient and friendly. I also learned some experiences about Shuangpin input method from him.
Conclusion
I experienced a lot in 2022. Even with these records and data, it still feels somewhat surreal when I look back.
A new year is about to begin. I wish myself in 2023, happiness.
Appendix
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