Preface
This piece is a record and reflection on my life from 2023-09-17 to 2023-11-07.
It’s been a while since I last put pen to paper, almost a month and a half. A lot happened in the first couple of weeks, and there were many things I wanted to record, but I never managed to find a few hours to complete the weekly review. I thought I’d have time during the National Day holiday, but I went to Inner Mongolia, and after returning, I went to Aranya to celebrate the 100-day anniversary with my girlfriend. The trips were enjoyable but draining; before I could recover from the journey, I caught an early morning flight to Chiang Mai to attend an event, where I met many familiar yet never-before-seen friends from the internet and gave my first English workshop. Then I returned to Hangzhou to meet old friends, attend a friend’s wedding, and reunite with high school classmates. During this time, an elderly family member had an accident, and my parents often had to travel back and forth to my hometown, leaving them unable to care for Nini, so I brought her back to Beijing. Thankfully, the journey went smoothly, and we can be together again. At the same time, I was still somewhat dissatisfied with my work status and focus, and it took nearly a month of gradual adjustment to get back on track. There were many other things too.
It was then that I deeply realized that cultivating a habit takes a long time, but breaking it often happens in an instant. Life and love have gradually become more concrete, but the desire to express has become elusive. Fortunately, starting this week, I’ll have a more stable life state and pattern, and everything is back on track. So, with this weekly review as a boundary, I’m picking up the blank month-plus of life again.
Chaoyang Beer Festival
I spent a lot of time in Beijing in September. Besides regular dating on weekends, we also wanted to participate in some fun activities. While ordering at a restaurant, we overheard waiters discussing a beer festival being held in Chaoyang Park. After checking the event details on Xiaohongshu, we decided to go and even prepared homemade sandwiches.
The scene was very lively. The DJ, dressed like a big guy from the Northwest, spread joy to everyone present, and people started dancing wildly on the lawn. An enthusiastic foreign girl came to greet us, and we even witnessed the entire process of a guy chatting up a girl and getting her contact information, front-row spectators to the scene.
I had two craft beers, not enough to get drunk, but on the slightly tipsy journey home, we opened up and chatted about many interesting things in our lives. When we saw the moon, we would lean on the bridge and look at it for ten or fifteen minutes, competing to see who could come up with more related idioms or poems. It was ordinary, but we enjoyed the long-lost sense of relaxation and simple happiness.
Trip to Inner Mongolia
It wasn’t really a deliberate arrangement, but by coincidence, our National Day holiday trip was set for Ordos, Inner Mongolia. On one hand, I wanted to see the great desert (something I hadn’t seen as a southerner), and on the other hand, it’s my girlfriend’s hometown, so I thought we could stay for a few days and see where she grew up. In the previous post, I mentioned cutting off my long blue hair due to circumstances, and this was one of those “circumstances”.
We left at noon, and the three-hour high-speed train journey from Beijing was quite comfortable. I was a bit nervous and at a loss on the way, but I managed to capture a lot of interesting footage with my newly bought Sony ZV1 Mark II (all still on the SD card, haven’t had time to sort through it yet - let’s focus on getting back to regular weekly reviews before thinking about vlogs). The climate and landscape of Inner Mongolia are indeed quite different from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, dry and windy, but with vast skies and high clouds, possessing a kind of clean beauty.
My girlfriend’s parents came to pick us up, and we chatted casually along the way. Because I couldn’t quite understand the dialect of Dalate Banner, and they didn’t know how to explain some words in Mandarin, and since all four of us were English majors (my girlfriend’s parents are English teachers, and although my girlfriend and I later strayed from our major, we also came from English backgrounds), we ended up with the curious scene of using English to explain dialect, leaving us with some interesting memory points.
Knowing I came from the south, they wanted to cater to my tastes, so on the first night, we went to a fishing village to eat Yellow River carp. Over the next few days, we met some relatives and friends, inevitably had a few drinks, but could really feel the warmth and hospitality that went beyond words. We went to the early morning market and ate a lot of beef and mutton and local specialties, which really satisfied my imagination of the Great Northwest.
We returned to Beijing a few days later, happy but indeed a bit tired. Perhaps my homebound self was still a bit drained from meeting so many people and doing so many things at once, but we recorded many interesting things and precious memory moments, so maybe we can look forward to a vlog.
In the end, we didn’t make it to the great desert. Why did I go to Inner Mongolia again?
Trip to Aranya & 100 Days
After returning to Beijing and resting for a day, because October 7th happened to be our 100th day together, we drove to Aranya in Qinhuangdao on the 6th. It’s an interesting seaside community/resort. I think compared to digital nomad communities like Dali and Chiang Mai, the petite bourgeois atmosphere deliberately created here is stronger. Duplex houses, large lawns in front with families frolicking, occasional people riding bicycles passing by, and foreigners jogging, very cinematic.
The hotel balcony directly overlooks the beach, and it’s just a few steps to the internet-famous “Aranya Chapel” and “Lonely Library”. However, my girlfriend and I didn’t join the crowd for these popular spots. The library might indeed be lonely, but surrounded by tourists lining up to check in and take photos, there was a strange sense of dissonance. However, in today’s world, it seems that being “photogenic” is its greatest value. What attracted us more was a row of swings on the beach, swinging back and forth watching the waves crash against the shore, very leisurely.
Since falling in love, there’s been a feeling of both distance and closeness. It seems like we just got together a few days ago, yet it also feels like we’ve been together for a very long time. However, 100 days still has some sense of ceremony. My girlfriend secretly bought balloons in advance, and we commemorated with instant photos. Love is really a wonderful thing; even small daily occurrences become especially precious.
Chiang Mai Digital Nomads
I had confirmed long ago that I would go to muChiangmai, a Web3 digital nomad co-living event, as a mentor. For details about the event, you can read my online neighbor ivy’s article “Coder Migrates to the Ancient City Wall: muChiangmai Memories - ivyheretochill”, which gives a detailed account of various experiences over a month. I only stayed for a short week and spent a lot of time in the hotel dealing with work, so I’ll share more about life itself. This time, I tried to continuously update small essays on the Telegram channel “Yu’s Life” to avoid forgetting, so I’ll compile them here.
Arriving in Chiang Mai - 20231008
After more than three years, I’m back in Chiang Mai. Last time was during the pandemic when I was sending Ni to Australia and needed to transit in a third country for 14 days. This time is mainly for a developer event, plus I still have quite a few work tasks, so I don’t have any plans for sightseeing. I just packed lightly, carrying only one big bag when I set off.
I chose a midnight flight, arriving in the morning. After visa-free entry, it was very convenient, just passing through with a passport, no additional procedures. After leaving the airport, I took a Bolt taxi to the hotel, checked in, freshened up, took out my laptop, and started working. Since I wasn’t very hungry, I only thought about going out for a stroll when it was nearly evening and I had finished the tasks at hand. I’m staying near Tha Pae Gate, which is quite lively. I randomly chose a restaurant not too far away for my first meal here, and it was a pleasant surprise.
Actually, compared to holidays with large chunks of time deliberately arranged for travel, I prefer coming to places like Chiang Mai that don’t give people too much of a sense of being in a foreign land. There’s no need to switch roles or adjust my mindset like on a vacation. During the day, I still stay at home and work like before, and in the evening, if I feel like it, I look for small street-side restaurants to explore food. While changing environments adds some color to life, it also reduces the sense of invasion into life.
Kindness Hidden in the Corners of Life - 20231009
Today I didn’t have any extra plans either, just stayed in the hotel working. At noon, I thought I should go out for a stroll, so I chose a local small restaurant called “Sailomjoy Restaurant”. Based on my impression of Thai food, I ordered stir-fried morning glory and rice noodles, which were delicious. I feel like I’ve always had some luck in blindly choosing good food.
The restaurant was quite busy at lunchtime, so I chose a corner seat to sit alone and eat. A guy with a very pure British accent came over with a plate, pointed at the sauce on my table, and said, “May I?” After adding it, he smiled and said to me, “Thank you! Enjoy!” My mood instantly lifted.
I remember when I first moved into a small, dark rented room in Hong Kong, I felt very depressed. Every day I would return home late from the library, and I hadn’t gotten around to fixing the broken light in the room. I mentioned it to the landlady, and when I returned home that night, I found it fixed, with an apple and a note on the table that read “Light fix”. It seemed that suddenly, the time in this rented room, along with my entire life, brightened up along with the fixed light.
I also remember attending a concert in Beijing earlier this year. As I was navigating through the crowd to find my seat, a handsome guy said to his companion, “I love his hair! It’s cool.” It seems that foreigners are more willing to express their kindness towards others and the world through their words.
I feel like I’ve always liked and appreciated these little moments of happiness hidden in the corners of life. When making personal plans, I also added a point about “random kindness”, hoping that I can also bring some changes to others, more or less.
Memory Randomly Connects - 20231010
Today was another day where I didn’t go out for most of it. Around 4 pm, I was really hungry, and I had a team meeting in the evening, so I went out early to find food. Suddenly I felt like eating Western food, so I chose an Italian restaurant called “Pulcinella da Stefano” a few hundred meters from the hotel.
After entering, I randomly chose a seat by the side. As I picked up the menu and glanced at it, a strange sense of familiarity came over me. Suddenly I remembered that I might have eaten at this place when I came to Tha Pae Gate three years ago, and I even found the “Milan-style braised veal shank” that I thought was very novel at the time. Indeed, I was even sitting in the same spot as today. It’s quite amazing.
I always thought I had been to many places and changed a lot in these few years, but often there are moments that randomly connect me with memories from the past. Some might be inconspicuous objects or very subtle feelings, but they give me a sense of time flowing slowly.
But really, one shouldn’t order food when very hungry. You’ll definitely order too much. I’ll try to go out for lunch tomorrow.
Short Essays and Compilations - 20231011
Before the National Day holiday, I put aside the weekly review due to being busy with some work tasks, then went through the holiday, then came to Chiang Mai, and a series of arrangements. When I wanted to write again, I had lost the mood to record at that time, but not updating for so long brought a lot of psychological pressure. It always felt like something was left hanging in my heart, but I didn’t want to perfunctorily get it over with.
Actually, the mood to share has a timeliness, just like having an interesting dream right after waking up, it’s fleeting. Suddenly I saw @strrlthedev’s “Gap Year Wrapped - Timeline”, and it occurred to me that I could actually record some things every day/period of time, write some short essays, and then do a compiled weekly review on the weekend plus some overall thoughts. This would reduce the pressure of large blocks of time brought by weekly reviews, while also capturing some interesting ideas. Consider the channel as a preview.
By the way, let me add yesterday’s record. It was a day of failed attempts to go out and eat normally. I still worked in the hotel, still only ate one meal, but it was still very delicious, called “Kat’s Kitchen”, Thai cuisine.
Coworking - 20231012
Although the main purpose this time was muChiangmai, it wasn’t until the afternoon that I first went to the PunSpace venue. The event organizers and OpenBuild colleagues warmly came to pick me up and tell me about some event matters. It turns out this is that kind of large public space where everyone works together. The network and environment are good, with a strong tech atmosphere. If I had known earlier, I would have come over to play together for the past few days. I feel like work efficiency is quite high, and I even met online neighbors like ivyFanshao and CaptainZ! Happy!
I’ve been working remotely for more than half a year now, and although the time arrangement is very free, sometimes when I stay by myself for too long, I fall into a kind of low-pressure state. It’s not about emotions, it just seems like my perception of the world is diminished, like the lonely feeling of suddenly waking up from an afternoon nap to find that the sky outside has already darkened. So sometimes I actively seek some changes, like taking an hour-long subway ride every Thursday to Liangzhu Village in Hangzhou to work together with others, or changing environments like this to feel the flow of life.
In the evening, I went to eat at a restaurant I had been to on the first night, “Airniversary”. Last time I had Thai food, today I tried completely different dishes, steak with Thai sweet and spicy sauce and a super large coconut (strange way of eating), unexpectedly delicious.
Fixing a Small Bug All Day 🤡 - 20231013
I woke up from a nightmare at around 5 am today and thought I might as well get up and work. Just then, a colleague in the US saw that I was online and asked me to help solve a bug together. Because I’m not very familiar with this repository, it took time to set up the environment and debug. In between, I had a quarterly meeting and did some other work. It dragged on until now before it was truly resolved. Spending a whole day fixing one lousy bug 🤣
I took some time at noon to eat some mango sticky rice, delicious!
A long week has ended, but because there’s a urgent project next week, I’ll be working overtime on the weekend, catching up on the weekly review, and preparing for Monday’s workshop. Busy.
The Lost Book Shop - 20231014
I went to a second-hand bookstore on the street called “The Lost Book Shop”. True to its name, it’s very vintage. The first floor is narrow but orderly, and after climbing a staircase, there’s a suddenly spacious second floor. As a Maugham fan, I really love this series’ cover design and binding. I somewhat regret only bringing a bag and not a suitcase, as I can’t carry many things. After much deliberation, besides “The Razor’s Edge”, I chose a few books I haven’t read before.
Eat Well Today Too - 20231015
I decided to go out more on the weekend. As a southerner, I really can’t resist the temptation of seafood. I found a very local restaurant called “Maadae Slow Fish Kitchen” on TripAdvisor. The ingredients were very fresh, and the sauces were unique. After eating, I took a walk and went to a second-hand bookstore called “The Lost Book Shop” and bought some books by Maugham. In the evening, I went to another local restaurant called “Nun’s Restaurant” and had curry noodles. After eating, there was a bit of a downpour, and while taking shelter from the rain in 7-11, I also ordered a pancake from a street food stall, which was a bit sweet but tasted good.
I guess it started from a Japanese drama mix I saw a long time ago called “Eat Well Today Too”. Due to my living habits, I can’t say I eat regularly, but I have a special sense of ritual towards good food. I will record and feel it.
“Whether in moments of health, illness, satisfaction, or loneliness, please have a good meal. Both body and mind will be healed.” – “Taberu Onna” (The Woman Who Eats)
Recounting an English Workshop | Goodbye Chiang Mai - 20231016
I feel like I haven’t spoken English for long stretches since graduating from Hong Kong. This time, to challenge myself (and get free accommodation), I applied to be a mentor at the muChiangmai event, mainly to host a two-hour Solidity workshop. But I was so busy last week that I only started preparing on Sunday night. After going out to eat, I came back and slept until one in the morning, got up to revise the PPT + write the demo until about six, slept for a while, then continued revising until the afternoon.
The workshop was in a small conference room, not many people but it was packed full, the atmosphere was good. I was still very nervous, feeling that my English was still a bit stumbling, but at least I didn’t get stuck. I managed to cover everything I wanted to explain and express, so it counts as a small challenge. After it ended, I went to Chiang Mai University night market with some online neighbors, probably had my last meal in Chiang Mai this time, then hurriedly took a Bolt back to the hotel for a team meeting.
I have a flight at 6 am tomorrow morning, planning to go to the airport at night to catch up on the work and weekly review I missed during the day. Goodbye, Chiang Mai.
Hangzhou Life Snippets
Reuniting with Old Friends
Originally, I might have stayed longer in Chiang Mai, but Xiaoyu came back from Japan, only staying for a few days. The last time we met, the pandemic hadn’t even started yet. Time really flies. We’ve known each other since high school in 2012, and now it’s been over ten years of friendship. As we slowly grow up, we have fewer and fewer friends, but those who remain are all the more precious. Even after not seeing each other for years, we hardly feel any estrangement. We ate together, went home to see Nini, talked about many ideas, and also mentioned many small things from the past. It’s really nice.
Classmate’s Wedding
This is probably the second wedding I’ve attended, and also the second time I wasn’t chosen as a groomsman due to my long/blue hair, haha. It was my high school deskmate, who has always been a steady and thorough person, and of course, arranged this major life event very meticulously. I took this opportunity to have dinner with my high school male classmates. Because there were very few boys in the liberal arts class, 8 boys and 40 girls, we instead formed a deeper friendship. Until the pandemic, we would gather twice a year after graduation. Even though we’re now scattered and drifting, we still maintain some contact. After the wedding, we went to the next event.
Life Changes and Nini
Some things happened in the family this week. My grandmother, who is already 80 years old, was hit by a car while walking in our hometown. She stayed in the ICU for eight days. Fortunately, her life wasn’t in danger, but she broke more than a dozen ribs, and her lungs were also affected. According to the doctor, she might never be able to stand up again. I spent my childhood in my hometown and grew up around them. In the past two years, I’ve experienced my maternal grandmother’s passing, as well as various major and minor accidents or illnesses of my grandparents. It seems I’ve reached this stage of life now, sad but helpless.
My parents and relatives have been traveling back and forth between Hangzhou and our hometown in Jiangsu, taking turns to care for her in the hospital and discussing future arrangements. Previously, because I was often traveling between two cities, Nini was cared for by my parents and my sister at home. But due to this incident, I didn’t want to add to their worries, so I found a familiar pet transportation company and had Nini travel over 1,200 kilometers back to Beijing in a small car. It was just in time as the weather was turning cooler, and any later I would have been more worried about the journey.
Everything went smoothly and arrived in Beijing. I went to pick her up and bring her home. Because she had stayed at my girlfriend’s place for a while before, there wasn’t much stress, and after a day or two of adjustment, she gradually became familiar with my girlfriend’s little cat, Fanfan. I didn’t expect to be able to live this intermittent life with two people and two cats.
Later on, I’ll be able to spend more time with Nini again, and I’ll share more daily life photos.
Life Adjustments and State of Mind
Actually, from late September, I was somewhat dissatisfied with various aspects of myself, even to the point of feeling a bit dejected. I often felt that my work state wasn’t good, whether in terms of work efficiency or focus. It took several conversations with my team leader before gradually getting back on track.
In terms of input, there was some stagnation. The list of books, articles, and movies I wanted to read and watch kept getting longer, but I often found it hard to regain that focused state I had before. Sometimes I would even space out for a long time. As for the weekly review, there was actually no shortage of content to write about, but every time I opened the document, I felt a bit anxious. It seemed I hadn’t read much, my learning progress wasn’t as good as I hoped, and the things I shared felt a bit superficial.
There were many, many negative emotions brought about by anxiety, depression, and insecurity. And I seem to be a person without much emotional outlet, unable to get release from momentary stimulation of the body and brain like sports or games. I could only force myself to continue reading some things, going round in circles. Going to Chiang Mai was more about giving myself an opportunity to adjust my life state rather than attending an event. Although relying on the environment seems to be a rather tricky option, it was indeed effective.
After coming back, I seem to have regained some motivation. I started going to the gym with my girlfriend twice a week (7 am on weekdays and afternoons on weekends) for personal training sessions. I can feel the improvement in mental state brought about by a healthy body. I also started cooking for myself regularly, finding that I quite enjoy the process of following cooking videos step by step. It seems to have become a special way of relieving stress.
Thanks to Xiao for kindly providing Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, it was a great extra meal!
Input
Although most interesting inputs are automatically synchronized on the “Yu’s Life” Telegram channel, I’ll still select some to list here. It feels more like a newsletter.
Books
- Building a Second Brain, continuing to read.
- Elon Musk, an anticipated biography, just started browsing a little.
- Don Fernando, looking forward to Maugham’s sharp comments.
Articles
- ChatGPT Application Development and Reflections
- GPT best practices - OpenAI API
- Notes on Opening Hong Kong Bank Accounts (Including Physical Banks and Virtual Banks)
- Why Rust is the most admired language among developers - The GitHub Blog
- Complete Introduction to Heptabase - The Visual Learning Software Based on Cards and Whiteboards That Best Allows You to Enter Flow - Pin It!
- The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Must Know About Unicode in 2023 (Still No Excuses!) @ tonsky.me
- How to optimize garbage collection in Go
- Gap Year Wrapped - Timeline
- What is Congestion Control Algorithm, and What is ECN? – Yachen’s Blog
- Goodbye Movie Drought: A Complete Guide to Watching Japanese Films - Sspai
- Coder Migrates to the Ancient City Wall: muChiangmai Memories - ivyheretochill
- Yuval Noah Harari will release his new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, on September 8 | WIRED UK
- (Translation) Basic Knowledge About Unicode That Every Software Developer Must Know in 2023 | The Gate to the New World
- Why I Won’t Use Next.js | Epic Web Dev by Kent C. Dodds
- Writing a storage engine for Postgres: an in-memory Table Access Method | notes.eatonphil.com
- Open Source Projects Based on Hormones - EAimTY’s Blog
Videos
- iPhone First Image Test ｜ Watch the Sample Photos Before Deciding to Buy!
- Subjective Comparison of 8 Types of Popular Display Devices, How Many Have You Used?
- UK Travel VLOG | Edinburgh Christmas
- Got Scammed! Spent ¥3000 on a Black and White Handheld Console, and It’s Hand-Cranked!
- Infuse + Aliyun Drive Tutorial, Best Media Library for Apple Users
- Exclusive Interview with Duolingo Founder: From Tech Genius to Global #1 Language APP, He’s Really Different~
- Collected 20,000 Questionnaires! The Most Popular UP on the Entire Site is Actually..?
- Mark Zuckerberg on Threads, Elon Musk, AI, the Quest 3, and more
- Yunnan Travel vlog Part 1｜Not Just Beautiful Scenery, the Process of Chasing Beautiful Scenery is Equally Healing｜Travel Musings｜Journey, Snow Mountains, Forests, Lakes, Animals
- What Exactly is the Most Important Thing in Life?!
- September Internet Hot Topics Identification
- Is This What You Imagine the End of the World to Be Like? ｜4K New Zealand Travel Photography
- 【Japanese Drama Mix/Healing】Eat Well Today Too
- study vlog #32 | Restarting Learning Plan｜Work is Never-ending, Remember Work-Life-Balance｜TEDTalk Small Sharing｜Reviewing Kafka
- When Your Partner is Jealous and Petty, Where Does the Problem Lie
- 【Exciting】Microsoft Acquires Activision Blizzard | Century Acquisition War
- Met the Cat World Version of Myself
- study vlog #33 | Gradually Reconciling with Procrastination｜First Time Understanding My Own Biological Clock at This Age｜Hope for World Peace
- The Thousand-Year Grudge Between Jews, Arabs, and Christians
- study vlog #34｜Female Programmer’s Home Study Weekly Record｜Love Studying in Autumn｜Addicted to Watching TEDxTalks on Neuroscience｜Turns Out the Brain Changes Every Day, Hope It Changes Towards Being Smarter
- Replacing Mirrorless Cameras? 4K Camera That Fits in Your Pocket｜DJI Pocket 3 First Review
- study vlog #35 | Perhaps Not Completing Goals is Common｜Happy 1024 Programmer’s Day｜TEDx How to Motivate Yourself to Change Behavior｜Solidity｜Research | Yamagata Rachel
- Introduction to libp2p - David Dias
- WebAssembly: A new development paradigm for the web
- An introduction to WebAssembly
- October Internet Hot Topics Identification | Fun Fact: New Year’s Eve Has Never Been a Statutory Holiday
- In God’s Backyard, Yet Having to Lick the Plates Clean!? ｜Christchurch, New Zealand 4K
- Side-scrolling Mario Can Still Evolve? Nintendo: This is What We Call Surprise! 【Just Play Games】
- study vlog #36 | Learning Makes Me Happy, Recording Fills Me with Motivation｜A Week in Great State｜Using Fragmented Time to Memorize Vocabulary｜TEDxTalks: How to Communicate with the Brain/How to Be Mentally Strong
- OpenAI DevDay, Opening Keynote
TV Series
- 3-nen A-gumi: Ima kara Minna-san wa, Hitojichi Desu (3年A組 -今から皆さんは、人質です-), I came across this on the Netflix homepage and downloaded it to the mobile app to pass time during the journey. It starts with a bit of a high-IQ crime premise, but the subsequent logic feels very shaky, and it’s really quite chuunibyou.
- Westworld Season 1, pre-downloaded and watched the beginning on the plane.
Music
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