Preface
This piece is a record and reflection of my life from 2023-03-08 to 2023-03-13.
This week was primarily focused on work handovers, which wasn’t as busy as before, but the pressing time and impending tasks still brought considerable pressure. After all, I’m about to leave a city I’ve lived in for nearly two years. More time was spent on conversations and gatherings, which were rare moments of relaxation. Yet, it feels as if the constantly moving clock suddenly stopped these two weeks. I find myself quite interesting - when busy, I long for rest and relaxation, but when I can truly unburden myself, I feel somewhat at a loss.
Just after writing the last piece, I didn’t learn my lesson and experienced another blackout from drinking. However, it led to an interesting experience of my colleagues piecing together clues to find my home address, which turned out to be a false alarm. It’s become a peculiar memory point. My glasses broke, but since my prescription isn’t strong, I simply went without them for a few days. The slightly blurry world took some getting used to, but it was manageable. Xiaoyu called and shared a lot about her recent situation. I met some new and old friends, and my home even served as a cat cafe welcoming two groups of friends. There were many other interesting happenings as well.
Don’t Stop the Clocks
During the phone call with Xiaoyu, when I mentioned my potential plan to go to Japan for remote work and return to school to study photography - a subject I’m fond of - she suddenly remarked that since we met in high school, perhaps because of the many things I wanted to do or achieve, I’ve always been moving forward, never willing to stop.
Reflecting on it, it’s indeed true. Even during my so-called gap year after graduating from university in 2019, I was busy doing many things, saving up for tuition. It wasn’t really due to any pressure; my family has always been supportive of my choices. It’s just that around my sophomore or junior year, when I truly started to ponder what I wanted to do and who I wanted to become, I unconsciously found myself in a constant state of moving forward. I wanted to make decisions about my life freely and independently. Having experienced some denials and setbacks made me want to achieve even more, or perhaps made me less willing to lose. I’ve become so accustomed to this rhythm that I don’t know how to stop.
It reminds me of a song I often listen to, “Don’t Stop the Clocks”. Previously, my life seemed like a clock, only feeling meaningful when it was turning.
In my school days, I didn’t think too much about it. With a not-so-strong foundation, I seemed to only strive continuously for better grades. During university, knowing it wasn’t a major I liked, I actually had plenty of time but didn’t spend much of it exploring directions. Instead, I was overly diligent in participating in various student organizations, pursuing what seemed to be the “optimal solution” in that environment. At most, I was in four clubs, with five or six meetings a week. Just as I was about to enter my senior year, when I could have slowed down, I started my own video studio business, returning to a busy state. Upon graduation, I realized I still wasn’t willing to casually take up a job I didn’t like, so I embarked on a gap year, preparing for graduate school applications. Even after receiving an offer early, I was always anxious. Before going to Hong Kong, I repeatedly told myself that it might be my last student life experience and that I should enjoy it fully, but I couldn’t really do so. From January, when the second semester started, I constantly worried about internships and jobs. After starting work, being my first formal technical job, I never dared to slack off, seemingly trying to prove to others and myself that I could walk this path well.
In terms of results, all this progress seems to have been meaningful. It brought decent college entrance exam scores that allowed me to enter a good university environment, good undergraduate grades and resume that didn’t constrain me when applying for graduate school, decent technical accumulation that gives me the opportunity to pursue directions I like, and many other things. But the cost, as Xiaoyu said, was “You always seem so tired.” Indeed, it has been quite tiring. I don’t want to say something cliché like it was all worth it; it’s just a journey with gains and losses.
Now, in this rare and precious gap week between two jobs, I’m finally willing to slow down my pace, to do and think about things without so much concern for gain or loss. I stay up late binge-watching shows, then stubbornly resist Nini’s attempts to wake me up for breakfast the next morning. I turn my rental into a cat cafe, hosting two groups of visitors in one weekend. I open my Switch that hasn’t been touched for months and spend an afternoon playing “It Takes Two” with a friend (it’s really fun!).
時計の針を進めて。 Let the clock’s hands continue to move forward.
Even now, I still tell myself, “Don’t Stop the Clocks,” because there are still many interesting things in the future worth pursuing. However, I also often remind myself not to always look ahead, but to experience more of the people and things around me. They are the markings that make life flow and give it meaning. Every moment is worth cherishing, even the “wasted” ones.
Interesting Things and Objects
Input
Although most interesting inputs are automatically synced in the “Yu’s Life” Telegram channel, I’ll still select a few to list here. It feels more like a newsletter this way.
Articles
- Why Write?
- When Stablecoins Are Not Stable - Atlas
- Solving OpenAI and ChatGPT API Access Issues with Cloudflare Workers
- OKR + GTD + Note => Logseq · BMPI
Videos
Similarly, I’ve also recorded some interesting videos I’ve watched:
- Web Development In 2023 - A Practical Guide
- How Chaotic Can Traveling with Family Be?! 【Xishuangbanna Lazy Tour】
- Humans Have Only One Mission: To Move Towards Self | Demian 【Book Recommendation】
- Will Odd People Like Us Have Friends?
TV Series
- The Glory, perhaps because I watch few Korean dramas, I found the production quite exquisite. Watching it all at once, the plot presentation felt complete but somewhat cliché. I quite like Joo Yeo-jeong’s character design though. His love, which never crosses the line, seems quite fitting. Basically, I just wanted to watch their romance.
Personal Life Snapshots
My middle school homeroom teacher wanted to demonstrate ChatGPT to his students, but access and login restrictions in China are quite problematic. After much effort, he finally adopted Vercel self-deployment + GPT-3.5 Turbo API
https://github.com/ddiu8081/chatgpt-demo
And according to this tutorial, used Cloudflare Workers to configure an OpenAI proxy
https://github.com/noobnooc/noobnooc/discussions/9
Finally got a good experience, feeling a bit happy.
My middle school homeroom teacher, Brother Chun, wanted to demonstrate ChatGPT to his students (or maybe he wanted to use ChatGPT to help with lesson preparation lazily), so I set up a service for direct access in the domestic network environment. It took half a morning, but when it was finally put to use, I felt quite happy.
I used to be often jokingly called Doraemon, and recently I’ve gained a new title - being suspected of being a human ChatGPT. It seems I can always use strange ways to meet my friends’ needs, which is quite interesting. I really enjoy it.
Then, I hope everything goes well in the next week.
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