Weekly Report #34 - Don't Stop the Clocks

Preface#

This article is a record and reflection on the life of the week from 2023-03-08 to 2023-03-13.

This week mainly involved some handover work. Compared to before, it wasn't particularly busy, but the urgent time and subsequent matters still brought a lot of pressure. After all, I am about to leave a city where I have lived for nearly two years, and more time has been left for chatting and dining. It's a rare moment of relaxation, but it feels like the clock that has been ticking suddenly stopped during these two weeks. I feel quite interesting. When I'm busy, I really want to rest and relax, but when I can actually let go of some burdens, I feel a bit at a loss.

I just finished writing the previous article and didn't learn my lesson. I experienced another episode of drinking too much, but it turned into a strange memory when my colleagues concentrated on finding my home address from various clues and ended up being a false alarm. My glasses broke, but because my prescription wasn't high, I didn't wear them for a few days and got used to the slightly blurry world. Xiaoyu called and talked about a lot of recent events. I met some new and old friends, and my home also served as a cat cafe to welcome two waves of visitors. There were many interesting things.

Don't Stop the Clocks#

During a phone call with Xiaoyu, she mentioned that she might plan to go to Japan to work remotely and study photography, which is a profession she likes. She suddenly said that since we met in high school, maybe because there are too many things I want to do or achieve, it seems that I have always been moving forward and never willing to stop.

Thinking back, it's true. Even during the gap year after graduating from college in 19, I was busy doing a lot of things and saved enough money for tuition. It wasn't really because of pressure. My family has always been supportive of my choices. It's just that I seemed to start thinking about what I want to do and what I want to become in my sophomore and junior years. I unconsciously kept moving forward, wanting to decide my own life freely and independently. I have experienced some denial and setbacks, so I want to achieve more or I am more unwilling to lose. I am so used to this rhythm that I don't know how to stop.

I remembered the title of a song I often hear, "Don't Stop the Clocks." It seems that my life used to be like a clock, and I could only feel its meaning when it was ticking.

During my middle school years, I didn't think so much. As someone with average foundations, I seemed to only work hard to pursue better grades. During my undergraduate years, I knew that the major I didn't like actually gave me a lot of time, but I didn't spend too much time exploring my direction. Instead, I worked too hard to participate in various student organizations to pursue the "best solution" in that environment. At most, I was in four clubs, attending five or six meetings a week. As I was about to enter my senior year, when I seemed to have more free time, I started my own video studio and returned to a busy state. When I graduated, I realized that I still didn't want to work in a job that I didn't like, so I started a gap year and prepared for studying abroad. Even though I got an offer early on, I was always anxious. Before going to Hong Kong, I repeatedly told myself that it might be my last student life and I should enjoy it, but I didn't do well. Since the second semester started in January, I have been constantly anxious about internships and work. After starting work, because it was my first formal technical job, I never dared to relax. It seems that I have to prove to others and myself that I can walk this path well.

In terms of results, it seems that all these advancements have been meaningful. They brought me good college entrance exam scores, allowing me to enter a decent university environment. They brought me good undergraduate GPAs and resumes, making me less restricted when applying for studying abroad. They brought me good technical accumulation, giving me the opportunity to pursue the direction I like, and many other things. But as Xiaoyu said, "You always seem so tired." Yes, I am actually quite tired. I don't want to say something like everything is worth it. It's just a matter of gains and losses along the way.

Now I am in a somewhat difficult and precious gap week between two jobs, but I am truly willing to slow down my time, not doing and thinking about things with so much gain and loss. I stay up late watching dramas, and the next morning, I resist when my cat tries to wake me up to change its food. I treat my rented apartment as a cat cafe and received two waves of visitors over the weekend. I opened my Switch, which I haven't touched for months, and played multiplayer games with friends for an afternoon (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. But I also often remind myself not to always look ahead. Occasionally, I should appreciate the people and things around me. They are the scales that make my life flow and give meaning to my life. All time is worth cherishing, even the time that seems "wasted."

Interesting Things and Objects#

Input#

Although most interesting inputs are automatically synchronized in the 『Yu's Life』 Telegram channel, I will list some of them here, which feels more like a newsletter.

Articles#

Videos#

Similarly, I also recorded some interesting videos that I watched:

TV Series#

Dark Glory, maybe because I don't watch Korean dramas often, I feel that the production is quite good. I watched it all at once and found that the plot was presented quite well but a bit cliché. However, Zhou Ruzheng's character is quite likable. It's a love story that doesn't go too far, and they match each other well. I basically just want to see them fall in love.

Personal Life Highlights#

tweet_about_chatgpt_and_chunge

The middle school homeroom teacher wanted to demonstrate ChatGPT to students, but accessing it and various login restrictions in China were quite problematic. After some troubleshooting, I deployed it on Vercel + GPT-3.5 Turbo API

anse-app/chatgpt-demo
Minimal web UI for ChatGPT.
TypeScript80033812

And according to this tutorial, I used Cloudflare Workers to configure the OpenAI proxy

https://github.com/noobnooc/noobnooc/discussions/9

Finally, I had a good experience. I'm a little happy.

The middle school homeroom teacher, Chun Ge, wanted to demonstrate ChatGPT to students (or maybe wanted to be lazy and let ChatGPT help with lesson preparation), so I set up a service for direct access and use in the domestic network environment. It took me half a morning, and I was really happy when I finally used it.

I used to be jokingly called "Xiao Dingdang" (a character who always comes up with creative solutions) or recently I got another title, suspected of being an artificial ChatGPT. It seems that I always find ways to fulfill my friends' requests in strange ways, which is quite interesting, and I really enjoy it.

And then, I hope everything goes well next week.