Weekly Report #41 - The Sense of Ceremony on Birthdays, Time Management, and Trip to Beijing

Preface#

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This article is a record and reflection of my life from 2023-05-30 to 2023-06-12.

On the first day of June, I told my friend, "I usually have a tough time in May, but June must be my lucky month." I don't know if it's psychological or if my wishes have come true, but in the past two weeks of June, there have been improvements in various aspects of my life. I took the time to refactor some business code in my work tasks, reducing many potential issues. I also participated in Rokid's offline experience event with STRRL and met my idol developer, Tula Ding. Although I don't care as much about the sense of ritual for my birthday anymore, I still have a group of friends who remember and prepared some surprises for me. It seems that after my birthday, I have gradually stepped out of my own little world. I met some high school friends whom I hadn't seen for about seven or eight years and regained some emotions. Over the weekend, I went to Beijing for Gopher China 2023, had fun with Boyi, had dinner and chatted with Homura, and visited Noy's home to play with cats. There were many interesting things.

Sense of Birthday Ritual#

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A few days ago, I received a comment from a reader friend, discussing the perception of birthdays and changes in attitude towards things after work. I can really relate to it. I used to care a lot about my birthday. I don't know if it was because of the significance of the occasion itself or if I wanted to confirm my importance to the people around me through this way. As the time approached each year, I would start looking forward to it and often invite a large group of people to celebrate.

As I gradually left my familiar circle of life and rarely had the opportunity to meet my close friends, I no longer have such obsession. Fortunately, there are still some friends who remember and bless me, which gives me a sense of reality for my birthday.

Perhaps this year, because I set a goal to review my emotions and feelings on my birthday every year, I started reviewing my previous weekly reports early and reflected on my thoughts and ideas over the past year. I realized that besides numerical growth, there have been so many changes. Of course, some of these changes are positive, while others are not as satisfactory. However, with introspection, there will naturally be expectations. I think the significance and sense of ritual for my birthday this year come from this.

Reflecting on myself through writing has really brought me a lot. Just like the sentence I replied to my friend's comment, "At least for myself, the way I get out of the quagmire is through writing. The weekly report is also a kind of self-redemption for me."

In addition, I am very surprised and grateful for the comments and blessings from many unfamiliar friends on the article "Confession of a 26-Year-Old: The Stone Pusher". It's heartwarming. You all accompanied me through a meaningful day, and I hope we can continue to be together.

Input and Output, and Time Management#

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I received a comment on the previous weekly report about efficiency and time management. To be honest, I feel a bit embarrassed to answer this question now. Last year, I was quite satisfied with the quality and quantity of my input and output. However, there wasn't any scientific method behind it. At first, I just devoted all my time to self-improvement to avoid some things. So even when I was busy, I still took a lot of time to do things I enjoyed.

As I gradually immersed myself in technical learning and exploration of my interests, I started to have some output and positive feedback. I would receive many reminders to update the weekly report if I delayed it for a week or two. Naturally, I had more motivation to continue. I have always enjoyed the "Learn/Build in public" approach. Not to mention my blog and tweets, my Telegram channel "Yu's Life" mostly synchronizes my likes, bookmarks, retweets, and other actions. It's like having a public timeline without any privacy settings. I don't differentiate between public/private accounts or lists, which means that all my actions are completely transparent.

When I finish work for the day or have some free time, if I realize that I haven't had any additional input, I feel motivated to read a few articles/tutorials that I have saved for later reading, open my Kindle to continue reading a book I'm halfway through, or pick a movie from my Douban list that I've been wanting to watch. Unconsciously, it has become a habit. I often browse my own channel to organize information. When I see that my output is sporadic, I feel a little guilty.

So when there are no updates in my channel for several days, ~~it's probably because I'm slacking off~~.

As for time management, I can't say that I have any good practices. I mainly use Logseq to record some basic tasks and use Cron for schedule management (I recently started using it frequently, and the schedule reminder in the menu bar is very useful). I haven't deliberately used tools like the Pomodoro Technique for strict management for a long time. I still prefer to arrange my time based on my state of immersion rather than fixed time blocks.

As for energy management, the only thing I can say is that I have minimal needs for eating, drinking, playing, and sleeping. I often just eat one meal or some fruit in a day, and I don't have any hobbies that consume a lot of time, so I have more time available. Of course, it doesn't mean that all this time is spent meaningfully. There are often times when I waste time, but I don't have strict standards for myself, so I can maintain a relatively balanced state.

~~Don't bother learning to sleep at 5 am and wake up at 8 am~~. I just reflected on this in the previous part of the weekly report "Elusive Sleep".

Personal Life Highlights#

Since I went out to participate in the Open Source Summer event before, I have also become interested in participating in these technology/tech/digital events and am more willing to go out and meet friends.

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I invited two friends from Beijing who came to Hangzhou to visit my home and play with Nienie. I enthusiastically introduced them to some smart pet home devices from Little Pei, and they were completely defenseless against these electronic toys. But I didn't have anything new to play with, so Nienie became the "victim." I can basically monitor her every move in the app, even down to the grams when she eats.

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My friends also call Nienie a "toy cat/decoration." She just sits wherever you put her and doesn't move. She is content to be petted or wait for us to take photos. She's so well-behaved.

During this trip to Beijing, I happily went to Noy's house to play with their cat. Their cat is named "Tie Tie" and is a cute little blue cat. She is also well-behaved and kept playing with the data cable I brought.

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A week of happy cat cuddling!!!

The main purpose of my trip to Beijing this time was to attend the Gopher China 2023 conference. I have been with GoCN for two years, and it was the first time I met some of my team members and Asta Xie in person. During the event, I had a great conversation with a guy at a tent booth about Serverless and GPT. Just as I was about to exchange WeChat contacts, I realized that he was my Twitter friend "Carson Yang". We had some small exchanges on Telegram before, and he is indeed a great person.

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Although time was tight, I had a delicious buffet lunch with Homura and had a great conversation!

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For the rest of the time, Boyi took me around to play because it was quite ordinary, so I didn't take many photos. I recorded a candlelight music concert that left a deep impression. It had a great atmosphere.

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And something super magical, Boyi has superpowers. She can always get the capsule toy she wants. I used to not believe it, but then I got the Aniya I wanted in one try (and I happily held the Aniya capsule toy, and I think the shop owner laughed).

Interesting Things and Objects#

Input#

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

Articles#

Videos#

Here are some interesting videos I watched:

Anime#

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Entertainment District Arc: Still following it, love it!
The Case Study of Vanitas: The plot is getting better and better. I'm getting more and more excited!