Weekly Report E4

The cover is a very leisurely cloud I saw on the way to the library at noon when I was studying for my master's degree.

Life & Work#

Overall, this week was fine, nothing special to mention. Work went on as usual, and life was the same as always. On Thursday, I watched the movie "The Grandmaster" directed by Wong Kar-wai. On Friday night, fortunately, I had nothing to do, so I wrote a post-reading impression titled "What is a Grandmaster?".

On Saturday, I realized that I hadn't contacted my graduate school classmates for a long time, so I contacted my senior sister and played Peace Elite together. My sister also invited Amy, a girl we used to play games with, to join us. I often give them advice: "The world is not about fighting, it's about social skills." So, when I'm there, it's basically a chat session. I'm not really good at playing Peace Elite, so I'm basically a delivery person.

Amy shared with us how she has been taking care of her Husky recently and how mischievous it is. I asked her if she named the dog, and she said it's called "Laifu". I said, "Laifu sounds too common." She said, "You don't understand. Nowadays, post-2000s kids name their pets like this. If you don't believe me, you can search it." I searched it, and wow, it's true (image from Pet Knowledge Expert on Zhihu).

It seems like I'm getting old and no longer understand the post-2000s generation. If it were me, I would definitely name it "Tuanzi" or "Snow Leopard" or something like that. But now that I think about it, it sounds a bit common too. We talked about how her colleague recommended getting a puppy and how to vaccinate and bathe the dog in the future. I'm quite envious that she can have her own pet. When I settle down, I'll also get a small pet.

By the way, this week I saw a parrot that a girl raised on Bilibili, which was very interesting. I'm sharing it with everyone, and those who are interested can take a look. PS: Parrots are now on my list of pets to consider.

I exercised well this week, exercising for five days out of seven (resting on Tuesday and Friday), totaling more than 100 minutes, which is my goal. I owed one day last week, but I didn't have time to make it up this week. I need to make up for it in the new week.

By the way, when I went to pay the water and electricity bill on Sunday, I found out that the bill for December was 225, which is hard to accept. Although it's commercial electricity and water, it's still a bit higher than I expected, considering I'm alone. It might be because I keep the small heater on all night. I'll try not to use it as much as possible in the new month, unless necessary.

The company plans to give everyone "early annual leave", but the condition is that everyone has to give up all Saturdays before the Chinese New Year and make up for it by working overtime on collective Saturdays. However, it's acceptable, better than not being allowed to take time off. It's also good to go home earlier.

Learning#

In terms of learning, I didn't work hard this week. I only completed half of the homework for CS lectures 6-8. But I did organize the notes for lectures 6 and 7, so I can complete the homework better.

I still maintained "full attendance" in English listening this week. I forgot to mention it last week. It's part of my annual plan to improve my English to an IELTS score of 7.0 or above, which will be helpful for career advancement or traveling abroad. The following image is the attendance record for listening. I forgot to mention that I listened for 60 minutes on Friday because I fell asleep. I forgot to check in at that time, and I was too sleepy at around 2 am (the deadline for checking in on this app is 3 am the next day).

I also watched a TED Talk this week called "Why You Shouldn't Trust Boredom" by Kevin H. Gary.
The speaker mentioned several points that I think are worth considering, so I'm sharing them below:

Boredom should not be trusted:
- Our judgment of something or someone being boring is usually wrong.

We need to protect our attention:
- We need to avoid and eliminate boredom by playing with our phones or finding hobbies.
- The pain of boredom is not easily noticed.
- Don't try to endure boredom.

We need to discuss boredom:
- Reflect on it and focus on the people and things we love.

I didn't read much this week. Progress in the book "A Global History" is currently at 19%. There are two reasons why I'm reading slowly:

I go to bed much later, usually after 2 am.
I read before bed, so the book becomes a sleep aid. I will try to adjust my biological clock and go to bed one hour earlier and read/study in the morning.

I also read "A Byte of Python" this week, and I read more than 60 pages. It's a small and comprehensive book. I highly recommend it for beginners in Python. Since it's open source, you can download it freely (just don't use it for commercial purposes). Although it's in English, it uses basic high school vocabulary, so don't worry too much, my friends.

Tools#

Regular Expression Testing and Explanation: It's a great website for beginners or complex regular expressions. You can test the matching degree and get explanations for regular expressions. I saw a foreign friend share this when I was studying CS50, and I recommend it to everyone.
[White Noise from Forests Around the World](tree.fm – Tune Into Forests From Around The World: Well, it doesn't seem to have much use. They are all very short, each lasting just over a minute. But some bird songs are very clear, like [this one](tree.fm – Tune Into Forests From Around The World).

Entertainment#

"Flowers of Shanghai": It's a TV series directed by Wong Kar-wai, and it's his first TV series. I have always had blind trust in Wong Kar-wai, so I didn't hesitate to watch it. In this TV series, I also learned something: I used to think that when people say "xiao ba jiang" (meaning "nonsense" in Chinese), it's a swear word, but I found out from the TV series that it's actually "xiao qi ba jiang" in Shanghainese dialect. I learned something new. It's really good, and I recommend everyone to watch it. Here are three reasons:
- Film Style: I thought Wong Kar-wai would maintain his consistent style, artistic and romantic. But after watching it, I found that there are many small humorous designs that are not cliché. It combines art with business struggles, with a good balance of pace. In the first episode, the relationships between the characters are clearly explained, which is great.
- Script: The script is reliable, it's an adaptation of a Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning work.
- Actors + Director: The actors, including Hu Ge and You Benchang, are reliable, and Wong Kar-wai as the director is worth watching.
"The Grandmaster": I would rate it 7.5 out of 10. It didn't impress me as much as Wong Kar-wai's previous film "Days of Being Wild". But compared to other films, it's still a good one.