AaronXu

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 okay, nothing special to mention. Work went smoothly, and life was as usual. On Thursday, I watched the movie "The Grandmaster" directed by Wong Kar-wai. On Friday night, luckily I had nothing to do, so I wrote a reflection on the movie called "What is a Grandmaster?".

On Saturday, I realized that I hadn't contacted my senior classmates from graduate school for a long time, so I contacted my senior sister and we played Peacekeeper Elite together. My senior sister also invited Amy, a girl we used to play games with, to join us. I often give them advice: The world is not just about fighting, it's about social skills. So, when I'm playing, it's basically just chatting. I don't really play Peacekeeper 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 she named it "Lai Fu". I said, "Lai Fu" sounds too plain. She said, "You don't understand, that's how people born after 2000 name their pets. If you don't believe me, you can search it." So I searched it, and wow, it's true (image from Pet Knowledge Expert on Zhihu).

It seems like I'm getting old and I don't understand the younger generation anymore. If it were me, I would definitely name it "Tuanzi" or "Snow Leopard" or something. But come to think of it, that sounds a bit plain 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 definitely get a small pet too.

By the way, this week I saw a parrot that a girl raised on Bilibili, which was very interesting. I shared it with everyone, and if anyone is interested, you 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 met 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 water and electricity 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 the Saturdays before the Chinese New Year and make up for it by working overtime as a team. Well, it's acceptable, at least it's better than not being allowed to take time off. It's nice to go home early.

Learning#

In terms of learning, I didn't work very 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 better complete the homework.

As for English listening, I maintained a perfect attendance 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 my listening attendance record. I forgot to mention that I listened for 60 minutes on Friday because I fell asleep while listening. I forgot to check in at the time, and it was past 2 a.m. when I remembered (the deadline for checking in on this app is 3 a.m. the next day).

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

• I've been staying up very late, usually after 2 a.m.
• 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 book called "A Byte of Python", I read more than sixty pages. It's a small and comprehensive book, highly recommended 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, the vocabulary is at a middle or high school level, so don't worry too much, my friends.

Tools#

• Regular Expression Testing and Explanation: A great website for beginners or complex regular expressions, you can test the matching degree and get explanations of regular expressions. I saw a foreign friend sharing this on CS50, so 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 practical use, and they are all very short, each one is just over a minute. But some of the bird songs are very clear, like [this one](tree.fm – Tune Into Forests From Around The World).

Entertainment#

• "Fanhua": 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 Mandarin), it was a swear word, but after watching the TV series, I realized it's actually "xiao qi ba jiang" in Shanghainese dialect. It's good to learn new things. I recommend everyone to watch it for three reasons:

  • Film Style: I thought Wong Kar-wai would maintain his usual style, artistic and romantic. But after watching it, I found that there are many small and humorous designs that are not cliché. It combines art with business competition, and the pacing is good. In the first episode, the relationships between the characters are clearly explained, which is great.
  • Script: The script is guaranteed, it's an adaptation of a Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning work.
  • Actors + Director: The actors include Hu Ge and Yu Benchang, and Wong Kar-wai as the director. I think it's worth a look.

• "The Grandmaster": I would rate this movie 7.5 out of 10. It didn't impress me as much as Wong Kar-wai's previous work, "Days of Being Wild". But compared to other movies, it's still a good one.