20230830 How to Block a Website?

Browser Extension

There is blocksite chrome extension which helps you block websites. But it is inefficient because

1. Guest Mode no extension
2. I can easily use another browser like, firefox, opera, palemoon, slim, links2, etc

/etc/hosts

By changing the /etc/hosts file one can easily block harmful websites by then adding ::1 example.com

Using chattr to stop tampering

Then in the same directory using sudo chattr +i [filename]

Now sudo cannot delete the file directly but sudo can chattr -i then delete the file.

Adding to systemctl service

Add a file in /usr/local/bin/

cat <<EOL | sudo tee /etc/hosts > /dev/null
# hosts file
EOL

make it executable by

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/[filename]

Then add a systemctl service

[Unit]
Description=Update /etc/hosts file

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/[filename]

add a timer to the same directory

[Unit]
Description=Run update-hosts service every few seconds

[Timer]
OnBootSec=10sec
OnUnitActiveSec=10sec

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Then start the service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable enforce-hosts-block.timer
sudo systemctl start enforce-hosts-block.timer

Using ufw

You can use firewall to block a domaim.

Ufw is like a frontend to iptables and ip6tables, so I am not using the firewall.

IPTable

First dig the domain

jimchen:~$ dig +short example.com A
93.184.216.34
jimchen:~$ dig +short example.com AAAA
2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946
jimchen:~$ dig +short jimchen.me
172.67.133.157
104.21.5.161
jimchen:~$ dig +short jimchen.me AAAA
2606:4700:3032::6815:5a1
2606:4700:3034::ac43:859d

Also if there are domains with cnames (ipv6 comes to another domain instead of ip address) then continue digging.

Then drop the ip address in the iptables and ip6tables

sudo iptables -I OUTPUT 1 -d 93.184.216.34 -j DROP
sudo ip6tables -I OUTPUT 1 -d 2606:2800:220:1:248:1893:25c8:1946 -j DROP

blocks example.com

However, they are not persistent, so after rebooting rule losts, so run

`sudo apt-get install iptables-persistent`

Then store the rule

sudo sh -c 'iptables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v4'
sudo sh -c 'ip6tables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v6'

tcpdump

You can also use tcpdump to block websites, also this is unconventional

Add a script that everytime a website is visited just shutdown the computer.

tcpdump -i any 'host example.com' -l |
while read line
do
    sudo shutdown -h now
    exit
done

Conclusion

However, the amount of harmful and gore and explicit websites are far beyond one's control(there are like millions) so it cannot be blocked. Nevertheless blocking websites is very fun.

Also, there is no way to completely block a website to the root of the computer since the root can do anything. User can almost never control the root's behavior(even root cannot set rules for root). The only exception is like you start a systemd service to shutdown when the computer starts, which can still be recovered by booting into a recovery mode or use a live CD/USB, mount your system's root partition, and then remove or disable the problematic service.

I previously thought like you can start 2 programs in the background like one ensuring the other is run, so you can never shut these down. However, the root can just kill both of them.

So at the end of the day just embrace the variety of Internet and accept the harmful instances. There is no blocking away from them if your heart pursues.

20230902 The Painful Journey of Battling Gaming Addiction

When you are into gaming one day of not gaming feels completely unbearable. You won't even last through the day and it feels like torturing yourself.

When you are not into gaming however, watching other people game feel like watching fools.

The easiest way to go against an addiction is to find a stronger one to replace it.

Disclaimer

People are different, and I may or may not support your ideas (or the common ideas).

What is it?

I am addicted to gaming. I hate to admit it but I was, and I am still very much addicted.

Facts

• No Gain and No Worth: No depth, repetitive, simplistic, devoid of meaningful insights. Gaming gives me NOTHING AT ALL!
• Extremely Time-consuming: Either no play or play 10 hours a day. I can't play like 5 minutes a day! Gaming further brainwash your brain with crap.
• Toxic Masculin: I try to win in games, which is simply pointless!
• Escapism: I don't work hard anymore
• Devoid of Enjoyment: I feel depressed and devoid of any happiness when playing any game, and gaming TRAUMATIZED my whole life.
• Stupidity Playing games make people INCOMPETENT for doing jobs. Gaming is just toxic and weakens people

Moreover, demonstrating a preference for gaming is VERY UNprofessional. It's deeply distressing and bothering to everybody. People who find joy in gaming, especially lower end stupid games, are typically RETARDED and LOW EFFORT people.

Retarded and low effort unsuccessful people typically demonstrate their self-worth(which is below zero) through gaming jargons, trying to find the last thing that they know more than you! Of course, this ISN'T COOL.

In particular, exhibiting a preference for gaming make a man very inattractive and annoying, like a turn off immediately. Everybody else would want to avoid this person or thing as much as possible. It's like someone with a strong foot odor but worse.

What games am I addicted to?

I consider my preference for gaming strange. I do not like the mainstream games like Clash Royal(may it die!) or Honor of Kings(may it die!) which some of my (dumb) classmates play. Instead, here is a list of games I remember being addicted to (may them die!) from time order

• plants vs zombies 2nd grade-4th grade
• plants vs zombies 2 4th grade-7th grade, sophomore year
• plants vs zombies ol 3rd grade-8th grade
• carrot fantasy 3rd grade-7th grade
• carrot fantasy 2 (and the variation in 4399) 3rd grade-7th grade
• generals.io 10th grade-freshman year
• zombsroyale.io sophomore year-now
• brawl stars, slither.io not too addicted

Measures I have taken to prevent myself from gaming

I have taken multiple measures to prevent myself from gaming, with some success and failure.

• Before 6th grade I didn't remember taking any measures myself.
• In 6th grade I was addicted to plants vs zombies ol, and in the second semester I told myself that every time I play I would write it on a notebook. In the end I controlled it.
• In 7th grade first semester I was addicted to plants vs zombies 2 and carrot fantasy, and I wanted to stop gaming. One day I played carrot fantasy 8 hours. Shortly after, I deleted carrot fantasy. Then I was addicted to plants vs zombies 2, after about a month, I deleted plants vs zombies 2. Then I downloaded plants vs zombies 2 and was very much addicted again, then I deleted plants vs zombies 2 a second time. Then I started playing plants vs zombies ol, and couldn't stop playing it.
• In 8th grade I told myself I must stop gaming. In November I decided gaming is not meaningful. It was painful and in the second semester I remembered trying so hard. I tried to shift my attention to long walks and outdoor activities. In the second semester I played roughly once or twice a week, or once two weeks. In the summer I played less afer shifting my attention completely to outdoor activities.
• In 9th grade I made an honest effort to stop gaming altogether. I played only once in September 13rd the first semester. In the second semester covid came. I liked going outdoors so much at that time that even during covid I was out walking 2 hours every day. I played less than 5 times the second semester, only before exams when I felt too much pressure.
• In 10th grade first semester, I wasn't too much into gaming anymore. However, later that semester I suffered great disappointment, since I tried really hard studying(the hardest I ever tried so far as I could remember), but still got a really low score. As a result, I began to feel depression and became easily irritated. In the second semester, I began to play generals.io sometimes, like about twice a week.
• In Freshman year first semester, all people in my dorm was so addicted to gaming, to the point I felt sick and hated the dorm. I hated school very much but couldn't do anything since I live far from my parents. I played generals.io sometimes, like less than 1 hour a day. In the C Programming course I coded generals.io single player in C language myself. I couldn't do anything to stop it, but it wasn't that serious at that time. I distinctly remember in Janurary 1st 2022 I was playing generals.io as the clock turned. In the second semester, however, I grew more frustrated and hated the dorm even more, to the point where I suffered great emotional distress. I tried to control gaming by writing on my notebook before using computer, that "this time I use computer only for "studying" purpose, not for gaming". I checked my computer time usage every week. In the end I played for some time but it was under control.
• In Sophomore year I decided to end it for all. However, everything just got worse. I wrote an essay myself on why gaming is bad, listing all pros and cons. However, it all got worse when I began playing zombsroyale.io. It all started when I accidentally came across the game one afternoon and couldn't stop playing for 2 hours straight. In the first semester there was massive covid lockdowns, and I felt bored and depressed being locked down, and couldn't control myself from playing zombsroyale anymore. In the second semester I got on the exchange program to UC Berkeley. Then things got even worse. In the US, I was very lonely and unmotivated, and I completely lost control of playing zombsroyale. I played for more than 600 hours this year. I did try to stop playing, without any success. In October I stopped gaming for a week straight, motivated to do work when the school was locked down, destroying my motivation. In April I faced a challenging project, and started procrastinating, playing zombsroyale nearly all day long. I ended up failing in that project. In May I decided to end gaming, and succeeded for a week. However, in June I got very sad and fully embarrassed of myself, pulling myself back into emotional distress I suffered for long. In early August I felt completely out of motivation and dropped one of the summer classes, playing zombsroyale all day long for a week. Then I decided to stop gaming once and for all, but in the test I got really low scores, making me disappointed once again and lost motivation. Then in late August I tried to stop gaming by disabling zombsroyale /etc/hosts, rewriting the /etc/hosts every few seconds in systemctl service, and dropping the ip address of zombsroyale in iptables. However, the stress I faced with the coming semester was too huge, and I couldn't handle everything. As a result, I flushed the iptable, and manually changed /etc/hosts file and went back to gaming again. Anyways, I also disabled Javascript for all malicious gaming websites.

I did manage to stop gaming a few periods in my life successfully. However, every time I was pulled back into gaming by emotional distress caused by real life problems. I was pulled back by dopamine release.

Gaming as Malicious Bloatware

I am not saying all gaming is evil; in fact, there are plenty of very good and interesting games that don't have notable disadvantages. Openai Gym games are good and interesting to play!

What a piece of malicious bloatware does to a computer is exactly what gaming does to one's mind. Bloatware, also known as crapware, typically refers to malicious softwares that

• Slows down the system, Takes up disk space, Tamper maliciously with system
• Confuses the user intentionally
• Drains battery life

To sum it up, such things are mainly resource-hungry and out of control. They try to eat up your computer systems without being useful. Also, they are typically malicious, like backdoors imposed by companies, monitors that log and send your personal data, or forcing a user to "vendor lock in".

Gaming stimulates the mind to be addicted to SHIT, and suppresses the mind from processing useful stuff. Also, gaming is usually out of one's control, and when someone is addicted, they practically cannot control themselves at all.

Freedom

A commonly WRONG excuse is that people arguing gaming is their freedom.

No, let's be absolutely clear, it's wrong. I will explain.

Freedom doesn't mean you can do anything. Freedom means you have control over your mind and life. It's the same like you can't curse someone in public, can't spit on the ground, can't eat drugs.

Gaming ISN'T my freedom, because it acts as an adversary to my freedom. Thus, I am not supressing my freedom to game, but I am actually respecting and preserving my freedom by supressing something that goes against it.

Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your passions.

True freedom is undefined. Of course, this claimed freedom isn't the best thing for me. Controlled freedom is the best.

Gaming forces venom down your throat, and locks you in a cage.

Companies Enslave You!

By first making you addicted to someone they have exclusivly, then suddenly increasing the price, the company is exploiting you. The solution to that is never get addicted to something the company earns. In truth the company can raise the money to however high they want, (gradually), and force the user to keep paying to them to play a game (or a feature that only they have). You will lose meaning in your life, honestly.

Imagine food price skyrocketed, will you still buy them? The answer is yes. For game addicts, gaming is like eating food, and not gaming is like starving(or at least equally painful, or more painful than that). The company then goes to provides "food" for the gamer, which is essential to their daily supply.

Such an act is not only unreasonable but very unethical, however, I see no law enforcements addressing this. So it is very important to be aware of the amount of control the company have on you!

Open source grants one control. A person can compile and read the source code, and as a result, the code doesn't dominate the user.

Companies refuse to release the source code for games. This is like slavemasters. All games shall be open source, and give user the freedom to modify! I want to modify parts of a game myself or tune it, and there is no way but to be dictated by the company behind it! The company can change the game at any moment, can go malicious(which they already are). You are making a fool out of yourself by gaming.

Frontends SUCK

There is a lack of API in gaming. Things can only be controlled via the frontend GUI. Gaming frontends are objectively very very very SHITTY and designed to confuse and obfuscate users, usually requiring an enormous amount of effort!

Modern games typically have complicated (buggy) UIs and lack the transparency seen in open-source software. If I can't control something, and relies heavily on their STUPID SHITTY frontends, it's not something that provides me with joy Games should have their source code revealed for users to understand and modify. I really hate stupid guis because they are just mostly unnecessary. Why can't one person control stuff from command line api? From python sdk? From node sdk like npm library?

Imagine Paying Money!

Games usually charge fees for virtual props, which is completely unreasonable. I can pay for a VPS server or pay for a cloud bucket, which actually provides me with valuable services. But to pay for something virtual that only exists in a certain proprietary shitty game? Hilarious! Are you stupid? You don't get anything from your money, and it only needs to change a value in its backend to charge you.

Paying in gaming is a great disrespect to money, and shows great irresponsibility! I would rather use this money for training LLM models on GPUs!

Say, someone displays a number on an HTML page, and when you give him money, the person increases that number the same as the amount of money you give. Does it seem appealing to pay? No. Of course, modern banks are trusted services, and they are considered secure and preserve your money. But literally, any server changing a number in the backend should charge you nothing at all. This is far more unreasonable than VIPs or Premium Subscription (which most I find unreasonable enough). Paid subscription to a service usually means more usage and more bandwidth costs, etc., so it has a point.

What they give you is completely determined by them. You have nothing, they have everything. They can wipe out the account and do whatever they want easily, you are powerless and limited to the buggy frontend.

Similarity to BDSM, but Worse

Gaming is like BDSM, and users acts like "SUB", or "M", and companies are "DOM", or "S". The user got tied up and spanked and strangled and chocked, tortured by the company, and the company laughs and gets on top of the user, and shits on the user, doing whatever they want.

BDSM has "consent" in it. DOMs can't do everything to subs. However, consent is hardly every enforced because BDSM involves objectification, and an object can't disagree. Moreoever, the SUB is usually gaslighted into giving consent. Although doing anything more than consent is considered "Rape", in real life we don't see DOMs subjected to jailtime.

Gaming also has "consent" in it, where users would agree to some "terms and conditions" in the before clicking into the game. Except nobody examines how malicious they are. As a result, company can write anything in those terms and conditions. So, in the end the SUB(gamer) ends up automatically granting a lot more than suitable, hurting their bodies and causing life-long emotional trauma.

When opening a game, it is like going into the BDSM fantasy. It seem very intriguing to go into but as it continues the SUB is endlessly exploited, deprived of human rights, will have extremely low self-esteem and no life positivity. Gaming objectifies the user.

When you give company endless limits (just no limits), they will try to get as much as they want. User will be chocked, whipped like a slave, kicked and punched. I have a lot of emotional distress even now, suffering from gaming from a few years ago. Gaming traumatized my life.

About Other People

Vergleichen Sie sich nicht mit anderen.
Wenn Sie dies tun,
beleidigen Sie sich

There are many things I found out about the general public regarding gaming. As I found out, normal people are incredibly good at controlling themselves from not being overly addicted to gaming. Normal people can game for 5 mins then go all out on studying for days on end. I am bad at resisting and controlling myself. I am very vulnerable mentally and emotionally.

Normal people typically use gaming only as a way to level up their Machine Learning skills, or perhaps Computer Graphics skills. It is observed that oftentimes people's computer generates lots of log files while they are gaming. When normal people play video games, their phone and computer will typically have a terminal open or in the background, generating long JSON files with specialized API tools, which they then typically back up to cloud storage or just put them in some local folders. Moreover, oftentimes people are testing their C++ programs as "games" and testing out bugs instead of playing actual games themselves.

They would typically execute a variety of actions in gaming, as to sample from all scenarios to generate a more complete picture of the game into the replay buffer to prevent distribution shift.

Then, after that a normal person would immediately download some models from huggingface, or just use some models locally to train the game observations from the replay buffer into the model. Sometimes they would preprocess the long json logs(or even images in some cases), again using specialized tools. Then they would use those models and some policies to train a Neural Network on the game with like Pytorch, calculating rewards then evaluating their models.

Note that sometimes this is done online, as people evalute the model on the real world gaming environment and update the policy networks through complicated methods, typically addressing the distribution shift, or enabling the agent to explore more scenarios.

After my observation I got a more balanced prespective, that gaming to normal people is essentially no more than a complex tool like "Openai Gym", as I believe normal people would know better than to waste their life and time.

It is extreme bothering to me when someone suggests gaming because it is something that geniuely traumatized my life for so long and it gave me so much pain all the time.

EVIL Nature

The fact that I cannot quit gaming even though I tried for so many years tells me something about the EVIL nature of it. Gaming contains is like a very dark instance. Very likely you will face serious personal troubles.

What's next?

I gamed for more than 600 hours in the past year(note: this is in Sep 02 2023), that is the equivalent of losing one half month. I can do so much in one half month (without taking into account the fact that when I was gaming I was more tired than usual).

I run out of motivation lately. I couldn't stop myself from gaming. Every time I tried to stop gaming, gaming dominated my life even more.

What should I do next?

Updates
I stopped gaming at October 15th 2023, and it's been one month without gaming at all. It has been very hard, and I faced mental challenges. I hope I can stay away from gaming forever.

Updates
Something happened and I stopped gaming for a total of 93 days, and resumed gaming on January 16th 2024.

Updates
I am determined to quit gaming and embrace a free life starting Apr 7th 2024 again.

Updates
I played video games at 2024.4.28 and 2024.4.29 during emotional breakdown at midnight. I felt so bad.

Updates
I played video games at 2024.7.3. I am depressed and in emotional crisis. Gaming traumatized my life but I am in jeopardy with mental burnouts without gaming. Help me!

Updates
I played video games at 2024.7.9. This is egregious, man. Get back and going!

Updates
I played video games at 2024.7.14. It a very very sad time.

Updates
I played video games at 2024.7.16-8.26. I am so so so depressed. Help me! I am in the worst mental state possible.

Updates
I stopped gaming again at September! Honestly gaming is DRUGS. I am banning social media now. I am exhausting every last measure I can to regain my autonomy.

Updates in 202409

Surprisingly, these days gaming stopped appealing to me that much, and worse problems come, so yeah.

My laptop touchpad would stop working if I jam at it too hard on the touchpad, which is a great thing, and I don't play any games now.

20250211

I haven't engaged with any gaming for half a year. Language learning killed gaming completely.

However, we must keep in mind that victory is temporary, and that we must be fully aware in the future of any potential resurgence!

Я выключаю телевизор, я пишу тебе письмо
Про то, что больше не могу смотреть на дерьмо
Про то, что больше нет сил, про то, что я почти запил, но не забыл тебя
Про то, что телефон звонил, хотел, чтобы я встал

Я жду ответа
Больше надежд нету
Скоро кончится лето

Updates in 202504

Ok, I played games for 3 days in 202504, including 20250430, 20250429, and another day earlier. It is coming back again.

20230917 Trying ADB and Recovering My Computer

Why?

I want to use Ubuntu Touch os since iphone and android won't let me access the terminal easily and it is not that customizable. The steps include unlocking the phone bootloader and using ubports to install Ubuntu Touch.

adb Didn't Work

So yesterday is an interesting day.

Everything went the way a normal weekend would go.

Then in the afternoon I was trying the adb on my Ubuntu computer, but it just wouldn't work no matter how hard I tried. I tried adb devices and adb start-server and adb kill-server but none of them responded, and I reinstalled it 3 times, and installed the platform-tools twice but it still wouldn't work. Miraculously it worked on the cloud server.

It is quite uncommon for an application to have a bug that is hard to fix like this, well maybe except for wine or android emulators bugs.

adb wouldn't respond with all of the commands

adb devices
adb start-server
adb kill-server

And I asked ChatGPT how to fix the bug, and it told me various ways like using strace and aux and grep the service, but the just wouldn't work. Any commands associated with adb would freeze in the terminal.

Trying to Debug the Problem

So I tried the process

ps aux | grep adb
pkill -f adb

It did terminate adb but nothing else, adb won't respond.

Only adb version

did respond, then I tried rm -rf ~/.android

These wouldn't respond when I tried to start the server and debug,

adb -L tcp:5037 fork-server server --log debug
env -i adb start-server

I mean if there are bugs the bugs should be easily spotted, but in this
case it would just freeze in terminal

Then I tried to trace the startup process
strace adb start-server

but it showed

bind(3, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(0), sin_addr=inet_addr(127.0.0.1)} 16) = 0
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(5037), sin_addr=inet_addr(127.0.0.1)} 16) = -1 ECONNREFUSED (Connection refused)
close(3) = 0
socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_IP) = 3
bind(3, {sa_family=AF_INET6, sin6_port=htons(0), sin6_flowinfo=htonl(0), inet_pton(AF_INET6, ::1, &sin6_addr), sin6_scope_id=0} 28) = 0
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_INET6, sin6_port=htons(5037), sin6_flowinfo=htonl(0), inet_pton(AF_INET6, ::1, &sin6_addr), sin6_scope_id=0} 28

Then I was really frustrated. Then I tried to sudo apt-get purge libudev-dev

And I tried that command, and it broke my computer. Suddenly my computer could no longer boot.

Remembering the Homework Deadline

Then I remembered I had to do a homework by the end of the day(like 2 hours work), so I was very anxious indeed, and I went to the school and tried work on the windows computer there.

But the homework wouldn't work in the school's windows computer(without python) and gooogle colab, since it constantly complained about modules and libraries.

And I tried for 2 hours without any success of making the homework run on the school's computer or the cloud server, and the school's library is closing, so I went back home again and tried to fix the computer.

Emergency Mode

The computer boots into emergency mode when it starts, and I had no idea what to do. After trying the root password several times I finally managed to boot into root, but the systemd was broken, and I entered recovery mode and tried to fsck the system.

A dev service was kind of broken, and Ubuntu couldn't launch.

Anyways, it didn't work well, and I didn't know how to connect to the internet with the computer. So I tried booting from a usb disk, and it didn't went well either. I still couldn't connect to the internet.

Installing from USB Again

So I tried to install Ubuntu again from the usb stick. But when booting the old network thing went wrong again. So I tried changing the network service timeout and it worked.

sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/networkd-wait-online.service

Then change add timeout to 1 second after the exec command.

Then I could only make Ubuntu connect to internet with ethernet, connecting my phone to the computer with a usb and then by using ip link to list devices then sudo dhclient enx… to connect to that device, then I could go online, but there was this no additional driver found, and I tried cloning the rt driver and it didn't work. However, it continuously shows no Wi-Fi adapters found.

Rubbish Redmi Unlocker

However, my redmi phone was locked by the bootloader, so I needed to unlock the bootloader to be root. However, I opened the https://unlock.update.mini.com and it wouldn't download for like 10 times. It is very crappy indeed. Then when I finally get it to download it returned a zip with only exe files in it, which is terrible and inconsiderate for the company.

I tried running the exe with wine but it face so many problems. It wouldn't even display. Wine is the most buggy program in Ubuntu. Yesterday I went to the school and tried running it on the school's windows computer but it couldn't detect the Redmi phone connected.

So since the bootloader was only in exe I decided it is very crap anyways. So I started to hate redmi like I hate windows.

Phone Ownership

Then I thought about phone ownership and reckoned that if I cannot access the bootloader I do not really own this phone. I cannot customize anything, the phone is just basically owned by the company. Don't talk about security and integrity measures, if I cannot do customized settings in this phone I do not own it 100%, and that's not good.

Trying to Overload the Phone

And then I thought since I do not own the phone and the phone is old I want to try overload the phone with adb.

Adb have no root access since the phone is locked, and I tried fastboot too, it wouldn't load.

Then I tried to play around with the adb shell and tried to overload the device. I tried a infinite loops.adb shell "while true; do :; done & It instantly made the old phone unusable, but nothing else, and when
unplugged the phone would still run as good as normal.

Then I tried to load large files into the phone while true; do adb push large_file.txt /sdcard/; done, but the storage soon filled up and the data part was only accessible by root, and the phone was usable after all the mess around.

No Wifi-Adapters on Ubuntu

Then the Ubuntu Gnome couldn't connect to Wifi, and I couldn't figure out the reason. I could only connect to wifi with a phone and usb cables.

Then I tried nmcli device wifi list, but it returned

IN-USE  BSSID              SSID                            MODE   CHAN  RATE   >

I figured it was because I disabled the network devices earlier on, and after ls /lib/systemd/system | grep etwork it returned multiple services,

systemd-networkd.service
systemd-networkd-wait-online.service
NetworkManager.service
NetworkManager-wait-online.service

the networkd service causing the A start job is running for wait for network to be configured problem, I might actually accidentally disabled the other.

Then I tried other desktop environments like lxde but lxde wouldn't boot and encountered multiple system problems.

Watching the Figure Skating Test Skate Free Program

And then I had tried like 12 hours without success and missed my homework deadline so I was very much in distress. It was 5 am in the morning. So I watched figure skating test skate free program live on 1tv and went to sleep.

Installing Ubuntu Again

Then I installed the Ubuntu again today, erasing yesterday's partition and there was no Wi-Fi adapter problems.

The steps are

• boot the system (with/without network configurations)
• connect phone to computer and use dhclient to connect to Internet
• sudo apt update && sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop gdm3
• sudo systemctl start gdm3

Then enable the timeout in 'systemd-networkd-wait-online.service'.

2023 December: Grateful for Airport Worker

I'm genuinely grateful for the extraordinary kindness and assistance I received from an airport worker in San Francisco. I was too tired and didn't pay much attention to booking the plane ticket. I having booked a ticket that required a transfer in Canada without the necessary ETA.

I was extremely lucky to meet a wonderful airport employee. She even appeared to be interested in my studies. She was so approachable and chatted with me for a while. She said, "Don't worry, just wait here with me," and it brought immense comfort. She tried to reroute my luggage directly to Shanghai, which didn't work out, and she just somehow worked out to give me a direct flight to my destination.

Now, I am filled with deep gratitude. The kindness and help of this airport worker left a lasting impression! She reminded me of the kindness and empathy in a time of despair. I'm sincerely thankful for her help and the positive impact she had on my journey.

20240102: Reflections at the Start of 2024

Switched to Nanode on Linode

I considered various cloud services before ultimately settling on Linode for its simplicity and familiarity. AWS felt overwhelmingly complex by comparison. I've transitioned from Ubuntu instances in Fremont to smaller, Nanode Archlinux configurations in Osaka.

Transitioned to Personal Storage Solutions

I invested in Linode's object storage, even though it's pricier than mainstream options like Dropbox (Linode's 1 TB is $20 compared to Dropbox's 2 TB for $10). Despite the cost, the open-source nature of Linode appealed to me. To manage my files, I set up a filebrowser frontend and a backend with s3fs, which offers an experience akin to Dropbox.

Acquiring a VPN

Navigating the internet in China necessitates a VPN. Initially, I experimented with various services on my iPhone and laptop but settled on Nexitally after dissatisfaction with the speed and performance of others. A reliable VPN is critical for comfortable browsing and communication.

Dealing with Subpar Software

I've found much of the software in China frustratingly inadequate. The Chinese Telecom App, for example, is a source of constant irritation. There's a notable lack of quality, open-source options that allow for customization. Even a driving car app has proven to be a nauseating experience.

Learning to Drive and Dental Plans

Though reluctant, I'm learning to drive at my parents' insistence, spending much of the winter holidays at home for lessons. In addition, I've begun the process to correct my crooked teeth, which includes the painful procedure of wisdom tooth extraction.

Embracing Solitude

I've grown to appreciate solitude, especially away from parental supervision. My year in the U.S. has led me to a comfortable level of independence, where I find less need for the familial home. My parents' main role has become more about ensuring my adherence to a routine than companionship.

Adopting a More KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Lifestyle

My inclination towards minimalism has grown, driving me to eliminate unnecessary possessions, save for a few cherished items like small graduation photo books. Concurrently, my dedication to Arch Linux and its philosophy has deepened.

Valuing Time

As years pass, I'm reminded of the importance of engaging in meaningful activities, though procrastination remains a tempting diversion. The ongoing challenge is to focus on productivity and self-improvement amidst the distractions.

Quitting Gaming

I've abstained from gaming for over two and a half months, a difficult and often tempting journey. Despite nearing the 90-day milestone often cited as a turning point, the struggle persists, and I continue to work towards overcoming the urge to relapse.

20240210: Melancholy Night

This melancholy night reminds me again of the numerous occasions of beginning of semester scenario throughout my middle school career, and yet, even over the years, still lost and helpless am I.

It is a common practice to feel a little nostalgic, whilst when asked, do I want to return to the past? I would probably refuse.

Back to the days where I would play video games for hours in the summer, then go to the library to try hard studying, making my own goals, trying to accomplish, afraid of schools yet it's always coming, going. Back to the days where in the final exam I would be so anxious and play video games the whole day before the afternoon exam at home, and fear the hear my scores. I would walk and dream of the world as mine, and with the lighest and purest heart, appreciate the beauty of the night-lights in the urban areas of Shanghai.

I would make a comprehensive studying plan, only breaking down half way usually to go off playing video games. I would try to push myself forward, and read lots of literature, pretending they are of great knowledge. I would hope for the school to end, and dream of the future after middle school.

I would go crying and exclaiming about the whole world around me, howling into the uttermost darkness, or the brighest summertime with sizzling sun, or just a mediocre spring day. I would ill at the loneliness, and long for a companion, yet seeing none my age. I would treat the external world the way I saw it around me, and naught the distractions on the Internet nor what's happening in the world would cause the slightest hint of thought. I had no idea, and so there is no bother.

I lived the life of school day after day, as if it was of some importance and greatness. I was strict about the goods and bads, and I would start tackling those matters one by one. It was hard, yes, the uneasiness of puberty, the urge of sex, the sensitivity of the fragile mind. Yet, hard as it might, and ultimately, I would try shaping myself into the person I wanted, trying to strictly define the thing, and hope all the light in the future.

So I hoped, and I dreamed, and everything was shattered.

It wasn't until recently did I realize I lived in some kind of mockery nearly all my life, and naught did I know my purpose back then. I lived for other people, and it goes against my mind. My efforts weren't for my own purposes--they were forced. And thus, did this system crumble, and breaked were my mental mind and philosophy. This system simply leads nowhere, and nor did I know what to strive for. Ending in a difficult situation am I right now, and completely dazzled and frustrated, losting his way in the path going to nowhere.

External Brainwash vs Internal Control

Internal Control is an inevitable method to gain control of myself over the external environment, while also restricting the mind. External Brainwash is the environment affecting the my minds and thoughts, causing (bad) influences.

I don't care whether these are good or bad influences and it turns out they aren't all beneficial, and it is costing my freedom.

Control vs Brainwash

Being externally brainwashed is the worst thing that could ever happened, and I found that I was being brainwashed nearly all my life. I still don't have an idea about pretty much anything.

I don't feel like being in control, and moreover, I feel desperate.

My Parents don't know nothing

Following my parent's advice is really stupid act, and they only make me conform to their ideals.

Turns out that their idea is outdated and nonapplicable.

Undeniably my parents was doing well back in 20 or 30 years ago, and maybe even today in their own fields, but they know nothing about me.

Oh 2018 seems something of the past

I remembered like in 2018 I was longing for my primary school? Fifth grade life? Whatever????

Anyways, 2018 is something long gone now.

I used to play youkia's pvzol though.

Oh, how time files, these years, I had barely had a grasp before things were turning wheels and flying.

How I had failed in controlling Gaming

I couldn't control nothing in my life. Somehow I wished I would go for grad school here in USTC. I really don't mind it and also I am kind of having enough of this total nonsense of anxiety.

A Strange Dream

Yesterday, I dreamed back to high school again.

First I went back to a dorm where people sleep in the same bedsheet, and it was super smelly. I wanted to get out, but couldn't, and thought that was the dorm I must facce in my high school.

There was the final exam, and I prepared really hard and thought I had tried my best for it. However, there was going to be an annoucement of Chemistry scores, and the same dreaded and creepy feeling came all over me again that it was gonna be really horrible.

Then I thought for the millionth time which subjects do I choose. Precisely at that point I even lost account of the fact that I finished high school. I thought I'd choose physics and geology for sure, as 3 subjects were required, but then I needed to choose another among the Chemistry, Biology, History, and Politics, and I got super nervous and anxious.

I thought back to choosing History for a moment before realizing how awful I performed on the subject, but there wasn't much other choices, since my Chemistry and Biology are much worse.

Then I sort of faded back into unconsciousness, and woke up.

Why browser extension redirects doesn't work?

You either go on or you don't go on these websites. It is a conscious choice, and hard to confuse.

If you don't go on, fine, nothing is needed--you just actively go away from lures.

If you decides to go on, there is no stopping that action from a browser extension--simple.

Furthermore a buggy browser extension offers far more disaster than this.

Dedication

Studying requires lots of dedication, and no easy distractions.

Need to Work Harder

I am seriously not putting in enough efforts for studying now. I need to work harder and push forward instead of falling back and gaming, no excuses.

Telegram still Impacting????

Seriously Telegram is JUST HARMFUL app full of illegal content, and they are consuming and not beneficial. So quit Telegram and embrace life!

NO NOTICE on GAMING

I've said countless times that I need to stop freaking gaming. Gaming IS serious and it is really the main reason for lack of control. So value your freedom and stay away from the crap!

Why are you actually developing a crush over some prostitues you see in an adult video?? It is both ridiculous and not logical at all to have such a strange thought.

Never depend on someone else for my own life, and dominatrix is just a piece of shit?? Do you want to be masochist being played by another femdom? It's both ridiculous and completely piece of shit. Cherish your free life! Be sensible!

At the same time be sensible to never touch those porn people, or else having some sexual relationship might impact my whole life.

I am not banning porn or sex but it is just too much, the level of emotions on watching adult videos.

In fact I am also imposing a ban on adult videos from now on. Adult video is officially banned, since it is too mentally disturbing.

CrappY Internet

LIterally so many things on Internet is CRAP, and what's more, they are addictive and seriously affecting my mental wellbeing. Espeically those adult contents. Ahh, there is no way to completely get rid of them.

CN Websites are also a piece of crap, with unusable buggy frontends and Winnie censoring.

Gaming IS TOXIC

No more gaming, or else I will create a gaming Log.

How to ban a website and why excessive control sucks

There are several ways to ban websites

1. Use family server plans like Cloudflare 1.1.1.3 (Blocking Malware and adult websites). Ineffective with VPN.

2. Changing /etc/hosts file, very inefficient indeed, makes computer runs slowly when records go high(millions) since it goes through linear search. Ineffective when using a VPN.

3. Using a squid proxy to route the traffic on another port, and config it globally.

Squid is primarily used for caching and improving web performances, turning out it does improve performance on my computer, although not by much, only about less than 20%(probably because I am also behind ClashVerge vpn).

Anyways, squid can be configed to block websites using external tools like squidguard or e2guardian. But still on the original port the traffic is not blocked.

4. Using a VPN in the first place might block some websites, but these are usually blocked anyways in China. The point of VPN is usually browsing Internet freely, not for more restrictions.

Cloudflare Warp family works to block inappropriate websites, but it's too slow in China, since I needed to first connect to a US server.

5. Using filter rules in ClashVerge vpn (or shadowsocks) blocks website. For example, if you block twitter then twitter will be inaccessible through the vpn, it is also inaccessible in Mainland China, so the site is blocked through the vpn. However, by simply changing a vpn provider one can still bypass.

6. Trying browser extensions. Most ineffective way ever. One can easily bypass by installing another browser. Some browser, like qutebrowser, doesn't support extensions.

7. Trying some parental control software. Extremely bad way. Firstly, those softwares are often complicated to set up, often with much configuration and "gui", which is probabaly the last thing I will try. Furthermore, these softwares complicates the monitoring and censoring, making I feel very uncomfortable, against the point of trying to achieve freedom and comfort through filtering evil websites. Moreover, they eat up system cpu usage and network speed. Lastly, most are ineffective, and may be bypassed by VPN easily.

8. Be "below 18 years old" on Internet. This isn't a method in the first place since although Google search won't return malicious results for children, most malicious(adult) websites doesn't need confirming to enter.

9. Try dropping the iptables.

sudo iptables -I OUTPUT 1 -d 104.21.68.184 -j DROP
sudo iptables -I OUTPUT 1 -d 172.67.197.209 -j DROP

Ineffective over VPN.

In conclusion it is quite hard to block harmful websites without extensive and a very long time configuration and extensive testing, which is far less time-efficient than normal things to do. Anyways, the main goal is the block inappropriate content, and if browsing inappropriate content is my own will, then I must be responsible for it. There are millions of inappropriate websites in minimum, with more going out everyday. It is almost impossible without a "GUI" or extensive monitoring software for offering such a service effectively.

What I shall focus preventing on right now?

There are several pretty serious issues to be addressed. Typically

1. Never ever play video games
2. Never ever go on those cn spam platforms

These ARE causing troubles for me right now, also so is my sleeping schedule, but anyways, sleepoing schedule can be adjusted, but these things are such a pain.

If I go on tieba for once I will be addicted with the shit.

Some previous erros in my website development

I made some pretty ridiculous erros before, for example, I used 2 domains and 2 linode vps for frontend and backend. This can be utilized by using nginx proxy on one Linode machine and configuring a path for the backend.

I also constantly ran sudo npm start for my website, which is quite stupid. I shall run npm run build for production builds.

What kind of woman do I want to marry?

Something about me; I aim for freedom and control. This is unnegotiable.

I mean, for people who do not care about their freedom, it's absolutely fine to be friends with them, but to have a spouse to live with like 50 years, it is kind of deeply troublesome.

When I see a girl I immediately release some kind of chemical that makes me excited or what, then I started to think about like being together with this girl, and possibly marrying. But it is very ridiculous thinking, anyways, even if she wants to marry me, will I agree?

I do hope to find someone who is also independent and free-willed, and we can negotiate on other things. But seeing some pretty girls taking, well that really made me not like them anymore.

Money Spending

I had become very conservative at money spending.

• Autocharging

Firstly, I just feel bad with "autocharging". This feature derives me of control over my money. I am not someone with extremely good memories, so usually I tend to forget about it. Look, I know it is cheap and not a lot of money or something but it still makes me feel very bad. And lately a scam website called anphlp charged me 26 dollars, which I think came from me signing up for streaming on a scam website with my card.

• Just Feeling Bad :(

Secondly, I just feel bad about people taking my money at all. I mean, like to be honest, Google and YouTube deserves to charge me some money since I am using so much searching and watching so much video, without spending a cent. Think about YouTube's spendings on its cdns. And Google's search is on its own platform, and performs in its own cloud, which makes more sense if they charge me.

Anyways I just don't feel like spending any money on websites, they don't give much shit, though. Websites are essentailly programs with a frontend, pretty much anything I can run locally with Aur repos.

I think Linode is ok to charge me five dollars for renting their stable cloud services, so is other cloud providers. But watching a video or movie is nonfree? Using some crap like veed? Oh come on, who wants to watch it anyways?

• Enough Free Alternatives

There are millions of free hosting websites that you can stream almost anything or download it. Even porn videos are hosted everywhere. Like straplez videos are hosted on pornhoarder.tv and xfantazy. Other sites with lots of porn videos include like spankbang, noodlemagazine, videosection, etc. By a click I can find almost everything I would want to watch.

I saw on RuTube a channel like marked with 18+, which immediately got my interest, things like European Brazzers. But I searched on Google and I could go on another site to watch these for free. And they are actually pretty boring, like those mediocre (not even high-quality) porn videos poorly stacked together. Why would I take the time to freaking watch those stupid porn channels.

I do acknowledge there are some high-quality videos that needs charging, but anyways, I do not watch videos for a living, and thus I don't really care about the quality if there are similar alternatives. Watching a football match and watching a basketball match seems pretty much same to me anyways.

• Parents' Money

Anyways, last and most significant factor is that I am spending my parents' money, which means I have to keep total track of everything. It's not like my parents asked me to do so or something, although they obviously did. It's like just a custom that when like depending on other people you need to keep track of your doings. Depending on my parents' now is the worst thing that can ever happen to me, but there isn't much more ways to earn moeny myself anyways.

Conclusion on Saving Money

Also saving money doesn't necessarily make me better or feel good, but overspending money do make me feel really bad. Like especially when overspending for not valuable stuffs.

20240301: Freedom: Starting Point of Life's Meanings

Today I was thinking about what I wanted to do in my life in the future, and I thought about like PhD degree and being a professor or whatever, but more like, I don't have any potentials to think about my future life right now.

I am not free. I am constantly controlled and manipulated by my parents, and I am in the giant pool of anxiety and depression and inconfidence. I was in that condition as long as I left middle school, not that middle school is good or whatever. I clearly remembered happy for a bright future when I was walking around in Green City after 9th grade. But everything was but my hope(not things are bad or whatever, they are just, unreasonable). Ever since I entered high school, I felt into the swarm of depression and anxiety, and I couldn't get out.

I think that I must first strive for 4 freedoms before thinking about a clear goal in my life(because all I can think about is these 4 freedoms right now).

The first freedom is freedom of time. This literally means I must have a substantial amount of time for myself. This doesn't mean I won't be studying for that long, instead, it means I get the freedom to decide whether I want to study or not for a substantial amount of time. I get to decide whether to study or play or sleep or stay up all night, given that I don't distract others. That is not ideal for now, but quite close.

The second freedomm is freedom of choice. I get to decide things, and I get to keep my preferences. If I prefer sommething, people don't "friendly advise" me to do otherwise. This friendly advise is usually strong coersion. If I don't like something, fine, long as it doesn't affect others, I get to keep it as I want. If I have a strange hobby that many people find unreasonable, fine! Actually I don't care about the choice for foods or room that much, but I don't care doesn't mean I don't have the right to care. If I want to watch porn, fine!(not that I want to watch porn) If I want to play video games for 24 hours straight and given I can care for my health, fine! If I dislike living in a dorm, and I don't distract others when living alone, then I don't live in a dorm, and no questions asked. I have the freedom to choose! This is not ideal for now, primarily because my parents keeps "friendly coercing" me to do contradictory things all the time, constantly mocking and threatening even, making me very tense. I don't dislike my parents, they are good guys. But they need to stop impacting my choices, and they are becoming annoying now at this.

The third freedom is digital freedom. This includes using open-source softwares. I don't support Richard Stallman's views 100%, especially his free softwares. I find open-source softwares good enough, and I think more importantly I need to have control over the software. WeChat, in particular, is a malware, and crawls slowly into the user's mind and dominates the user. It is not only a malware in the phone, but also a malware in the user's brain. WeChat makes users depend on it, depriving them of control, and constantly brainwashes its users, just like many other Chinese platforms. When I start using WeChat I would spend a far substantial time online doing all sorts of completely meaningless activities. The easiest way to achieve digital freedom is to use PostMarketOS for smartphone, and lock LineageOS Redmi Phone is a box, and only open it seldomly for doing necessary stuff. This is not ideal, but pretty close too.

The fourth freedom is self-sufficiency. I need to support myself without depending on my parent's money. This is important because if I depend on them, then I need to listen to their advices. They have the power over me. The problem is my parents are getting increasingly misleading, and gives contrary and wrong ideas in many aspects of my life, and they want to control my life in their hands. Well, if I go self sufficient I will have a much stronger voice when not listening. I am already an adult, if I commit a crime I need to take full respoonsibility of it, so why shouldn't I take full responsibility of other aspects of my life? Also, if I don't want to live in a dorm and my parents does, and I go self-sufficient, then I can go live in wherever I can afford, and I can give no specific reasons for my behaviors. This is far from being satisfied since I have no income now. I need to have a stable income, and constantly support myself, not that my family is poor, but just to illlustrate that I can.

There are many times when I started thinking about what to do, and it ultimately boils down to what is life's true purposes. And it took me many
days trying to figure it out, and I am still failing.

But the starting point is freedom, in self-control. Freedom in 3 ways- physical and digital freedom, time freedom, and freedom of choice.

Without freedom there is no talking about whatever meanings of life is. I am not willing to sacrifice freedom for any achievements(partially like a few weeks, yes, in long terms, no).

Many ambitious goals ROB me of freedom, and that's what got me undetermined.

Without freedom and self-sufficiency, I do believe that life is without its meanings, and I would rather prefer doing nothing than achieving anything.

Reflecting on the Previous Troubles I got into

I got into encounters of trouble on the Internet during the ages of 16-17.

1. Spamming messages on a military education website
2. Cursing the teacher(in so-called anonymous platforms)
3. Being alleged of cheating in competitive programming(helping out a teammate who constantly complains about not being able to read English to translate in Microsoft word, which is alleged "cheating" since Internet access isn't allowed, but the competition is online, which is complicated, and the person was only using Microsoft word)

Well, the three situations share a common trait, which is it's on a proprietary platform and I was using shitty Microsoft. In short, by anonymizing myself on the Internet(obviously not believing in those so-called anonymous features after logging it????), probably using tor or several vpns or whatever, and switching to libretranslate if possible?(although I myself didn't have any problems with English but I "guided" a teammate to use shiity Microsoft Word for translating to Chinese, and the situation exploded and the whole school was banned because of this "cheating", although I didn't know about it in its rules)

That said, it definitely shouldn't be me to offer help on proprietary platforms like shitty Windows. I mean I can work literally seamless in probably all Linux distros and Rasp Pi, other other systems and cloud hosting and cloud gpus, and maybe half of Android and LineageOS platform problems, but proprietary platforms like shitty Windows is just not my taste. There are lots of powershell experts out there, who probably don't know what Linux is but are awfully proficient working on those proprietary platforms. Ask them for help. I won't provide anymore help on Windows, nor do I know how to use it aside from like browsing web? I can do nothing but mess up this crappy system.

That said, although my purpose of using Linux is KISS, being simple small secure whatever, Linux is certainly good for designing and suitable for someone who prefers heavy art. Just save the dot files or try to customize KDE Plasma for a MAC experience, or whatever. Doing those beauty is not my cup of tea, I prefer a simple intuitive desktop, period.

I was a little paranoid after the situations, and started deleting social media accounts after that. As of now I pretty much deleted all my social media accounts except for necessary ones like WeChat and QQ. I usually have some extremist thoughts that could be categorized as inappropriate, other times I just natually wanted to do some experiments, like spamming messages, whatever. I can do whatever I want in like, a self-hosted platform like discourse or mastodon say whatever I want. I deleted like Instagram and Vkontakte accounts one year later. After all, I just want to be invisible for the proprietary platforms.

Also, another problem is that even if many people are saying inappropriate things, I shouldn't follow them because I might be more extreme.

Back to the topic of judging whether these are moral. Firstly, spamming, I think, is moral if not explicitly against a platform's term of service. However, it's best to avoid those troubles, especially in Chinese platforms, since you need to do more than moral in this world. It is not my morals that stop me from doing many things, but instead, a way to avoid troubles. Secondly, I think cursing is not moral at all, given that cursing have no real effects and it's just, well bad. However, what the teacher did to my grades was clearly unfair, and, as a child at that time I couldn't do anything. Is that moral? I don't know, I mean, it is justifiable from the teacher's perspective, but it was still too much for me mentally to bear at that time. That said, I will probably go crazy if I go into some conscription or military camps or even in high school, I mean it, and there wasn't any helping at that time. So given my lack of mind and control, I think cursing people isn't such a big deal from my perspective, just don't do it on those school platforms, because if the school decides to take serious actions like expelling me it's just not worth it.

Thirdly, I do think my action is 100 percent moral and within the rules, and it is just that this competition is too crappy, and there were no rules being told beforehand, and I didn't go online intentionally. So it's best to avoid those stupid competitions after all if they are practically unoffical and useless. That said, there wasn't any helping to do for this thing, and I was lucky USTC didn't expell me, only letting me write a whole paper for the situation. I kept realizing that even if going to university is like a shitpile then USTC is probably the cleanest and most liberal ones among them.

Reflecting on the Telephone Fraud

I remembered the telephone fraud that happened about 8 months ago. I am summarizing and reflecting on it.

1. A person calls me claiming to be Chinese embassy person. He says I was involved in a fraud crime, and hope I could go there for a visit to clarify(I am annoyed), and I was going to class, and he asked to call me back a few minutes later
2. He called me back, and claming something more serious, and claming I would be sent back to China. He asked to try letting a "policeman" talk on the phone for this matter.
3. A "policeman" got on the phone, claiming he is "official" by changing some digits of the telephone number. (I believed and thought it was a little bit of trouble). Then he started talking to me for long hours about what I did and what consequences I would face(I actually nearly believed)
4. He kept talking to me the same words again and again, and I got super scared. He then asked to use Skype, and asked for my bank credentials and id card number and passport number, which I told him. Essentially the scare is what got me. He had total control over me when I am scared. So, getting scared makes me vulnerable.
5. I called my parents by excusing to go to bathroom, then my parents told me he was fraud, and I deleted him. In the end nothing was stolen, only I wasted a whole night.

Some things to take in mind:

1. Never admit to anything I didn't do. Be firm and learn to fight back mentally. Everyone knows I am innocent. Learn to fight the authority, this is critical for freedom. (even to policeman, don't treat them like shit).(never ever ever get involved to drug cartels or prostitutes or child porn or politics in real life, if I got involved then these crimes might actually be a reality, although for such news, I am still very curious into what exactly happened. The worst things I can do is probably throwing trash on the ground or improper citations or jaywalking)
2. Stay to principles and don't download unnecessary softwares for other people. If necessary go use it on other machines. This is hardest, because, at my age such things are extremely stimulating to the mind.
3. Never believe officials "calling"
4. No one is prune to frauds! Always act with some caution(not necessarily so much but still don't act arrogant), and many frauds can't get to me

Some thoughts about policeman:

1. I never had one encouter with policeman in my life besides going to police station for id cards or something.
2. Policeman are not authority, especially individual ones.
3. Try complying if encoutered, but at least be mentally strong
4. Policeman catch bad people. If I commit a serioud crimme I will probably be bought to justice, but in certain situations certain people commit certain crimes, which police chooses to ignore(although everybody knows)

That said, there are countless illegal acts in both China and America. Sensible police obviously browse the Internet and knows, but they don't catch the criminals, even if they know who they are.

This is probably because:

1. criminals are cunning, justifying their acts in ridiculous ways
2. criminals might have certain relationship to police
3. police just doesn't catch these kind of crimes, (it is usually an action not encouraged and not that bad, although illegal, and police will try to handle those cases if they are explicitly reported or affecting a very large scale, but on individual cases police doesn't care)

There are other reasons I don't know. In conclusion as a sane citizen it is best for me to get away from politics, Winnie, drug cartels, prostitution, policeman, etc.

Buying Gifts or Sending Money to strangers

I nor want to receive money or expensive gifts nor have the ability to send money or expensive gifts right now.

As you can see currently I am using my parents money, so beyond the basic living I have literally no money at all, which means anyone with money left in their purse is richer than me. In the futuer I plan to always buy phones less than 200 dollars(maybe with inflation go higher). Iphone is not attractive in any ways. It turns out the most luxurious thing I have is my laptop.

Say I change laptop every 2 years, that probably adds around 50-100 dollar to my monthly budget.

Other things I either inherit it from parents (which I will probably stop after a few years), or are very cheap, typically below 50 dollars. There is nothing as expensive as the laptop. The most expensive thing is about 1/20 the price of a pricey laptop(cheap laptops like chromebooks or ARM computers might be 300 dollars, but they aint optimal for daily driver). I can probably buy a 400-500 dollar computer if budget comes tight, which equates to 20 dollars a month if used 2 years, cheaper than a normal lunch in San Francisco.

Just as you can see, right now I am in the state of being feed by my parents, which means my parents can determine how much money I have. My parents are usually generous, but it doesn't mean they will forever give money to me. After university I plan to not take any more from them. Literally this means all money I spent needs to be consented by my parents, what's more, pretty much everything I do would be consented by my parents. Although my parents are also generous about my decisions and giving pretty much full consent with default settings, I am still not free, kind of like I am not "sudo" user in my computer.

Of course I need more money than a mere 500 dollars each month if I am to feed a family. It is better to have some emergency money in my hands. Also a child is far far more costly, and normally people have children at age 30(I don't know if I will though, or ever), also at around age 30 my parents go into 60s, meaning they probably will spend some money for health reasons.

It is obvious to save some budget, though I don't know how much is suitable. You can't save all money and not spend them, which is ridiculous. But it is highly unlikely I will have some money right now, and spending those few thousands of dollars(if I ever can earn) for a small-scale traveling seems pretty suitable.

But for right now at least, I am using my parents money, which makes sense not to send any money to anyone. I mean llike 10 or 20 RMB sometimes can be lost by accident occasionally, like if the metro stops for a day and using the taxi costs more than that. But only occasionally, and over 1000 RMB should be cautious when treating.

Motivation?

What drives me forward? What makes my life meaningful?? Obviously not studying some crappy subject in school, right? But aren't I dependent on the diplomas? I am not free in this sense, where I depend on some shit to get my diploma, and had to study and work like a shit. However, I am still geniuely grateful for USTC, because, among the trashpile, you are the less annoying one. At least USTC helped me realize many things that otherwise I couldn't think of, and, in that sense, is some liberty,

Sorry for the selffishness but beyonds enhancing my life and gaining some sort of control over it there is no other purpose of life that I could think of. Some great people live in poor standards for many years, and it's probably not gonna happen for me. If I am going to live in those poor conditions, I would rather try to go in a better situation than being literally stuck. There isn't any meanings in your life if you die, and meanings diminish if your wellbeing diminishes. I am not dreaming of a person who have billions of dollars but needs to be in bed for covid every single day, till his death. There is no point in being poor in the first place.

I think I am out of poverty right now, although being arrogant is against my philosophy. Anyways, I can probably freelance for 1 or 2 days a week and be self-sustained in lower ends towns and cities. I wouldn't give up the basic living conditions or my health for selflessness, for research, or for just anything, or anyone.

So it seems like loneliness was a problem after all?

Playing proprietary games, looking at unnecessary proprietary trash social media, watching adult videos, all of these, are these unavoidable?

I thought loneliness could be handled without complaints but after all, it seems like a serious mental problems, seemingly with no ways to cope against.

Loneliness leads to idealizing the society, and people around me.

But socializing seems so complicated and hard to implement, all at the same time? How did I not find some close friends through all those difficult years? Or, is it because I lost trust in seemingly everything, that I decided to, take a turn back towards the nighttime?

20240304: Start of Spring Semester in USTC

So I am back in USTC for a new semester.

Meaningful Things to Do

So I tried thinking about meaningful things to do. I mean, for a thing to be meaningful, it better be cumulative. For example, gaming isn't meaningful because gaming today doesn't make your next day better at all, and the skill of a human being in gaming is limited, meaning AI is far superior.

Other things are debatable, in my opinion. For example, it is debatable whether learning extensively about a new subject (like pursuing a PhD) is meaningful or not. For one, it is cumulative and after studying that deeply enriches your knowledge of that field. However, on the other hand, maybe like the new knowledge studied, if not applied to a job, isn't even worth the pain of studying them. If you are an expert in some not so popular fields, there might be no opportunities for showing off even, and the goal at the end isn't meaningful.

I do think language learning is a meaningful thing, though. So like imagine if I don't know English, that would be devastating. Or if I don't know Chinese, ahh, I would probably lose first-hand engagement in the culture and couldn't even communicate with people around me. Language is pretty much base to all the things in my life, and it is largely underestimated in terms of importance. But learning a third language is not as significant as the first two, one of which is my mother tongue, the other being the de facto language in the world. Still, even if it is not as significant, it's still a reasonably fulfilling thing to do. But like learning 4 or 5 languages is close to impossible with a regular schedule or hard schoolwork or demanding job. Maybe like learning only one more language is quite satisfying for me.

Other meaningful things include sports and musical instruments, but they are not as important as learning a language, in my opinion.

The main thing isn't about the earnings, it's like currently I am still using my parent's money, meaning that they constantly try to monitor and censor my activities, which is really annoying. I mean I can't really complain too much since it's their money, but they are seriously annoying to me. I hope for the day that I can become self-sufficient to come sooner. If I am self-sufficient probably I won't need my parents anymore. However, logically speaking I shall still pay back in return to my parents, since they brought me up, but this is probably something I shall do like after the age of 35 or 40 years old, when my parents got very old, to care for them or hire an aunt to care for them or whatever.

The fact that I am not self-sufficient is deeply troubling, and maybe, like after I go to grad school, hopefully as there are salaries or whatever.

It's not like my parents don't have much money, in fact, they are pretty well-off among their peers and in Shanghai, having 2 apartments in Zhangjiang High-tech Park, each one worth millions of dollars. But reliance brings unfreedom.

Thinking about my Dropping Out

So if I drop school right now, and go off freelancing here in Hefei, working 1 day a week, hopefully self-sufficient with my MERN stack skills. I have six days off, which is practically all the time. In fact, if I go freelancing it doesn't matter where I work, and Shanghai definitely isn't a good choice because of its relatively high living standards in China. Maybe some smaller cities will do. Hefei is not a bad choice anyways, living here on 5000 RMB a month is more than enough.

I don't really worry about stability, since I think I can code full-stack for at least 30 years. I mean, I am willing to learn and work, and I don't demand lots of money.

Moreover, I can stay home all the time, and I can go isolated. I mean, I can still go out and play if I want, only it's not necessary, which is awesome. I can still go out a few times a year, and probably at dawn, where there are no people outside.

I also have the whole day off to me, and I can start learning new languages 24/7. I can probably pick up one language every half year. So if I work like this, then I will probably be equipped with 6 more of the world's most popular languages in like 3 years, which is so intriguing. I am mainly interested in studying languages of developed regions like Europe and Japan, and not that much of Africa or Southern Asia.

That does sound interesting and alluring but of course, I won't do that, since that is far beyond the social norm, and I haven't had such personal decision experiences. Maybe like when I am 35 or 40 years old I can have more freedom in personal decisions. It is too risky, like dropping out of school. I still need my college degree, else since I don't have a high school diploma, I will probably be a middle school grad, lol.

Anyways, literally speaking, my parents don't know what is best for me. They are very misleading in terms of judgment, and often control my mind to do things. I don't blame them though. My parents are awesome people, and worked extremely hard to gain a social status like this through the poverty years 30 years ago in China, climbing up the social ladder from a poor worker's family in remote rural towns, to having 2 apartments in the tech hub of Shanghai. They are definitely more impressive than I ever could be. For me to match their achievements I probably have to be a billionaire.

I walked back to USTC. It seemed awfully weird here, with so many students around, that I felt a sense of nervousness even. I feared school, and I feared socializing. My parents also say I am quite arrogant in the eyes of other people. No. This is wrong. There is no changing that. I want to show my personality and uniqueness in socializing, right? I want to show the true self instead of pretending to be someone whom I hate, right?

I mean, I felt like I don't want to be demanded to do something. I have the right and I don't owe any people, well, maybe except for my parents, since they brought me up for the first 18 years. Thinking about parenting, it is extremely time and energy-consuming, which is part of the reason my mom worked a light job. Just in terms of money spending and emotional support, that is more than a full-time job. I remembered countless times when my mom was tired yet still tries to think about me first, and try to make me happy and well cared for. I remembered my mom trying to find resources for me in every part of my academic journey, and that was really touching. However, I am a legal adult now, and I know better for myself. It is maybe not the best for me, but I need to make my own decisions. Also, I don't owe any unknown people anything. My parents always say I need friends, and I shall treat strangers with enthusiasm and contact them to make friends. However, I definitely disagree. I treat strangers with respect, and other than that I treat them the way I want. I decide who to contact and which person to. It is my right to decide I want isolation, or my right to decide to be in a crowd, long as it doesn't affect other people negatively. It is my right to stay up all night and sleep all day, although putting my own health at risk, but I assume that it is my own decision, right?

I was, and still am, an extremely cautious person. Well, maybe not as cautious as some Chinese students around me, but still, I am easily brainwashed with fear and hatred about something. When my parents taught me fire and knife was dangerous, I refuse to use them even today, relying on a kettle pot to cook noodles and rice porridge. I always feared teachers, even though sometimes they know no better than me, especially those in high school. However, because of the fear I didn't argue back one word at any teacher as long as I could remember, only occasionally trying to explain my own standpoint. It's the amount of mind control that they have on me, that I deeply want to get rid of, even though most times they are correct.

Motivation

As I begin this new semester I have probably the lowest motivation in the history of my life. I couldn't think about a reason to push forward. For example, there is this operating system and database course. I am already pretty much experienced in MongoDB and Sqlite and have used PostgreSQL for Invidious and Peertube and MediaCMS hosting. All I want to do is try to read the source code and understand the main parts of the database, for example, reading Sqlite or BerkeleyDB shall be interesting practice for such a course. There is also tinydb and smalldb, but that's not capturing the essentials of a database, not having much data structures. Anyways, I hope the teacher just walks through the main source code of a popular database, and that shall be sufficient for this course. As of operating systems, I would expect to develop all kinds of interesting programs on ArchLinux. It's just I am really interested in this subject itself, but the course makes it extremely boring for me. Finishing studying this course doesn't enhance my skills anyways, only preparing for a crappy test. I don't think studying such stuff is more meaningful than gaming.

Also along came procrastination, as anything I saw seemed to me more interesting than studying and academics, particularly social media. Sometimes I would want to be popular on social media, yet still rejecting the idea since social media is proprietary and censored by the government, and not DIY. My own instance gets no attention among people, though. But I was just far more curious about society, and particularly the trends of things that are not obvious, and thoughts not written, and things not seen from the surface. Social medias give me far more stamina than raw studying.

I stayed at home for a whole week, trying to evade everything. This is the longest time I stayed at home as long as I could remember, the last time being the covid quarantine, 7.14 to 7.21. I didn't remember staying at home for one day since 2019 to mid-2023, other than that quarantine. Even during covid, I would go restless at home and try every means to go out and run and breathe fresh air. I just, well, changed. Before that one whole week at home, I went out like only once every 3 days or so, mostly late at night for walking and stretching my legs, and shopping the necessary things and cleaning the trash. I don't want to face anything, and wanted to go alone for peace and quietness. I actually quite enjoy being immersed in my own digital world, and hope to do this forever.

People say evading and shying off from real life is a bad idea, yet it helps. Evading makes my emotions more controllable and myself feel more comfortable. Facing everything directly is a bad idea because it just makes things worse and unbearable. Anyway, this is supposed to be my own choice, the same as procrastinating. If I want to do so, nobody has the right to tell me not.

I tried running and it turned out I had been much slower than I previously was just half a year ago. I could go sub 4:00 for several kilometers without being too tired, but now I ran like 300 yards and was out of breath, probably as a result of staying home too long. Anyways, staying at home is also my own choice, and it is not anyone else's duty to command me to go out. I decided running makes the person look older and uglier these last few months, and it is still a topic I am debating whether or not to do.

Showing Off

Then there is the strange desire to show off. I mean it is downright stupid to do so. Showing off brings nothing but a sense of fake pride, and perhaps some dopamine. I wanted to use every means to show how technically advanced I am, only trying to make a big fool out of myself.

I really don't understand the desire to show off, but I remembered this as a need for several years. I wanted people to notice me, even as an anonymous person on social media, to acknowledge my skills and whatsoever. It is weird, perhaps because I am facing such a difficult time at school, and losing all my confidence academically that I want to try to get my skills verified for another way. It is still so stupid, I mean, showing off doesn't increase my skills, it only makes me a clown.

Looking Forward

Anyways, time shall pass, and I did grow a lot mentally these past few months. Sometimes time is magical and changes everything, so it's best to keep on and try to figure out what to do for the day.

20240422: Crappy Course in School and Crappy Softwares

So something extremely annoying happened in the embeded system class.

Actually this class isn't even a major class, it's for general public. I had already taken grad Embeded systems in Berkeley.

In the class I had no idea what to do and I had no idea how to do it. I am just struck with loads of confusion and frustration, adding to this painful day.

So what happened was that the teacher made us do some experiments with a board, and I had no idea what the fuck to do. No one else had a problem! Only me! I am serious!

The teacher asked students to download something called keil µVision. It is start of a nightmare to work with this shitty thing. It doesn't even support Linux, and I was like what? Well it is my first time I actually had a problem with a software not supported in Linux though.

Anyways, I was like, well, this gotta be hard. Truth is, the software so called keil µVision is both proprietary and has a very very complicated ui that I have no idea what to do with it. There are windows computers in the lab but using them is just very very painful, and agasint my morals. I would refuse and fight against the piece of rot.

Well, what struck me is how much trouble I would encounter with so called "general education" computer science course.

I like to control things with cli, problem is, working in windows literally made me disgusted.

Virtual machines are also painful and bloat, especially running a crapware like shitty Windows, which occupies hundreds of Gigabytes for no purpose at all. I mean, running a Linux VM is good enough, but windows, well, that's another story altogether.

I tried to ask the teacher, turns out teacher doesn't know, or isn't familiar with Linux.(Teacher isn't familiar with Google Lmao) It is like my first time facing an actual incompatibility problem in Linux. Anyways, I quickly decided not to use the shitty vision IDE.

Well I scanned the QR code on the back of the dev board, and it opened up a website with all resources in BaiduNetDisk. Turns out baidu is in my blacklisted websites, so lol.

Also BaiduNetDisk requires downloading its rotten malware app to be able to download just anything to my device, and it completely disrespects and bullies its users. Baidu is a company that's autonomous and tries every means to dominate its users, just like in those typical bd\dollarm movies where man dominates and objectify a woman, except the user takes the role of woman here.

For a moment I got really thankful I went to Berkeley for a year. I never thought like that before. In my year in Berkeley I was miserable, struggling mentally and academically. Now looking back, I found the year valuable in many ways, at least it is much more meaningful than wasting time here in China. Honestly I never learned one thing about computer science in USTC, I mean not one thing at all. All I learned here previously (before I visited Berkeley) is computer science is a terrible thing, and I better stay away from it.

Stallman expressed: "All things learned in Education shall be free softwares!" Well you know what? Here is a class where I am required to use nonfree softwares(and use Windows! I am scared).

I started to really missing the Lingua Franca program I used in Berkeley for Pololu. I started missing my Raspberry Pi. I got no idea why people would design shit like this for me. I know I had done many evils, like eating animals or whatever, but why do I have to bear with shit softwares? I am better off dead.

Then I finally downloaded the example code after like unzipping a million layers. Even the folder is a complete mess--they zip it multiple layers, you know? I was like What the Freak? They zipped it and included those generated files, and included a million projects with generated files for each in one folder, and it isn't even available anywhere in GitHub or something. Honestly it look every bit like piece of malware or softwares like primary school students would be digusted to write.

The files are mostly generated by the crappy "keil vision" software. It is like, well, imagine uploading all the node modules everywhere you go, or a HuggingFace Model with Pytorch environment packed with every python script. And it is not a personal project, which can be forgiven for ignorance or lack of time to organize. Come on, it's a commercial product.

There is also a website https://prechin.net/ written on the back of it. Turns out this website is dangerous and I need to click through the dangers to proceed. It's no difference than a scam website that says your computer is infected with virus and asks for bitcoins. The frontend looks like a piece of crap to me. Why don't they just run a discourse if they don't want to manually code everything?

Any software that works exclusively on Windows is pure garbage. I am liberal enough and I am not against proprietary softwares, but being both proprietary and working solely on a os that dominates its users, man!

There are certain softwares that work only on Windows, turns out they can't work.

Well, what can I say about them? They have every last bit of bad practices in everything, code, website. Ahh, I would trust a homeless person more than the shitty company, and the shitty class.

Those people even included "open source" in their website title. So Shameless!

Anyways, after finally extracting the files I try to write a makefile to make it work. But it kept failing, constantly complaining about the file (a library). Obviously the teacher doesn't know how to debug. He doesn't know how to use Linux lmao.

So that was the end of class, and I got kind of scared.

Well today I am going to that class again, and holy crap! I installed stm32cube on my laptop, but I could not figure out how to use it. Anyways, they packed those .bat files and everything generated, I am speaking, literally, in the folder.

There was no way for me to figure things out except use crappy Windows, and I don't understand why I would be punished this harshly just attending a shitty general class. I mean, like using Windows feels like torture.

I kind of wished I had selected any course other than this because this is just a piece of shit everything here.

If I hadn't attended Embedded system course in Berkeley, I would be very annoyed at embedded systems. Although I didn't get a good grade back there, at least it made me very very interested in everything embeded related, including Linux phones and stuff and all of those, Arduino, etc. But the hostility of this course and the systems and the software, ahh, everything, made me wanna throw up.

Alright, the kind kind teacher came and try to install it for me, but he failed miserably, after messing around with Windows crappy shitty GUi，trying to navigate his way through the messay GUI, couldn't figure it out as well, and try to generate a keys(a software needs keys to use?shouldn't it be released open sourced?)

Anyways, a student came by and stated he could do it in vscode for me, and he tried and bundled with it a bit, and it needs a exe path. Of course it is by no means available on my own computer, (the freaking keil extension isn't available in the first place anyways in OSS Code), so like after that he said he needed to go and left without a fix for the problem.

So I was stuck with broken IDEs. I tried to ask for him to do it in cli but he said he hadn't known cli before, so I am greatly puzzled and distressed. Then like he left without a clear message, and the windows desktop shortcuts no longer opens lmfao.

Well before I only heard windows is bad for setting up environment and many people recommend it in Debian based distros, but this is the first time someone tells me I could only do something in Windows, and refuses to use cli. He said he doesn't know how, and I strongly question his skills and ability. I said I use Linux, he was like "what is Linux? I don't know Linux", which is almost like for a baby "I don't know how to walk please tell me".

Anyways after that the teacher came and reattempted to install the software for me, only failing miserably again, and he was digging through the messy stupid gui. I went online to that website and attempted to download an exe(exes splash files all over the place it messes up the whole computer), but I couldn't find anything valuable through the messy frontends.

I kept saying I like cli and offered the stmcube IDE. However, the teacher said he didn't know and haven't used that tool lmfao. He didn't know how to use cli either.

Windows is just a bloated mess when it comes to softwares, and when it is actually installing stuff it gets really stinky, and it just DONT work, period.

The website has a http (very insecure, fraudulent suspected!), and there is no way to access it. There are several 1000 pages info pdfs(expect me to read wtf?).

Anyways, the teacher went off to another group to check them off, then he went back and continued attempting to install it for me. I mumbled thanks now and then, and the teacher said he would send me the key to me in QQ. Ahh, I am so amazed by such a patient person! If it was me I would give up the installation process in half a minute!

Then the teacher send the code to me in QQ! I am honestly after all this crap I am no longer even angry lmao. And he made it work! After 1 hour of hard work finished installing!

The political teacher is very annoying, and the politics class is very annoying.

It is not annoying in the traditional way, like politics course in middle school where they try to stuck those ideas into your mind. Instead, the teacher is frequently touching sensitive topics, and "suggesting stuff", it's very annoying.

I don't dare to talk one thing bad about Winnie in China because otherwise I would be jailed for life and tortured to death. I try to be as apolitical as possible to maintain a neutral stance. If you don't do anything chances are you won't be arrested in China.

Anyways, especially those senseless talks in the group, and the teacher frequently touching those topics annoyed me. Someone said WeChat faced sanctions, and suggested opening a Telegram Group for "chatting in freedom", and wanted to talk about the tanks in Beijing. I almost bursted out "if you want to open a group why not open a matrix or Libera Chat instead of like Telegram", but controlled myself not to talk anything in the politics class group.

Well, people are talking about politics when they rely on proprietary software, lmao. They can't lift the sanctions off their head and they are talking about politics? Hilarious! Imagine, losers.

Anyways, politics is just annoying, everything about it is very bothering to me, and I really hate it or discussing it. I consider myself more aligned with libertarianism(but not 100 percent libertarian, more like non-party). I also consider myself a open source software advocate(not Free software, though, I rely too much on some non-Free softwares, FSF is too incompatible with modern living standards).

Computer science stuff simply appeal to me more than fucking gaming or Winnie, and I can't care less about politics, lol. I hate this fucking politics class more than a boring politics class.

I didn't know I have to rant this much! Freaking! But it does seem I am a bit overwhelmed these days.

So it is official that I lost the battle against Android. I am not using a Linux phone right now, nor will I be doing that in the near future. The reasons:

1. LineageOS Works Fine. Linux Mobile doesn't(bad browser experience and having so many problems)
2. LineageOS is degoogled(except for GBoard)
3. I am losing too much time flashing devices.
4. I rely on Android anyways(WeChat)

Today WeChat recommended a prostitution ad to me, so fuck You WeChat,

So yeah, the basic conclusion is Linux mobile is worse in terms of usability and convenience than LineageOS(the citical factor is calling, lol), and I am against using Proprietary operating systems for like calling stuff only(Even if it's simple). LineageOS is open source and pretty customizable, it just lacks a traditonal cli like Linux.

I am very sad indeed and looked at phones 10 years ago, which gave me lots of nostalgia. I remembered clearly those times where I used cash to do stuff and they gave me much more control. I didn't have a smartphone until 2020 and I didn't use it extensively until late 2022. I couldn't but feel a deep sense of remorse and just literally helplessness right now.

WeChat is more or less a malware stuff, and I hate it so much. I refuse to go on 3rd party apps. I try to refuse as much as I can. I lost this fight, there is nothing I can do about it, and that is the end of stuff.

I started to listen to sad love songs, not for a girl in my mind, but for nostalgic feeling.

I am in that crappy embedded system again!!! Freaking!!!

Anyways, today Alipay wasn't agreeing with me. I don't want to expand. All I can say is Alipay is a very malicious app, MALICIOUS indeed! I am so tired now and a little hungry. So I downright removed Alipay from my phone LMAO.

Alipay's program sometimes acts like an endless loop. You go through it and it starts looping, and it never responds or return valuable information.

Alipay's mini program is so buggy. It responds with a extremely high lag, and frequently errors without any clear messages. 12306 is a shitty program.

Anyways, I shall stop ranting I am very very tired.

20240506: My Parents are Dictating Over My Life

Oh, here I am again. My parents are dictating over my life, like, seriously.

I mean, I was like already 19 years old, and my parents are still trying to make me the prototype the want me to be, it is extremely annoying.

My parents are putting immense pressure on me, not only on studying, but on all aspects of my life. I need to be "not fat", "sleeping regularly", "able to adapt to dorm life(where everybody sleeps irregularly)", "exercising regularly", "eating regularly and properly", "not gaming", "being extroverted", "be extremely good in tech", "be extremely good in school(which sucks)", "not exercise TOO much". These are just some of the extremely contradictory and unhuman standards my parents enforce on me. Now, whenever I violate one of their standards, they start blabbing and bothering me, pushing on every of their measures to make me change. Also, the occasionally threatens to stop giving me money.

Not just to say I am already under immense pressure and feel no urge to consent, but their standards is just impossible to achieve for me, and honestly, I am trying hard enough.

Well, my last time getting back to gaming was entirely their fault, when they pushed me into doing things I didn't want to. I was depressed and there wasn't anything I could do for mental health except gaming again, which lasts 3 months time before I was coming out of the gaming again. They are causing reverse effects, not doing positive for me. The more they are pushing, the more I don't comply.

My parents don't care about my mental health and it was all of them, and they are being very inconsiderate.

As a grown adult I care for myself and I don't need anyone telling me "I am good", or "I am bad", or "I need to change". As long as I am not against the law and I don't bother someone else, I am good the way I am.

They are going to the pass the threshold, and I feel not comfortable, and they NEED to stop.

Well, for one thing, I first need to go economically independent, or else I will forever be a slave. How can you argue for anything when you rely on someone's money?

But just to tell you how annoyed I feel, ahh. Like every aspect of my life is watched by someone. They should mind their own business. Are people honestly getting annoying and wanting to affect others when they reach 50 years old?

I felt traumatized freshman year and my parents at that time was reluctant to let me live outside school. I had sleeping problems every night and there wasn't anything I could do except make intensify the conflict the solve the problem. I didn't talk one word all year with my roommates, and it felt extremely annoying to be living with them, ahh. I didn't have any rights. My parents are doing nothing for my wellbeing.

I was being bullyed too much by autonomy and dictation, by those software companies. Being controlled feels horrifying to me. I
did good enough not to drop out of school, but people don't understand that.

I am not a very intelligent person, and I am being overwhelmed by school work alone. They are extremely demanding jobs and requires hours of work, and they are not interesting and appealing anyways.

Some people are saying American is bad, and China is good. Didn't appeal to me though. American may not be very good, but I can't withstand most people's lives in China. Put me in the shoes of 90 percent Chinese and I would freak out, simple as that.

It is a miracle I live healthy till today, especially under the recent illed-guidance of my parents and some mentors.

Why am I not going back to high school?

I am not going back to high school because it sucks. I am not going to somewhere that sucks great shit. If I want to shit, I go behind a tree, or I go to the toilet, but I am never going back to shitty high school.

High school is so shitty it is traumatizing to me to remember that experience.

There ain't no reason to remember high school. High school is jail--teachers are the dominant, students are the submissive. High school is where they rape you and force your consent and brainwashes you and punishes you. High school is where you get locked up 24/7.

If I felt some nostalgia and wanted to go back somewhere it would probably be SMIC school, because that was the place where at least I had fun and didn't hate. Other than that, I would suggest Shibei Middle School, although it is not an ideal place, but, more or less, not overly irritating.

In high school you cram, not study. They force you to eat down the shits of the textbook for reasons to get good in the final exam. Only this doesn't work for me anyways, so like, when I am forced to do something I don't want to do I don't do it.

Also in high school you are sleep deprived. The teachers are autonomy and your daily schedule is very very tight.

Honestly I ain't contributing to the autonomy or dictatership so there I ain't going back to high school anyways. I don't like most of my high school former classmates now, and I try to maintain a reasonable distance. I mean, we can still be friends, after acknowledging the difference. Most of my high school classmates are submissive, and don't care at all about being forced to shit 24/7, there ain't no helping that bro.

High school made me freaking hate Chinese and Chemistry and Biology, probably not again in my life would I get interested in those subjects again, shit.

If I would have a child I would hope for my child to get homeschooled or put somewhere without pressure, to be free and do whatever (they) wanted, like extensively gaming, staying up, being LGBT, whatever. It is not on me to judge someone of something they do.

I don't want to study freakkkk.

I mean, everybody does what they are good at, and I hate studying and going to school more than ever.

I don't want to study anymore but the school requires people to study lol.

If my child(suppose I have one) face the same problem I will kindly say go do whatever you want long as you have decent income.

Maybe being an artist, singer, writer, etc, all more interesting than freaking school.

I got obsessed with music videos these days:).

Also running seemed to be coming back to me. I love running.

Also, gaming is trying hard to make its comeback to my mind. I had fallend onece some day ago, and aim not to be trapped by this shit later on.

Gaming is the single worst thing you can ever get in life.

Gaming companies are BDSM companies, they trick me into being their little sub.

Except I don't want to be exploited endlessly. I don't wanna die or lose my mind. I am already more or less autistic and having multiple disorders.

20240531: Quitting Hobbies over the Years

These days I came to a realization that I was fussing over too many unnecessary and useless stuff and making my life harder literally myself. Simplicity and Practicality in tech is very important. (well it isn't important if I have unlimited time, but come on, especially with the stupid demanding schoolwork)

Literally after qutting gaming everything became far more fucking exciting and there was so much to do.

What hobbies am I Dropping?

• Distro Hopping(definitely, not gonna lie, just meaningless)
• Laptop Exploration
• Mobile Phone Exploration
• Mobile Phone Operating System Exploration
• Frontend Coding
• Desktop Environment Exploring
• IDE Exploring

People say you can use a Thinkpad W520 from ten years ago which runs well today. People say they can upgrade the screen and the battery and the CPU. However, I am not gonna explore those old devices. This hobby is just useless and not contributing to anything practically, moreover, it's time consuming. I ust want to settle with a modern device and I mean that's it.

I am not gonna try out distros like BSDs or whatever unless necessary because it's just not really useful anyways. However, there is definitely still many things to learn in W!ndow$, probably taking more than 30 years if I decide I gonna get used to them, and it is by far the most complicated os out there. Like literally by trying to "hide" complicated things through a UI makes things far more complicated than they already are. Using W!ndow$ scares me and it always have tons of bugs. (cannot be fixed, so sad) They are also introducing something called Copilot PC with Recall feature.

As for mobile phones I just gonna settle with a modern Android one. Not gonna use some phones from 10 years ago because I just wanna save time and shut the freak up about it. I mean phones from 10 years ago definitely runs well, but it is useless. As for mobile os I just settle with Google Play anyways. I am already tired from talking about this much junk.

I don't wanna do any more frontend coding unless necessary or fixing bugs(so like no coding unless fixing bugs in my own website or required). Frontend has no depth and it is endless. I am going to settle with prepared frameworks.

Think about like a 2 week free time, I can either go on a vacation or I can build some frontend app. Well obviously I would be going on a vacation. But I already quit traveling, so emm. I literally haven't been going anywhere since the start of the year. So I will probably be doing Machine Learning, which sounds more practical and useful.

For like IDE or DE too, just gonna go with most popular / default.

What hobbies have already been Dropped?

• Reading(quit since 2022)
• Running(quit since 2023)
• Music Instruments(quit since 2021)
• Traveling(quit since 2024)
• Chinese Ci Poetry(quit since 2021)

I also quitted language learning, reading. I quit Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, Bilibili. I quit gaming, chess.

Also interesting observation, like I didn't drop these hobbies all at once, but gradually dropped them, so don't act like it's something serious because it had already happened a long time(ever after I entered that goddamn high school).

I tried to experience a balanced life in my teen years but it's not like I can(or I necessarily wanted). I do want, however, to go to Alaska and work a light job(enough to sustain myself) and rot away there till death.

Did quitting hobbies make me Gloomy?

I don't know, but obviously school is making me miserable in every way. I don't want to comply and hate it so much. All the complicance and fear of school backslashed on me so hard especially starting this semester I just don't find any motivation.

Also, I wasn't fine at all in freshman year(so wasn't I fine now), and people thinking I don't have a mental problem back then doesn't care about my mental health(which, I don't mind because people shouldn't care about me anyways), but the fact that people are forcing stuff on me is just downright humiliating.

I was so tired and anxious and burned up and in every way in freshman year and gotten into a very bad state indeed. I was one step from breaking down all the time. I couldn't bear it anyways but this semester seem more bearable when I do more things I wanted.

This whole brainwashing in school definitely made me gloomy, but I don't know if quitting hobbies is making me glommy or not. I was having an abnormally small numbers of hobbies compared to a healthy individual, but that doesn't say anything because I also have a very very minimalistic lifestyle and I am fine with pretty much everything(or just everything) in life like what I eat and what I use and I am not picky on almost everything, clothing, climate, you name it (except wanting to live quietly alone in a bedroom instead of a dorm).

So the conclusion is school makes me sad, not necessarily quitting hobbies. The real cause is being trapped in a school and having people telling me what I need to do without autonomy or freedom.

Do I actually want to Quit Hobbies

Yes, most of the time. Sad, but true, as I am a very minimalistic person, with or without school.

20240606: Problems in Recent Years in School

No Choice When I was Younger

When I was young I didn't have any choices, or any realizations that I might have a choice, or a lot of mature ideas. I ought to be guided by adults, and that is the only way how it worked.

Back then besides trusting adults, I don't know what else to do myself. Everything I knew was taught by them.

Recent Years in School

In recent years I faced significant challenges in academics, and it only intensifies each year with no signs of relief.

My Efforts to Cope--Dying Interests and Activities

I tried hard to cope with school, at drastic measures. I didn't remember myself being, or identifying this strong with minimalism before.

Now, disclaimer, I am not saying that these actions are wrong, some of them proved to be beneficial in the long run, with or without school. But I feel like these are forced upon me.

In my freshman year in university, I didn't use a smartphone for half a year. I looked like an idiot at that time. The school needed to test COVID with a smartphone, and I brought the ID card with me all the way. I had to use cash at the counter. I looked like a total idiot. Nobody, even nobody remotely, tried to do that. It is unheard of. I did this solely to put myself away from distraction. People would occasionally joke about not using smartphones, or take my practice as a joke, but it wasn't a joke for me, it was a serious struggle.

I completely got rid of gaming. I went against it so hard I hated myself. It was no easy task, with gaming frequently crawling back and trying to dominate my time. Those days were struggles one after another, hard-fought mental battles, and occasionally losing one or two days, but then trying even harder. It was a really challenging task, but I did indeed manage to complete rip off gaming, which I was once quite addicted.

I stopped reading completely. I was very enthusiastic about the literature. I would read 3-6 interesting novels monthly, mostly YA or fantasies or romances or mysteries, but not any more. I didn't read at all for 2 years. Not that literature is as bad as gaming, but it fails to appeal to me anymore. I live in this boring and mundane life, and reading literature once made me wonder, and go fly in the fantasy universe, not any more now. Things are not changing.

I had no social media. No, nothing. Just, nothing. I deleted Twitter, instagram, Mastodon, Telegram. I once had them and for the sake of concentrating, removed all my contents and deleted those. I deleted all "moments" in WeChat.

I tried at least 10 times to adjust my night owl schedule starting sophomore year. It was a failure, and up to this day I still have the night owl schedule, staying up to 3 am -6 am, just not wanting to sleep. I tried to wake up early , succeeded for a few days, then go back to the schedule again after some things start bothering me.

Callback--Trying to Start a New Life Pre-High School

Back in the summer before high school, I was trying to start a new life. Ask me then and I would be very enthusiastic. "Oh, just imagine the things I will do!"

I had 6 interests back then. I liked running, walking, Ci Poetry, Math, English Literature, Musical Instrument. I thought that balancing those with the school would be very easy, especially when half of my interests align with the school's main courses.

Turns out anything but. My high school is a dictating prison.

People never take interest seriously back there, making room for studying 15 hours a day. All my interest back then got dropped, or "prioritized".

High School: Frequent Failures--Lost of Control

I failed frequently in Chemistry in my high school years. Despite my efforts to study and get a modest score, things never work for me. I studied Chemistry really hard in the first semester second half after getting only 60 on the mid exam, putting in the recess time and always trying to memorize those concepts, paying in significant more time. But I only got 56 on the final, failing miserably. I thought something was wrong when it didn't turn out like I wanted. I wasn't discouraged and was determined to try harder. In the winter holiday I enrolled in a cram class for 3 hours a day studying Chemistry, even paid more much effort to it than I did in math, only aiming for a modest and reasonable score, not to let it stand out, but despite getting 80 on the starting exam in the second semester, I got only 58 in the middle exam in the second semester. I did all I could, and took multiple similar tests beforehand, but still failed, again and again. At that point all hope seemed lost, and I quit the cram class and hate the subject so strongly ever since. It seemed like my efforts are unrelated to the scores, and the teacher never encouraged me or praised me, which I longed for so hard. Instead, he said in a mockery manner that those who got low scores didn't try hard and would "obviously" get really good scores had they genuine want to learn. I got scared of the teacher. My father first said that I was slacking off, but, after seeing me being really sad, instead, said in a playful manner maybe this is just not for me. To this day the pure mention of Chemistry would make me want to lock myself in a toilet and cry.

I failed frequently in Chinese, in almost every test. I hated Chinese and the damn teacher so much. She never explained those broad or unrestrained poems well, and everyday was like, recite this and recite that, and recite everything I said. I really tried to listen to her and tried to recite those phrases, but after trying very hard, got lower and lower Chinese scores, always far from the average.

Ci poetry was a thing I loved. I could recite a whole book of Ci poetry with 60 pages, on any page start a line I could recite the rest of the poem. I did it out of pure passion, not because some shit teacher forced it upon me. During the conoravirus I would lean by the window, looking at the falling of the April rain, and the poetries touched me deeply. In May, as I was walking in wet grasses along the river and the blossoms of spring came, yet feeling so lonely and isolated. Those poems came naturally into my mind.

But high school Chinese makes me hate the subject so much, ahh, like, it never sparkled my interest, and I was always failing or around failing at 92 or 95 out of 150.

But the most humiliating thing is English. My English teacher in high school frequently criticized me because I wasn't "studying hard", and always recognizing me as a low performer in the subject needing immense help. In exams, I was frequently below average in English. The only time I got average score she said to me I done decent was even more humiliating. Now, it is an ESL country. I read more than 500 YA lit books before high school, and it was my favorite thing to do back then. Not long after leaving high school, I got 109 in TOEFL. If there was anything more unimaginable than that, I don't know.

I didn't even show my English Blog in high school till the end of high school, where I wrote at least 20 book reviews. I like English so much, and I have a real passion for the language. I used to read 1 hour daily about anything in literature, immerse myself in the English only library, and dig deep into those fantasy landscapes. I was being criticized and not being recognized in something I was truly passionate about, and being frequently compared, and looked down upon as very poor in this subject.

I was also poor in Biology, History, Politics, but I don't want to expand anymore. I can literally go on for ages, it's not relevant here.

Anyway, long story short, I lost control, and the rest of my high school was spent in anxiety and despair.

Some day last month I had a nightmare in high school, and there was an exam, I believed I did well in every subject in the exam, I was lighthearted and happy for a moment before I realized the answers betrayed me, and I failed in every one of them. It was the most vivid dream I had in a while.

Difficulties in Living in the Dorm

In my freshman year in college, I had significant challenges in living in the dorm. I was very different with my dormmates.

One of my dormmates has this strange habit of making his alarm ring as early as 6 am and not shutting his arm or getting up until like 9 am. I was always waked up by that, and it was so loud and annoying. He never acknowledged his behavior, the strange thing is, nobody else in that dorm seemed to mind it. I always thought I was a crazy person. I complained frequently and our relationship got worse because of it. I absolutely couldn't bear this behavior, and the teacher didn't understand me as well, and my parents didn't understand it, and my father noticeably said you just bear it.

My roommate was frequently lying on the bed, usually playing games aloud till around 2 or 3 am. I don't understand these kids.

I had really bad sleeping disorders and always needed to sleep around 2 hours in the afternoon or mornings.

I never spoke with that roommate for 6 months, not one word, because we just couldn't speak or communicate.

Thus living in a dorm became a nightmare ever since. In my journal after saying stating I am minimalistic, I would always "a separate quiet room" after that.

I also had significant difficulty in military training days before school started. I started thinking that this is going to be hard to get through right away and I just didn't have the same enthusiasm. The "officers" only made us "move your legs as if running, while you stay in one place" or just "walk", and I did, and a short officer came to me right away, and forced me out of the formation of students, and saying I wasn't paying attention. He made me do that move for a long time while other students pointed and laughed at me like I was a weirdo. I was marginalized, and I hated the damn training even more.

Anyways we seperated into small groups and the "good" ones got assigned into the formation group where they would walk around a cricle aligned(how freaking boring), and I got aligned to the group to wave "flags", and got kicked out by another "officer" from the group because I didn't wave the commuist flag well enough. Somehow I was able to pass the training sitting on a bench along the playground passing as those "injured" or "disabled" students. It was so lucky for me.

After that, military training or all kinds of conscription became a nightmare for me as well. Lucky for me conscription isn't required.

When I speak out about these matters they were always neglected and people never took them seriously, only acting like, "Well, you seem to be crazy, maybe just do whatever you want" attitude.

The thought that my parents understood me, and cared for my mental health shattered. Their "promises" are fake and ingenuine, saying "things will turn out well" without caring about anything. I saw no hope in them getting me out of the darkness. The fact that I thought those people cared for me, really had an idea of what's going on but made me face these things alone, frequently to an unbearing point, me barely managing to get through, only caring about exam results, it just made me lose trust in them that is forever irretrievable.

Because I was frequently backed to a corner. Their "reassurances" were just to put off my feelings, I felt hopeless and lonely. Interesting discovery, my parents thought I was "fine and happy" in my freshman year.

Reflection: What Caused the "Incident"

The PE teacher when he intentionally failed me on Taichi. He said, "You didn't pay any effort."

Back then, I didn't lose all trust in my parents or adults.

It wasn't specially targeted to the PE teacher.

I got full marks in the 3000m run and pull-ups through reasonable efforts. The teacher said I failed in the first try. I practiced the crooked "taichi" for a whole 3 days leading up to it, sacrificing my noon time, for the second try, only aiming to get a reasonable effort. I paid a lot more effort than most people.

But he still decided to fail me there, in contrast to my full marks in running and pull-ups. I was in a hopeless and dark moment when I realized that in some situations no matter how hard I work I am always a joke. It was worse than not working at all.

At that time I was in a very very weak and vulnerable point. It was because I just couldn't hold things back anymore. That was my last straw. I did something very unreasonable. I cursed the teacher in the "anonymous" feedback form, and wrote something like "die".

And I didn't do anything else than, quietly accepted the result, and things didn't escalate.

But on the coming semester on my 17th birthday exactly, the teacher called my parents to say they received "harsh" comments, and it was very very serious, turns out the form wasn't anonymous, and I got a punishment from school, but lucky for me, no serious consequences.

More Resilience--But Leading to Imposter Syndrome

In recent days, somehow I became far more resilient with criticism of teachers or feedbacks from schools. My efforts not paying off seem like norm rather than exception.

I had faced significant imposter syndrome these years after efforts and seemingly perceived good work frequently turned out failing so bad. When I was trying hard to do something, I often met with failures or missing the entire point.

On the other hand, I engaged in depth in other fields even without much effort.

When I finished coding my personal website people ignored it, but I don't really care though. At the same time, I began not to care about other people, I isolated myself from the crowd, always crouching in the lonely bedroom at my computer. I had no social media, just no.

Another thing caused me to isolate myself. On the sophomore year, it was my first attempt to participate in a coding competition, and my teammate frequently complained not able to read English. She complained every 5 seconds, and spread large negativity. I said, "why don't you open a Microsoft Word and paste the English problems and right click on it to translate to Chinese?" She did, and she was alleged "cheating" because "going online" isn't allowed, and everyone blamed it on me. Moreover, the crooked committee threaten to "ban the school for 2 years" because of the "cheating" incident. People I didn't know started badmouthing me and cyberbulling me in the group chat, with my parents frantically coming to help me out. Someone posted a question about this debate on the Chinese quora, "Whether should the school be banned for 2 years?", and it reached top 1 hottest question. There were no rules on the official website before the event, with the committee frantically adding "rules" to it after facing backslash. Anyways, my first "official" experience with competitive coding ended sadly, and I don't like competitive coding ever since.

People didn't acknowledge my works or efforts, or, the acknowledgment never came on point, it was frequently off the point and seemingly unrelated to whatever I was doing. People praise me but for another reason, I don't like it, and most of the praise is aimed at something my parents done instead of me(Anyway, if you look at how much I have, I am not earning anything, everything I have is from my parents).

Or it is aimed at something trivial. Like "how could you understand English easily?" or "wow you use command line when there is GUI?", but actually, I had equal confusion, like, "isn't English better for telling English stories?" or "isn't cli much more controllable than GUI?"

Thus after the imposter syndrome I also came to just completely ignore the things I am bad at, just put it off, unwilling to put any effort into those things uninteresting to me at all, and usually drift off for hours, several all-nighter at times, for the passionate or alluring things, most recently cloud computing and frontend, before that device exploration, void of everything surrounding and things happening around me. I had to force it this way because the harsh reality was just too much for me to deal with anyway.

Now if the "PE teacher Incident" occurred again I wouldn't really care, in fact, maybe it just did happen, but I just turned a blind eye completely.

I became numb, I wasn't the person I once was, who would smile and cry at remarks teachers made. Instead, I dived deep, droning out the voice around me, getting ignorant and more carefree.

Why do I Hate School So Much (Now)?

The process of hating something usually spans for a long period, and right now, noticeably, I absolutely cannot bear it anymore. The hate began as early as high(middle) school.

My parents kept bringing up straight A+ students, especially when I already worked hard and had significant mental challenges.
That's not going to motivate me.

That's just going to shatter my self-esteem make me realize I am worth nothing in school, and make me hate school a lot more than I already did. Lack of self-esteem is relatively easy to overcome, I had loads of experiences coping with really low self-esteem, and it's usually not a direct cause of problems.

But hatred of school is a problem. The more I thought about people performing far better than me in schoolwork, the more I realize that I was limited by school, knowing it led me nowhere, and I worth nothing here. It made me hate the homework much more, and become even more reluctant to follow the teacher.

The fact I was putting away my interests, letting other activites die, trying to focus and still bad in school made me realize I am a joke.

Studying, as a result, causes great friction as I pull through. I am not quitting studying anyway, I am usually a very obedient and down-to-earth person, and I always make that decent effort to do things, even in those times when I greatly disagree with it and thought it wasn't the best thing for me to do. I still paid the same effort, only leading to less work and procrastinating more, and noticeably, began gravitating more towards other things.

What is a Successful Teenager?

There are a lot of emerging athletes in soccer, running, skating, and getting multiple awards at the age of 19. That is very successful.

Also, a promising young singer getting millions of views on YouTube is successful. A dancer, a painter, a writer.

I Learned Nothing in School

I didn't learn about any valuable things in school, well that is until I visited UC Berkeley for a year. But I was also under extremely high academic pressure and unnecessarily very much in despair and self-doubt these years.

The Ch!nese school system now is an authoritarian nonsense, with people frequently underestimating its negative impacts. It's full of egregious lies and brainwashing, filled with meaningless propaganda and gaslighting.

I hate school so much.

Teachers here are hugely unqualified and school courses on certain topics are just boring, far more boring than self exploration.,

"Some University CS Teachers" in USTC Don't Understand git

Some also never heard docker, nodejs, never used cli, or API. No more words are needed.

I tried really hard to inform the teacher the system he try to make students build is very insecure and ambiguous, and lacks captcha, passhash, pepper, CSRF. But these are mild problems compared to the teacher not being aware of authentication at all, let alone least privileges! To which the TA "kindly" replied, "Do whatever you want, and don't bother with us. You think difficult, you do more work."

In another class the teacher repeatedly refuse to help with problems on the school's Windows(which I never use of course so I don't know how to fix) desktop computer, claiming he don't know about it too, clumsily opening a few window before rebooting and out of measures, didn't seem to how to fix the bug. "Well, you must still finish!" he said.

Most Grownups/Teachers Aren't "Responsible"

Most grownups don't know what they are talking about, but the problem is, they like to pretend.

The more I grew up, the more I came to realize that adults have a strikingly small knowledge base or speak contrary to reputable sources, especially in tech. They talk like they know it, and they don't correct it if people misunderstand them, or they do not have the right influences.

Grownups are strikingly irresponsible in this sense.

Most teachers lacked significant expertise but had a strong influence on students or the class climates.

Grownups Not Gonna Respect you Until you Get Rid of Them

There is a great power imbalance when some grownups talk to me. They seem far more superior, acting like authorities.

Don't believe those grownups, don't give a damn about their promises to "be equal and kind", just get rid of them. Then they can treat you fairly.

High school teachers are an example, they frequently condemn and tower over me. I feel so much better getting rid of those annoying high school teachers and getting out of the goddamn shitty high school.

These days if I go back, the high(or middle) school teachers won't treat me this way anymore, they would treat me like an old friend.

My parents are another example.

When I came back from the United States the first day my parents had plans for me, and what I should do. They arranged for me to study car, go to a traditional Chinese doctor for bone treatment, and, while I was undecided, claim it was good for me. It failed badly. Since they had autonomy over me, I had to agree. It ended miserably with me hating their decisions, having a huge argument, my parents not taking the blame and claiming they knew better, me quitting learning to drive halfway, and me going back to Hefei quickly.

About Choices & Decisions

The ultimate reward for me is time-accumulated happiness, that is what I hope to maximize, and perhaps many other people hope to achieve in life.

For me, minimalism is an important global heuristic. Global here means static in time, and just the global being. For example, enjoying some decorations isn't going to make me happy in the long run. It does give me enjoyment today, but tomorrow I will find it ugly. Also, decorations take effort and that effort is more than the total rewards given by the decorations. Of course, I am not against decorations most of the time, but trying to keep it in a minimized, non-intrusive manner, and I am just illustrating a point. In the global sense, minimalism isn't the only heuristic, there are also other heuristics, like freedom, autonomy, and compatibility with society, that largely guide and influence my choices and decisions.

For local regions, however, practicality and no-nonsense matters more, and are important heuristics. I am not going to use a Window Manager or delete most of my laptop applications, although it makes my laptop more minimal. Aligning with mainstream or the popular choice takes less effort and causes less misunderstanding, while a strict minimum is usually niche and almost seems like an additional hobby or choir, sometimes causing it to be heavier and costier in the global sense.

Understanding Grad School--It is the "Start" instead of the "End"

Grad school seems an escape from my current worries, (hopefully self-sustained) getting rid of parents, who would be thousands of miles away, having more autonomy to dive into some truly engaging things, aiming to live a truly simple and minimalistic life, and being called "expert" once graduated.

Except,..., right?

That remains to be known.

Not Wanting Children to Go To School

I am probably not letting my child go to school(given that if I would have a child).

There are many problems about school, and they are just unnegotiable. For example, some schools require their students to use WeChat. This is very problematic for my child.

Another scenario is there is a computer class, and, say, the teacher requires students to work in Windows with a proprietary software. Now, I am not saying this software is bad or something, but forcing somebody to work in Windows is against their will. Say, my child doesn't want to do that, and the child asks for alternative tools or open source platforms, or even proprietary blobs in Linux. But the teacher is so stupid and doesn't give him any instructions. Out of anger the child storms out of the classroom, and refuse to take this class.

Well, the obvious consequence to such actions is the child failing this course, and, as a consequence, not being able to advance into the next grade because of "Intellectual Disabilities".

So if in such a scenario the child comes home and asks for my advice, I will say, the teacher is very much uneducated and technical immature (imagine a computer science teacher who doesn't know how to use cli and refuses to answer student's questions??). So obviously I will be backing up for my child, and child will somehow convey this message to the school classmates/teacher. As a consequence child will face isolation, and get really bad grades when child is actually only refusing to work with a proprietary software / Windows GUI and nothing else.

The child might be proficient in coding in Linux environments, and knows more about computer than the teacher do(who might be a moron in computer science).

20240608 Do I Want to Live in Alaska

This is a reflection on the trip on 2023.5.13-2023.5.22. Undoubtedly, the trip has changed me.

Haven't Been on Another Trip

It has been a little more than a year since I went to Alaska on that memorable trip. Since that trip, however, I have not stayed overnight on any travels. While I was even planning on going to Florida in the winter of 2023 (heard nice things about that) when I was having lunch in Denali, I lost the urge later.

Not that "Interested" in a Trip

Part of the reason might be I lost a lot of interest in traveling from going to Alaska because I fell so much in love with the winter landscapes that it dwarfed other places.

Sometimes I went on trips to see scenic views, but they became no longer appealing. Nothing I had ever seen in my life was as striking as the beautiful landscapes in Alaska, the winter glaciers and mountains.

Feeling "Guilty" of Using Parent's Money on Trips

I spent almost 4000 dollars alone on the trip, from sky-high pricing of plane tickets to the minimum unoptimized living costs--around 150 dollars a day for 9 nights, plus doing all the regular activities, e.g., boat cruise, flightseeing, Alaska railway. A decent trip to Alaska for around 10 days would cost about 4 times the pricing of a business-level, long-lasting laptop(just below 1000 dollars). It is a large amount of money, and it's from my parents, not mine.

Lately, I have been feeling guilty about bulk spending my parents' money, like, even if they have so much, I can't justify using it for enjoyment. I can use it to buy food, buy a phone, pay tuition, but go on a high-cost trip? That sounds unreasonable.

Plus, I stayed in single room hotels only, it is more expensive and I knew nobody after the trip. In the future I should stay in those shared rooms to know more people if I am to go on another trip.

Drivers

So let us first reflect on the people I met on my trip.

• A taxi driver working at midnight hours, taking me to the hotel when I arrived at Ted Stevens, somehow he thought I wanted to leave without paying, and started complaining loudly(scared me a bit, until I paid him)
• A taxi driver who grew up in Orange County had some houses on Airbnb, and had his children in a law school, taking me to the library in Anchorage
• A taxi driver who worked with the homeless(handing them food in the winter), and urged me to get better grades, taking me back to the Airbnb in Anchorage
• A taxi driver, a woman individual taxi driver who worked in Seward, taking people to nearby scenic attractions and back to their hotels
• A taxi driver, a young guy, driving me back to Fairbanks at past midnight
• A taxi driver, Brahima, a very friendly guy, drove me from Fairbanks to North Pole and offered to take photos for me
• A bus driver in Anchorage, an old woman later came onboard and seemed confused, he generously helped her out with the elder woman saying "You made my day"
• A bus driver carrying me from Anchorage to Seward while making some commentaries
• A bus driver, elderly guy who drives around in Seward all day long carrying people around
• Another bus driver on an ATV tour from Colorado, saying he went to all states except Hawaii, almost 50 years old and spending second year in Alaska

The majority of tour guides said they worked in the lower 48 most time of the year and came to Alaska only in the summer for a job.

Locals Working on Tourism(Not drivers)

Then there are working local people

• Receptionist for hotels, working long hours into the night
• Receptionist for Tourist Services(mostly very young girls around 17-25 years old), checking tickets, welcoming tourists, sometimes chatting or serving tea/drinks
• "Static" Tour Guides, Some people who sit in a house and provide guidance and maps, chatting with visitors
• Luggage Delivery People(young), driving around delivering/picking up luggage
• Fast Food Waiters(mostly young, some older), fast food restaurant "Subway" or cheaper restaurants
• Fancy Restaurant Waiters(mostly very young girls around 20 years old), focus on giving a better experience to customers
• Tour Guides for the Alaska Railroad(mostly very young girls around 20 years old), broadcasting and making jokes or explaining history or anecdotals, entertaining tourists along the trip, demanding jobs, switch to opposite train halfway from Anchorage to Denali to go home
• Commercial Pilots(usually mid-aged or older male), regularly taking people for glacier landings, and icefields, also serving as guide and electricians to maintain their own planes
• Boat Captain(usually mid-aged or older male), driving the boat for as much as 6 hours on a single tour, also serving as a guide speaking and broadcasting about the history and the sea attractions
• Boat Crew Members(mostly young people), working on securing the boat to shore or serving food and drinks and maintaining safety, or entertaining tourists
• A UAF student(cross-dressing, I think LGBT) working both as a hotel receptionist and driver to pick me up

There is noticeably some young, attractive women (usually around 20) working the jobs of "welcoming guides" or at front desks.

Other Tour Guides

Then there are the 2 ATV guides from Miami, who have been everywhere in the lower 48 states, but mainly work and entertain tourists for money.

There are also commercial Jeep tour drivers, and they talk a lot about the local history and entertain tourists, anyway, to earn money.

Other Travelers

Then there are those travelers.

• 2 elder women who said I reminded me of their kids on the Seward Tour
• 2 young women hiking a very difficult course in Lost Lakes in Seward, well equipped and seemed experienced
• An Australian elderly couple, really nice, who offered me a ride in Seward, the man formerly knew how to fly planes and they owned 9 acres of land in Australia
• 2 travers on the Alaska railroad, one saying he is going to stay in a small town for several weeks, then going to Vancouver, another saying he is spending 2 nights in Talkeetna, and stay in Alaska for 2 months
• 2 young women sprinting down the mountains in Healy, seem experienced and athletic
• 2 elder guys, an 80-year-old guy traveling to Denali from Anchorage, old Alaskan from 1970s, another guy with 19-year-old grandson from California
• 2 old Taiwanese couple on a train, enjoying slow-paced travel and exclaming about beautiful views, chatting with me about the trip along the way

Well, some of them are affluent middle-aged or older travelers who have money. These people are mainly nice because they are travelers(although they might be very nice in real life too). When people are traveling they tend to be much more friendly and approachable.

Ethnicity of Alaska

Alaska is very white, with fewer blacks, Asians, or Latinos.

In Anchorage museum I remembered there seeing on TV about Black People's heritage in Alaska, so there is an effort for inclusivity. But minor ethnicities have less impact than California.

Computer Science Industry

There are very few tech companies or computer science jobs in Alaska. It is so hard to find a cloud VPS in Anchorage. While the West Coast has so many top tech companies, from south Cal to Silicon Valley to Oregon, Seattle, and even Vancouver, Alaska just doesn't have such hype.

Alaska is so remote that the whole coastline from south Cal to Seattle is around the same distance as the coastline from Seattle to Anchorage. But I heard good things about Helsinki and Stockholm, which are also around 60 degrees of Latitude like Anchorage.

There aren't many tech jobs in Alaska today other than writing some basic frontend or database for small companies (which are usually Community College level).

Military Culture

Although I didn't personally experience or see it, there seemed to be a strong group of military people in Alaska, and a lot of local families seem to be veterans.

Places with strong military presence and mobilization seems to have a tight-knit community. I previously thought military is like wars and people would be very miserable and hate each other, think about those who got injured or have lifelong trauma and psychological problems. It turned out that actually the vibe there is generally closer than big cities.

Economy Perspectives

So, as mentioned before, most of Alaska's economy is concentrated on tourism, military, and oil/energy. Ted Stevens in Anchorage is one of the busiest airports in America.

There are few high paying jobs for computer science or engineering. UAA/UAF is good in energy related majors but very bad in computer science. Most native Alaskans I met are either blue-collar workers, restaurant owners, or workers with very special specifications, like commercial pilots. Besides, tourism industry varies between seasons and a lot of workers aren't native Alaskans.

Go further north and almost entire cities are dedicated to oil or energy resources, for example, Barrow.

Remove tourism and you get a model similar to Siberian cities (though they are poorer and have a bigger population). Yakutsk, Norilsk, Arkhangelsk specializes in energy and resources. Murmansk is a port city. Omsk, Chelyabinsk are heavy industrial centers, different from manufacturing in Germany or Japan. Arctic regions have huge differences and high mobility of population, the population would influx to some areas or abandon some settlements (Igarka, Dikson). Siberian regions in Russia have higher military presence than Moscow and indigenous areas get mobilized a lot in the war. Siberia is poorer than Alaska and they don't speak much English, so it receives very little tourism, even from within Russia (where Sochi is usually a resort).

Thus getting a stable income and suitable job becomes very hard if I want to live there long-term.

What's more, the cost of living is no joke. I saw homeless camps in Cuddy Park. I saw homeless people sleeping on the ground near the train station. I saw a homeless person camping near UAA. I saw some homeless camps across the street at Rob's cottage.

Some neighborhoods in Anchorage are shady. Most neighborhoods are fine. I obviously don't want to sleep in the streets if I go there, right? Nor do I want to be a driver, a tour guide, or a cook.

What do I do there? I become a computer science or math teacher in the local elementary school and spend most of the time with kids? I manage a website for a small local company? There is almost nothing that I can do.

What do I want?

I miss the laid-back atmosphere. Like there wasn't much hurry or tension in the air, but you are exposed to natural beauty. People actually greet and nod to you in Alaska. Sometimes you can even exchange some words. This is unthinkable in most busy cities.

However, this comes at a cost. I spend money on the trip to enjoy myself. For workers in tourism, it may not be pure enjoyment for them. For the people broadcasting on the Alaska railroad train, they are spending almost everyday on the railroad talking. For the boat workers, they are spending everyday of the summer touring and broadcasting on the boat. For the hotel receptionists, they are spending whole nights staying up. For the "static" people sitting inside houses working in tourism, they are spending everyday talking to different people about the traveling experiences. It does seem chill because I don't have to work. If I do work one day or a few days, or even half a summer in those jobs, it may still be very enjoyable, but what if the job is the main thing in my life? What if it's no longer my choice? What if I rely on that income and it's insecure? Furthermore, these jobs don't provide a lot of money, and most are quite unstable (they go to different states year round job hunting, maybe they would go to a ski-resort in winter). I got no competitive edge here since the bar to tourism jobs and bus drivers are very low.

What's more, Alaska provides a very quiet environment, away from the bustling and noisy cities.
When I was in the Airbnb across Lake Spenard on Malibu road, the house felt so comfortable and cozy. It was the most memorable house I lived in. Everything felt peaceful and happy, you go out and there is this lake and forests and the Seaplane Base airport. You look up and there is the snowy mountains. You go out at midnight in May and there is the never setting sun, glimpsing all over the horizon. You feel hungry and there is the Mcdonald and Subway and several other stores for food. It's located pretty far from downtown Anchorage and it's very quiet but not isolated. You have everything and you can eat foods and drinks while looking at the woods outside peacefully.

In Fairbanks, as I walked on the streets I saw there was an RV in front of almost every house. When I walk around I can find peace in my heart, and reflect quietly in my inner mind in the slow-paced lifestyle. Walking around in the north in the summer is too magical and romantic.

I watched Fairbanks North Star Borough School District on YouTube. There are a lot of project 360 videos introducing the elementary, middle and high school, some from a few years ago, and they are high quality videos. The 2 most watched videos on this channel are about soldiers' reunion (deployed to Afghanistan) with their children. Typically a student walks you around the school building, talking with other students. It genuinely feels very chill and cozy and welcoming. It seems much happier than my first elementary school and middle school and high school, without any studying burdens like Zhongkao and Gaokao.

Fairbanks has around 30k people, meaning around 400 people in one grade in the city. They have multiple schools. This means you would likely grow up always having a lot of previous classmates. My first elementary school and middle school and high school has around 300-500 people in one grade. None of my classmates from different schools overlapped.

Conclusion

Overall, it's very unlikely for me to settle in Alaska, though I usually romanticize about it, sometimes making up stories in my head of me settling and wandering in the beautiful, pure, white landscape.

20240630: Out of the Rented House in Hefei

People Picking up My Bedsheets

Today I was moving away from my apartment. When I threw my bedsheets away on the next elevator up I saw some neighbor picking everything I threw away up from the garbage bin.

So I think like they are probably not well off, like, who would pickup something from the garbage bin except those who might really find it helpful? People around me live in a different state.

Don't Bring too much

Never bring anything more than 3 bags with me, or else I would have to carry at least 2 bags simultaneously(after putting one bag on the trolley case). It was a nightmare and heavy as hell.

Weird Behaviors

These days I had more and more weird behaviors. I booked a no-seat ticket on a green train for 8 hours at night. I was crazy. I don't know how to navigate my behaviors at all, especially after failing in academics.

I got on the green train, and man, was it terrible. I have never been on such a train for the last 10 years. Two construction peopel were sitting right on the other side of the floor, both very seasoned. It was very crowded with all those people and I had no seat. Everywhere I look there are tons of people.

It was never like the train (or high-speed trains), which made me rethink and learn more about China. Like, the country is seriously large and has lots and lots of people, it made me understand the policies much better. Like dudes in this country are nothing like me, so the policies are meant for them, not for me I think. It becomes a whole different story when you need to bring up a huge county with billions of people vs when you are a depressed isolated teenager trying to get some entertainment.

It is unthinkable for those blue-collar or heavy-labor people to go study computer science(I don't think those hard-labor people can think critically or deeply) or talk English fluently.

So I thought about those workers from to city, and I thought it was every bit true. Workers would carry huge luggages working hard labor jobs in the cities to earn some money, and would frequently sleep on the ground.

I mean, there is no point in standing up all night for the sake of it because it is simply bad for my health and overwhelming the body.

There are so many people on the train and it is so crowded, and many people are standing up. (for the whole night, not even getting a seat). Many people are sitting down and on a bed(which offers more expensive prices)

Leaving the Station

Then I went out of the train and left the station. When I tried to leave the station janitor asked me "Why", and "What" he was confused, so I simply replied "Let me leave" kindly, and he let me leave.

I found my phone suddenly run out of mobile data and I went to the subway, but the subway stopped operating at literally 11 pm(it wasn't like that in Shanghai though). So like after going a few stops I got stuck in the middle of nowhere.

So I had to ask the conductor for help.

The conductor had an iPhone 15 Pro Max(bro-like, their wages are around 10000 RMB a month). He kindly offered me his hotspot and I added some mobile data from the vendor. I thanked him so much.

Changes to Attitude to Parents

Anyway, this made me think about how my attitude toward my parents changed too. Previously I was like "They don't care about my well-being", and "They don't care about my mental health", because my mental health is largely concerned about my freedom, and when someone doesn't need or consider freedom to be a priority they are likely going to ignore other's need for freedom too. Many things are indifferent to me too, for example, I don't like social media, and I don't pick any foods. I can eat practically anything anywhere as long as it is prepared and enjoy it a lot(when I am hungry), so I won't give a damn when someone else complains about food. It's the same with my parents, I think, it's not that they are neglecting my well-being, it's just that they don't consider some things to be important in my well-being, (and it's not like they are neglecting on purpose because they likely don't care about it for themselves too)

Comparing Two Different Works

A programmer has to work large workloads in an airconditioned house vs a worker who is working hard labor outside under sizzling heat is both unhappy and faces problems and that doesn't make the programmer's problem invalid. Switch places and both will be worse off, with the worker performing far worse on programming and the programmer likely unfit for physical labor at all. You can say that perhaps the worker might be more "sad"(while perceived might not even be true), but you cannot say that the programmer's problem is any easier.

What to do in Future

So for me, to fix my problems and improve my well-being, it is essential to take a constructive approach and fix them consciously instead of endlessly running and doing shit. Basically what I am doing isn't helpful and it's like no one does it on purpose to harm me or something, simply because I am unfit and need to adjust. Again, my problems are perfectly valid,(they cannot be solved by justifying the hard labored worker, or anybody, faces more terrible conditions)

So like there is no more point of going mad, or doing weird things like attempting to go on a green train(because that is both ridiculous and non-constructive).

20240709: Another Horrible Semester, How to Cope Next

I am dealing with depression. I am not kidding. I had this anxiety and stress for at least 4 years, and it's getting worse and worse.

Disclaimer

Obviously, I am not in a situation as serious as a minor being abused, people facing domestic violence, workers being exploited, working in hard-labour low-paying jobs for long hours. But anyway they are still valid personal experiences, and since this is my personal blog I am documenting it here.

Work-Life Balance

I always expressed concerns about work-life balances, and they were always dismissed for reasons like

• Me "faking" hatred for school only to be "superior"
• Not willing to unleash full potential, "lazy" and get out of comfort zone
• Fake assurances, always like "Just one more week, You get over this, and everything will be fine"
• Downplaying my struggles for "cultural norms"

However, these claims are total invalid and wrong. I want to clarify.

1. The hating for school have nothing to do with me being superior. People have different learning capacities, and need moderate hours, it isn't targeted to school. I am also not intentionally being superior or whatsoever when I feel burned out by overworking.
2. Everyone has their limits, and I am alreay trying my best and overworking, while it might be perceived as "not working as much I should", actually I am really trying but sometimes people just get tired
3. Things were never fine. I had thoughts like this over the past 4 or 5 years, and that thought kept me going for some time, however, things only got worse and worse. I am truly worn out now.
4. While it is true for cultural norms to neglect these concerns, especially in China where every student overwork, I don't find my situation meaningless or not valid, in fact, while Chinese students can certainly handle large amounts of pressure and demand academically, it usually comes at a cost for enthusiasim, lack of creativity and self motivation, which I think are more crucial than studying itself. The whole social trend is hugely problematic and I am not going into that any more, and the fact something is a norm in a culture doesn't justify it.

People frequently undermine my claims, when I say "I am not ok", nobody cares. People pay no attention to me when I articulate my thoughts, frequently misunderstanding and judging me in their biased views.

Parents' Attitudes

My parents say to me almost on all our coversations (and this is so annoying), "You are better off here than in high school, you were fine in high school, you are fine now." I wasn't fine in high school, nor was I fine in freshman year. In fact, I had significant challenges that they overlooked and didn't pay attention too. The fact high school was worse off than the situation I am in right now doesn't mean the situation I am in now is fine.

They also downplay my social abilities and misjudge my social status. While it is true I am socially isolated, I did this because of the intense pressure of academics, which I cannot cope with continously. Socially I am actually a fine person. Never once did I find a situation where I could find a study life balance, and all my energies were constrained by school. I struggled so hard. I am an introvert and when I struggle I tend to go more isolated, and it's not like I am nonsocial or lacks the skill the deal with people‒it's just an effect of being overwhelmed. Introvert can be perfectly good at socializing, it's just they are defined to cope with struggles by spending time alone. I showed remarkable social skills, being able to connect with lots of people repeatedly, but when I face huge imbalances in life I can't help but seem isolated.

My parents were not empathizing with my situation, they are downplaying it and mocking me, not realizing the root causes and keep putting even greater pressure, driving me into those hugely competitive environments in hope for better results, regarding me as a machine rather than a human being in need for balance and mental care.

My parents did not pay much care, or they are simply confined in their own circumstances, to adequate understand and compassionate with me. My parents regarding my freshman year, a very very challenging year, as "perfectly fine" was really demeaning to me. I wasn't fine that year and that year directly caused my current depression.

Start of This Semester ‒ Recap

The start of this semester is inarguably the worst start I ever had. I stayed at home for a whole week without any motivation to go out and meet any people at all. I didn't want to do anything, didn't want to work. It was a seroius problem.

Sort of like when you are on a long journey, obviously you are taking regular breaks on the road. I thought it was a regular break back then, like sit for a while then get going again. Except when I tried to get back on track, I couldn't. The following three months, March, April, May, I tried really hard to get myself back to working in school, but my efforts always lead to failure and continued disengagement. I should have known things were terribly wrong at the start of the semester, I did wrote about it, but people don't care and I ended up selecting 10 courses anyways, just trying to get things done.

I didn't thought about the consequence and my well being because they were always neglected and disregarded. With the increasing bias and polarizing opinions, and me not achieving any success at all in school. It became a norm and de facto for overworking in China, and thus, I didn't realize that I was going to break from overworking one day until it happened, which is now. My parents disregarded my wellbeing and the school disregarded my wellbeing. Essentially with huge expectations and a lack of motivation, I fell apart.

Recapping those years before not one year is fine, nor did I find any balance in studying.

Emotional Breakdown

I have frequent emotional problems usually causing me sleepless nights and making me sad for days. I feel guilty for not "performing well". I feel imposter syndrome.

These days, or pretty much all this semester, I slept at daytime and spend half, or all nights up, not being able to fall asleep. I cannot get engaged anymore with school, it became very uninteresting.

Never Ending Situation

In middle school, people say "just a few more months left of hard work studying and you become happy in high school". I believed in them and worked hard, hoping for a better high school experience, a more balanced and happier teenage years. Instead, it was a total opposite. The high school I attended was like a prison with dictators and censorship, forcing students to stop using phones and computers, demanding and rigorous schoolwork of over 15 hours a day, frequent gaslighting and brainswashing propagandas "you get better person by studying hard", promoting sacrificing sleep, eating times for studying and overly promoting academic role models. My parents were also in line with the school policy, coercing me to "Try hard", and regarding my appeal for a balanced teen life with "ridiculous and lack of obvious effort". Since I was young, there was no option but to listen, and they remained terrible memories. After working immensely hard, however, I didn't get better in academics because it was a rat race between classmates, and I could never get an ideal score. My parents regarded me as "stupid" and "problematic behavior". In university, when I said my dormmate's overly problematic behavior was too overwhelming for me and it was no longer bearable to live in the dorm, my parents also claimed it as "nonsense" and "lack of endurance". When I later finally moved out, they threatened me with "it's parents moeny I am using", and "behave or go back in dorm". The school empasizes raw exam scores, paying little regards to student's mental health, almost taking it as a pride. The university don't care if you learn or not, as long as you seem to be "competing" against each other harshly. The university doesn't care if you are learning up to date technologies or if they even sound logical, it just cares if you are "putting many hours a day" and "compliant".

My Own Interest/Hobbies

Over the years my own interests were largely looked down upon and being neglected, with studying being the primary focus. I frequently find I was only spending one or two days and even forgetting about them at all. This becomes more and more frustrating as times passes because I was promised things would get better, and I would either excel at academic performances given hard work or "although my life is challenging now, a balanced life is coming soon". However, in no situations did my life actually become more balanced, and seeing all those interests die makes me miserable.

Nowadays I feel a sense of guilt in pursuing my interest, because they seem not to be aligned with studying in school. My parents were like "you can have your hobbies", with no regards whatsoever about whether that's feasible in the environment or not. When in such a challenging and struggling environment, there is simply no place left for hobbies.

No Ideal Performances

With such great emphasize on academics, you would expect me to have outstanding performances and excel. However, that doesn't happen, as I got lower and lower grades, having frequently struggling all the time. My results were not ideal and they are greatly unsatisfying, and at the same time my hobbies are neglected, leading to no sense and meanings of life. I got depressed and finally can no longer handle it recently.

As a way to get back some meaning or happiness I tried to seek out entertainments or interests, and it's almost instincts that makes me not wanting to work at all with school.

"If I knew it all then, Would I do it again?"

If I knew I wasn't getting out of the situation whatsoever, I would simply refuse to overwork from 4 years ago, I might refuse or even argue with the teacher for my wellbeing. In fact, I was too young to be able to do that, so I ended up in this worse situation.

What can I do now?

There is literally nothing I can do to get myself back on track with the consistent stress accumlated over the latest years. All I can do is not to make myself more gloomy.

What Would I do in the Future?

I had made up my mind to maintain a work life balance in the future, and I am determined to prioritize my happiness and wellbeing. I am not going to believe or be brainwashed by the social trends or fake claims to overwork myself. I want a laid back and chill lifestyle.

Block Things

Also I am going to block things, in particular

1. Things that promotes overworking
2. Things that makes me uncomfortable, or tries to disencourage me from interests
3. Things that are too distractive, like Social Media
4. Pervious Students who have very conflicting views with me

Develop a Next.js Video Platform

In fact, I am developing my own video platform with Next.js. The design is like this

1. I am going to hoard a large amount of data legally from sites that allow redistributing like "archive.org"
2. I am going to avoid downloading or linking paid videos at all
3. I am going to include an iframe for YouTube or similar platform's videos in my personal website

This can allow me to not go on YouTube that frequently, basically like going on YouTube for once a month or so and index the videos and copy the html embedded code for the videos I am most interested in to my platform, then I am going to include that in search results. It is nothing illegal as embedding YouTube videos without downloading them is a common practice.

My previous video platform was built with Bootstrap, which is functional but far from ideal, I realized after abandoing that platform that I still need a personal video platform and existing ones are far from ideal for me personally, e.g. MediaCMS or NextCloud or LibreTube. They are awesome projects, just not tailored to my needs.

If I build my own Website I can stop using the comments or stop seeing the recommendations, which would be better and more focused.

Keep Up With Tech, but No Need with News

It is important to keep up with the most modern technologies, but for news and politics they are addictive and useless. They cause distractions and stop me from doing the thing I need to do. Anyways, the latests fashion trends are largely irrelevant to my life. So as a result I would try to stop myself from being addicted to social media and try to get my life in a better place.

I would shut off every nonsense and pursue a better, distraction-free lifestyle. I already quit twitter and instagram which made me far more happier.

Utilzing APIs more

I would also be utilizing APIs to build customized interface with nonimportant social media more.

Emphasizing More on Interests

I need to focus more on my personal interest, they are the last thing to cling on for happiness. I would need to place them seriously.

I will be regularly studying languages, particularly Russian now, at no costs. I would try my best to keep my interest alive.

I would go on streets and do my interest and go on subways and do my interest basically engage my free time with my interests.

Focusing on AI

I would Focus on Machine Learning because that is the thing to do right now. I should spend far more time into this because it is more cool and interesting and more valuable than stupid school.

Treating Social Media

Social Media are not "cancer" or "disease" or "very harmful", no.

But I still refrain from engaging in them, I don't hate them and don't like them, simple.

For essential services like YouTube I would have to possibly index its data to my website though.

Data Hoarding

I am going to hoard more data to my cloud for personal use and entertainment. I am going to avoid controversies and troubles when hoarding data, notably avoiding platforms like 123movies or Bflix or whatever illegal streaming platforms.

I am going to utilize the latest web dev technologies with probably Next.js as the tool to hoard down the essential data I need for consuming.

I won't rely on social media or going regularly on those websites because it is not a good idea. In fact, I would probably hoard all the data infrequently to my websites in a legal way and hoard many other data from legal sources to entertain myself more in a distraction-free, modern fashion.

I had a very very bad end of the semester. This is a very very sad post. I am very guilty and in self-doubt right now.

End of Semester: Mental Breakdown

So what happened at the end of last semester was I had a complete mental breakdown, the worst I ever had. It was expected, given that the semester had already seen strong resistance and unwillingness to study or do any work.

Like I just hated school, that's it.

I will tell you about June.

Being Addicted to AWS

At the start of June, I got addicted to AWS, it was so cool and comprehensive and the best thing I ever had. I got addicted to AWS and I couldn't do anything else. Every night I would play something on AWS(with Next.js), and then it would become dawn, and I would go to sleep after eating breakfast, then when I woke up soon it would be night again, and I hurried to do some limited work before diving right back into my laptop.

The Feeling of Actually Building Something

The feeling of building something was very important to me, and something I lacked last semester. I didn't have the practical feeling of accomplishing things, on the contrary, I was usually being fed materials like a pig, and did not have any autonomy to do anything I wanted.

Building Apps

Starting in March I built like at least 6 web apps, taking into account my New Website.

After building Anonytube, I thought I would stop coding frontend and focus on school for a while. However, June saw a backslash of not wanting to do anything other than playing with cloud and frontend and web dev. Anyway, it was pretty sad.

I built a markdown parser (since Joplin doesn't support review, and NocoDB doesn't support documents, Notion doesn't support full markdown). I connected the backend to MongoDB, my favorite database ever, so that all my data is organized and easily exported and analyzed, and I only write in markdown (and latex and some sane HTML for that matter)

I had no idea how long it took to build a fully polished app. Like, this app is still unpolished, but it already took enormous effort. The key takeaway here is that the open-source projects might not fully suit our needs, and the proprietary ones might also not suit our needs.

I disliked Google Tasks and built a Next.js task manager myself, also with MongoDB, my favorite database.

I also tried i18n on my website but gave up on it since the blogs are dynamically rendered. I wrote about 100k words total in all my blogs and translating that would not be a trivial task, and AWS translate is too bad(you also have to parse the markdown lol). Like the website is just made in English and anyone can use Google Translate if they don't understand it.

Docker is so fantastic, like literally, it can containerize everything.

Unstable Schedules

So like I was mostly staying up all night or having very very instable schedules and not preparing for the tests, only doing some homework with minimal time and fully engaged in AWS, MongoDB, Docker Hub, Next.js, etc. Engaging in stuff makes me feel numb, and the semester passed leaving me feeling empty and sad.

Organized Everything into MongoDB

But anyway I finally organized everything into my self-hosted MongoDB, like, literally everything with Access Controls, which seems to be very satisfying despite failing in many courses in my school.

Challenges I faced with School

Looking in retrospect, there are several great issues I had with school. Let me tell you what they are. I don't think I can have a balanced life with these issues.

Time Commitment

After selecting multiple courses you are expected to have full-time commitments to school(with little spare time for yourself), and given the large amounts of credits required for graduation you are expected to commit fully to school.

In a university setting I am expected not to put 80 or 90 percent of my time on school, instead, a more balanced approach would be better. I can put one-third on school, one-third on self-learning, and one-third on chilling or socializing. Instead, I was constantly overwhelmed by school, requiring me to put the full majority of time into it(like throughout the freshman and sophomore year), as a result, when I found out things are no better this semester, I became very rebellious.

OutDated Knowledge

The school is teaching outdated knowledge in computer science. It is greatly irritating how much they are behind(or subpar, since being behind is different). School is teaching me bad practices in computer science, and very wrong computer science knowledge.

For example, in an embedded system course, the teacher doesn't know "gitignore" and zips all files into several GB source code to download, with no clear comments, only a huge book of 1000 pages. Furthermore, the teacher expected me to understand everything myself(frequently threatening me with low grades if I didn't figure everything out myself). When I talked to him about command line and programming he shows a clear lack of the basics of computer science knowledge (frequently running into bugs he can't solve when trying to help me to debug the crappy program, doesn't know any command line).

In a database course, however, the teacher emphasized too much on the front end and interfaces and ignored important database knowledge. The teacher constantly, with outdated knowledge(not teaching MongoDB, spark, or distributed database, focusing too much on how to build an interface, with the interface being VB and outdated frameworks), wrong knowledge(you have to manually download the exe to update, correction: you can just sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade or sudo package-manager upgrade, whatever works), and ambiguous projects that the TA struggles to explain. In the final project, the teacher said something very very ambiguous(a teacher management system), when I asked the TA he was like "Don't care", and "One course can only be taught once a semester", and disregarded me, clearly ignoring the basic functionalities and utilities of the project. When I asked about concerns about the system's robustness and security, like CSRF, captchas, and access control, the TA completely disregarded and showed no interest. It is greatly irritating when all TAs can't explain something clearly in a project the teacher assigned.

In another course, TAs clearly show a lack of understanding of my working environments(not knowing about command lines and disregarding Linux).

Not one course was even engaging, and I got so tired. Ahh, imagine.

Overall I felt like there wasn't much I could learn from the school's courses that is relevant, and learning feels a complete waste of time. TA's lack of inclusion makes me feel isolated and rebellious, adding to my resistance to learning.

Too Many Courses

I selected 10 courses, way too much for me because I was pushed by the school's credit system.

Learning Nothing from School Previously

I learned pretty much nothing about Computer Science or anything useful in USTC, previously while dedicating significant time and effort to school. And I wouldn't learn much with the very outdated knowledge, so I didn't study in school.

What to do Next?

Obviously, this attitude towards school was very problematic, and disregarding academics in the end only caused harm to ourselves.

1. Choose fewer courses

Select a few courses that we can manage even if we hate all of them

2. Make solid plans to self-pace learning the courses

So like basically I still need to understand the courses as they are fundamentals(even though the school's teaching is just pure SHIT)

3. Have fewer distractions

Anyways, keep on boycotting video games.

Some Hopeful Remarks

The worst time had gone, and the goddamn semester had ended, from now on everything will get better.

20240716: Gmail Problems and Trying AWS SES

Basically my Gmail started getting large amounts of spam, and it was evident they put my Gmail address in bcc field.

The attacker(script) uses large amounts of random addresses and domains to spam my email (tries for phishing I guess but I am not gonna get phished so it's basically like spamming attack). My inbox got flooded with spam every day, and frequently notifications ring on my phone only to discover it was a spam.

Why did this Only Happen to Me?

Literally just like every other bugs and stupid things I encountered with softwares I was like, "Why is this always happening only to me?" or "Why don't others encounter the same problem? I was like frustrated and there was no solutions, but how do they find solutions(if they can find solutions). Maybe most folks out there don't encounter bugs at all or only a small fraction of the total bugs I encounter.

How to Block Spam in Gmail

Gmail is a very weak platform. It isn't bad because it offers free email services, and something that offers free services bad or incompetent shouldn't be negative.

Gmail is just incompetent as hell.

When I tried to search on Google how to block spam nothing came out, and all I could find is block one email address(but the attacker is literally using hundreds different domains every single day).

Like Gmail doesn't support wildcard blocking (WTF?? Man?).

Also, Gmail's machine learning algorithm is bad and incompetent, and it frequently lables those spam as important. Despite bearing this crap for a month and always pressing on the "report spamming" "report phishing" nothing changed. Just like any other machine learning algorithm implemented for everyone out there.

Being Really Really Irritated

It got me mad. I was like this should be done by a simple script and not to be complicated. I shouldn't have to depend on a platform to do this. Like this is literally what Python noobs learn to do, while I have no ideas how to protect myself using Gmail(stupid incompetent service)

Also, I think other email provider's filters might be better, but it wouldn't turn out to be much better probably.

Ironically I have to depend on some shitty frontend for email filtering(??),

Why is Gmail Subpar?

Gmail is subpar because it is consumer oriented, and 99 percent of consumers are computer idiots, and also the company likely hires the most incompetent people into those consumer oriented products. That's why it's subpar.

Moreover, the solutions you find online are for total noobs, not powerful and granting the user control.

Not Self Hosting Email Server

So I am not self hosting email server obviously, it is not a good idea because my other servers frequently got down(which I can quickly fix) and if my email got down for a extended period there is a lot of damage.

And I thought Hillary programmed an email server for fun which is pretty impressive lol.

Solution

So yeah, here's the solution to the problem.

Hook up AWS SES and configure the rules to trigger a Lambda function to process the emails as they arrive so you can add as many filters in Python as you want while also saving them into S3 for personal backup, so you never have to Google Takeout now and then.

SES comes with SMTP server, but I need an IMAP server, fortunately there is AWS Workmail(the GUI isn't good), but the server is good enough so like I can proxy my inbound emails with my Lambda script to filter out the stupid headers and reject those emails.

Also don't forget to leave a message to the sender(since there might be legit senders who just happen to go into spam filters) to remind them to open an issue on any of my Github repo.

Using SES as a proxy and forwarding all inbox to SES, then utilizing Lambda script and Workmail as IMAP cleverly solves the problems without self hosting, and implements backup pretty clever.

Troubles

So I ran into a stupid trouble. I forgot to specify the MX records, and it didn't trigger the lambda function. I got ocnfused and didn't know what to do. Fortunately I find out the reason real quick.

Also you have to send with YOUR OWN EMAIL on AWS, which is a really good thing! But fix the reply to please.

Something I really hate about emails is that they can be autoforwarded(what? that is literally spoofing with someone else's email).

YouTube terminated some channels in 2024 July for their "propaganda contents".

Honestly on any social media platform you don't do this kind of censorship. You can try to stop recommending them but terminating some singer's channel for no good reason is not a good idea. You can maybe also terminate all Russian contents in USA. Well these channels exist for many years and got really popular you can't "terminate" them suddenly without previous warnings.

There are some Obvious propagandas on YouTube that are pure evil and provides fake propaganda against China.

It is more and more like those Chinese platforms (where they regularly have large amounts of propagandas for their leaders and hate the west). But to terminate entire channels is like sanctioning US national anthem(but since USA is superpower, you know, powering the tech, respect)

Frequent Bitcoin Scams on YouTube

So there are frequently those Elon Musk deepfakes on YouTube live about bitcoin spam(that has around 100k live views and on a spoofed Tesla Channel), always about "send one, receive two".

These live streams got top in search results with clickbait titles like "Musk reveals something about Trump" or "Musk knows Biden death".

YouTube does nothing to prevent this and let this prevail for up to 12 hours! Bruh if you wanna sanction those "Russian Propagandas" which I am sure no one can understand since these channels only speak in a foreign language I am sure you would want ot protect your users against those bitcoin scams?

Scammers are laughing at youtube with their money pouring out literally.

Phishing on YouTube Live Stream

There are so many phishing and links in YouTube live stream from seemingly officlal channels. Some time last year I clicked into one of those websites and entered my bank card number and it was holy shit.

Like literally those streams have like 100k people watching and having so many phishing links posted by the channel makes the thing very unsafe.

X

X is allowing gore contents to go free. There are large amounts of real human trafficking and torturing videos leaked on X, with links to Telegram groups and large amounts of people posting their daily criminal, violent activies on the platform. Furthermore, back to the days when I tried using Twitter, it frequently recommend these accounts to me.

So X has many neo-nazism contents that encourages criminal, gore activites and reframes it as "free speech".

I strongly reject all of the gaming, prostitution, and provocative social media. I stand firmly against extremism and criminal activities, or contents that provoke people into action.

Conclusion

In something called social media, I LOSE.

20240828 My Relationship with Social Media and Smartphone

Introduction

My relationship with social media is a very unconventional one. Social media, obviously, is a huge part of the today's world, especially in GenZ. Most of my peers grow up with social media. Some people engaged in it every day(with those vibes and trends).

I am a Genz, but my relationship with social media is somehow complicated and I am going to write about my journey with it throughout the years.

The Early Days(Pre 2020)

My first encounters were somewhere around 2016, I didn't know how to use a computer by the way back then. I just found out about forums and mostly browsed them instead of actively engaging with anything.

I didn't know that the popular people (household names), some of them have those Twitter or Instagram accounts. I didn't even know what Twitter or Instagram was, (or even what Weibo was, back before 2020).

Social media didn't change my communication habits at all. In middle school I was the only one not to have a smartphone. I communicated primarily through emails or phone calls (and the majority communication was proxied through my parents).

I didn't have one social media account at all(or a smartphone, I only used a Philips feature phone) before 2020.(or middle school graduation) Also, my family isn't a restrictive, conservative family, nor are my parents illiterate. In fact, my father graduated from tech-related PhD, and my parents are very permissive, granting me all my wishes and doing their best for my growth.

I just didn't feel like using a smartphone. There was this strong feelings against it, like, because the screen is very small and people waste time and life on it. I hate it so much that I became the last person in my middle school class to use a smartphone.

In my middle school my brain space was quite small, too small to be distracted with a smartphone, which constantly beeps and uses a proprietary complex system that I have no idea of. I went to the metro and 5 out of 6 people are scrolling endlessly with blank expressions on their faces. The stupid phone (Philip) also uses a proprietary system, but it was fine, though, as the most advanced functionality was SMS.

In conclusion it just felt meaningless and distractive for me in middle school, and at that time I read a lot of literature regularly.

There was a WeChat Class Group and I was the only person in middle school not to join it. I got all messages proxied from my parents.

Initial Phase (2020-2021)

During covid we need smartphones for a shitty app to upload the homework, which I hated very much. As a workaround, my parent gave me an old smartphone for me to use, and I used it very little, only for utility purposes, and abandoned it when we went back to school in March of 2020.

The day after I graduated from middle school, my parents decided I need a smartphone and WeChat. So they gave me the previous old smartphone and I finally signed up for WeChat.

Then I asked to join the middle school WeChat group(like, "hi, I know we just graduated, but can I join the class group now?").

Back then I limited my smartphone usage to a bare minimum(around 10 minutes per day). Also in my high school smartphone is strictly forbidden in school (I personally believe this is fine, but again, there is a difference between personal choices and school enforcing Nazi laws).

Then like each week I would use the smartphone and social media for about 1 day like 1-2 hour, that's it. I mainly used it for utility purposes, and seeing what other classmates are doing.

Then after a year I went to USTC. In the summer before I went to the library daily to pre-cram the university courses and restricted my smartphone to only 10 minutes a day in the summer(for only utility purposes, which is booking a seat in the library).

Then in USTC I decided very quickly that I hate smartphone strongly, and in October I came back home and gave my smartphone to my parents and left without a smartphone to school, thus not using it for like 3 whole months.

In the winter holiday it was quite the same, I restricted smartphone usage to a bare minimum.

Exploration Phase (2022-2023)

In February of 2022, I signed up for Instagram, YouTube, Twitter. I began using this because I figured out how to use proxies in China, and I thought these social media are pretty cool. I signed up for Discord and Reddit also.

At that time I wasn't aware of the ongoing war at all. I didn't know what was Nato. I didn't know any world leaders beside the Chinese and US one. It was so good.

Although it is written by law that every store must accept cash, going around always with cash make me seem very stupid.

In April 2022, however, covid came again and I needed to use smartphone again (fuck it, because of the signing up for testing, or else, life would become unbearable). So I called my parents and they mailed the smartphone during the worst lockdowns in Shanghai. I was forced to use smartphone and social media, I wasn't willing. But that was another story.

Essentially I didn't use the smartphone daily (only rarely) until 2022, thanks to Covid.

Later that year I began to browse things on social media more often. I browsed English social media regularly, as well as Bilibili.

I watched YouTube quite frequently, mainly because I didn't learn how to bypass the GFW before, and thus I watched YouTube around 4-6 hours a day, switching very fast between videos. I primarily consumed social media and didn't upload anything there.

I started to post on Instagram but found this was a bad idea, then I stopped posting on Instagram but still kept that account for a long time. I mainly used it to watch some figure skating stuff.

I also browsed the social media quite often in 2023, mainly because like I got no idea what was on social media and how it worked. I browsed it for everything and nothing at all, and sometimes athletes or famous people's accounts and sometimes political and news.

I also browsed a lot of Chinese social media at this time, like Weibo through its mobile app through the developer tool (which you can browse without logging in on the computer), and different forums. They kept me thinking as social media was but, quite new for me back then. I mean, I knew it for a long long time but the depth and the contents people say still wasn't familiar to me.

I realize like how people behave online, and like how people spend their time ranting about something that is meaningless, sparking controversies and making others argue, just for the fun of it. People talking about trends and deliberately creating some very stupid things to get more likes and clicks.

When I tried really hard to recall, I didn't even know how I spent my time on online in these periods, and that was quite shocking and dangerous.

After using WeChat I feel like I can follow someone's moments, potentially for more sharing and connection. But in fact, I found out most people don't share anything meaningful in their moments at all, and most people don't understand what I am sharing anyways. So I stopped sharing. It's not like this will build any kind of intimate connections or relationships.

On the contrary, those in person relationships were the ones that I still remember over the many years that are meaningful. I don't make friends nor do I enhance any relationships on WeChat, I only lose my mind and heart over it. Connections on WeChat means literally nothing.

Also WeChat will be dictating my relationships since it is a shitty app that is proprietary and not customizable.

Losing My Mind over Social Media

So I basically got into social media the same as other people(although again, I rarely post stuff).

I scrolled a lot of meaningless contents that the stupid goddamn recommendation system gave me. I began exploring both Chinese and English platforms extensively when I was bored.

I left all social media in early 2024.(except school-related necessary ones)

Social Media that Completely Doesn't Vibe with Me

Some social media, despite their popularity, never vibed with me at all, including Tiktok, Snapchat, Twitch, Likee, Instagram Stories.

I just don't find them meaningful, or interesting in the least sense. I spent less than 5 hours total on Tiktok, with 2 hour I remember watching a World Cup Live(it was free, and it was like, not "short-videos")

I don't get it why people would spend days there. It was simply very insane.

Disadvantages of Popular Social Media

Social media get you signed up for free to use their server and resources, so they bomb you with ads and track you like shit.

Social media are manipulative and gives people no autonomy. I want to store things on my own PostgreSQL instead of Twitter's, and it wouldn't let me.

Social media require captchas to sign up. While this is fine, Captchas are usually very buggy and sometimes I couldn't even solve them, or it took me 30 minutes to solve some captchas.

Social medias are known to frequently make false claims and terminate accounts. Facebook terminated my account for no reasons.(I didn't even make one post on it lmao) When you say something that social medias don't agree with, your account will be terminated.

Social medias make false claims about freedom of speech. In TwitterX, they say you can say whatever you want but many accounts are still terminated.

Social medias are known to be addictive. Many shows like "Late Night with ...:" or talk shows like that are completely meaningless waste of time.

Social medias are known for meaningless political debates that wouldn't make you a better computer science person.

There is a difference between free speech and criminal propaganda, which social media fails to make a boundary. There are widespread bitcoin scams on YouTube, and bitcoin scams in YouTube ads, which they do nothing about, with thousands of views. There are widespread gore contents on TwitterX and Telegram.

You are vulnerable on social media, they can track down the exact person easily by browser fingerprinting and mobile phones, and ips.

Social medias are proprietary. (Well, Fediverse is open-source)

It was like, you know you don't want to watch this, watching this clearly bothers and distracts you, and does nothing for your computer science skills, but you kept being there, mindless and for no reason at all.

Fediverse

I discovered and began joining Fediverse starting in March of 2024. I signed up for a Mastodon and Matrix account. Fediverse is the next-gen decentralized social media

Anyways, I deleted the Mastodon Account in June(I should've migrated it), and hosted my own Mastodon(along with PeerTube and Fediverse), in August.

I really like Fediverse and I think it is the future of social media. For one, every use have autonomy over their own instance, and it is open source. Also, each instance can communicate. It is sort of like the server is doing the heavy-loading, like setting up Linux package mirrors.

Many new social media are adopting Fediverse(like Threads dot net)

Potential Negative Aspects of Not Using Social Media

Some people are suggesting you will miss out information. But it's not like the earth will crumble tomorrow, why should I freaking care? Using social media doesn't make me smarter in computer science.

I get all the latest software and updates in RSS feeds and browse Github and Huggingface regularly, though.

The Future of My Social Media Use

Amidst all of these, I haven't changed.

I have just restrict social media use to once a month, and hoard the videos and datas to my own Cloud Storage on that day.

I will primarily dwell on my own platforms, and I hate social media strongly throughout the years.

My stance isn't strict enough, and I am still leaving an open door. It's not like I am refusing to run proprietary Javascript code and uses only LibreJS and GNU Icecat(or hardened Firefox).

I am anti-social. But I am not opted out completely. I use WeChat now and then for utility and I am on Fediverse so you can reach my own one-person instance from literally any instance in the world.

20240828: Some Opinions on some Open Source Platforms

I really think these open source projects are amazing, these are just personal opinions that doesn't mean anything.

I prefer PWA to a local Android app because like you can easily sync and use your own Postgres database for that, instead of having it only run locally on Android.

Platforms I really like

Now, Some Platforms I like, thank you so much for making my life so happy, I love you!

Peertube

Peertube is a decentralized video tube that allows you to host your own and federate with other instances(so you can watch your video on other instances and others can search for your account on their instance, and you can comment too). Of course it doesn't federate the videos themselves, only metadatas.

Peertube has an embedded whisper into it for transcribing(although it doesn't have dual subtitles, which language learners might find useful). It also have tools for importing torrents, going live, yt-dlp for importing creative commons videos(don't try to import copyright videos), S3 backend support, like, literally all the functionality for a video tube and more(although with the lack of a ML-based recommendation system)

But dual subtitle is easy to implement and I can use a script to run whisper and encode the subtitles right into the video easily with ffmpeg.

As someone who had tried to implement and built a custom video platform(and it worked really bad, I quitted miserably, not able to fix many bugs), I can say Peertube is really good and polished and shows significant work and efforts.

Mastodon

Mastodon is a decentralized Twitter, much like other Fediverse tools.

Mastodon's main instance is too political. So it's best to host my own instance.

Also many recent social media, including Threads and Truth Social, are closely related to Mastodon. Truth social is built on Mastodon as backend (one of its primary engineers is very controversial, who also contributed a lot to the other Fediverse app Pleroma). Threads is compatible with Activity Pub Protocol.

Matrix

Matrix is decentralized chat app, also part of fediverse. When joining another server, the server will work for a long time(depending on the group size). I can clearly see the CPU and RAM go way up for a long time, as it tried to communicate and get the data.

What is really exciting is that the server side got multiple variants implemented in Golang, Rust, Python. I hosted Dendrite.

Miniflux

It's a web based RSS tool with PWA. It has everything I need, and it's very easy to setup and manage with no bloats to read RSS feeds.

Stirling PDF

Stirling PDF is a comprehensive PDF toolset. These days I primarily use Markdown, so I don't use PDF much. I can also use pandoc locally, but it needs a latex engine compatible with unique characters.

Gitea

Gitea is very easy to spun up and manage, having all the necessary functionalities. Easily working out the box, providing mirror for any git repos.

Grafana

It is a visualization for monitoring servers and cloud. It can even monitor the weather. Grafana integrates well with AWS and Azure services, though it's a bit overkill in my opinion.

I can build really beautiful dashboards with queries(or pull from an S3 bucket, or any csv urls, as well as Postgres as backend).

Metabase

Metabase is very heavy on RAM, but it's a great visualization tool for database. It needs some more config to run on Arm devices, but it's not that hard. Metabase supports a lot of database drivers like MongoDB and Postgres. It uses a Postgres itself(or an embedded H2 by default or MariaDB or others), and you can connect Metabase to its own database.

Joplin

Joplin doesn't have a web interface, and its syncing options is kind of buggy and not responsive in certain AppImages on Archlinux. I really want a web interface.

Also Joplin uses SQL in local storage, which confines you in Joplin to edit things, or you can implement another frontend to the underlying SQLite to edit it in another editor, but what's the point of using Joplin in that case anyways?

I now use a Markdown Editor with PWA, which I built with Next.js for blog editing.

NextCloud

NextCloud is build on PHP, and it is too slow and laggy on a server, it ships with large chunks of useless stuff and functionality(trying to be an alternative of Google Drive but actually not), and is too complicated and unpolished for daily uses.

NextCloud does too many things, like mail, editor, calendar, and lots of things I don't know about, which is largely unnecessary. It's not doing anything good, like, literally nothing I can rely on. It's sort of like Google Drive+Google Calendar+Google Photos+Google Tasks and amillion other things in one.

You can connect Nextcloud to an external S3, but it was so slow and not usable at all. People say Nextcloud is alternative to Dropbox, which is totally wrong. Nextcloud isn't a storage solution itself, or else you must rely on SSD(which is expensive and hard to move around), it's just a bloated frontend.

Actual Budget

A personal finance management tool. I would say it's not bad, but the primary problem is one user only. So I cannot easily share my finance with, say, parents or other people without revealing the root password.

JellyFin

JellyFin doesn't have build in S3 support, so hoarding large amounts of media becomes not practical. Even for small amounts like 100 GiB of videos it's better and much cheaper to store on S3.

Speaking of DIY solutions, of course I know

1. You can use s3fs-fuse to simulate S3 in disk, but this is buggy and very bad and slow in performance, and very unnecessary. This is a clever hack instead of a true solution.

2. S3 have huge egress fees. Sure, but AWS Cloudfront have 1TB/month free, and not every S3-compatible provider have a huge outbound egress like AWS. For example, Cloudflare R2 and Wasabi charges no egress at all.

Immich/PhotoPrism

PhotoPrism doesn't support multi user. Photoprism and Immich are bad at syncing since they don't support S3 Storage natively, so you have to rely on disk. There are apps on android to automatically sync, but it still causes problems, as photos come not only from Android and comes from everywhere.

Using Google Photo is better because it is better in syncing and controlling the data (Google Takeout), and you have to spend a huge chunk of time syncing the data if you don't install the Immich(or a sync app) on Android(which I don't want to install).

But I don't use Google Photos, I just use FolderSync to sync my photos to S3. Scripting Google Photos or performing basic API tasks require a lot of time to learn, since it's tied to Google's ecosystem.

Stash

Stash is a personal media organizer.

Stash uses React Bootstrap, and the project shows some reasonable effort, but the image generating and video previewing (it's machine learning part) is largely not mature, it frequently runs into errors and isn't the best solution.

The interface, since it's designed with React Bootstrap, looks quite ugly and unpolished.

Rclone Web

Rclone web is an react frontend build on top of rclone, however, the frontend is quite unpolished and buggy, leading to errors when uploading large files. Anyways, it's not actively developed and not popular.

Invidious/Piped

Generally great project but frequently runs into bugs in the web interface. This isn't related to Invidious, but rather YouTube's desire for monopoly and ad-bombing people, as well as controlling the media and filling people's heads with clickbait.

Using a local client like FreeTube or Newpipe, which scraps the YouTube api like yt-dlp, is generally less error-prone.

Filestash

Good on the demo but runs into bugs.(cannot connect to remote)

LobeChat

A comprehensive LLM wrapper frontend with PWA support, proxying to almost every LLM api endpoint, with plugins like Dalle and 30k+ stars on Github, with Whisper calling for input voice recognition, sounds good, right?

However, the web page takes around 5 seconds to load, and when you give a long prompt, the webpage would react very slowly, almost freezing. Also, the settings take a really long time to open, and the frontend streaming Javascript behaves strangely, namely when you navigate away from the webpage it would stop generating(returning the response). The streaming API endpoints in LobeChat returns with additional unnecessary latency, like 2 more seconds.

There are all those LLM wrappers out there anyways like LangChain, Vercel AI Sdk, that support all LLM provider and models and huggingface. I built a LLM wrapper with Next.js and vercel ai sdk really quickly that performs really good(just like how it should be), but with lacked functionalities like image or plugins, which is fine for me, as I can also use other platforms a few times a month.

Gitlab

Gitlab is huge and overkill for a simple git server. Installing Gitlab is quite some work and you need a server with like 4GB ram for it to run smoothly alone. Also Gitlab has a lot of configuration to do and the docker image not as easy as installing it directly.

I set up Gitlab primarily to use as a mirror for my Github, but the mirroring instance is locked behind a paywall for "enterprise version", which makes me really annoyed. Literally it's my own server and they are charging me for some fundamental things, it's not like I need such a comprehensive tool set anyways.

20240909: New Fall Semester Start

I came back from HongKong and I was very much broken. This new semester started out by me spending one week at home, then going to school and renting a new house in the High-Tech district of Hefei.

Anyways, things are better so far compared to other semesters, if everything goes on fine after this.

I issued a sanction on all social media starting from September, 2024. This includes YouTube, Twitter, Bilibili, Weibo, etc.

Media hoarding was conducted before this ban, to supply ourselves with abundant videos to watch from in a fixed period.

After the ban I installed the Redirector in Firefox that runs also in private tabs. This redirects all social media to my RSS feed, which is aggregated from multiple sources, including Postgres Planet, AWS Machine Learning Blog, Toward Data Science, Cloudflare Blogs, and multiple other people's blogs. No matter how noisy the outside world is, RSS is always there, waiting for you to consume quietly and full of valuable knowledge!

Of course, regarding certain circumstances where access to the media is quite necessary, I will open a ticket for short time access(like hoarding more videos). I will post it in my Mastodon Account. After that the ticket will be closed.

The only social media left is Reddit, particularly because of its large communities and necessary tech discussions. I proceed by redirecting it to old.reddit.com, a text-based Reddit frontend. The old reddit seems much better because it's text oriented and not addictive.

Further sanctions will be applied to any websites with political contents or consisting of discussions of You-Know-Who in China.

Embedded Links

I utilized embedded htmls, like the "share" button on YouTube to create a playlist and put it on my blog, so I can put all the interesting videos from YouTube and Vkontakte and Dzen... on my blog and not have to go to the websites to watch them. This is an attempt for isolation from these platforms, so like I could watch the videos but only the ones I wanted to watch. This is somewhat inefficient but with limitations, because I would sometimes click on those links, leading back to social media and addiction.

Private Frontends

I tried to use private frontends after the embedded links doesn't really work out. I used private frontends long before this, and even occasionally now. I tried to rely on them.

But privacy frontends don't work out too well. This is because

1. Most frontends are quite buggy
2. Privacy frontends don't stop the appeal or addiction of social medias, leading me to go back to social media in private window out of curiosity, then getting addicted.

Utilizing RAG

Access to information, however, is critical for operations, whether I use social media or not. Fortunately, RAG LLMs can be utilized to fetch and combine information in real time. You ask them about a specific event, they can answer it appropriately.

There are lots of Free RAGs out there given you access them in supported locations, examples include ChatGPT, Gemini, Poe, Perplexity, of course, with generous free tiers. ChatGPT, in particular, have around 15 free queries a day in its frontend UI, far more than enough alone for fetching necessary information.

Renting a House in Hefei

Upon arriving at Hefei immediately I went to an intermediary company, where I consulted for housing near USTC high-tech campus. I went to look at 2 houses and settled on a studio east of the campus. The apartment is quite big actually, and I need around half of the space.

The apartment consists of a bedroom, a living room, a toilet, and a mini-balcony. I throw away everything in the living room and toilet, and only used half of the bedroom.

I put all furniture stacked in the kitchen, as always. I throw away the unnecessary ones, and bought around 20 cheap items on PinDuoDuo.

Regarding Mobile Data

So I want some mobile data to use everyday. I couldn't figure out how to use the goddamn mini-program of China Mobile, and called them at least 5 times over the afternoon trying to buy some mobile data. I previously negotiated with China Telecom trying to get the Broadband, but it was nefariously difficult to get literally anything done. Anyways, takeaway is these company's consumer service is full of shit.

So like before I went to HongKong I forgot to cancel the broadband because I was so sad, and I called China Telecom and they say they can't handle it and asked for my money. Anyways I wasn't going to give any money.

Anyways I got a deal (I think) with 28 RMB(4 USD) a month for 25 GiB of mobile data.

China Mobile proved to be an egregiously malicious fraud company. I asked for mobile data for this month and called at least 20 times, but they answered and replied full of nonsense. The app of China Mobile is very difficult to navigate around and requires great expertise to make sense of.

China Mobile charged me hundreds of RMB while I didn't do anything, because it want money from me. It denied me of any discounts or offerings and replied full of their shit. Honestly I never seen a worse company in my life.

Hierarchy and Modularity

So I learned from CS168 in UC Berkeley that modularity provides abstraction, which, in turn makes things better and manageable. Similar to how 5 layers of Internet works, which each have to worry about its own problems and relies on best-effort of other layers, I also organized my State to be modular.

Anyways I found the Internet very interesting and fun to work with, one of the most interesting course I ever studied.

Course in School

Regarding the Internet course in school. So like by the time I could select courses all the two other teacher's course are occupied with no vacancy. So I have to select from a third teacher's course, who I coincidentally knew in WeChat. There was only about 18 students in that teacher's course while in the other 2 teacher's course there was like 120, rumors suggest students here prefer those 2 other teachers more (maybe?).

Anyways so I added the teacher in WeChat (an app that is nefariously difficult to use) and he gave me the QR code of the class' Tencent QQ(which is full of bloated crap) group, before I asked, which I appreciate, probably because he checked and found I wasn't added to the QQ group.

Regarding the Compilers course. So basically I signed up for it and tried to like, communicate with the TA from a QR code I found on their github page online which pointed to the class' Tencent QQ(which is full of bloated crap) group. They rely on a self-hosted Educoder(which has an ugly GUI) with an IP address and a port number without encryption.

Anyways I got on the Educoder and couldn't get into the class, where the TA kept prompting that I missed the instructions given. I tried really hard to figure out from the instructions given, but I couldn't, so finally I was like "I don't have permissions to join", and he finally gave me the class link after 30 minutes.

Imagine these incompetent people in school LMAO, like you have to login but without http anyone can spoof, and the class grading system was like built on top an IP and a port??? They can at least utilize nginx and Cloudflare for some basic encryption and security. Even someone as retarded as I can deploy far better platforms.

Then the platform got down for no reasons. Very horrible!

Regarding the LUG(linux user group) in USTC. I sent them like 3 emails from my AWS mail, and got no response. Then I sent them another email from my school email, and I was like "Is this email still in use? I received no responses." which they answered "We didn't receive any emails from you". I figured this might be an AWS server problem, since my email is deployed on AWS. Anyways, I sent them another 2 emails after that from my school email, and received no responses again.

Anyways, takeaway is that I am not the one at fault here. I was frequently blamed for being the one not reaching out first(which clearly isn't true in this scenario), so I am being socially active.

I contacted LUG via Tencent QQ(which is full of bloated crap), and I asked what I can do for LUG and that I am excited, and I showed them my self hosted websites, to which person replied "interesting", to which I replied "thank you", and that was it. LUG doesn't seem very enthusiastic so as I thought. Anyway, I reached out first for many times, and I don't really care about the club.

Calnet ID Expiration

So very very sadly, my Berkeley ID is going to expire soon, which means I will lost access to the email and all Berkeley related services. This is very sad. My year at Berkeley is full of regrets looking back, and I clearly paid far less effort than what I should have.

I did not have the taste of victory or any sort of satisfaction before the year abruptly ended and I was kicked back to China. The year is full of failures and sadness, a deep sense of under-accomplishment, resulted, obviously, from lack of efforts.

At this day I am very sad that my Berkeley ID is expiring. I am very grateful for this opportunity to be in the world's best CS school for a short-term study. I am fortunate to have this encounter, yet not utilizing the opportunity well.

Berkeley is the leader of computer science throughout the recent history. From early days of BSD, Internet, Risc-V, PostgreSQL, etc to current cutting edge companies like Databricks,, it is a place with the best computer science researchers in the world for many years. Gradescope, Ray, Lmsys all comes from Berkeley.

Amongst this emotional overhaul, I started hoarding resources down from Berkeley course websites, since I would be losing access very soon, and these are legitimately really good resources.

Nefarious China Mobile

China Mobile is a piece of crap. It confuses the customers and I couldn't find anything I want, and it constantly errors without debugging logs to show what is wrong.

So basically I tried to add some mobile data, but it consistently errors, and charges me 10 RMB for 1 GB. It always offer many different options with no clear guidelines, and the ChatBot in the phone and in the sms are both very very stupid, like, not even GPT 3.5 level. The ChatBot shows minimal to no fine tuning efforts.

Anyways, China Mobile charged me 130 RMB for nothing, that's why it's full of shit.

And stop blaming me for not trying to figure it out because I did. I telephoned the shit company at least 10 times over the past two days, yet still struggles consistently with their policies and everything they offer.

Is China Mobile trolling its customers on purpose?

Anyways, I will always be blamed for "not smart enough to learn" or "too stubborn" or "wasting money again", so like I will apology for my problematic behaviors and hope for the best in the meantime.

What the USTC Networking Course Teaches

Guess what? USTC networking course is teaching nothing.

That's right! No routing, transport, protocols, congestion control. But it's teaching frontend.

And regarding frontend it's a total mess. The teacher is teaching JSP and Tomcat and has an assignment to upload your files to ustc server, and discourages https usage.

And bruh I was like what? No mentions of modern JavaScript frameworks, no mention of backend database, no mention of servers, no mention of dockerization, you just need to do something, anything, and load the files from ftp to crappy ustc server for your homepage.

Regarding frontend design I already had a website for 2 years even before I started studying computer science, essentially I set up a redirect to my domain from ustc home server. Never rely on something unreliable. USTC servers are largely unreliable outside of the school's Eduroam.

And so I told the TA about 3 websites I built(in fact, much more than that, but some are a piece of junk), they are currently in use.

And there is a demo website with broken links and the teacher wants you do build something like that.

What I built is essentially all with Tailwind css and Next.js in a neo-minimalism way. It works best for me but I don't know if anyone appreciate that?

I already hate this course now.

Regarding Registration in Beginning of Semester

Basically there is a policy for you to register every time a semester starts and you must first pay the damn tuition. I paid and didn't pay the school dorm fees and I couldn't register. I refreshed many times and just couldn't.

Eventually a teacher reached out to me on WeChat and he was like "pls go register", and I screenshot the page I was like "tell me how?" Eventually I had to phone a lot of people to debug the problem sorta like that and finally they asked me to go to the main campus and like formally cancel the dorm before I could register.

So I took a taxi the next day to main campus and I was like trying to find the right people to communicate and it was hugely complicated everything. I went to the old library and it was broken down in maintenance mode. I went to the 321 house and it was closed. I was soaked in sweats in the really hot day.

Eventually I phoned like 3 or 4 people and I was told to go to a building. Again, everything is really difficult. I went there and people told me to go back to 321 house, and I was like what? Anyways, somehow the door opened this time after I knocked and I was able to fill a form.

Again it was quite complex, and Berkeley doesn't require you to fill a form like this to cancel dorm. You can just come and go, and student dorm is a scarce resources in many universities.

I got the form and it asked for parents and teachers signatures and didn't know what to do. But I went back to the finance management in school and finally got it done, a lot faster than my expectations.

But the database from finance needs 1 day time to sync to the registration department, and I wonder wtf is that, do they delay the whatever cron job by one day or what. Anyways in the meantime things are still going on quite well.

Applying Aggressive Neo-Minimalism

So after a while I began to apply aggressive neo-minimalism. This is because managing cloud services is very much a struggle and I am using non-conventional apps. They are superior and much better objectively obviously, but using lots of apps still make me very tired.

Anyways, the key takeaway from here is like I started applying neo-minimalism, essentially prioritizing some apps that are absolutely very important to me and using them mainly, while sorta marginalizing the rest of the apps.

It's not depreacting these apps, it's just basically using some very extensively and being more familiar with fewer things and pushing down more things.

In particular, I used my own blog editor instead of my Mastodon instance, because my Mastodon instance has no friends, so it feels like being alone anyways. Also, my blog editor supports images, so it's like using my Blog editor for Twitter. Sounds weird, but effectively removing one more app.

I removed the dediated tasks app.

I know that there are a lot of benefits of abstractions, and separation of concerns, but then again, concentration and pruning still helps. iI's not muddling different functionalities together, but rather using the same functionality and less apps for lesser dedicated guis.

We will continue to apply the ticket system in the use of external social media.

Mastodon vs Markdown Parser

Maybe I am moving back to my markdown parser? After all, it's like this, I moved to Mastodon twice and moved back twice.

Why did I move back again? I think the primary reason is aggressive minimalism.

So like this Markdown Parser can do anything, what is the point then, of using another app?

The more app I use the messier everything gets.

So like if I use markdown parser to do anything, including tasks, posts, ... won't it be better somehow?

I do like the idea of Fediverse very much, but like it's still far from mature, if it ever will. Fediverse remains a very niche community out of touch with normal people, and my own Mastodon instance is even more far out of touch from anybody.

In conclusion, what I am saying is that I won't have any friends on Fediverse, so maybe staying here is better.

I need to sort of clean up my mind. Obviously, totally cleaning everything up is infeasible. But anyways lots of things can be thrown away in this neo-minimalism fashion.

Attempting Deep RL a Fourth Time

So around mid September I made another attempt for the Deep RL course. I sucked shit in the course and attempted to go through it again in January, March, and August this year, all miserable failures. This time is no difference. I still couldn't understand more than half of the course material after like 50 more hours.

So I got very miserable and sad and didn't know what to do. I marked "Non adequate" on my notes and decided to go on. This further reinforces my belief that I am failing and lagging greatly behind average, and I am struggling very bad. Like, nobody else beside me have a problem on the course, and I am objectively the lowest in class.

I thought about when to study it again in the future. I have many other things to deal with right now and I don't think I will have that much time in grad school. When I am 30-50 I would probably be dealing with family life and heavy working schedule and not have any time.

Well, maybe when I am about to retire, say, at around 65, and I started digging up the journals from my youth, possibly in glacier cold archives and I would discover this inadequate course. Of course, I would have time by then and spun up old python3.8 from archives and start coding and learning again. I guess this solution is best.

Frequent Broken Things in New House

So many things broke. I couldn't even imagine it. First the toilet got clogged twice. Then the shower nozzle was dripping. Then the cold water pipe leaked. Then the water inlet of the washing machine got leaked. Then one day the water heater died. Fortunately the repairing man was really good, like, came fast every time I called and repaired everything for me with low prices.

By forcing English on every movie, it is destroying and damaging other cultures. No one understands you if you speak English in the French revolution. People would be confused if Christine Daae really sings in English. By forcing English, you are disrespecting their culture and erasing the identity and it's just a misrepresentation of history.

In fact, other movies include “Voina i Mir” and “Ekaterina Vilwikaya” also have popular English versions. It's insane and just strange in my opinion. Besides, Russian aristocrats speak French at that period actually.

In my opinion certain historical periods should only be shot in their relative languages. Voina i mir should only be in Russian, Les Mis should only be in French, Movies about Tang Dynasty China should only be in Chinese. If there are no actors who speak the language, rather just don't make the film after all.As for the accessibility issue, they can just add subtitles in English. In my opinion films made in English about historical periods not in English should be ineligible inherently for any awards. They easily tamper the meanings and change the context.

We don't need yet another movie added to the hundreds of thousands that already existed. If actors and actresses doesn't speak the language they should basically learn it and train for like 5 years for one movie, or just give up making the movie altogether. Or maybe only the relevant countries should make it.In fact, a movie called “Capernaum” in Arabic was very famous in 2018 that my school organized everyone to watch it.

Sure, you can use whatever language you want for Narnia, Lotr, Got, Frozen. These are fantasies and aren't directly relevant to specific historical periods. But another fact is that Tolkien mastered nearly all languages of Europe and was a linguistics professor.

20240909 Three Types of Storages

This post is a recap of 3 popular and fundamental storage mechanisms that are behind almost every online storage out there. Although this has already been extensively discussed in previous posts, this post aims to categorize and give a better abstraction.

We talk about these terms in an inclusive way Git (or any version control system, including Mozilla-hg), database (SQL and NoSQL, graph database, and so on), and S3 (or any object storage out there, since most cloud providers explicitly mention s3-compatible when selling their services, and that S3 is a pioneer in the early days).

S3

Use Cases

S3 compatibles are heavily used to store large binary blobs, like videos. Object storage is behind almost every video website out there. Object storage is cheaper than SSD or HDD, and scales far better.

Object Storage, or similar technologies, is the backend for all kinds of "drives", like Google Drive, Dropbox, and iCloud...

S3 can also be used to host a website front and can be easily integrated with a CDN for distribution. This approach is common practice, but it isn't game-changing since you can put a website frontend on disk and utilize CDN for it as well. Also, for a website truly to scale up, we would need elastic load-balancers and distributed backend computing as well, which is quite overkill with a small website. Only using CDN for the front end isn't very beneficial anyway as it is akin to having a native offline client, and the browser caches it anyway, so it's mainly beneficial to reduce server load in the front end. You would get the same latency calling the backend (which likely does the hard work).

Pros

S3 is known for availability (99.99% availability of objects and fast delivery, especially with CDN), large scalability, and durability (Amazon S3 offers 99.999999999%, a total of 11 9's of durability. This means that for every 10,000,000,000,000 objects stored, on average, only one object per year may be lost.).

Cons

S3 is known for lacking in security. A lot of leaks of confidential information were caused by incompetent devs making their S3 buckets public. (search "leaky buckets" on Google and there are hundreds of these cases) Amazon addresses this problem by making buckets private by default with Cors policies and prompting for "I understand these consequences" before making a bucket public.

S3 is known for incurring a huge cost for data transfer fee outbound, notably 0.09 USD/GB in 2024, achieving so-called "vendor lock-in", where pushing objects into S3 is easy, but retrieving is very expensive. S3 has no inbound fees. Other s3-compatible cloud providers, for example, Cloudflare and BackBlaze, charge far less.

See this reddit post, attackers can incur charges on a victim's S3 bucket after knowing the bucket name, then dummy pushing from the command line(since S3 charges for unauthorized requests as well). This is a very real concern since S3 has very few endpoints but is mostly accepted as a fact of life.

S3 has this "pre-signed URL", mainly used for clients to upload objects directly to the S3 bucket without the server, generating a pre-signed URL that you can use for a fixed amount of time to upload say, your videos. This leaks the bucket name. To hide the bucket name, someone suggested utilizing an AWS Lambda function instead of "pre-signed urls". Someone suggests creating buckets with random suffixes. However, "rotating" the S3 buckets to achieve a regular bucket name change is virtually infeasible since it involves moving a huge amount of objects.

Other providers like Cloudflare R2 (S3 compatible) use specific endpoints for each account and don't charge you based on unauthorized requests.

In Object Storage you either upload, delete, or replicate. There is only a flat namespace, and you store objects with "/" to create a fake sense of directory hierarchy. There is no "rename" in the traditional sense, and the clone command is essentially replicating and deleting. Some companies like Azure address this by introducing Directory Buckets with more complicated designs. Amazon also introduced Directory Buckets, but fairly recently, in 2023.

Thus, frequent "update" operations to S3 become very cumbersome. That's why it's primarily for binary blobs or backups.

Some providers charge you for moving objects in the same region, essentially "renaming". For example, I incurred a 88 dollar bill in Cloudflare R2 cold storage after hoarding videos for "renaming" the "directories" frequently

The colder the storage is, the more time you must store since colder storage is cheaper. Deep archives typically require you to store for at least 180 days, while Glacier Storage ones require you to store for around 30 days. You can delete them, but you will get charged nonetheless.

Database

Use Cases

The database is the backend of all web services out there.

Sql works best with structured data clear relationships and ACID compliance, while Nosql works best for data that doesn't have that many structures and where high speed and scalability are priorities. There are also specific databases like Graph database.

But the lines are very much blurred. Many modern NoSQL databases can handle structured data well, like using Mongoose and MongoDB. Someone also suggested using Postgres for everything. There is a recent trending database called TimeScale, built on top of Postgres with faster queries.

Most open-source self-hosted projects (like FreshRSS, Matrix, Mastodon, Metabase, Miniflux, and Peertube) offer different storage options. For the development environment, you can use a Sqlite H2, or serverless embedded database, while for production it is recommended to use Postgres or MariaDB.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter if the database is small, in my case. Like, optimizing is not as easy as doubling the RAM.

NoSQL database can be utilized for key-value stores, as is the case with AWS DynamoDB. You can store the secrets and important keys in this database separately.

Pros

The database works well for frequent read, write, and updates. It is designed to handle these operations efficiently by using a B+ tree.

The database can be distributed. Thus, it is scalable. Sadly I haven't had much research into this area, so I lack personal knowledge. But I know that Google has lots of these in its applications like search, YouTube, etc.

Searching can be achieved by utilizing a database. Mastodon uses optional ElasticSearch for full-text search. Database offers queries that are highly efficient and full control for the user so that you can run a lot of queries and return in a very efficient fashion, not achievable using disks or S3.

The database is secure in the sense that you can create different users (in, for example, Postgres) and give them the least privileges. There are also encrypted databases out there like CryptDB.

Cons

Database doesn't work well with blobs, again, just fact-of-life.

The database needs frequent backups, this can be achieved by an AWS Lambda function or a job in a managed RDS service in AWS.

Database needs carefully crafting to work seamlessly with different JSON and CSV dumps. Importing JSON and CSV dumps in MongoDB can lead to corruption. Sometimes dumping it directly isn't a bad option if something is only used for backups.

Git

Use Cases

Git is primarily used for storing code for devs. However, git is also an excellent choice for storing important documents, config dumps, or any files that benefit from having a history.

Git excels at text-heavy documents, maintaining a clear history of commits.

Pros

Git is best for collaboration and merging code from PRs. GitHub has a generous free tier. Git is fast. Git is used in almost every popular open-source code out there (with Mozilla using hg)

Cons

Git works horribly with large binary blobs. This is just a fact of life.

Working with Git needs careful planning to avoid bloating the Git repo. If you commit a large binary blob in git then delete it and don't erase the git history, you are essentially bloating it up. Please stop storing large blobs in Git, this makes everyone's life miserable.

For cloning it's best to shallow clone for large repos, since a large codebase has thousands of commits, and you likely don't need that much commit history.

Some argue that Github isn't secure, since even for private repos Github employees can view your code, which is likely trained on LLMs. But this is a limitation to GitHub only. You can self-host a Gitea.

Raw File Storage

Storing files that are frequently used directly on servers isn't very beneficial. If the files are small, then it benefit from using a database, achieving better performance and organization. If the files are large blobs, then using S3 can achieve much higher scalability. There are many more S3 providers database providers and git providers out there anyway.

Also, you have to implement a background process to backup these files frequently since raw servers might go down or run out of space/memory at any time.

Commercial solutions like Google Docs/Google Slides often utilize large NoSQL in the backend to support specific types of editing.

Of course, if the files don't need version control only need a single version, and need frequent updates, then raw files on disk might be a good choice. But you will probably need to upload the whole file back to disk anyway on each edit, so it's not much better than using S3 for this.

Intersections

There are many intersections of these, like version-control-database(See Dolt), git-lfs(largely used in Huggingface, where you store the model weights from Models in Object Storage). It's like utilizing both of these technologies together.

Conclusion

Currently, I utilize git for most general small files out there. I use a database for all my servers hosted services and my blog. I use S3 for large video blobs and data hoarding.

20240916 Settling on Fedora

Fedora is one of the best distros out there and in short, I am settling on Fedora for now(and hopefully for many years to come).

Linux distros all have similar kernels and have a very similar usage experience, so distro hopping isn't that meaningful.

About Ubuntu

Ubuntu comes very bloated, especially on the Desktop. Ubuntu 24 Desktop is almost 6 GiB downloading and comes with a dock and Yaru themes. Ubuntu also always has a message "Upgrade to Pro" when updating the apt. Ubuntu has a stupid "snap". Moreover, when you attempt to install a package after snap gets removed(the package is in a snap), snap attempts to install itself again.

Of course, all of these can be bypassed easily. Remove the gnome-shell and install vanilla-gnome-desktop instead. Change fonts to Cantarell, and change the theme to Adwaita. Remove all packages installed by Snap and hold the Snap to prevent it from installing itself in the future. Remove yelp and a million Gnome bloatware one by one. Disable the Upgrade to Pro message. Then you are good to go.

Ubuntu has so many outdated packages that it uses for the sake of stable. The default node is version 12 (version 22 has been out for a long time). You need to remove and install it again from Github.

About ArchLinux

I actually used ArchLinux for a really long time. ArchLinux has a lot of unnecessary hype in it.

I used to be a fan, but I didn't learn much new from using ArchLinux.

For example, installing without GUI is for people to "learn". But I view this as a limitation rather than a "strength" or "niche", since Ubuntu and Fedora also have server images that are installable on headless laptops, and they work the same. And Arch is rather very easy to install, like, just partitioning the disks from an external drive, then booting into it and connecting to the Internet and everything comes.

Also, pacman isn't much different from apt. So it doesn't make much of a difference.

Why Do I Use Fedora?

Fedora is very user-friendly yet not as bloated as Ubuntu. It offers updated packages and doesn't advertise to you with update to pro or snap. Also, I am tired and I just want to settle down.

Fine with Proprietary Software

I have no problems with proprietary software because they are unavoidable, and avoiding them only makes my life harder. However, those proprietary software still need to respect the user to a certain extent.

More of a Hobby

Many of those things, e.g., device exploration, niche open source softwares, are more of a hobby than for actual daily usage.

They can be very interesting hobbies, however, most situations our times are more important and can be utilized to do other things, and they are mostly not suited for daily usage.

For example, if you tinker with Linux too much, you may risk bricking the system. I bricked my system at least 3 times, either when the boot partition got corrupted or the fstab got misconfigured. It is awfully frustrating and not constructive in daily life. I had to boot with an external drive and fix it.

Security and Privacy, Does it Matter?

I realized I don't really care about my security and privacy that much. There is no point in avoiding YouTube or Gmail entirely as they are still the most used platforms out there.

I appreciate Google because it gives me a lot of free tiers and YouTube is so free, not charging anything for its CDN costs. I would be willing to pay for YouTube for the CDN and bandwidth cost, though. Private DuckDuckGo search engine went down when Bing's API had a problem, so it implies DuckDuckGo relies heavily on Bing for search results.

I don't blindly use any Google Service but it is a very great tool. Google Docs or Slides are the quite convenient web office tools. After all, sticking to strict open source guidelines won't improve my tech skills, they are quite niche, and I risk isolating myself further from the society I am already isolated from.

Moreover, in China, the government knows all about your data. Maintaining a practical approach instead of debating about what is ideal is very beneficial.

20241006: Relying on AI is Scary for Bloggers

AI can write blogs for people. I even once used ChatGPT extensively for blogging. However, recently I either rewrote those previous posts completely or just removed them.

If you use ChatGPT to write your blogs it has this distinct AI style that is easily distinguishable, like ordering of lists or whatever. In my opinion, using GPT for coding is absolutely fine. You can write better code and use your ideas to guide it.

But for blogging in English I still don't understand how GPT can help. Yes, you can use it to generate large amounts of stupid fiction or tutorials. You can also use copy articles from online to your blog by just using GPT to rewrite or tinker it. But that's not what blog is for. I wrote a post about me going to Concord, California, and told ChatGPT to rewrite it, but the article was so mechanical and rigid it feels like someone else's blog after all when I read it again.

There are countless great articles online that are objectively better than my tech blogs. AI is trained on large text materials, but feeding in more data it generated doesn't make it work better, and would result in disastrous overfitting. The thing for blogging is that there is a certain joy in just jotting down your real time thoughts with words that you can articulate and look back very long time after. You write your feelings down in your own words, and because it's your own words, that's what's valuable. This is like a release of pressure.

Blog ISN'T a thing to Optimize. Blog is my unique and authentic journey, and connects with my identity. LLM can write in your style if you finetune it, but it can't feel your feelings. When I write or play with English words, it's more sentimental than it is logical. Blogging comes at a sentimental value to connect and resonate with the author with words. This extent is largely not replaceable currently by any AI technologies, nor do I see it replaceable in the near future.

Of course, I think it's useful to utilize AI to rephrase and correct the grammar and spelling of my blog.

It's best if AI steers clear of original ideas or thoughts, even video producing and text generation. If any, extensively using AI for these can be deeply demotivating for original content creators and bloggers if the bulk majority of contents becomes generated or optimized tutorials instead of one's real feelings.

If you use AI to finetune your blogs extensively, then use that AI to generate your blogs, and finetune it again on your generated blogs, the LLM become really bad.

Anyways, I don't want to generate 1 million words for my blog to "impress" people. I can just write very few words or just jot down a little. Normally I write like 1000-1500 words an hour very casually. It's not like my blog is very short or I am always at a lack of ideas, in fact it is getting quite verbose, and Hemingway would have frowned upon this blog. I do have joy in what I write but the joy lies in the journey, and I would be happy reflecting back on the journey, not to optimize some loss function. My words might not carry value or be flawed, even then, it's my words.

Do people want to live in an optimized home with the same style of walls, beds, doors...? It was certainly achievable long before AI came out, but people didn't and kept it intentionally. I do, though, because in my opinion home is purely a place for utility, not self-expression. Do people wear the same clothing, eat the same nutritous mixed food? No, not only because of nutrition purposes or tradition, because there is self-expression in all of that. I minimize self-expression in those things, but it matters to a lot of people, in fact, most people, not me, though. In comparison, my identity is expressed through blogging.

20241009: Moving Away from Self Hosting: Restlessness and Usefulness: Pain Points of Self-hosting

So the past few months I have been very enthusiastic about self-hosting and playing with cloud in general. I roasted Google and self-hosted my services. I started hating consumer apps and hosted alternatives to them. But after all of this hurdle, I am reversing or switching back.

Restlessness

Part of my concern with self-hosting is the restlessness of it. Hooking up a service, whether it's a personal git server or a Mastodon server, is quite easy, just configuring some yaml files and nginx files and there you go.However, maintaining and making sure everything right is difficult. It's like having a pet, but taking more time and energy honestly.

You have to figure out how each services work and maintain the updates. If you work with Saas (like with Pikapods, Heroku, Elestio), you can just pay for it and everything would (almost certainly) work. However, they typically charge a lot.

Reliability

I didn't have server backups, and my server suddenly dying is a very realistic problem. I am not specialized in managing and debugging every service, and when I set up Mastodon I frequently tried workarounds to make things work.

On my previous personal markdown nextjs project I relied at least 3 times on S3 backups for restoring after messing up with it with bulk actions. I had this background job that runs on the server to backup MongoDB to S3. If this backup has a problem and I messed up with it, then I am essentially doomed for loss of data.

Security Vulnerabilties

Security vulnerabilties is a constant headache on cloud. I had my MongoDB being hijacked when I exposed it to 0.0.0.0 (albeit in a dev environment). I had my Linode being used for DDOSing and being reported by various websites for attempting to break passwords when I accidentally set the password to be easy (again, years ago when i was very ameteur). I had my Gitea server being used for advertisement when I allowed arbitrary signup. My PeerTube instance had disturbing videos when I allowed federation. It's not unsolvable again, but it would be a headache almost certainly.

Another significant concern is being DDOSed. But I am on AWS, one of the most notorious cloud for charging you huge outbound egress. You must pay 0.09 dollar per GB outbound, which means 90 dollars for only 1 TB after the free tier. So I am using Cloudflare R2.

Not that I actually had any egress, nor was my bills surpassing that amount, but it just scares me. S

Although this part is largely speculation, I have indeed incurred huge charges twice on accidental usage myself. I used Cloudflare Beta Cold Storage and moved objects around (renamed the bucket names and path names), and it charged me more than 100 dollars. I used AWS translate once and repeatedly called it, again, charging me around 100 dollars.

Also there is CSRF concerns about personal apps. I previously forgot to use secure cookies in my Next.js LLM app. I didn't lose anything though.

Usefulness Problem: Users Define Platforms

I found that if you are using apps like YouTube, VK, Reddit on a daily basis, you would have very few time for your 20 self hosted services. Also, the whole point is self-hosting is utilization, not a simple backup tool.

It turned out that some tools like Gitea, Peertube, Mastodon are largely defined by users instead of the tech itself. If you are self hosting it, there is only one user, and the platform would lose its point.

Self-Hosting: A Journey in Server Management

Regardless of all those things said, self-hosting is still a great journey in server-management. I learned a lot more about dockers, nginx, configuring database, storage, mail service, and debugging.

20241023: Significant Struggles in Fourth Year of University

Academic Perspectives

It is quite simple, after all.

I feel like I am being exploited under the school system. I feel like my time have been dominated by the school and I feel a lack of freedom. For a prolonged period I went through significant struggles.

People don't think I went through struggles. People think I done it easily. Actually no, I was mentally traumatized and faced challenges in every semester starting from damn ninth-grade. I had severe mental problems every semester since.

Nothing is going better. Nothing is helping me.

And I changed a simple thing last semester. I studied for myself, not for school. And I failed in 3 courses. Now graduating from this shit school is all I want.

I couldn't complete it in four years, and I don't even know if I can graduate in 2026.

It was all very simple and straightforward, but people just, fail to understand me.

Prolonged Struggle

It is a prolonged imbalanced struggle with any hopes. I can't get out of this, I can't do nothing.

I would rather be locked or confined in a home provided with foods on every meal and not having to do anything else in life and not go out at all.

It seem if I am not dedicated and fully commited to school, I fail. Even if I am, I am still subject to failures and they can treat me anyway they want.

Do I have freedom over my life? Do I have free time? Do I have autonomy? None.

I can sacrifice them for computer science skills, but the school is misleading and misguiding me in computer science. I don't want to give in anything anymore for this shitpile.

I am being chased after and I cannot outrun it. I eventually fell. I face mental breakdowns repeatedly. I don't want to continue anymore. I don't want to do anything anymore.

If Only People Could Understand Me

I don't even have any hopes for grad school. I don't even think any grad school would accept me. I am hopeless.

People say, why don't you go to labs and do research? I say, when I am struggling with cs courses all the time, everyday, how can I do anything else?

People say, why don't you go contact future professors for grad school? I say, when I am struggling with cs courses all the time, everyday, how can I do anything else?

People say, why don't you socialize and find lots of friends? I say, again, when I am struggling with school all the time, everyday, how can I do anything else?

Job and Money Perspective

In a few years I would be working and be on my own. I refuse to accept my parent's help. I would rather go homeless if I go out of school than to beg for my parent's money. They would be the worst dictators. My parents fundemantally failed to understand my perspective, as well as the school system. My parents are always doing things against me, and sometimes argue that my problems are caused by renting outside. They are senile and outdated in everything.

When I think about working, mostly I just want a satisfiable job. I hate most jobs out there and I am incompatible with them.

I must not hate my job.

Other than that, the goal for now is to be self-sufficient. I need at least 150k RMB a year in Shanghai, 50k USD a year in California, for a very basic solo life, including renting a one-person studio and eating food and affording furniture freely. I can't go any lower,even when I just graduated from university. If I go any lower, I would not be able to maintain a very basic life alone. I would need to compromise on things that are essential for my wellbeing. So please stop thinking about any luxurious jobs and focus on potentially just finding one I don't hate.

China or America, They are both Difficult

America is very difficult because I perform poorly on cs courses and I am an international student. I been visiting there and it was difficult as hell. It seems like America is driving me out somehow?

China is even more difficult because I can't think about a satisfying learning experience in China after elementary school. I am always the worst and I feel I am being exploited and I feel detached from reality. I feel Chinese is really hard.

Again, in the future the environment must not be strongly incompatible with me. I must not be significantly struggling.

My perspective is that anywhere in the world with a basic income and feeling comfortable is fine.

Marriage Perspective

Without any money, don't think about marriage please. Don't think about future children.

In fact, I never even had relationship with any girls, never been out for one date with a girl, never kissed, let alone sex. I didn't know the opposite sex at all. My teenage years has been mostly surrounded by boys and isolation, and I would say I didn't form any single meaningful relationship with girls my age in teenager years.

Sad, but true. Given the fact that I don't have any money, I am likely not going to think about marriage until I am financially independent.

About Expectation for Future Children

Yes, I like watching figure skating, but please don't pressure the child into pursuing figure skating if I have one. Figure skating is an extremely demanding sport easily prune to injuries and pain. It needs long periods of training and a lot of dedication from both the child and the parent.

Please don't pressure the child into doing anything if I have one, just them do whatever they desire. Also, I am not going to

Perspectives I am not going to Adjust

Some perspectives I remain firm. I will remain minimalistic and in the future if I marry I will hate a marriage and any ceremony, let alone proposal and dinners.

Unstableness

I am too unstable these days. I like this and I like that. I go crazy easy. I am so frustrated and in this breakdown there ain't nothing I can do.

Some Guidelines for Next Phase

Obviously, this puts into perspective what we should do next? We don't want to be stuck in this terrible phase forever.

Seriously, if I can't get out, I might face complete breakdown any day. I might collapse mentally any day. There is a legit chance that I cannot get out, and I will face like 2 year period where I cannot do anything at all and have PTSD.

So this is a serious problem, and what was the main reason for my problems?

One important thing to remember is not to benchmark myself against others, whether more successful or not. It doesn't matter simply.

I would say that not hating what I do in the future, on top of that perform around average. It's simple like that. Yeah, it's not very difficult sometimes to articulate the direction, what matters is how I am heading there.

Like, no matter what I do, I shouldn't have to hate it. I can't be incompatible with aspects of the work. If this suffices, I would very likely perform at least average. Also, I shouldn't push too hard. If I push too hard, things might break. So I would stay mostly chill.

When you look at someone else's journey, context matters. Someone else might excel in many years already, and I might be greatly struggling during those years. It is simply different in life perspectives on where to go next.

I can't go on. I can't face anything. I am literally dying.

Inside I am crumbling. I stay up all night. I can't sleep at night. I have no motivation all day long. I go to school and hates everything.

I can't go on with this shit anymore. Everything is quite stupid and boring. I never seen anything so stupid and boring in my life. I hate this school. I hate this whole damn piece of shit.

I don't have any motivation left in me. I don't have any drive. I lost my mind. I am souless.

Mental Counseling in USTC

So this is what I did, I signed up for mental counseling in USTC.

It was 50 minutes and you can sign up by calling them. You don't have to sign up in any non-functional websites.

So basically what happens during a mental counseling is they try to "guide" you to talk, and lead you to questioning yourself, hopefully leading to a solution out of these problems.

I expressed concerns about me being bad in everything and being addicted to AWS and watching videos on YouTube.

The counselor is a middle aged woman. She first told me that it would be confidential and the backend is only accessible from counselors. I said "Well, I don't take your words. Once the school promised me that rating the teachers was confidential, then I wrote something bad, and I got a warning." I questioned whether the system is "robust" enough since many USTC websites are, in fact, having multiple vulernabilties. Some websites don't have a certificate, only http, which allows eavesdropping. The access model also lacks explaining, like no least privilege mentioned from the counselor. Anyways, bottom line is no proprietary models can be trusted. I would rather they release the videos of the counseling in the open. But I stopped questioning further.

I am much worse in expressing myself in Chinese than I am in English. Basically in Hong Kong they give you the option to talk either in Mandarin or in English, but here basically you need to speak Chinese.

I told her I have difficulty with computers and softwares. I don't know how to use the majority of softwares in the world. I am depressed. I watch videos like 10 hours a day. I told her that I can't download clients because basically they create bloat, and it's bad they don't have web versions. I don't know how to use majority of softwares, preferring API routes instead."

I said that my English is really bad, that I couldn't pass CET 6 and barely passed CET 4, and everybody else is better and English at me.

The mental counselor be like, always gently questioning you "why?". Also, they take notes, but in pen, so it's low efficiency. They better llm-power it in a next-gen IDE like cursor, or VsCode with an extension is decent, though.

I also said "I like downloading models from huggingface sometimes and running it for fun."

I said "I hate everything about school from classes to homework. I suck in school."

I further explained "Look, I don't know how to play any video games other than Plants vs Zombies and 2048, or other dot io games, and I play them horribly."

She questioned "Why do you choose computer science?" I said "By the time I am to choose a major I have no ideas. My parents said computer science earns money, so I chose it." I said "I don't oppose this, it's fine."

She mostly replied ok and took some notes.

She asked me "What do you like doing in your free time." I replied "I like playing with Amazon." She asked "What do I like about Amazon?" I replied, "I like EC2, S3, Cloudfront CDN, Route 53, and doing various things with those servers. Amazon powers almost 1/3 about the world's servers, and it's not strange to be interested. I self-hosted all my softwares on there previously, but it was obviously suboptimal because I put everything in one pot without security concerns and Kubernetes. Also, I am preferring more general softwares though."

The counselor be like "I have no idea what you are talking about." I be like "the majority of population knows and understands cloud computing better than I do, and it's clearly because they are better than me at this field." I further said, "You know big websites, like Netflix, Reddit, Twitch, all runs on AWS, so it's fascinating, and I don't think I need to explain it further, and you get to experience like those enterprises." The counselor be like "as a normal non-specialized person I still have no idea." I be like "well, maybe it's a coincidence but other people around me must be, and they are way better than me."

The counselor be like "What channels do you like watching?" I be like "I liked to watch talk shows, but they are quite stupid and meaningless anyways. I also watch news, I don't anymore. I like to watch interviews, sometimes Lex Fridman Podcast, 60 minutes, Nadin Streelts, and a cooking-style interview channel, some nature documentaries, going somewhere in the world and then talking and narrating, some tech stuff on the quick and funny side, like Fireship." The counselor be like "Well,I didn't know you can understand English. Maybe you also knows how to interact with foreign websites?" I be like "is there a problem with understanding English without subtitles? I thought everyone can do that? I really don't get the point of dual subtitles for English videos, that is, of course I can't understand everything in English, maybe it's too niche, specialized knowledge, I can't understand everything in Chinese also."

The counselor said "do you have to use English in the future?" I be like "Of course, companies would hold regular English tests, and I would likely fail in them. I hate grammar and I never recited grammar and English words and any rules or attend any classes that are important for me now." The counselor then suggested that I don't need to pass English tests in the future. I thought that maybe it's ok if you learned C1 level in another language, which together can be a valid skill that may or may not replace the need for English fluency. But I was so stuck back by this question, like literally the default language for every social media or website out there with a few exceptions are in English, or US based, how can you ask such a question? How ignorant?

I explained "When you see people playing computer games, they might not be actually playing games, like Openai Gym, which I played a lot before then. Basically they would open up a cli and start logging stuff, then very quickly feed those large amounts of data generated by keystrokes into a Huggingface model or similar methods, do some reinforcement learning, then go online finetuning perhaps. People are actually better than that." The counselor replied "Is there a point? What do you want to express?" I be like "I don't know, just a fact though."

I said "I don't have a single social media account other than the absolute necessary ones. I hate social media and don't want to compromise.' The counselor said "ok, do you have a point?" I responded "ok, it's a fact." She asked again "like, do you not like those social media or what is the point?" I said "I don't know, it's just a fact, ok?"

The counselor suggested I am not 100 percent depressed, "observing passion in Amazon and YouTube", claiming "pure depressed people ain't got no interest or happiness in anything". I be like "some people watch anime and play video games all day long and they seem depressed?" Counselor be like "you have passion in those and find more or less joy and curiosity, others, though they play video games and watch anime, are sad all the time." I be like "well, more or less for me watching those things and playing video games are harder than downloading and running scripts for fun."

She asked "What do you want to change in the future?" I be like "Right now school is a total mess. I hope to stay at least average and not be too stressed out all the time." She replied "Maybe you would want something more passionate as main profession?" I said probably yes. I said I want to do something concrete and to have my goals realized and to make my efforts pay off."

There is also a feedback sheet. I don't know how to say any feedbacks, so I just wrote "no feedback". Besides, I am horrible in explaining just about anything in Chinese. I would make uncomfortable pauses in the middle of a sentence and run out of good words and expressions.

Anyways, everything is in Mandarin, and I translated it to English because it's my better language.

I can sign up for more sessions if I want. Mental counseling is better than no counseling, but don't guarantee solutions to any problems.

Warning: This post is a shitpile of rant.

My life has been traumatized by school. I learned nothing in school. Looking back, I would rather drop out of the damn school at age 11. All my life has been a joke and a huge waste of time.

School taught me nothing. I am not targeting MY school, just school in general. This is insane. They are coming at me. They need to stop damaging and SUCKING the soul out of my life.

School Eats Up Free Time

I can't dedicate my whole life to a meaningless cause. Nothing came out of school. Nothing is going to come out of it in the future.

I don't have any life left on my own. I don't have any hobbies left. My whole life is dedicated into school, nothing came out of it.

School Make Me Inconfident

Failing in multiple classes make me lose all confidence. I am hugely inferior to classmates.

I suck in school. I suck in every school I went to. I am always the struggling one in class. I am always hugely behind people no matter how hard I worked.

School makes me inconfident because I consistently score lower than my peers.

Evil Teachers

Evil teachers force me to work harder. I couldn't.

Evil people had the atmosphere to blame everything on me when I scored bad. Ok, fine, whoever likes your piece of shit. I don't. I only got lower scores the harder I worked.

Nobody Understand Me

People don't take my words when I express my hugely negative feelings about school. They think I am just being lazy. I am not lazy. I am just tired of this meaningless torture.

School is pointless. School is dragging me behind.

People don't comprehend the feeling of inadequacy, or even step into my shoes. I tried many times to stop the me vs them thought, I couldn't.

Other Facts

1. I only learned Chinese and English in my whole fucking life so far. This makes me ILLITERATE. I believe that knowing at least 4 languages gets me to average and expected.
2. Gaming is an effect rather than the cause. Don't blame gaming, blame school.
3. Right now I am sleeping all day long and staying up every single night.
4. I am a fat pig now. I am obese and I can't run or do pull-ups.
5. I don't know how to play instruments
6. I suck at computer programming because of school
7. I learned more things in UCB in one year than all of my other school experiences. UCB is the only "normal" school
8. I should have STOPPED fucking learning English at the start of middle school. They forced me. They killed my teen years. They are getting at me now.
9. School is a huge LIE

Conclusion

School is a piece of shit. Every school since middle school. I would rather go to hell than going through these very difficult years.

Well, I have been in depression for so long. It's time to give up and start struggling myself out of it.

I know it will be a long haul. But I will try though. I don't know if I will succeed or not. I will give up most things and try to haul myself out, simply like that.

Remember, these are effects, not cause

1. Sleeping problems
2. Gaming

Hopefully yeah, everything will go on well. But in the meantime, though, I hope I really just hope I get out of this shitpile.

I am failing. I am losing. I suck in every aspect. I can't go on. I am in too much pain and agony everyday in this stressful life leading nowhere. Worst of all, they tell me I am lucky, and other people have a far worse life.

The first top 0.01 percent of people shape and define the world. The top 0.1 percent are very successful. Then the 1-5% are somewhat "average". Anything below that are suckers and losers. I am one of them.

I have an exceptionally low IQ. I want too much in my life. I can't handle everything. I can't prioritize things. I have done nothing at all in my useless life.

School traumatized my life. I want to express I had enough. It is not mild discomfort. I truly want to get the fuck out of here.

Everyday in school is a bad day. I hate school. I hate people. I feel inferior. My life is worthless. This is how I feel in school.

And the tigers came at night, with their voice voices soft as thunder.

Filthy assholes are everywhere, and they are always coming for me. I suffered endless trauma and humiliation.

I don't want to stay here. I want to get out once and for all. I am trapped, and things are getting only worse. I hate schools. I hate every people around me.

I hate teachers. I have no self-esteem left in me. Teachers are assholes that make me so miserable. Thank you so much for ruining my life, not only teen years, but also as a young adult.

Why do I have to stay here? Why do I have to comply to their rules to fuck myself? I hate being here right now, and all I want is to drop out of this shitpile.

I hate school more than ever. I don't want to get the shit. Everyday I eat crap. Everyday I am feeling worse. They are getting me. I am dying. School is the worst place.

Do I even have a future? What is the end to all this suffering and all this crap? I am crying in my heart. I am bleeding internally.

I stayed up again and I am at the class. I couldn't sleep last night. I slept last afternoon and woke up at 5 pm. I couldn't sleep all night. I felt weak and tired but there wasn't any sleepyness in me as I also slept pretty much the whole evening before. I can't sleep at night at all. I hate this classroom. Frankly, I hate everything about this school.

People around me smell like shit. Honestly, I've never met someone with worse smells. And being forced to sit in this damnn classroom for hours. What is the point of doing this? What is the point of throwing myself in torture?

Can these people please shut up? My efforts are always wasted into nothing. I never get any credit for any of those. I can't continue.

I spent the whole night in misery. No matter how hard I tried, I am getting away and dying every moment. I am weak and unmotivated. Why don't these guys just get out of the shit?

People keep comparing me to others. I am inferior. Can I really fuck off of this world? I am really the worst among any group of students, and no matter where I am, I am always going to fail. People keep forcing me to do things that embarrass and waste me. I hate the teacher's voice. I hate every people.

No matter how hard I try I cannot get away. I cannot evict myself from this world. I don't have any vision for any kind of future. I am doomed and I am going to be destroyed.

In this damn room I don't feel any hope. I want to get out but can't. People don't understand me and nobody cares about me. How the shit can I get out? No way. I am falling. I am dying. I feel tired and weakened. My full body has no more energy left. Damn school and pressure hits me hard. I fall down.

If I had known these promises are merely false, would I even try? No. I would have broken down long ago. Nobody feels the pain I feel right now.

I had those long years of struggling and enduring. I would have broken down in 2021. I don't think I deserved the treatment. I hold back so much. I had pain in my heart. I held on to the belief of "a better future".

It didn't happen. Everything went worse. I struggled even harder. I am stuck in this shitting city. I am stuck in this shitty system.

I had so much pain throughout the years. I endured so much without any complaint. I can't force myself to endure anymore. My life isn't someone else's. My life is supposed to be mine. And it is robbed.

In 2022.10 I wrote this blog, Pros and Cons of Playing Computer Games

In 2023.9 I wrote this blog, The Painful Journey of Battling Gaming Addiction

But is gaming really bad? We fought gaming really really hard since 2019. In fact, since 2018. In 2017 and 2018 I would frequently delete all my gaming accounts. I attributed all my life problems to gaming. In the spring of 2019 I would go weeks on end to not game at all. In the autumn semester, I only gamed once (2019/9/13). I tried so hard that I still remembered every bit of it. I remembered the self-inflicted pain of another afternoon wasted in gaming, and how I felt I was further from my goal.

In weekends I went wandering in streets and alleys of Shanghai. I went walking to all those roads alone, feeling quite melancholy and even hopeful.

5 years passed, and we had tried to stop gaming almost completely. But was my life any better?

No. The best times in my life so far was back in 2016. But in the spring of 2016 I would frequently game for hours on end in weekends. In the summer, I was in the first camp at Boston, and I would game for all the time I could in the evenings in the shared computer in the hotel, Best Western, where we lived in. That was the last time I was willing to call "we", and be happily part of a group. I didn't even regulate myself back then, and I didn't seem, well, to be this "sad"?

In the post "Pros and Cons of Playing Computer Games", I declared gaming to be full of cons and not a single pro. I was destined to quit gaming.

In the post "The Painful Journey of Battling Gaming Addiction", I defined gaming to be extremely malicious activity. I vowed to stop gaming completely. And I partially did.

From 2019 to now I almost spent no time on gaming at all. In 2020 and 2021 there was only very limited times when I gamed. In 2022, gaming resurged a little bit but it was within the controllable range. In 2023, I gamed much more. I gamed around 1-2 hours a day, up until 10.15, when I stopped gaming completely for 3 month till 2024.1.16. Then I gamed but within a very controllable range up until 4.7, then I completely stopped until July.

When I look at my relationships with gaming, I found that gaming has no relationship was life qualify. My life quality since 2018 had steadily declined, as well as self-esteem. I became more and more depressed, and at the point where I could not hold on much longer.

Did gaming really traumatize my life? No, gaming is an end rather than a cause. I stopped the "end", but everything went much worse.

In 2019 first half my life was more "ok", but a little stressful. In 2019 second half was a very stressful and tired period, but "bearable" and I have hopes in my heart. In 2020 came covid and it wasn't sad and wasn't happy. I just stayed at home and yeah. In the period of 2020-2021 was a very sad period that wiped out all my hopes and almost broke me. I couldn't feel any happiness at all and I got my self-esteem wiped out during this period. But it would only get worse. In 2021-2022 I got much more stressful and depressed, and I couldn't bear it much longer. I got to the point I was so sad I cursed the teacher and got a warning from the school. I was at the edge of collapse already at that time. In 2022 later half the covid made everything even worse. 2023 was a slightly happier time where I went to US, but the situation worsened again during that period. 2024 is the worst year ever in my life.

When I quit gaming, my life doesn't become better. Instead, I was pushed to thresholds I cannot even endure anymore. My life was anything but better.

This obviously can be attributed to other factors, such as age, where I live, classmates, etc. But if we say "gaming is the primarily thing that traumatized my life", it is not accurate, nor does it hold any value. My life continued to be bad whether I gamed or not, and in one of my happiest periods, I gamed a lot. I don't even want to shed a negative light on gaming right now. I don't have, in my mind, any "ideal" life or hopes. I don't game much these days. I am more depressed than ever. I am more self-abased and hopeless than ever.

I lost a lot of motivation over the years. I got more and more isolated as I grew up, which may or may not correspond to a halt of gaming. I hate social media now. I hate my mobile phone and those shitty social apps. Over the cold goddamn frontend interface, no meaningful relationship ever formed. Shitware apps didn't help me make one more friend. Shitwares made me isolate myself completely from the crowd.

My life quality definitely have a relationship with school work, though. Sideloading my pain on one thing into blaming another thing isn't productive. It is meaningless and illusionary.

The world seem to promise people a good life. It doensn't happen. I don't see it. I used to enjoy myself? It was so much in the distant past. The past is like perfume waters, whereas they begin pouring out of your hands as time passes. You write them down, but things pass so much that you don't recognize it anymore. Was that my life? Did that even happen? Was there actually a time for happiness in the past? And will there be one in the future? These questions went from certainty to questioning.

20241029: Dealing with Cognitive Impairment

Strong evidence suggests that I am cognitively impaired.

1. Not able to fluently speak Russian only in daily life and not able to fully understand Russian after a long time
2. Failing multiple computer science courses
3. Failure to navigate myself in a supermarket
4. Failure to socialize
5. Failure to use a smartphone
6. Failure to use GUI programs such as Microsoft Office, Adobe, QQ, WPS, and very bad in GUI navigating

One common theme among today's GenZ is their superior intelligence, full technical ability, and quick reaction speed.

We shouldn't treat people who have low intellect poorly.

Basically treatment is as follows

Set Clear Milestones

For example

• Talking
• Buying foods
• Computer Use

With clear benchmarks you can guide the disabled person slowly to achieve lots of basic things! Also, here is an article. With good treatment, individuals with intellectual disability can have a good quality of life.

Don't Discriminate

So basically, don't discriminate people with cognitive impairments or low learning efficiency.

You shouldn't

1. Laugh at them because they are not as "smart"
2. Tell evil jokes that they don't understand
3. Try to Trick them into losing money

Similarly, to me

1. You shouldn't compare me with students who achieved A in every subject, I am objectively lacking in intellect
2. If you speak to me in Russian, you should speak slowly
3. You souldn't trick me into losing my money, companies should stop tricking me into subscribing to their proprietary technologies, phone frauds trick me into sending them money

Give Up on Things Selectively

Again, for cognitive impaired people like me, giving up on things is a great idea! We can narrow down our focus to manage most of the basics this way.

For example, from what I've learned

• Give up on understanding deep literature
• Give up on learning smartphone use
• Give up on delicate jobs like needling

For me, I need to similarly give up on things

• Give up on managing my own cloud infrastructure and rely on existing softwares like OpenRouter, Gmail, Google Photos, Github, Google Colab is a good idea.
• Give up on full open source principles and believe proprietary tech is fine
• Give up on materialistic possessions like longing for a beautiful bag, or beautiful clothes
• Give up on learning how smartphone work
• Give up on device exploring and switching, I am not going to magically be rich if I start using FreeBSD

Believe that Low IQ People Can Do Great Things

There is a video that showed a Chinese man (he is cognitively impaired) leading a very small and young girl to safety. He expressed that this girl might be kidnapped if he doesn't help.

It touched thousands of viewers around the world seeing this, and this tells us that even people with low IQ can do great things.

Someone commented and said, "For such individuals, learning what's right and wrong is difficult enough, let alone actually doing good deeds for society." expressing surprise and gratitude.

Similarly, I must believe in myself that despite obvious evidence of my cognitive disabilites, I still have the potential to not do bad things, and to help people if they really need or benefit from my help. Anyways, the baseline is not causing harm to the society.

Talking with Mrs. Zhang and Quitting the Class

Mrs. Zhang talked to me after the Compiler course midterm. She found me on WeChat. I did very bad in the midterm. I didn't know how Mrs. Zhang found me in the WeChat group, she just did. I added Mrs. Zhang somehow in the freshman year one day.

Then Mrs. Zhang told me to "meet her".

I only been in the compiler course once or twice.

I heard Mrs. Zhang call my name. She was handing out the testing papers and she called the names of the students. I looked down at my table and I didn't reply. She called again. I was so sad. Then then continued to call someone else's name.

So there are two time slots in the morning here, 7:50-9:25 and 9:45-11:20. Mrs. Zhang had classes in both of the time slots. During the middle break, she somehow came to me (without even knowing my name).

She probably guessed who I am. But who would always think for you in the society when you are failing? Who would always try to understand and take the time to guess who you are? Not very often!

I was very touched over a professor willing to talk to me.

I couldn't do anything. I said, "I am sorry". And I always mumbled. I couldn't reply anything. I was in this extremely bad mental state.

Mrs. Zhang asked me why I was a fourth year and I was taking her course. I couldn't reply. I said something like "it just happened".

Mrs. Zhang even told me she was impressed by me finding the security vulnerability in the course platform in the beginning of the semester. She asked me what I was doing, I said, "I always played with AWS."

Mrs. Zhang asked me if I could understand the course materials. I couldn't give any good feedbacks besides just mumbling random things. Overall I said, "I didn't".

Mrs. Zhang said, "I thought you only came here once or twice." I replied, "Yes". I was so sorry. But being sorry doesn't solve the problem.

Mrs. Zhang asked me to "Come to the classes more often", and I said "Yes". She also told me that I can ask the TA if I have any problems.

I came to the classes some time but I then quitted the course after 2 weeks. I thought about writing an apology to Mrs. Zhang in WeChat, I couldn't do that somehow.

Overall I am grateful to Mrs. Zhang, but I couldn't do anything at the moment. Still, I would document it here and express my gratitude and hopefully try to remember this.

20241125: Shock, Panic, Shame, Embarassment

Staying Up

I have been staying up for as long as I could remember. I frequently stayed up whole night and sleep all day. I tried many times to adjust my schedule to 11pm-7am, it just doesn't happen. I sleep at around 5 am, and wakes up at around 2-3 pm.

In darkness I wandered out, alone and depressed. I floated around the melancholy and isolated streets, not knowing where to head. I usually walking many miles, looking at closed stores and full parks without a single person, not finding any purpose or motivation. I walked alone and didn't even feel afraid in the rurals. My inners are darker than the darkness.

My father came to "help" me in his busy work spanning around 10 hours a day, 6-7 days a week.

So this is what happens. After all my failing grades my father came see me to help me. Imagine being such a failure at age 19, almost 20 years old.

So basically, these are the points

1. My "ways" are diverging too much from the social norm

• Using only Linux and command line for everything. I only have 6 "GUI" programs on my computer: Chrome, VSCode(code-server works in browser locally but yeah, I like VSCode better), Clash Verge(Chinese firewall tool), Terminal, File Manager(I can use ranger but yeah, it's easier for me), and Gnome Settings. This is sometimes "incompatible" with the social norms. My father bought a Redmi Book with Windows installed, claiming that I use it sometimes for "official stuff".

  I am observed to be only using developer tools, and there is no boundaries for me between devs tools and normal tools.

• Using only Google Pixel. So basically the WeChat in Google Play is called "WeChat International" and tampered? I think they shut off a few system api functionalities. Today I went to sign up for a facial recognition service and no matter how hard I try, the program page inside WeChat wouldn't upload the photo. My father's Huawei phone works. I blamed on the program developer. He said you have to get a more accessible phone. I showed him the phone which I installed LineageOS (Redmi Note 10), which was like 3 years ago but still working well with GMS. He said GMS cause problems in China. So he bought a Redmi Note 13 for me. He commanded me "only use it for functionality purposes, please don't tamper your adb in it". So GMS ain't allowed, and I didn't do anything weird with it.

• Using very difficult passwords in the educational system. I use Google Password Manager, and generated random passwords sometimes with openssl rand -hex 16. He said you can't do that in China, and commanded me to change very password to easy ones instead. He said Chinese things don't work this way.

I cooperated because of the stress that I am facing.

2. Temporary Rest from University

So basically this is what happened: I am dropping out of this semester and resting till end of winter, sort of a recovery window to address my behavioral problems. After that I am supposed to perform at least at the passing level in university.

I didn't go to many courses this semester and I am obviously guilty about that, but there doesn't seem to be anything to do with it. I am broke, and I need recovery.

3. Trying to basically pass through University

So we came to the conclusion that traditional education isn't the best thing for me, and they didn't blame the whole mess on me yet.

Anyways, my parents told me that I need to basically pass through the university, no matter how damn I think it is. Again, social norm doesn't accept someone without a college degree, that I don't need to score high but need to at least pass and get the fucking diploma. I understand this.

4. Not to Doubt Myself Too Much

That I shouldn't keep labeling myself inferior to other people. Of course, everybody have advantages and disadvantages. I am special, and misunderstandings occur, but I might not be too inferior intellectually.

My father said I have lots of traits from my parents.

So yeah, I will be trying to do something, and trying to do it decent.

5. Please Sleep and Get Up In Time

No night owl please. My father warned me about the problematic schedule, e.g. sleeping at 5 am and getting up at around 2,3, pm everyday. It's against God's will, or at least against the nature even if there is no God. So like I must sleep and wake up in time.

These days I sleep a normal amount of time, only basically I would stay up all night and fall asleep in the morning.

The next day my father and I went to the school, basically we find the secretary, and try to resolve my problems.

So basically what happened is that school is stealing and robbing my life and everything away from me. Like, literally, people be like "why didn't you devote your whole life into school? you should've done much more!"

Well, so basically school is still trying to rob me of everything it can take hold of.

One thing is when teachers are talking to my father they give more shit. When they talk to me like there is literally nothing to day. One thing is that my father is just better than me in Chinese, also like basically they think parents are more "formal" and like more "respected".

So my father tried to explain but I don't think any teacher ever understands. Anyways, it was a great thing that these teachers even took their time off to talk to me. One teacher said "please blend in more to the society in school", and advised me to talk to people more and try to be more active socially.

My father kept trying to talk me into blending in the society, how stealing away all my time into the shitpile is a good thing for me. Well, it isn't, and I am trying my best to graduate and get out of it.

People say like USTC is like a US school, which of course cannot be further away from the truth. USTC's style is very similar to a re-education camp, where people force you to do "the schedule" and you got nothing else left in your life.

So this is what will happen this semester. I cannot go completely off. I will drop one course, fail 1.5 courses because I can't go on anymore(partially because I didn't even attend the mid-exam), then I will try to scramble through the remaining three. I don't know if I will go through the piece of junk but I need to, because dropping completely is advised against. I am going to graudate one year later.

My "head teacher" never met me once, because his mom died and he is an associate professor, which means he had to work on his own projects. I didn't reach out either. His mom died so he stepped down for a while and Mrs. Mei was my head teacher for a while. Head teacher means a management teacher who don't necessarily directly teach you. We met with Mrs. Mei and she didn't care about me, and redirected me to secretaries.

We went to the secretary to trying to get the reimbursement from my "semester exchanges". This took a whole morning to try to write and print and make the ppt. Anyways, my father tried to make the ppt for me on his Huawei phone because my comptuer ran out of the battery and the computer lab was locked. We finally made it but still need to wait multiple days.

They would reimburse into the China Construction Bank account, which I have no idea of. I tried to use the APP once and there wasn't anything harder to use in my whole life.

I hated most of my odnoklassniki and deleted lots of them on WeChat.

I really had enough of this re-education camp. But then again, my father is on my side as long as I am in China because there ain't no other way out. The re-education camp isn't the worst university that can happen to me.

We went to education office and the teacher was very evil, and I tried to drop half the courses this semester, and she repeatedly questioned "did you work hard?" "you should know better!" "other students did more courses than you, got better grades, and you shouldn't be blaming!" "it can't be done", which made me want to wish her to be ran over by a car. My father and I explained the situation that I am not in a good mental state now and that I need to have some rest and that I am capable when I am "adjusted. The teacher just shoved us out in the end. The teacher is called "ZhuP..."(mentioning someone is pretty bad though).

We went to Mr. Sun(a computer science and school of gifted young director?) and he was nicer, but still said there is nothing he can do, and tried to evalute my situation? Anyways, there wasn't anything we can do with Mr. Sun.

We went to Mr. Xv (another teacher and management team of school of gifted young, who I knew when I got fucked and a warning by the school and handed over my letter of apology to) and he be like kinda nicer too? But still didn't solve any problems. It takes a million years to explain the situation and I was embarassing myself all the time.

So my mother (when we were back in He Nan) laughed at a relative of mine who "failed multiple courses and think he worked very hard during university, and went on Master's degree with direct parent's help, and went on working with direct parent's help". I be like "well, he is impressive and better than I am."

So basically in China you go somewhere to do something and they tell you to go somewhere else, you go there and they tell you to go somewhere else again, and it goes on and on until you embarrass yourself and nothing could be done about anything. Then people told you you didn't try hard enough because embararassment is nothing, and you should overcome it to be successful.

I told my father I wanted to curse the teachers, but he advised against it. "Just because someone is inconsiderate towards you doesn't mean they deserve it."

My father then proceeded to blaming me on devoting too many time on learning Russian and AWS and he want to try to take away my time spent on AWS and learning languages. He said "when I was learning English, my skill got better when I took some time off." I was like "yes, and you studied English for thirty years and never reached C1."

My father told me there isn't any point in learning languages, which of course is a lie. Not learning languages is going to make my life meaningless. Also, it isn't something I can do later on in life. I told him, "well, you can't learn Arabic now.", he be like "who told you I can't", I be like "try it then", he be like "I am not afraid". Of course I am not going on with this crap of a conversation, but he grew too arrogant to even admit he is illiterate in any language other than Chinese and basic English. Of course, his Chinese is quite good, I must admit, much better than me.

My father told me "I can easily ace all your tests, it's not hard, failing is on your side." I said "they are hard, and they are much more difficult than AWS". These days, easy and hard are heavily screwed.

My father advised against using Google. "You can use whatever you want in your free time, but it doesn't fit into the society neatly in China." Ok, so they want to ruin my whole life basically and squeeze out all my space and try to dictate me and try to kill all my passions and turn me into a soldier-like person.

My father advised against installing GMS on the Redmi Phone, expressing scrutiny over it tampering with the functionality, which is against common sense. Google is behind Android, why the fuck would people not do it? But anyways, he said he would buy another phone for me if I installed Google and take the phone away from me, mainly because of the WeChat lack of APIs on Google Pixel. I asked me "What do you think is the reason behind WeChat's webview lack of API in taking pictures and why do you think installing GMS will make WeChat unusable?" He answered "I am authority, and I know better."

I didn't get the "vacation" but still have to complete like 3 courses (partially because at the start of the semester I was so fucking busted from home and I didn't have any choices).

My Father is an Awfully Manipulating Man

My father is very manipulating and don't allow you any freedom when he wants it. He always set rules to the strictest while claiming they are "lenient'. For example, he forces me to sleep and wake up on time, claiming "night owl" leads to declines. He also repeatedly advise me to go into school, claiming "being alone is dangerous".

You can't argue with him because simply he is "in power", and "right". He has no logic and simply mixes everything up in a big jumble and call that knowledge.

He even uses Confucius words to argue with you sometimes and coerce you. I be like "Confucius is feudalism". He doesn't listen and assumes authority.

I can't not listen because I am in jeopardy and I am in China. I must obey or else like cause I am literally struggling.

My father didn't prioritize anything that is important, so does the school. The school robs me of all my valuable life and experiences, being locked in a re-education camp for so many years.

When someone promise you something and failed, you stop believing them. Chinese schools failed me so many times and any sensible person like me would stop obeying and try to break free. I hate people. I hate my odnoklassniki. I hate everything.

My parents doesn't understand what is "choices". They don't understand that you can get frustrated. I feel like I am not being acknowledged enough.

Moreoever, my parents kept convince me to follow their ways when clearly I am being pushed into hell.

It is such an embarrassment and I don't know what to do. But one thing is clear, I must get out of China. Yes, I know that China is going better everyday, but parts of the culture, just seem to be incompatible with me, like, completely imcompatible. When it didn't get triggered, everyone is happy and I am fine. But when it collapse with me, there is literally no place for me to live. I would fail on everything in my life. The west is no paradise too, espeically for an immigrant. But for me, who can't go on at all in China, it's simply the way to go.

Just because you confuse black and white doesn't mean it is right to mix them together. Society doesn't work that way, nothing works that way. School is shit, and there is no point of saying it isn't. I hate being alone too, but it's objectively better than being stuck in a prison like re-education camp. I suffered too much, I deserve better, and people don't know me better than I do.

I am fighting back for my rights (oh, can you believe it?). Anyways, I also believe in libertarianism, so I will probably abandon my parents when they are old. I hope the days ahead would be better, but still I must compromise for myself. I wouldn't compromise anymore for the school, though. I hate university, as well as high school, middle school, elementary school in China. People should be free. People needs their freedom.

Shock, Panic, Shame, Embarassment.

This is how I feel now.

Lately things have been an absolute mess.

What Happened

So basically this is what happened when I failed 3 courses in university in my junior year being a very good student(obviously not top-tier) for the first 2.5 years. In the middle of the semester my parents started knowing about this and instantly, they take over my life, having me under 24/7 surveillance, and forcing me to conform.

Why don't I tell my parents earlier? Because I didn't know earlier, and I feared to look at my scores back then. Also my parents would legitmately have a heart attack given the low emotional handling abilities they do have.

I Don't Dislike Learning, I Liked Learning Too Much

I failed in school not because I dislike learning, but because I am too engaged in learning "my stuff". I started getting engaged in cloud computing and the Russian language, so much that I changed all my interfaces to Russian, and I stayed up all night coding Next.js apps before the exams last semester, going to school blurry-eyed. I didn't study "school" stuff at all.

In my school when you study computer science, you can't "love" learning too much. They restrict your freedom. If you are too passionate, you will fail in school. School is too boring and outdated.

School Robbed My Life

My life is dedicated for fulfilling diplomas instead of learning knowledge. It is what it is. It is how it works.

Which Means?

It means

1. I am under constant surveillance
2. I must not dislike school and fuck the subjects, despite being robbed of my life in school, which means, I have to go through outdated ppts and bloated textbooks, crappy teachers, etc
3. I must conform to a "diligent" lifestyle of not coding at midnight, sleeping at 11 and getting up at 7

Which means

1. I must pass every class from now on.
2. I must not have any freedom till end of college, which isn't a guarantee for freedom anyway, probably into the same cycle
3. My family cannot bear me dropping out of university right now, or being expelled. If I fail another course, I have a chance of being expelled. I have a lazy, failing aunt who was expelled from school back in the 1990s, a major disappointment for everybody, forcing her to stay in Xin Xiang(a poor rural area in He Nan) till now.
4. If I drop out or was expelled from university, I have no hopes of life for 20 years. No nothing, I will be on the same tier as a delivery man in China earning 5000 RMB(800 dollars) a month. Forget the America dream, forget freedom, forget everything.
5. I have to thank my parents for bringing me out of the darkness, and into the re-education camp which is what I am in right now.

The Mouse Incident

So my father somehow came to my house again, and I was doing this Computer Networking homework. It required Windows. I did it all day long and it put me to sleep, and I woke up and continue doing till night and couldn't do it, largley because it relies on a GUI and you need to drag and click, but I am strongly against all GUIs. My eyes hurt and I splashed water all over the floor. I tried doing it, I still couldn't. I slammed the mouse to the wall and broke it. I never used a mouse before, like, ever, just for the sake I am in extreme anger and resentment. I spent one WHOLE day doing ONE homework and I couldn't finish it, and I sincerely can't stand anything anymore.

Get Me Out of Here

I feel like I can't go on anymore.

Nobody should have gone through this. I am tired both mentally and physically and I am on the verge of collapse. I want to rest for half a year without doing anything.

People don't understand me. People don't see that I am struggling so hard or suffering way greater than they are. I am in a mental crisis.

Why did I fail 3 courses last semester? It was simply because I can't go on anymore. I feel unmotivated.

It is very unfair what education did to me. It is very unfair that I have to go through this period of intense suffering.

When my entire life is dedicated to school, and when my school education is nothing more than a piece of shit, I hate it and don't comply anymore.

Discomfort turns to pain. The disappointment of seeing no results become hopelessness. All of these becomes anger and hatred now.

These days I increasingly take control over my life, competing over school in managing myself, trying to be basic self-sufficient, only to make myself contented and happier.

High school is like, constanly constraining me. USTC is constraining me as well. Full of outdated materials and mandatory lectures left me with nothing.

I am a long way from doing anything, and I am seeing things getting dimmer and less hopeful every day. I am not fitting in to the society. I feel like another half-year vacation just to calm things down.

I want to write a story about my high school Chinese teacher's son's head got hit by a hammar in university and died at age 22 and she hurried to the hospital next to the bed to hear the final words of her son, and how my high school English teacher fell into a well and tragically drowned.

My parents are like "if you have stress or emotional problems you can rest." I was like "yeah I have stress and I am very tired." My parents are like "no, you don't, and your current situation deserves being pushed forward harder".

My parents are like "we don't have any expectation for you, you can do whatever you want and be a happy person and we will be contented." At the same time, mocking students performing even lower than me like they are dumb idiots and "objectively" retarded. Then, pretending they didn't say anything and revoking any arguments.

My parents are like "we don't want to control you anymore." At the same time, "You Musn't sleep after 12 because it's bad. You Must run because it's good for your body. You Mustn't run too much like a whole marathon because it would be bad again." I was like, "I am a very obedient and good teenager. I am still a virgin at age 19. I didn't do drugs, didn't smoke, didn't do any piercings, didn't join a gang, didn't get a tattoo or strange hairstyles, didn't gamble, strictly restricted my activity on social media by utilizing libredirect to non-addictive frontend, hates gaming and do it only in extreme conditions averaging less than 2 hours a week, didn't hoard gore contents or adult materials or even copyright movies, what else do you want me to obey?"

So after all the shit I went back to HeNan Province with my parents to see my grandparents. My Paternal grandmother died a year ago and we were supposed to visit the grave this year.

Anyways, after the grave visit, we had a lunch, where there are about 17 distant relatives. Most of them, though, are observed to have no interest in Large Language Models and programming concepts. They were eating and talking loudly but doesn't appear to be talking about anything interesting, where I would always bring the topic back to programming and complain about my evident lack of efforts in computer science.

So my Paternal grandfather remarried so now there was another babushka living with him. My parents and I visited our Paternal grandfather with his babushka. But that's when things got really triggered. My paternal grandfather started talking to a smart home device and wanted to listen to songs when my mother came into the house. My mom got instantly mad and went out in seconds after raising her voice and claiming "it's noisy and hated the music", which my paternal grandfather ignored.

Anyways, my paternal grandfather finally stopped attempting to listen to music with his smart home device and began talking loudly about his concepts. We sat down with the new babushka. Then my mom started to have strange requests, like "I want cold water", when there are actually no cold water in the house, either boiled water or tap water(which are bad for drinking). My father yelled back in the house that there are no "cold drinkable water" for you, and my paternal grandfather suggested "eating an apple" or "are you that thirsty to drink tap water?" But my mom repeatedly requested for it. I asked my mom if she wanted to go out, like we can buy some water outside of the apartment, which she said no. Then I tried to request her calm down her temper if she wanted to stay inside.

Then my paternal grandfather showed me an interesting newspaper piece, which is quite stupid actually, and tried to show it to my mom. I stopped it, saying "don't try to trigger the beehive".

Then as we were leaving the house, my mom suddenly got real mad again and started crying loudly and hollering (very unprofessional behavior), claiming, "you don't welcome me, you are intentionally trying to bother me" and some more nonsense. I was like "if you hate being in here, go out pls", where my mom was like "No, I have the freedom to talk". I was like "You are ruining everyone else based on trivial matters. If you want leave just leave."

Anyways, the new babushka was kind and nice and gently calmed my mother, but she was still very triggered. I forcefully escorted mom outside of the fucking house, and we left very sadly with mom stomping in the parking lot.

After this incident, it got me thinking for quite a while about grownup's tampers and ability to endure and bear things. So the situation is like this, my parents frequently mocked me on some matters like my hatred of military training and shared dorms and outdated teachers, and claimed they don't have any problems based on this. My parents are like "Military training should be fun and not something depriving people of freedom" or "You live in shared dorms with obviously no problems, going out to rent a house will result in you masturbating all day long and doing nothing productive" or "We stand with teachers even if they are outdated, you need to understand the rapid progression of China in recent years and understand the feelings of outdated teachers."

And the situation was like this, I endured shared dorms for 1 whole year with regular daily severe sleep deprivations and I endured military training for 2 weeks being very unfarily treated by the officer and I endured outdated teachers and never said a word bad about them in their face. But my mom was like being triggered real quick like 3 minutes. My father was like being very angry for my mother being angry for very short time too. So like, it is kind of unfair in this sense.

But then again my parents endured many other things, like the high pressured jobs they do, or so many complicated things regarding me and daily life matters. Also they always provide financial support and all my diy cloud services will go broke one month if my card is dead.

I don't care about social stuff anymore. I just want to die.

I want to die, right now.

Someone without passion doing something is like this. A to B:"What do I need to do?" B, "What's your idea?" A, "I don't have any (fucking) ideas just tell me (the fuck) things to do (so I can go home and rest." B, "But you are supposed to think yourself!" A thinking: everything already works and I hate this thing and I don't have any thoughts except to endure the shit.

But USTC Lug isn't bad, it's quite good actually. Just that it's not outstanding.

Strong Discontent with Parents

I MUST sleep on time and get up before 8 am everyday. There is no negotiaion. This comes from my parents. Despite me not smoking, doing drugs, remaining a virgin(not even kissing once), zero gaming policy, self inflicted social media ban(disabling Javascript), not scrolling through social media, no tattoo, no joining any gangs, no drinking once, no watching or engaging with gore videos, no watching or engaging with tor, no driving(I failed to learn how to drive), no gambling, my parents STILL places a restriction to me--no being a night owl!

My parents are old, weak, feeble, outdated, indecisive. My parents never meet anything they promise. Listening to them will only weaken me. Despite convincing me that good things will happen as long as I could remember, (and thus gaslighting me into working harder), they never did. My parents be like "You do this", "You do that", and a million other rules, which is inherently infeasible for me (or anyone for that matter) and I have to face tremendous pressure consistently. They proceed to "get worried" when I try to follow and start failing and having mental problems. They never know and understand my mental problems. Never believe their fake claims and "innocence". My parents was repeatedly "determined" to do something, like sending me to US for university, which they never did.

My parents are very good at gaslighting, especially my father. He is a moron and confuses everything upside down. When I explain my clear failures and desire to change, he be like "you are not seeing progress because progress happens slowly". Also he explains hardships as "good for you". Difficulties in life isn't good for me, as my youth years are limited. My parents be like "why crave for another country/language other than China?" when I told them I already spend 20 years in China, I want to spend my life in diverse countries and cultures. My parents are very oudated in this matter. My mother acted like I was crazy to learn Russian.

My father told me about religious or feudalistic views that "your sleeping schedule must match with God, to get up in the morning and sleep at night." I argued that in traditional China people get up at sunrise and sleep at sunset, why aren't he getting up at 5 am? Besides, no parents would put a grown child to sleep at 23:00.

Failing and Extreme Faitigue

The last time I remembered having fun was at age 11. After that things was an absolute mess.

In 2021, I failed in high school repeatedly. In 2021-2022 year, I got severely sleep-deprived. I had great pressure and depression. My GPA back then was 3.75 on both semesters around top 20%, but at the expense of everything. In late 2022, I couldn't even go into the school sometimes because of Covid restrictions in China. In 2024 first half, I failed 3 courses in school(database, computer architecture, mathematical logic). In 2024 summer, I wasted the time doing nothing at all. In 2024 autumn, I struggles with only 3 courses, and here we are, struggling with mental health.

It's not that "I don't like studying", but I like studying too much. School is cramming and not "studying", consistently, in China. Look, it's not I find these course challenging. I just didn't want to study. I was pushed and coerced to select these courses. Last semester (March to June) can be split into 3 parts, building a full stack video platform, exploring various devices: FreeBSD, Asahi Linux, PostmarketOS, LineageOS, and playing on AWS, self-hosting 20 apps. Each take around one month or a little more, and completely disregarding the school. I remember using Next.js to build platforms all night, then barely getting up and going bleary-eyed to every exams, and slumping into bed right after.

I passed several Berkeley grad courses, though at a lower grade. But ironically back at USTC I struggle at the basic requirements because, well, I just hate it. USTC teachers are not passionate about technology. I am actually the enthusiastic one, interested in every concept and diving deep. However, I ended up failing. How ironic. When you are consistently under extreme fatigue, the best way is to get out of it, instead of talking about broad ideals or goals in life.

I haven't had a holiday for a really long time, and every holiday has been filled with classes or just a lot of stupid things to do. Having a holiday or just having a month off feels like commiting a crime. At this point I don't even desire like a trip, just some time on my own to do the things I wanted, perhaps nothing at all.

Also at this point it's not about what is right and what is wrong, and "what I should do". It's about the complete lack of motivation to do anything and complete burnout and depression. It's like, I know what I should or must do, but I can't even complete really simple tasks assigned at all.

Other Examples of "Obvious Skills" vs "Test Performance"

Then I be said if I got expelled I would commit suicide. My parents said "It's not like you don't have any other options. If you really got expelled we would try to provide you with some basic finance income." I said "I would rather die than live under your manipulation." And my parents be like "You can't commit suicide, you need to care for us." My father told me like "I already lost both parents in 1.5 years." I said "I need to consider other's opinions if I want to end my life?" They said "of course." I said "You are both trying to influence my views and trying to force me to communicate, leaving me in a dilemma again, and it is a fact."

My English skill was largely unacknowledged in high school and Chinese exams. On one hand, I struggled and barely passed CET4, while I wrote 160k words in English and I am able to get 109 in TOEFL just after the CET4 est. I use English as my default language and all interface languages, and I liked English literature so much back in middle school. I read over 500 English books over the course of 5 years. I never had a problem reading English or connecting with natives more than I do in Chinese. I watched YouTube or English movies for around 2-6 hours everyday in 2022. I am not "boasting", I am speaking objective facts to analyze what is best for me. Despite all these, I never once reached average in my high school English exams, and was regarded as a "strugging student".

Shame, Self-Identity and Hate on Classmates

It is similar to nationalism except on a personal scale. I realized that listening to my parents or teachers are damaging me. I fail in Chinese systems. School was "just trying to get a certificate" for me. I learned nothing in school. I failed to connect with people because they don't have the same resent I have and they don't have individual thoughts. I realize that I need to be strong to break free.

I tried to socialize, it just never happened. I contacted many people, and write some emails. Just, people don't seem to like socializing with me. Now I don't want to socialize anymore. I hate my classmates. I am isolating myself now, as a "self-protection" mechanism to control my anger and resent.

After failing multiple courses, I began hating this school strongly and classmates. Many people go to a good school for a PhD. I need to spend 5 years on my bachelors with very low grades now. I can't even get to a (even basically) decent Master's programs abroad.

Strong Desires to Get Out of China

Looking back, my best times in the last 10 years were either in an International school(my last year in elementary school) or in USA. Even though my year 2023 exchanging in US was very bad, the years around it: 2021, 2022, 2024, are an absolute catastrophe.

I attribute my failures for not having compatibility with China (which is different from hating China, I have huge respect for China though). It's like being allergic to everything on the menu in a 5-star restaurant. I desire to get out of China now. First thing I will do after finishing university is leaving China.

As for concerns, don't believe the media or Reddit posts I don't even believe in Racism. The most racist country is... ? (according to the media and Reddit posts)

Look, I got nothing to lose, I am not like other people. Also I don't like too crowded places.

I will probably commit suicide if I don't go abroad after graduation.

Whether it's EU or US or Canada or other countries remains in question. I don't know enough to make a reasonable judgement now. Bottom line is I got nothing to lose. My most preferred country will always be US, since all tech companies are there.

Emotional Detachment

I have no remorse at all for people’s death or misfortune, and I am detached from my classmates. I feel inferior around my classmates.

Like, this emotional attachment was definitely still there in 2019, but from 2020 over the course of 3 years, everything changed, and I "deleted" the emotional bound. When my paternal grandma last year died I didn't even care, like, ok, live on. I didn't even have any remorse or mourning though I attended the 1 year funeral according to some traditions. It's just kind of stupid.

2024 December: My Parents Weekly Visit

My parents visit me weekly at Hefei to denazify me. My mom claimed "You are only free if you are strong", which is ridiculous given I was already pushed to the edge after years of suffering in school. I never had freedom or space for myself, like, at all for the last at least 5 years. My mom repeatedly ridiculed me over having to stay one more year in university.

My senile parents are full of feudalistic values. They are always trying to gaslight and force me to conform, even forcing me to sleep at 23:30. I mean, I get it that you want me to have circadian rhythms, but they are already more than self-contradictory at this point. They sent me into school shared dorm to suffer then force this whole shit on me again. I can't wait to get rid of them.

I literally had my whole teen years cramming bullshit. I had no joy, life, hobby, or anything like that. I can't go on like this anymore. They destroyed my feedback cycle and I can't draw any motivation. People claimed if you worked hard, things would change, and you would be happier, your grades would improve. Imagine trying for many years and constantly failing. Thus at this point no matter how bad you are, there are no motives or strength left.

My parents are always misunderstanding and enforcing their values instead of listening and comprehending mine. Never believe grown-ups "I am trying to understand this", "Perhaps tomorrow" -- they just never even try to understand you in the first place! My parents always complained me even using Google services because they considered it difficult and subpar. My parents considered tech and the English language as enemies. They never understand me, or my willingness for freedom, or my cravings for languages.

My mother scolded me "you are like aunt, fat as a pig and failing 3 courses!" "What do you do if you drop out of school?" I wanted to answer, probably suicide.

My mother also scolded me over stopping her from arguing with paternal dedushka. "If you see people in a conflict, stop getting into it yourself." Well, I think the main reason was paternal dedushka hurt her feelings and she wanted to fight back. This is very strange. I didn't intervene at all, only trying to escort her immediately out of the damn house back then(cause why not?). She kept questioning this behavior again and again, confusing me. She cried and behaved very un-adutlike. My dedushka dropped out of work at age 50 and has no respect for anyone, is a misogynist, and relied on Taiwan relative for money. My mom began to start worrying about my "fascist" view again.

Now I know the truth, my parents always assume I am malicious, and frequently proposes either overly restrictive feudalistic solutions or intervenes with my efforts, adding fuel to the fire. They be like "oh no", "only this can solve everything", creating confusing contradictory narratives, urging me to follow the feudalistic ideal.

In the future I would abandon my aging parents. I strongly reject their manipulative behaviors and desire to break free. They are constantly interfering and balantly lying about everything. My parents are liars and can't stand the slightest imperfection or non-conformity in me. I am being pushed to the edge of breaking down, but we all know the direction to go.

My paternal grandpa was in ICU after my grandma died. Some background reminder: my paternal grandpa stopped working at age 50 and lived on from the money of my Taiwan relatives, has no knowledge and constantly blame others, full of selfish and disrespect. He reportedly faints for several days now, and I would be glad if he dies now. Of course I would have to attend the funeral.

We are going to bury my paternal dedushka. I got dressed up somewhat like a Muslim and a chef. My father said my dedushka is going inside a furnace or something like that. I said, maybe I can go inside it too? My father told me to shut up.

My parents expressed shock and disbelief when I suggested I would abandon them in the future. They have only one kid. But I am unlikely to change my thoughts, well, just wait and see.

My mother had the same insane pressure on me, forcing and pressuring me to lose weight and work harder. My mom kept claiming she was only talking and had the freedom to “talk”. Well, fact checker, you aren't freaking talking but harassing me in every aspect. My father said he had a horrible depressing childhood here in Henan, and how he vowed to get a PhD and sent a letter to family. Some background information, my father in his first 2 years of university was quite low in class, barely passing, but he worked extremely hard in the final two years, securing a master's degree. My father tried to motivate me again, and I said it's absolutely fine if I can physically actually succeed in my damn school, and I am willing to spend multiple times more effort and risk my life to do it if it's actually my interest, like language learning, running, math. My mom then reminded me again of me failing and how my interests are irrelevant, deeply critical and totalitarian. My father said he lost both parents within 1.5 years, and I suggested something likewise happening to me in 2060.

Based on my mom's aggressive behavior, if I have a wife they would probably have serious conflicts, when I would of course stand with wife instead of the senile one.

My father said my dedushka died crying. I remembered my great babushka died craving for a tomato egg dish. My ded however, wanted some noodles, then died at 3 am, never cried before. My ded is deeply misogynistic and traditional, himself relying on support from Taiwanese relatives, and quit working at 50. My ded treats my female cousin (from my aunt) something like a servant.

I however, favor female largely over male. This is largely because my school most of the time have a male to female ratio of around 7 to 1 and I haven't dated yet. They said I am important because I am the only descendant over 5 generations. Of course in traditional China only male descendants count. I thought of this is deeply misogynistic and homophobic, and female and LGBT people bring equal value and should be respected in our community.

The place is very crowded with many more families from a cold morning. I hate this damn town. My mother kept giving confusing contradictory instructions. My father suddenly started roaring at the service people. My mother worries about losing face for my bad behaviors over relatives.

We kneeled and did the normal thing in front of dedushka's corpse. It is quite disgusting honestly. Why don't they just get rid of it as quickly as possible?

Then ded became cremains and we bowed and kneeled several times and drove to the cemetery to bury it. We burned paper chanting “here to send you money”. My father said he don't need such ceremony when he died, then I said, "Can you decide what people do to you when you died? Am I going to listen?" Then I said, "Maybe after you are burned I will throw it away with leftover bones from the meat of Pigs and Cows."

When we buried paternal dedushka. My father was very emotional and expressed "it came too fast, three days ago I looked at my father and he was still alive, then I thought it would be cremains a few days later." I thought it was like deleting garbage bloatwares from your computer, oh, how happy is it!

We bowed and kneeled again at the grave. We put apples and oranges on it. We put the portrait of my dedushka and babushka on the grave. Actually, 20 people came, with remote relatives(all from my babushka's side, and none of them even sad, just going here for a meal) and my family of 3 and my aunt on father's side family of 3 and many unknown people. Post 1990 families are all of size 3 in China because of one-child policy.

We drove to a restaurant for a huge lunch. I didn't want to eat because I am losing weight. My father told me to eat and behave. I started eating, but mainly watermelons and soup.

Anyways, the long day ended and I went to my maternal babushka and dedushka's house. They were both 80+, and my maternal dedushka could barely walk. Then I went back home.

In the evening there was the final of figure skating woman's singles on 1tv.ru, so I started watching it.

My father drove in the door and started roaring at me about my grades and personal assessments. I started crying loudly. My father started berating "I don't want to see you cry! I hate you looking sad!" I replied "Well, you can't cry and it's because you have the dry-eye syndrome, and it's a bad thing actually." My father always emphasized the drastic effects of myopia and glasses, when he was in elementary school, everyone else was 1.5 in decimal system in eyesight, and he was 0.5. (1.0 is the boundary for myopia) Fortunately his myopia didn't get worse afterwards, but resulted in dry eye syndrome. When I was 3rd grade, 5th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, my father repeatedly called out for the importance of a good eyesight when my eyesight was around 0.8(which is one thing I am actually really grateful and fortunate in).

I be like "I don't really agree with you". But my mother's every sentence is manipulative. Anyways, like my otets was already kinda tired so it went really bad that I don't even want to describe anything with lots of yelling. In the end I would get a free Winter prazdnichni. They even suggested me traveling as an alternative. I argued traveling to the country in war now isn't the best option and refused to go anywhere else. They basically said you are arguing with strange logic.

Then I be said if I got expelled I would commit suicide. My parents said "It's not like you don't have any other options. If you really got expelled we would try to provide you with some basic finance income." I said "I would rather die than live under your manipulation." And my parents be like "You can't commit suicide, you need to care for us." My father told me like "I already lost both parents in 1.5 years." I said "I need to consider other's opinions if I want to end my life?" They said "of course." I said "You are both trying to influence my views and trying to force me to communicate, leaving me in a dilemma again, and it is a fact."

My father told me again that maybe it's not the end of the world if you drop out of school? Since that some people, he stated, started applying to a US bachelor 2 years in Chinese university. He is again, kidding and lying. I won't even have a chance after dropping out of university, let alone going to US(you gotta be kidding?). He is always like "Maybe you go to US or the west if you are really in trouble, problem is, there is a simpler way in China for us."

From a very individualistic perspective the world exist because of your life, and I don't believe in any bullshit religions or afterlife. The world exist because of your senses. If your life ends, you can assume the world ends too(why not?). If you die, your senses would stop working. If you die, there is no father, no mother, no US or China, no girls, no LGBT, no words, no eyes for seeing anything. If you die, the world dies with you. It's kind of paradoxical anyway (since there is no feelings and words, how can you describe the non-existence of anything in English anyway?).

I got more and more selfish every year from 2018. It is a coping strategy, but I can't stop or even care less. In 2018 I was even briefly a vegetarian.

My father argued there is no reason of my commiting suicide and hating people since I grow up in such a good family. My mom said when I was born my maternal babushka said "this child must have chosen the right family, already settled and high-knowledge." My father berated me again for screaming and destoying my mouse at the damn computer networking homework.

Then my parents started lying again, and kept saying that I should communicate more. Well, they didn't listen. My mom kept trying to question and trying to look at the problem starting from this May seemingly, and I need to remind her that it wasn't from this May, it is from 2018. My parents said "We don't know that, you were observed to be perfectly fine until this year!" My father said "You talking about International? Korean and Japanese work harder, you should, too." I said "They might be working smart, and Japanese doesn't seem to be working that hard actually, and Korea is facing a significant crisis in the future with the 0.7 birth rate." They kept forcing the feualistic views upon me. Well, even in today's China nobody's parents is this strict. My parents must be the best gaslighters in the world. My mom suggested that "I see it normal to have a rich life with rich parents who are already in America, and doesn't find it sufficient to have food and money to support myself." Which, of course, is completely wrong, my problems stem from me not seeing any path to climb up or continue on, with each of them leading to failure and vain. My father questioned "What do you do if you come from a poor family and you got no choices?" They can't accept that people are simply different, and not everybody fits into the damn Chinese system like they do! Another fact: just because the poor people does something against their wills to climb up the social ladder doesn't mean it's good for them in the long term or anything good for me! In fact, that is why most poor people worked extremely hard but got stuck at being poor, not knowing the right methods.

My father kept questioning my unwillingness to even complete 3 courses and that my life was much better than his, why should I be complaining? And I thought that I am willing to dump in effort, given it's effective, but those blows back in high school hurted me so much that like the root of the tree is rotted, thus there isn't anything left in me no matter how much I dig deep. My mom tried to lie "we will accept your requests if you seriously talk to us." I said "I did, you simply didn't listen and forced me otherwise." My mother said "I used to trust you until you started failing courses!" I said "Judging by simply how you talk to me you are very manipulative and authorative of everything. You never trusted me, like, ever." My mother explicitly expressed not trusting me anymore in anything and desire to take over my life. I expressed desire to commit suicide if that happens.

My father said "why can't you just bear one more year?" I said, "Well, how many times did I hear that, middle school, high school, freshman, sophomore year of university, it never happened, it's a lie." My teenage years were already ruined without any joy. My father said, "Yeah, and life is like that! You have to bear things to live." I said, "Fine, bearing I can no longer, maybe dying is the right way?" Fact: my father dropped out of Shanghai Stock Exchange and stopped working for a total of 4 years doing nothing but seemingly chatting and traveling, finally found a job eariler this year, all because he "isn't" willing to work, though he did perform very good in the last job. My parents got in a bad conflict the start of the year when my mom forced my father to work.

My mom kept questioning my problems in communication. She said that she is far better at communication than I am. I responded that "You don't even know much English, so you can only communicate in one fucking language." She said, "Even then I am far superior in communication." I said "My problem isn't in communication, my problem is in using Chinese apps and websites." I communicated a lot using Tandem, Telegram, HelloTalk, Instagram, VK, and I am willing to reach out at all times. I reached out, people didn't answer. I hated social media. Why didn't I do that this year? Because I was absolutely burnt out.

My mom told me that she is kind of traditional but stable, and never failing. Yeah, and I thought she achieved nothing in life, no hobbies, no commitment, well, the only achievement might be investing in housing market back in 2000s. Well, also she frequently complains about everything, which gets very cringy and make everybody else uneasy. She couldn't even stand in the room one second with paternal dedushka(already dead) before intentionally forcing the atmosphere to be very tense and an argument to take place. I told my mom I always have plans for myself, they just kept getting disrupted. My mother was surprised. i told her I kept it in Google Tasks and Github repos. Anyways, my parents didn't know how to use Github, which means they are idiots.

My mother then started telling me again what she wanted to control and we can't come to terms. I was like "Was that even in question that I should have these freedoms as a grown adult? By the way, I never do drugs, porn, or gambling, I never do video games or social media either." My parents said "that's normal! you call that something to achieve?" I said "your basic undermines the reality of teenagers, and is probably a standard at 0.1% or less." It's just insanely difficult to communicate.

I told them I never even played video games or social media. They said "we never told you not to." Which is clearly a lie because I still remembered in fourth grade when I sneaked the Ipad into my room and got discovered by my mother how she started roaring and kicked the door and broke the door to the room. She even beat me once because I was gaming during the online English lesson during the 51talk lesson. Yeah, I did turn away from them myself, and problems from recent years was like my parents trying to make my turn on my phones and notifications to not miss out annoucement on WeChat, but like, it's basically just unfair.

You wish for time to pass, but things just keep getting worse as time passes. It is never ending trauma and I start questioning "will it even end?" instead of "how long do I will have to endure?" I started to get more and more interested in random things and just care for a lot more things I didn't even think about before. It is strange and irritating. I apply sanctions and methods to stop these, but they only go from one activity to the other and nothing proved effective. I realize I should be motivated and start working hard, yet there is nothing to draw from. I sit alone in the empty night, and it seemed I have sit alone forever, and I will have to do this forever on.

Why should I care about what was happening in the world? Why should I care about social media and random things all the time? All these things seemed arbitrary and just no way to get out for me. What is the future? What can I expect to do? What can I do anyway? I can't find an answer to these questions, and when I tried to sort through things only despair awaits. My emotions jumped everywhere and in the end it just seems can't settle on one thing at all.

My parents want me dedicated in studying and working all my life, and think that is the norm. "Every interest in inferior and should not be your priority. Studying should. Nothing else matters." This is their message on the weekly visit intended to denazify me.

My mom was like "yeah, I do have interests, but none of them wasting me any time." Then I remember my father questioning "what is the difference of Docker and Vercel?" and I said Docker is a tool and Vercel is a platform. I tried to explain to him but he still fails to understand, claiming they are western platforms, which are probably difficult. This is the feudalistic attitude of my parents: dismissing everything they don't know.

My parents kept trying to reinforce this study, study, study attitude. My mother said "China is a great country and billionaires are uring their children to study Chinese, no need for another language!" and like "We thought you were trying to be cool, no way you were real!" and expressed strong discontent. My mother further claimed "I don't know anything or anyone in that country besides just 3-5 people." I tried explaining about different platforms, like Dzen, Pikabu, 1tv but she downright refused, "They are irrelevant and useless." I tried to explain some YouTubers, my mom said "well, I don't read that, besides, YouTube is too foreign and difficult." I said "Exactly because I can't read that, I am learning to try to understand". She continued to scroll the shit phone and WeChat. I said "Wechat is shit of a platform, you can use Medium or Dzen instead for articles." My mom was like "But we are not shitty. You are because you failed."

I tried explaining my performance is at most mediocre in school and how these times wasted my teen years and I was always glommy. "Father had way more stress than you", they told me. But my father is the kind of guy who fits right into the shitty system and doesn't complain. He is always top of his system when he work hard, while I was always bottom. I said I already dropped all my hobbies and that the hobby right now isn't even a hobby I created but rather just an escape for the stupid school life.

My parents said they care about me. But I felt pressure anytime like they are talking to me, like the feeling of not being free. I need to be free.

It seemed like I polarized myself more and more to the point where there can be no compromise reached between me and the school. Anyway, I repeatedly tried methods to let myself to study but nothing is coming out.

I am depressed for a really long time and there just seem to be no end of it. I tried changing the focus multiple times and nothing changed.

20241205 13km Route

Here is an evening running route (13km), a lot of roads are unconstructed around here. Running this once (running and walking) makes me lose around additional 0.5 kg.

My arms and legs was very weak, and I struggled a little to walk from the start. There just doesn't seem to be anything left in them. However, with my willpower, I finished walking the 13 km route. But I am still very far from being a normal weight.

20241215

Today I walked 20 kilometers from high-tech campus of USTC to the west campus of USTC. I wasn't even very tired. There are a lot of motorcycles aggressively driving around me, even touching me as they speed on the pavements, so it is really dangeorus. I was very sad and angry at my parent's controlling and manipulative behavior. Why are they always forcing me to do everything? School is demanding enough and I have personal goals too. I hate motorcycles. I eat dinner and west campus and took the bus home. The full route is 20 km.

20250108: Late Night Taxi Ride

I called a taxi at around 2:10. Someone answered very quickly. I was on an isolated road. It was actually pretty surreal, like a lonely car driving towards the lonely me.

The driver was slightly fat, and the car was big was still only had 4 seats. It was really comfortable. I thought like if I would buy a car in the future, it would be a bigger car instead of a luxury car. Like literally sitting in a car where you can spread your legs is just so comfortable.

The driver was talkative and asked why I was there. I said I was walking and I couldn't sleep at night. The driver said "well, that's a long way to walk." I said, "yeah, I really like walking and I walked to many different places and frequently like over 15 km." The driver asked which company or work I was doing, and I said i was a USTC student. "USTC? You are the future of China!" He exclaimed, just like many taxi drivers here in Hefei.

The driver continued for all the rest of the way talking. It was 2 am and he was very talkative. He said he despised those students in subpar universities who need 30k RMB per year, and studied nothing, and that their parents could barely afford them, and they were doing nothing but playing and wasting their times. He said there are only 4 decent universities here in Hefei. He repeatedly expressed that it is not worth it if you waste "parent's money" and then achieve nothing. He said that these familes would be lucky to make ends meet with the 30K RMB(without including daily fees).

He said he had a relative whose kids went to a technical school (like community college but worse, but btw I don't think people attending community college should feel any "guilt"? Like some even get a part-time job), and expressed that the kid would have a hard time finding a job, like literally with low salaries for prolonged periods, probably less than 5k RMB a month. He said those people in subpar schools play all day and all night and does nothing. I even started feeling a little guilty walking past midnight alone. I thought like I am studying nothing here at USTC (like most teachers are old and kinda outdated) and I get more knowledge from YouTube courses and Github actually. I also stay up very long and sleep during the day.

I mostly nodded or answered "yes, yes, I agree."

He said he hated Tencent, who created hugely popular and addictive mobile games. He said when he returned to his home and all those kids were playing the video games. He said that there was no future for them. He said video games are like drugs Brits sent into China in the 1840s. I said that I didn't have a smartphone until university, and I didn't even like those games. I said like literally I couldn't understand why people were playing video games. Were they doing some machine learning or android developing? Perhaps watching German TV like ARD or ZDF? Or perhaps they might be interested in some Norweigan series(like how SKAM was hugely popular among youth)? Or perhaps just Hollywood movies? When I was programming or just chilling on YouTube I would also spend hours on end at my computer. Like yesterday i was watching the TV show СТС and Первом Канал and ARD because I thought they were fun. Even if you chill on just talk shows in English you could have spent a really long time. I said if parents want to forbid their kid they just give them a feature phone like my parents did when I was 11 (before then I had literally no phones of any kind), and he said that these kids have more or less 300 RMB and they would buy such a phone on their own. My parents would never allow that of course and they would take it away and ground me. But these kids? He said it was like drugs. We were in different worlds altogether.

I come to understand maybe some people "really" have some troubles with English? In Shanghai I grew up and English was my second native langugage. i am actually pretty bad at English until like 11 years old. I thought like English is everyone's primary or at least fluent language. A lot of people are fluent in 3 languages. I said "Maybe they can get a job if they know programming?" He said, "well, some people don't have logic, so as to say, they obviously can't do any research or so." I thought I am pretty bad in computer science too, anyway. I learned programming mainly from LLMs and random YouTube tutorials. You don't need a lot to understand like basic MIT OCW or Coursera courses. No school courses teach Node.js or cloud architecture anyway.

He said he greatly admired a relative who is an accountant, and "she always sit and complete her work before going out in the supermarket and would shut herself in the room for hours." I thought like there is nothing special about that, and I can sit in a room for hours watching YouTube.

He said videos are available online for everyone. I thought "yeah, that's a good thing, maybe you can learn everything on YouTube and Cousera like?" He said he had a kid who want to be a policeman. He said he told the kid "in order to become a policeman, you must start driving your effort towards the goal. You must obey the rules at home and follow the laws. You must get good grades to go to a police college." I thought police college are the worst college on earth where it's all man and no woman(just like USTC, but even more screwed) and you must obey the stupid order and there isn't much freedom. I also thought like if you obey everything at home you would be severely screwed by your parent's outdated views.

Then we arrived and he said good luck and enjoy yourself in Hefei and goodbye to me. I felt deeply the difference and divide here in China. Yeah, like even at 2 am there are those taxi drivers. But in their heart there is this desire to climb up the social ladder, the desire to study and get good grades. How close yet how far apart were we? In the lonely isolated night.

I feel there is an invisible wall. I am perfectly aware of the invisible wall, but the more I try to approach the other side, the further away I get. I can cross language and culture barriers easily, they are like high walls but the more effort I spend the more results I get and it's like traveling to attractions, yet this wall defies common sense.

I am aware that I am privileged, but the more I try to explain myself and connect from their reasons (why don't they do it? it's available!) the further I get away. It's an invisible privilege that exist in the difference of mindsets. Like, I must be aware at least, even if I can't get there yet.

Conclusion of 2024

As 2024 is drawing to an end, I hope to conclude this year and point out the direction we are going.

2024 is the toughest year in my life. I had depression in all of 2024. I had failures and sadness.

First, 2024 is a year of exploration, of the self-identity crisis leading to awareness. Arguably 2024 is the most definitive year in my teen years. If my previous teen years were being suppresed into cramming nonsense, then 2024 is the year of awakening and self-awareness. I explored different countries, and different platforms, gaining a better view of the world.

Second, 2024 is a year of distrust. My parents are weak, too old, traditional, very stupid and outdated, overly strict and manipulating, and just not someone to trust. I hated my school. My school is overly outdated, rigid, boring, meaningless. I hated my teachers. They all put me into difficult situations that weakend my potential and destroyed my confidence. I rose to a full rebellion to reject control and save myself, to embrace a new identity and break free from prison. I started have much weaker bounds from my family members. I regained firm control over myself. But destroying is meaningless without a meaningful way to reconstruct. In 2025 I hope to find my own way while compromising and cooperating with school and life.

Third, 2024 is a year when I struggled to find my place in the society, when I looked at the people and got confused. I will continue to be confused in a few years, but amidst all, I still found a lot of basic principles. Globalization and avoiding politics and controversies, being true and genuine will guide my way forward.

Finally, 2024 is a year when my ideals clash with reality. In the end I realized ideals are not to be pursued or think too deeply or thoroughly, and adopting a pragamtic method is better and easier. I have Pixel and Thinkpad right now.

I have four cards on my hands, computer science, math, language learning, and fitness. I put my special academy plan into the winter of 2026, and the other 2 things are well under way. Among them computer science is the most important, but other things will be essential parts of my life too. However, in light of the present struggles, I will focus my primary energy in 2025 on computer science studies. The conditions are far from ideal now, but they are what we have.

In 2025 I will rise again, work hard primarily on computer science, and compromise with the school while concentrating on real improvement during the year.

What do I Think About "YouTube Polygots"?

Most of them are either scams, very fradulent, or spreading harmful, objectifying, sexist steoreotypes ("language simp"). They are selling you courses so they can earn money, or selling off their rotten, wicked, outdated proprietary crapware. There is someone named "Steve Kaufmann", who seems very pretentious and fishy, promoting his asshole app. I don't care a damn about any polygots.

By the way, I never want to by a polygot. Language learning isn't my cup of tea. I would stop after Russian and German, not being very greedy. My life is limited, and it's not like I want to show off or something, I want to make myself happy.

There is also someone named "Rick Steves", who is touring Europe on YouTube. However, he only speaks English, which seems very fradulent and shallow. Imagine not able to order food in a restaurant or having trouble reading any original resources and relying on translators. On a sunny relaxed day you go out on a local market or cafe to hang out with people and get the vibes, and while everyone chats but you understand nothing and cry. You cannot have any deep connections.

20250113

I am writing a fiction. I am not trying to tell any stories, just to prove a point and address all the remaining problematic elements in TKAM. The main plot goes like this. Atticus works as a housekeeper, cleaner, and babysitter for the Robinson's family. Every night Atticus would come late and tired at night to the modest family of Jem and Scout. Calpurnia doesn't work as a servant but works as a lawyer, marrying Susan, an Asian-American journalist. Calpurnia doesn't have any children here but adopt one and stays true to her sexual orientation. Scout and Jem goes to community college, Scout continues to be a servant in a restaurant while Jem become a delivery man. Tom Robinson works at a newspaper press. Every evening after cooking for the Robinson family and washing their clothing, Atticus returns home. Robinson's son continues to be a computer scientist. Bob Ewell died of early age due to alcohal overdose, and his daughter was very young and adopted by Calpurnia and Susan. Boo, the introvert, started working at a night shift job in a hospital, maintaining some minimal presence, while spending most of his spare time painting. Mayella Ewell undergoes healing and a better life from her sad past after the adoption albeit beginning conflicts, eventually going to medical school and becomes a doctor. The main rape case won't exist. The title of the fiction would be "Mockingbird's Zov Dlia Svobodi" (MZDS) It means "Mockingbird call(зов) for(для) freedom(свободы)".

I got many questions for TKAM. In TKAM, why should Atticus, the white man, do the privileged work while Calpurnia works as a Housekeeper? Is Atticus smarter? More intelligent? In TKAM, Why is Atticus "exploiting" Calpurnia? Why can't Atticus do the housekeeping, wash the clothes and cook for the children? Even if Atticus is bad at this, and can only rely on cold foods, Atticus is not supposed to exploit someone else. In TKAM, Why did Calpurnia's child have to collect garbage? TKAM is still deeply misogynistic and racist, especially Atticus vs Calpurnia, I know it's a "historical fiction", so it's fine, but we are writing a "scientific realistic fiction". Of course, my parallel universe is set in AmberBank, located in Climate District of country. It's nothing related to America, just a random universe. Remember, it's not only AmberBank, but AmberBank, Climate District of Eco-Friendly (ABCDEF).

Just Kidding.

20250114: Civilian vs Barbarism (me)

Anyways, my attitude towards grandparents, attitude towards death, attitude towards teachers and school, delusions about other people clearly indicate some internal disfunctions. Given I am privileged and live a decent life, it is clear that I am very selfish, spoiled, lacking of work ethic, and below in cognitive functions. It's like civilian(system around me) vs barbarism(me), or rules and law (system around me) vs criminal(me), or normal parent vs psychopath(me). The parent seem to genuinely care and worried about this spoiled, failing, uncapable child.

My father repeatedly emphasized usage of Microsoft Office. He said it was the primary way to write documents. I argued otherwise. I argued that word is a very bad format, no version control, no cloud sync, bad for code snippets, and just too much gui by the way and weird symbols. Most times you are able to get by with Markdown and Latex. I argue that I only use Google Docs. My father dismissed Google Docs as non-existent or foreign softwares that cannot be trusted and insisted on Word instead of Markdown. It is honestly very stupid.

My father has a love for Microsoft softwares for no reasons. I have very casual avoidance of Microsoft. Anyways, I use Github, but, that's it. Microsoft softwares are nefarious for ridiculous subscriptions and confusing interface for users that intentionally make working harder and unintuitive, hiding their features and robbing you of freedom, literally the idea of dystopian.

The school doesn't teach you knowledge. It teaches you to comply. It teaches you to stop exploring by yourself and listen to them. It teaches you to do whatever you are supposed to do and just stop thinking about other things and cause chaos in the society. The least thing it want you to know is knowledge. It frames itself as "knowledge" but actually double down to put you inside this invisible jail. Teachers don't want you to actually learn another langauge because that way you are not going to comply, you are going to have alternative worldviews, and this alternative values is very dangerous to the society because if everyone in the society is saying different voices in fact the country can't be authoritarian and can't be effective on many matters. Thus studying is framed as a means to an end for the harmonious society rather than true pursue of knowledge, which I didn't realize for long.

Furthermore these teachers easily frame them as "teaching" to gaslight you into believing that what they are doing is essentially teaching you knowledge and that learning is supposed to be cramming, nothing else. So in the end it becomes clear that you don't want to actually learn but what you do want is to do whatever the teacher want you to do and fit your place in the society. Is it effective? Actually I might say yes, for a big country to work together, it's a very impressive thing to achieve.

Anyway I have lingered a bit long in this learning journey and thus I am already out of the wall, and I cannot return or possibly confine myself to that again.

My Chinese bank card got another problem and my mother started phoning me and rushing here to help me resolve it. It was like the bank prohibits transactions over a certain amount and that the school is refunding the exchange program. Like this thing never ends. I couldn't do it basically. I was still asleep.

My mother is a balant liar. She discriminates everybody who has even the tiniest flaws and impose superiority. She repeatedly emphasize she is lenient. Well she is far from lenient. She now has zero trust in me. She cannot understand me at all. She really hates. She frequently impose feudalistic values amidst nowhere, claiming I need to go back to home during New Year. She repeatedly pressure me to beg the teachers for passing the course. This isn't possible because my current state is that I hate school so much let alone trying to like talk to the teachers. Then my mother repeatedly tries to question my next semester state. Honestly it was so bad.

My mother tries to use crying and emotional methods on me, it's not possible. I will not sacrifice my freedom. Anyway, I am adjusting and trying while they repeatedly try to impose their things on me that I have nothing left but hatred and isolationism took over me. She frequently brainwashes me with nonsense about computer and phones.

Anyways, Chinese banks are the worst on the world and they have those shitty apps that are not functioning. They are intentionally confusing with subpar programmers that likely have low intelligence and cognitive disfunctions. Those Chinese bank apps use a specialized keyboard to confuse and antogonize me.

My mother hates language learning and have a Chinese imperialism worldview. My mother fails to understand or try to understand me. My mother hates my hobbies of learning Russian. My mother hates Russia and western world.

My mother wants to eat from a delivery app again. I said, I thought you condemned it? She be like "just once". I said you already condemned me, and I said, you can't do it. I be like "there is no playing game 5 minutes a day, it's either completely no or 24/7 for me. Similarly it applies to other things."

I explained if they do keep distracting my winter holiday, especially with feudalistim and conformism, it will have unintended consequences like isolationism dominating again inside me. There is simply no way. I was just chilling for one day and like it's so disruptive. I had so many things I had no ideas how to solve anyway. It is nefarious and I am on the verge of collapse, how can you expect me to do anything? Then they started lecturing again and how I cannot kept failing even for one year. I cannot drop out, otherwise my parents would take over and I would legitmately be living in conditions worse than prison. Just leave me alone, I never wished more for that.

I should have realized earlier the very feudalistic and dismissive attitude of my parents. I should have acted more to save myself. And there is no life and meaning anyway outside of that. My parents always shame me on everything and denies it. My parents said "I had no expectations, when did you hear it?" I be like, yes you did say it. My mother denied me completely of desire to quit school this remaining semester 2 months ago and she be like, "no we didn't, I thought you agreed?" I was coerced always to do this. There is no other fucking way. My mother asked if I hated her, I said, well maybe I hate the system too.

I feel very strong uncomfort and anxiety being in the same house as my parents now. I would want to leave and find another decent place.

My mother repeatedly said I can travel. I said I don't want to travel. Traveling doesn't bring me the same benefits as language learning.

I said my mom is a liar. My mom said it was because I am too sincere that I come to believe. It's wrong actually. My parents are liars, and very balant at gaslighting. I used to believe in their words but no anymore because it's always this gaslighting and "fault is on you" attitude, and "we can't understand you". There is no compromise to be made with my parents, it's either complete obedience or you are a bad kid. My mother repeatedly emphasized the importance of communication, but is one party is a balant liar and keep coercing me with no compromise, there really isn't any communication left anyway.

It's like when I realized how much resistant I would be facing after such a small hobby that the uncompromising attitudes people and environment have that I no longer can cooperate anymore, and the us vs them attitude rises.

Anyway I cannot blame my parents anymore. My mother helped me change the bank card. Oh, and by the way such difficult is changing the Construction bank card, literally I don't understand and my brain shut down completely, and I tried to explain to the teachers afterwards. It was such a difficult task and without my parents help I would not have done it.

20250115

I cannot but admire the developement of Hefei. Tall residential buildings are bursting everywhere, new subway lines are being built (line 8 just opened), what used to be dirty, small roads became clean, quiet, modern neighborhoods.This is not only happening in one place but all throughout, in east, west, south of Hefei (where I have been), whlie I haven't been to northern Hefei since 2021. It's like things are changing right under my eyes, how the roads used to be wild and unconstructed, became beautiful and just very pleasant to walk on. However, there are still motorcycles speeding around posing danger to pedestrians, people spitting on the ground, people having loud phone calls in subways (and even vulgar words in it), people playing loud "tiktok" videos while walking, and a lot of workers around in ragged clothes. It's like a mismatch between the city structure and the people living there.

20250116: Efforts to Restore Things

In the meantime I am working hard to restore some sort of balance. I found it really hard to find the proper shoe size to wear.

In China I remember like my feet size is 43 size, and I found out my current 2 shoes are US 9.5, but it gets confusing because 9.5 US equals to 27.5 cm while 43 size eqauls to 26.5 cm. I think I bought my shoe in US. I only found out after like one of my shoe had a hole and I have been wearing them since like forever. Anyway, it started getting confusing and I think the best way is the go to an actual Nike store in the morning to try to find out. I hope to buy the cheapest shoe in Nike (or just try out to see if my feet size is indeed 43 in China), and my current shoe is actually Pegasus 40 (one of the running shoes, and it last pretty long honestly, but it had holes for some months already).

Also basically my socks are starting to have holes. It's kind of difficult to buy socks since UNIQLO has two different selections: 25-27 cm and 27-29 cm feet. I selected 25-27 cm. I don't know. I spent 60 RMB on it. In the meantime I would need to wait. Some socks are too tight, others are too silky (really uncomfortable), and it's best to not buy from PinDuoDuo. But anyway, if it doesn't fit the 60 RMB would be wasted and I would need to select 27-29 cm again.

I am making some efforts, though I have no guarantees if they would be successful or not, to try and make my life a little better. For one, I changed all interfaces back to English so that I can work without any more confusion. I mean, it's honestly causing a lot of procrastination, whatever I had done before. I am trying to do something about it now.

When I went through my clothes it appears that I haven't even got enough comfortable ones to wear. That is how messed up I am in the start of the winter holiday, oh, that is how messed up I am. I wear two layers usually outside of my shirt, and it's pretty cold outside. The inner layer is 190cm size and insanely big. Wearing 3 layers is kind of cold outside in around 0-5 celcius, but not that cold since I am so fat. I spend most of the times indoors in the heated room. I lost 8 kg from 86 kg to 78 kg, but I don't feel any difference. I am still on the hotter side usually. My parents fat shamed me, so it is still causing me a lot of anxiety, even though I am 177 cm and my BMI would be 25.0. I kind of wanted to lose weight until like 72 or 73 kg at least. It's just causing me a lot of anxiety to basically even eat anything. But regarding my clothes it's not like I am going to do anything about it in the meantime anyway.

Yeah, and I am making efforts, and I previously did make some efforts here and there, but mostly in vain and backfired. So like this time I hope things are getting better? Since it is the start of a winter holiday like I do hope though.

And regarding the monthly finance I didn't do it. Regarding like the bed schedule there is also nothing that I can do. I am messed up from head to toe.

Ok, it's in the morning now, and I got up very late. I am trying very hard to like at least do something, and I would try to go to the Nike store to buy a shoe and finish finance accounting, in the meantime, hopefully things turn out better though.

Somehow Nike and UNIQLO have more navigatable interfaces than Chinese apps.

Anyways, I went in the Nike today and I tried on shoes and it seemed like US 9.5 is indeed the suitable size, and it transfers to size 43 here in China. It is honestly quite confusing. There are many shoes including Pegasus, Pegasus "Eliud Kipchoge", Winflow, Structure, Downshift. It's quite confusing. Anyway, I bought a Revolution shoe (cheapest one). Upon paying bullshit WeChat start causing problems and it repeatedly questioned my "identity" when I try to buy a shoe. I tried to verify my identity but it just wouldn't pass. It's honestly very confusing but in the end I paid with Alipay online.

Then I am trying finance accounting. I felt very very sleepy.

Hiding features in apps is a red flag for me. If some app has less functionalities in the mobile app than in browser, I will not use the app. For example, Github doesn't have the "download zip" feature in its app. Maybe they think people don't need that on mobile? But I have lots of needs different from most people, and they would really annoy me. Also, YouTube app feeds me ads if I am not premium (I use Ublock Origin in browser). Some blog apps doesn't have the "translate" feature in the app, (some context: on Android in browser when you tap on some text there would be a Google Translate Icon along with Copy, Cut, Select all...) like Dzen or Habr, I never download them as well. Even PWAs, because I cannot "suddenly open a new tab" in PWA as fast as in browser. I ended up not downloading any app.

We did the finance accounting pretty quickly and smoothly.

Anyways, it took me slightly longer as I procrastinated at night. But like right now I am trying to like look at the scores for tihs semester. This, is legitimately going to be a heart attack. Every time I look at my scores I want to jump out of the window. I don't want to live anymore, like that. Basically it's just like insanely difficult and traumatizing for me now. But we are going to look at the score, because that is the only way to recovery.

I honestly hope that nothing messes with the plan this time. It has been a toll long enough. I was just hoping not to fail the 3 courses this semester. I don't want my efforts to fail every time.

Oh, ok, it hasn't happened, my grades aren't there yet. I am going to ask the TA if I am going to fail or not and what can I do. Anyways, hopefully things will turn better? I don't know. I am still very much in complete dispair.

I have decided to take the B test next semester start about the circuit course. It's not going to be that bad. I don't know yet about the experiment course. I hope everything become better. I honestly hope.

I realized that many of my previous struggles were somehow random and self-inflicted. The logic goes like this: I could have tried just a little harder in 2024 or the years before, and I didn't, and I definitely should have done that before. It's basically like the answer to "why don't you not try?" is because when I am suffocated and just drowning I completely misfunctions and lost lik even 80% of 60% of the strength, and then I self-deceived myself into failure in school somehow. Anyway, in the meantime, I have made a lot of positive changes, as long as this semester doesn't totally destroy me I am pretty sure things would go the right way very soon.

I guess that is the question for most failures? If you work 60%, you will still pass and not fail. It's because at first you burned out, then you try to find a way out, but continuously there is a voice in the background (like in my brain) that tells me to not work with them, that they are bad, and isolationist tendencies, or just resentment and the continued burnout that all contributes to this. There is also shame and embarrassment, and the more embarrassed I was, the more I can't work with school.

I guess the future (if it exist, we hope) lies in working with the environment and not in isolation. In this brief period right now like I am recovering very fast. But hopefully like what remains of the university will be smoother. We will obviously prevent burnouts from happening but we will also do whatever we need anyway.

If food is bad, just don't eat it. I always adopt a mindset "eat anything" or "I can eat everything". I was never picky about food for at long as I can remember. I have long been educated the mindset to cherish food that "Sun in midair, sweat drifting to the mud, who knows every grain of rice is hardwork by peasants?" or "Finishing the long march on wild vegatable soup" or "It's 1960, one mouthful of porridge and mantou left." I like eating food, like, any kind of food, almost equally. But still, like literally if the "bing" is too hard, or the meat is too salty and messed up, just throw it away. Hard and old "bing" cause constipation, while too many tofu food cause gas. Oh man, like literally it's not a good idea to eat something and physically feel bad for days. Of course, I still like eating all foods and literally any edible food, I can enjoy it wholeheartedly, but still just for digestion purpose, some food aren't optimal.

20250118 About Hefei's Development Again

I can't help but emphasize again that I am deeply impressed by Hefei's development. Everywhere around Hefei beautiful residential buildings are rising and what used to be rural, dirty roads are becoming super nice neighborhoods. These are just really beautiful buildings.

China is developing at such a speed that is genuinely mindblowing. The neighborhood around my childhood home from Shanghai didn't change much, still those 6 story buildings, but it was already quiet and good. Hefei is developing faster than Zhangjiang High Tech park, which took like 10-20 years. I remember from my walks in Shanghai that the east side and the southwest side of Pudong are developing, but Hefei is still by far more impressive because it's a total transformation, while Shanghai is more like small area expansion.

Imagine what would happen if the kids grow up at such a quiet, nice neighborhood compared to the previous rural China? Everything would change, the mindset, the worries, the lifestyle, etc. China does have some social problems among youth, like too much pressure, gaming/social media addiction, outdated schools, but none of them can hold back the complete transformation. A kid growing up in rural, poor parts might only want to live decently in the future, like my parents, while a kid growing up in a developed neighborhood might want to do more meaningful things and explore their potential. This is night and day difference.

So the future of China is very optimistic. Aging population is a problem, but the average level among Chinese population will inevitably increase. It is becoming more like Japan? Sort of, but with 10 times the population.

20250118

I am deeply embarassed by myself and my failure to communicate with the school and classmates. Overall I am just deeply embarassed with everything. But currently like there is just nothing left in me. I am very certain after this winter holiday things will go better, but yet even now my heart is in the air and I am scared. I genuinely hope for a true recovery period, then I can fix everything. I have until 2.24. Hopefully everything goes right, though.

I have a lot of confidence in working everything out for the next semester, and I am already getting reasonable progress.

I had a dream, and my parents were in it. I don't remember anything about the dream, but I do seem to picture (or is it a dream or some subconsiouc activity?) like my father being bullied in Henan and growing up in the best middle, high schools, being always the top in class, then going into HUST while most of his classmates and childhood friends had low paying jobs, and how he seemed like a giant being a PhD among them. What is special is I seem to hear a lot of voices and it happened in Henan, and I came to realize that how my parents need to study English the wrong way back then without any reference or even good tutorials over their best years. And I thought how unrealistic and difficult it is to understand or want to "learn Russian" from that perspective, and how English would be extremely difficult for some people throughout their lives. Literally all their lives were focused on getting a university. And how like my father first went abroad with me at the same time in 2009 when he was 35 and I was 4 years old, and I remembered how he tried to study CFA, and wondered what it might seem like in his eyes. Of course, I definitely still blame most people for lack of efforts, but those older people do grow up in different backgrounds. I picture those torn down houses and my parents living in their with siblings, and how I assumed everyone was the only kid? Like how would they think about the bringing up of a kid. For one, I got all the attention and care, but I also got all the pressure.

In the end the world seemed to be spinning and I got great guilt, and even I cannot understand failing some courses almost intentionally just for the sake of freedom. I felt great sadness and anger at myself. I thought like how it would be for them? Anyway, I tried to walk through some things through my parents' lense and it seemed like I am the one that was always wrong.

I thought about the oppression imposed on me. I wasn't able to access YouTube until 2022, largely delaying my English studying process. My high school English teacher only fed me trash. I was also oppressed by smartphones and Chinese softwares. Anyway, on one hand these oppressions greatly hindered me, on another hand they seem part of "China's success". Also, the lesson is, try to work with people while fully understanding the horrible effects. We should not be paranoid and too idealistic about freedom. Whenever I start talking about Chinese softwares, I always labeled them as "shit". They might be, but the more I emphasize it the more I hate it, I must work with it. Some American softwares like Instagram, Twitter, Windows can also be labeled as "shit", so it doesn't matter.

I must work with school, and even if it means doing compromise. I need to come up with a plan mostly work with school system while retaining some sort of freedom.

20250119: Horrible Communication

I didn't communicate with TAs and teachers. They tried to communicate me but couldn't because in the class group I didn't show my true name. Anyway, it was just a full piece of mess.

Like, literally TAs couldn't contact me, that's how horrible I was.

I kept relying on some motivation to come, it didn't.

I now deeply regret my previous year and hope to work with the school after this winter. I am recovering very fast and hopefully nothing goes very wrong.

I hate myself. I don't hate the world or China. I hate living as this person.

I have been learning Russian all these past months and right now I can mostly understand Russian when I listen to it on YouTube without English subtitles. I can read most of Russian. Anyways, most means over 60%, and probably around 80%. This skill is quite useless anyway.

I must avoid being too liberal. It's never "all of nothing" situation. I must be practical and at least get through this university, then we can reflect on this experience. In the meantime I am seriously ashamed of myself, but not only that, I am expressing deep desires to work with the school to improve my current situation.

Regarding sleep schedule, I am also trying to improve that any time this semester fully ends (score releases then good or bad my mood wouldn't shift too much), then try to shift it to normal.

I must monitor things closely and make sure nothing go wrong.

I must not push to ideals and I must remember that my actions have serious results on myself. I must avoid generalizing school and antogonizing against it. It is very dangerous.

At the same time, I would preserve my style, and use my methods, to work efficiently with school and with life. How so? We solve it in the winter holiday. I have until 2.23 to solve this problem.

Kontse kontsov, Ya veryu mi budet pobedil.

Strangely my father wanted to open a company. He wanted to do something with 3D. He wanted my help. Anyway, I couldn't help, I am barely even able to graduate from university. It was just so strange. My father said like if he tried to hire someone in the market it's like a 50 year old person barely knowing any Linux. I don't know, I have enough things to mind around myself right now.

My parents suggested having someone to go with me in my nighttime wandering trips. But I don't see anyone even on the streets, who would want to walk 20 km into industrial areas?

20250120

Dear journal, I am now going to attempt to look at my scores for the second time (last time no score came out). I am deeply melancholy and I feel this would be a terrible moment for me, but in the meantime, let's log in the system and see what we can do.

This won't be easy, I tell you.

Ok, I passed the politics but failed the circuit course. In the meantime I can't afford to fail any more courses. It's so difficult.

I am very heartbroken but also I don't know. It's just, anyway, like deeply sad for me.

It seem like things broke me too much. And it takes forever to heal.

I don't know what will happen next.

I am like, literally broke right now, and I am shattered in pieces. Everything is so sad. Like, maybe it is the end of the tunnel, but I have fallen so deep like instead of seeing any light I fell to the bottom of a hole.

And it was all because of my wrongdoings, so right now I feel like I want to die. I fell dizzy and sleepy.

20250123

Every night I woke up to literally nightmares. Today was no difference. There was this sudden test going on and I was in middle school, and everyone was heading out to the test but somehow began running endlessly. It doesn't make much sense anyway. Then I thought about my currect situation and I was deeply ashamed of myself. I bescolded myself. Just why did it happen?

It's not like I drink a sip of coffee then I can like recover. It's more like a very long process of restoring from ruins. God knows how long it will take.

I wonder if these years in USTC wasn't that dramatic and weird, what would happen? It seemed when I walked into the school everything was working against me and it was so difficult. But there are no "ifs", there is only going forward. Oh, anyway, and right now everyday I hope for something, yet seemingly nothing.

One thing is clear, I can allow nothing of this sort to happen anymore in the future. Nothing. It's too shaming. When things happen it's like the world's ending for me.

Like why did I began failing this semester then? I don't know, a mixture of lack of preparedness definitely played a part. Moreover, it's basically the alienating mindset that refueses to work with school. I was just too tired. I was supposed to recover! I feel deeply regretful and just wanting to die right now. Like, that's how bad it is to fail. You are a failing student, you are a failing person, and there would be no more worth in you.

What would my future be anyway? I don't know about any future. When people were talking about future I couldn't join because back then I was too busy and tired just doing schoolwork, now that seemingly the future isn't mine, and just too far from reality. I did the worst thing possible to ruin my life, yet I did it almost without consideration back then.

There is something in myself that I can't keep blaming the environment, the expectations, whatever, for my wrongdoings. I don't know. I fear life. I fear the future from coming. I fear the future because previously I thought the future would improve, but it didn't. I fear what would happen next. Is it because of a lack of efforts? Maybe, but that's still not the full picture. It's like an intentional avoidance and isolation. I fear this, yet this thing exist in me and took over very shortly after 2024, for the whole year. I am scared of basically what would happen next. I don't look forward to anything. I want to jump out of the window and end everything now.

I just found out Google photos compress my photos when I upload them. This is indeed a very strange action. Why would Google do that? A couple of photos take no storage, sure. They harm your photos and force you "vendor lock-in", so that you don't choose anything else for photo storage. Anyways, I backed my photos temporarily to Proton Drive, then I decided just damn it, and deleted a lot of other apps from my phone. i hate apps.

Regarding the task manager: I am not using Google Tasks anymore. I would be using a notebook again for tasks.

20250124

Addressing the Wakeup Time

• 1.20: Slept at around 1:20 am
• 1.23: I got up at 6:30 am.
• 1.24: I got up at 8:43 am.

At 2026.7, I will reconsider Sports, Languages, Math.

Briefly Addressing the Current Situation

There were like 3 problems. First thing: obesity. We pretty much solved it already. I am not obese anymore. I am at the upper side of normal bmi range. What we should do now is to just maintain and chill. No need for radical losing weight or extensive efforts anymore. I was 86 kg, now I am 77-78 kg, and 177 cm, so my BMI is around 24-25. We can mark this problem as solved. Obviously we hope to prevent such problem from arising again. It's not the main problem. As for future weight loss, it's still going to happen, and we are addressing it proxied with Invisalign. We hope to lose like 3-4 more kg at least. Anyway, it's not the main focus now.

Second thing is sleeping schedule. In the winter holiday I will consistently wake up at 6 am or before. I will do this consistently and not sleep (at most like 10-30 minute small nap, must not interfere with nighttime sleep) in daytime, and it comes down to maintenance again. I hope to start doing tihs today, and hopefully the sleeping schedule problem will be solved. During the semester even if there are later shifts, the sleeping schedule is likely to remain good given its consistency in the winter holiday. I don't know, until then, let's see. Also, getting the work done for the day isn't as important as sleeping and adjusting for the next day. There was a lot of radication and confusion, but let's adjust and make ourselves better bascially.

Third thing is Invisalign, again, just go with it normally, but please do put on Invisalign. Basically what I wanted was to put on Invisalign throughout the day and only eat dinner without it, then quickly put it back up once I arrive at home. Of course, this will help us lose a couple more kg anyway throughout the year.

There is also another problem, which is the inefficiency of task managing. We will of course, start a physical notebook to address this issue. We must then bring tihs notebook whereever we go (basically in the backpack), and take notes of tasks everyday.

That's all. Problems are mostly solved, and no need for radical movements, just maintaining is enough work!

I am against too much integration with Russian now. It's not a very good country anyway. Everything about it is highly polarizing and its far weaker compared to China or US.

In the meantime I am going better and better everyday. Bad things are ending.

Beware of parents! My mom tried to gaslight and put propaganda inside me in just a very short video call. She always tries to pursuade me with feudalistic values!

In this crucial time it is important to not draw any propaganda from my parents. It is very dangerous and damaging to all the fruits and efforts we have made.

My parents tried to rain down propaganda and feudalism all the time! My mother is a balant liar and wants to keep control of every aspect of me!

Also, "Nandu Beigui" is an awful book! It says "there would be no masters after these masters"! Who are those masters? Why aren't there any more masters? It is very confusing. The book promotes feudalism and those masters such as "Chen Yinque", "Fu Sinian", "Liang QiChao", but what is special in them? Is there anything like irreplaceable? They get quality education while most of Chinese couldn't at that time, and they are privileged. If there are no ordinary Chinese doing the poor jobs back then there would be no "masters". Also this is like saying, "there is no geniuses after Galois and Abel, no musicians after Beethoven and Mozart, no good smartphones after Nokia feature phone." This is absurdly wrong and misleading. Overall the book overly romanticized feudalistic elements and it is indeed a horrible book. It presents an elitism view of history during that period.

I came to known the issue of favoritism of work in America, which, basically one country's immigrants would favor people of that origin in jobs in America. However, it is definitely not a concern right now for a failing student.

20250125

I came to know that US needs you to provide social media??? This further reinforces the belief that I must strongly reject social media. I only have a broken WeChat and QQ, nothing else. Thanks Google, but you are too intrusive. Anyway, I was like what? These cheap man and dumb intelligence.

It seems like cloud computing became more difficult after migrating to AWS. You need more time spinning up a server and you need to consider everything, and it's just very complicated. It all started with deploying a docker. It seemed like since I migrated to AWS I am playing with cloud less and less because of the complexity of navigating around. I ended up building the docker in Linode. Anyway, I had a lot of problems, let's list them.

• Linode: Mostly fine but no CDN (Akamai is too expensive)
• Yandex/Selectel Cloud: Needs Russian payment
• Baidu/Huawei/Alibaba Cloud: Interface difficult to navigate, Chinese firwall problems
• 1984 Hosting: Too distant
• Cloudflare: No VPS and difficulty canceling domains, can't prepay
• Hertzner/Upcloud: Account instant suspension because of EU problems
• Contabo: Reported server missing problems
• OVH: UI too difficult to navigate around
• Vercel: No VPS, way too expensive

No way I am going for a tech giant cloud. It's plain developer lock-in. You start with the documentation and you spend all your time configuring everything and worrying about burning up hundreds of dollars, while spending little time playing with servers.

Not to discredit, but here I am explaining some privileges.

First privilege is living in a studio with toilet. This is a significant privilege that half or more of college age students can't afford.

Everything boils down to economy, and my parents are rich, that's it.

If you are poor it's not just one difference in life but every difference, same as for when you are rich. I am not poor. I can afford a studio for university. That's it. Some concerns are artificial.

Regarding weight: I am already bringing it down.

Regarding video games: Poor college students do nothing but game all day, and they practically live in ruins. I am too aloft like that.

You ask yourself "Why people work?" It's because of money. Everything for money. You don't have money, you don't have anything.

And I am the privileged person. I don't need a lot of money but it's still like.

Regarding language learning like basically poor kids don't think about that.

I am unique but I am privileged. My uniqueness comes inherent but my privilege also comes inherent.

So this concludes that Russia isn't an option for me anyway. Russia is just very poor. If I am born in a normal family in China there is no chnace of me going to US or anywhere. I would at most be an ordinary person, and not only in high school but pretty much all my life, I would be an ordinary person in university, I would be ordinary, with struggles of course, but no chance of transcending very much above average, no chance of going to USTC, no chance of nothing.

Also, another thing to consider is that I shouldn't consider pornstars or prostitutes anymore. Look, you can't maintain attraction after masturbating, how can you maintain attraction or bond for a year? Let alone a lifetime, doing that is literally doing direct damage to yourself. You must have something deep in common, and even looks doesn't matter, or beauty needn't matter in this perspective. You better marry someone educated and civilized and just looking good overall instead of like those stupid dumb prostitutes. I am not banning porn outright now though.

But in any case, social media, gaming, destroy humans. It destroys me. I hate it.

20250126

I need a lot of fruits and yogurt for the food to go down. My digestion system needs a lot of fruit and yogurt as lubricants. I mean, it's just built that way. Otherwise I will constipate. Just 2 days after the fruit shop and the store closed and I start having constipation problem, why? Because no fruit and yogurt!

Not excessive but like 500 ml-1L of yogurt and a lot of fruit (like 2 boxes of melon stuff or 5 bananas) or a lot of fruit juice. I even feel a little guilty about it but it's not like I can do anything about it! If I don't do it, then I would constipate, and then I would procrastinate and my life cycles would go wrong.

I don't know but I definitely need a LOT of fruit and yogurt to function well otherwise it's like food doesn't go down, I feel full like you know? after eating a meal just eating normally I would feel fuller and the food doesn't digest and go down. The food would feel like it's stuck in the middle and I would feel super full. Well, people in underdeveloped countries can't afford it you know? Like some people need glasses to function, but that is one time, while my need is like, consistent. Without fruits and yogurt I would feel bloated with one meal a day. I mean I can afford it but I still just feel a little "inferior" about it. Some people don't have to worry about it because for them food goes down super quickly. In underdeveloped countries fruits and yogurt are luxures, not even far from my life, in China 30 years ago it was luxure.

I need that semi solid thing, a lot of it, and it pushes better than water or vegetables. I don't know what is fiber and don't care. Basically like once I tried eating only vegetables or like 80% of vegetables and nothing helped back then. I still got these digestion problems. So first that semi solid thing would pushes things down, then it dissolves itself, and eventually keeping the body healthy, while vegetable soup or just water doesn't help!

20250127

Less on politics, and more on actual life please. Politics is nothing but a shitshow. Please concentrate on the concrete things instead and like basically the real lives and whatever.

American platforms are too commercialized. They are insanely hyped and have nothing inside. Just look at coursera, MIT OCW, very few valuable courses and overly hyped for the public with large views. Result? Nothing. MSU and MIPT channels provide much more better contents for studying. Seriously. Check out all the Ameircan news agencies that provide nothing but empty political shit. I hate them.

American competitions are like world competitions in diversity. You see Chinese, Korea, East Europeans, and white people, it's just so diverse. Top immigrants from different countries go to America, but there are virtually no inflow from America to other countries like China, Japan, Russia. Eastern Europe have a huge number of talents. They all go to America and speak English.

Anyway in the meantime US is comfortably still the best country on earth though, we can be sure of that. But politics shit show needs to stop. Now.

Phantom of the Opera have very concerning elements.

Erik is around 50 year old while Christine Daae is 15-20 years old. The phantom hides in pillars and rooftops of Paris Opera House. But what is particularly concerning is how the phantom tried to enter Christine's bedroom at midnight. I mean, think about it, a 50 year old man (did he marry or not? old enough to be Christine's father) enters an 18 year old girl's bedroom, something isn't right there. Phantom attempts to use manipulation tactics, reminding Christine of the tragic loss of her father. Then he kidnapped her away at midnight.

Let's look at the lyrics for Music of the Night. "Silently, the senses abandon their defences, Helpless to resist the notes I write", the victim gave up defending and fell into the mercy of the abuser. "And you'll live as you've never lived before", the abuser attempts to build fake promises for the victim, possibly through money or power, as the abuser is far older. "In this darkness which you know you cannot fight", urging the victim to fully succumb and give up any sense of fighting. "Only then can you belong to me", objectifying the victim and see it as personal possession. "Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation, Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in", this is rape? Or framing the scenario as just victim's darker side that has been suppressed?

Christine was clearly impacted by the phantom, as seen in lyrics "Those pleading eyes. That both threaten and adore". After abuse, Christine cannot stand up for herself and remembers phantom as both threatening but having some weird connection. This is an example of stockholm syndrome.

In my opinion Raoul is clearly the better choice. Raoul's lyrics "Long ago, it seems so long ago, How young and innocent we were, She may not remember me, But I remember her" in "Think of Me", a childhood friend, young and innocent and falling in love, then remembering each other many years later.

It's not the time of the day when they meet that make the difference. Christine and Raoul escaped to the roof too. But they were singing "Let me be your freedom", "I'm here, with you, beside you, To guard you and to guide you", which are totally normal relationship occuring between 2 lovers, no manipulating or power play, love as a path to freedom and out of solitude.

Throughout the book or the musical, phantom attempted to endanger, stalk, and harass the couple. The phantom even hides in Christine's father's grave. This is supposed to be a sacred place, and what phantom was doing was very strange and scary, taboo in culture. The phantom repeatedly attempted to kill Raoul.

Even in Point of no Return. "Our bodies entwining, Defenseless and silent" the victim is now defenseless. "Past the point of no return, No going back now" framing no going back justifies the act of the abuser. Their age difference is evident, and there is no chance of true or balanced love occuring, but rather phantom exploiting.

Also in the end the phantom didn't get any sentencing or punishment, but he just left. There is still possibility that the phantom might come back to harass the couple throughout their lifetime. There is no clear defense methods for Christine and Raoul. The show attempts to portrait phantom as a "angel", "genius". To be honest this sounds more like real crime or a sugar daddy scenario.

Just like most criminals, the phantom actually believes he is a genius and views other as inferior, trying to kill the true suiter. This "believing I am right" mindset is very common in smart criminals, especially those with traumatizing backgrounds. Some try to create complicated rules for themselves to evade law system, but it doesn't justify anything. Phantom's path should be improving his mental health and starting a healthy relationship suitable for his age, not stalking, kidnapping, extortion, and continued isolation.

Llyod webber is also very uncommon when he marries Sarah Brightman. Usually a composer doesn't present her wife as an important role in their musical, that is kind of weird honestly. And Llyod webber doesn't play Raoul or phantom (he doesn't play any role).

Twilight is nothing like this because Edward was 17 (well he was over 100 but it doesn't matter in the book), mostly younger than Bella and framed as a teen romance.

Harry Potter series has several critical flaws that I honestly dislike. Let's address them one by one.

First, it proposes narrative of students saving the world. In reality, its the older guys that is playing the main power game. Students just graduating from Hogwarts are too young to know anything about the world, not yet even fully integrated in the society yet. This is similar to student protests throughout history. Although passionate, this clearly doesn't solve any concrete problem (or the massive working class concerns). Students always represent one perspective in the conflict, not the whole of it or the "righteous" side of it. Students seem to be too distant fromt he real worries of the people and common civilians--they are just "radicalism".

Second, it creates a one dimensional good vs bad, or a black and white world. It suggest polarization and perhaps narrative of the victorious. Voldemort is bad, and we must kill him. But why is Voldemort bad? Because he wants to kill everyone? How is Dumbledore good then? Dumbledore wants to kill all "dark" forces. In reality there is no good or bad, each side for its own benefits and self-interest. Slytherin house may create some ambiguity, but didn't fully address the issue.

Third, it fails to capture the innner dynamics of power. The good people: Mcgonagall, Mrs. Weasley, Sirius, "Mad-Eye" Moody, Cedric, Neville, are always loyal and "good", while Bellatrix, Death Eaters are always bad. In fact, in real world there is usually an inner "struggle of power" and rivalry besides the cooperation and seemingly loyalty. We see in companies that workers would try to declare themselves as doing all the job and when crisis hit, protect themselves and frame it as someone else's fault, when fighting enemies, try to mitigate the damage on themselves while yelling loudly, urging others to fight and take the hard job. Umbridge might be an illustration of a corrupt official? The only multi-dimensional character might be Snape, but he is merely presented as a tragic hero, always "loyal" to his side, not like real world "heroes" who sometimes DO switch sides during crisis.

Say, Hogwarts person goes to an America Magical Institute, and suddenly found the American newspaper offers a different perspective compared to Daily Prophet, and what they believed was the truth or neutral was actually heavily biased. They found Daily Prophet was trying to spread propaganda by current minister of magic party (since it seems like the only newspaper), and trying to call the other countries "Nazi" (they never mentioned it in the book because it was the only newspaper and they were so brainwashed anyway that nobody doubts it), justifying Britain magical system's dictatorship actions.

Harry Potter is very long, surpassing 1 million words in total, yet introducing mostly one-dimensional characters in a black and white way to entertain its readers with simplicity and not having enough depth. It does show some inner conflicts like Dumbledore's past and maybe Malfoy? But they are very limited compared to its massive length (surpassing almost all classic books).

It did address race issues, introducing "mudbloods" in the book. However, Hermione erased her parent's memory of her when she tried to "save the world"(clearly very unrealistic), this is like erasing your own identity and never embracing it. Let Darco Malfoy establish a Mudblood pride month!

Last, it fails to assign a clear "power" to the system it created, confusing readers. How powerful is Voldemort? How powerful and different are all these characters? Harry Potter book shows that wizards and witches and shout "Avada Kadavra" (besides, abracadabra seem to be a misuse of its Hebrew original meaning? Also "Crucial" means torture? which make zero sense anyway.), if so, why shouldn't everyone start rapping in battles? The more you rap, the more spell you cast, the more damage you do. I cannot understand how exactly strong or weak is spells and wizard power.

Overall, Harry Potter is far from a "classic", below the Narnia or LOTR series or the modern GOT (though they aren't without problems), and more like a successful pop genre novel.

Let's start to construct another narrative, say, we are also tasked with writing the events in the book, what can we possibly diverge and write from a different perspective?

It's sad, but the Harry Potter book actually ended in a tragedy. And it's not a tragedy that you may think about. It's the triumph of propaganda and authoritarianism.

Rowling isn't just telling a story; she's presenting the "official version" that has been sanitized by the "New Ministry." Her authorial choices are, in this reading, acts of compliance with this regime's agenda. Her perspective align too much with this position, and arguably she writes everything from her perspective, intentionally misintepreting and changing many elements in the narrative, many of which are not true. The book is far too assymetrical in the "good' and "bad" that is it almost certainly a propaganda. The victors are good, the one who lost are bad. There is no justification for a good guy to fall for the dark arts.

We can't help but ask questions throughout the book, not inherently about the flaws of the magic, that doesn't matter much, but about the single source of information and suppress of dissent. Digital Prophecy is the state newspaper, "The Quibbler" is written here to show the inadequacies of the old "Soyuz of Magic". Hogwarts is the "main" school, and there is no mention of another newspaper that truly provides a different perspective for the dark arts. Where is the Slytherine Times? Banned by the regime, and Rowling, the approved author for the state, does not include it in the book. What about Hogorod? Hogovulpol? Hog SSR? Mentioned very briefly because of the great firewall of the state in the official narrative by Rowling, which presents one model as the fact to convince you to believe it's the only model that can work.

We cannot help but see the clear labeling and simple explanation/blame for problems throughout the book. Who is bad? Voldemort(Vova) and the "dark" forces. Who is to be blamed for all the troubles? Voldemort(Vova) again. What if the fact that people don't say the true name of Vova(you-know-who) is because of a mass surveillance state that, saying the name of the dissent, or activist, can be held accountable and have consequences instead? The book phrased this as "out of fear". Yes, it is out of fear, what if it's not for the activits or dissent, but for the totalitarian state, and the authoritarian government: Soyuz of Magic?

Rowling, as the author in this imagined scenario, is herself operating under the direction or influence of this "Nouvre Soyuz of Magic." She's an "Approved" Historian/Storyteller, and citicism of the old "Soyuz of Magic" is permitted. It's perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, for her to criticize the Fudge/Scrimgeour. She criticizes the old system to make the new system sound better.

The "Improvement" is a mandated narrative. The depiction of Kingsley's Ministry as a positive development isn't necessarily true, but a story Rowling has to tell, the official version without doubts. She can point out flaws for the old "Soyuz of Magic" and people angry at that, but never for the "Dark Arts".

Rowling criticizes the old "Soyuz of Magic" but within a framework, never showing any sympathy for the dark arts. The "Nouvre Soyuz of Magic" under Shackleborev is presented as an improvement, and the book is specifically designed to "show" the improvement and contentment, acting as propaganda. Hogwarts is central and there are no detailed explorations or narratives into other schools like Hog SSR, or Hogorod.

And the book continues to craft the protagonists: Belytria Lestranskaya, Drako Malfov, as evil. Is it so? We don't know. What we do know is who the protagonists are. Hermina Granchenko: a typical high-performing model student, total loyal to the new system, the story about erasing her parent's memory is another testament for suffering oneself for the overall good and the state. Wealsky family: Artem "Arthur" Wealsky portrayed by the book as uncorrupt and good, such a coincidence? Snape: whatever, ultimately loyal. Even some Death Eaters (like Regulus Black) have changes of heart, exactly! changes of heart for the good. Never do you see justification for a good person to change for the bad.

Now let me tell you this: What if Vova "Tom" Ridov isn't evil? Vova Ridov, a lonely but extremely smart student, is profoundly isolated in this school, spending hours and hours diving deep into his own crafts. His story is a classic example of an environment that failed him, failed his curiosity, and make him think that the only fulfilling activity for him is to practice dark spells? I believe Vova wasn't evil at 10 years old when he entered the academy. The book didn't include the other details, to carefully craft an approved narrative. Why doesn't the school have a robust mental health system so that Vova can trust and turn to? Shouldn't the school bear responsibility? Or is it that the system and Hogwarts is so bad, corrupt, and unsuitable an environment that it cornered Vova constantly till he began to have anti-establishment ideas? The book forces the reader to believe Vova is inherenly dangerous and evil.

The books portray the Dark Arts as inherently corrupting and based on causing harm and violating others, of course, you only see one side torturing and murdering, not the other side. Vova is the one being tortured. Death eaters are being tortured and murdered. You see the enemy building deadly weapons against you, you don't see your own state doing the same. The Nature of Dark Arts is very bad, I agree, what about the nature of the "good sides"? Your enemy is bad to you, and you are a saint to your enemy? Any harmful magic used by the "good side" would "Advanced Defensive Magic," "Retaliation Curses,".

Finally, Harry Jamesovich Petrov, the ultimate hero, who stands up for all the good and defeat all the evil. But the question arises. For a system so corrupt and bad that they need a young student who hasn't graduated yet to fight for them, to be the pillar, the savor of this world, isn't the system itself nonfunctional?

Well, say, in Chinese history, say in Han dynasty, you are told to write "a history of the previous emperor", you do that, but never ever justify the enemy(xiongnu, menggu, etc). The enemy is all bad and no good. They torture, they kill, and we don't. There are many many such cases throughout history

20250128

I seem oblivious to the fact that staying up for the night have a devastating fact on the next day, and that getting up at 6 am or 9 am or 12 or 2 pm make a huge difference on the next day. So, let's not stay up anymore, shan't we?

Coffee make you very very sleepy. Coffee does the complete opposite effect. You drink some coffee in the morning then you keep drinking it, and in the evening you cannot sleep, you would stay up the whole night. And then you physically will not be able to get up in the morning anymore. Thus is the hugely damaging effects of coffee. I must sleep on time and get up on time, the first step was facing huge problems repeatedly.

As for other things I believe I am on the right path though. I believe that my effort is partially paying off.

My parents tried again to spread the feudalistic values of Chinese new year on me. They asked me what I was doing. I told them I was watching МГУ letctures. My parnets immediately questioned, "What is the point of that? Why is it interesting?" in a very strange way. Anyway, I couldn't answer. I was like "well, it's just interesting and there are many math courses." I don't know. They wanted history back, and Confucianism. The older people are, the more traditional they become. My parents said they lacked the traditional education on me before and wants to impose on me feudalistic Chinese values which limit my freedom. Which of course I strongly resist.

However, in the meantime, adjusting my sleeping time is vital for a full recovery. We hope to adjust the sleeping time for a brighter future.

Everytime my parents talk to me I just want to fight back and run. I just hate them enforcing these feudalism and manipulation on me anymore. My parents became far more backwards over the past many years, while I grow far less obedient. That's basically what happened. I don't care about what promises I have, I need freedom and not live in handcuffs.

Google "Recovery mail is when we detect unusual activity", ok? So how do I know when you detect and how? Which activity of mine is "unusual"? They just spammed my recovery mail with a million security alerts.

I also moved away from Google authentication in Linode and Cloudflare because we need to get away from evil dictating big corps. Anyway, I hate oauth now. I prefer just username and password signin for every site. I have a password manager anyway.

20250129

No Sanctions (because it's necessary in China)

• WeChat
• QQ

While these apps represent imperialism, alienate users, and suppress your freedom, it is impossible to go against them in China. As long as you are in China, it is the law or the rule that force people use WeChat or QQ. If you are in China, you must obey everything and must conform with everyone else. You must follow the rules or you can't fit in the society, or else you would be better off living in the woods. I can criticize WeChat and QQ for days, but this isn't the thing we should do in China. We must make a compromise.

So, (willingly) we are skipping this for now.

Browser Restriction

Browsing in guest mode is too easy to bypass the extension protection and greatly adds the probability of distraction and exposing to extremist social media. Thus /etc/opt/chrome/policies/managed/test_policy.json

See here

For example

{
    IncognitoModeAvailability: 1,
    BrowserGuestModeEnabled: false,
    BrowserAddPersonEnabled: false
}

Not "Building" Everything on My Own

I cannot and will not build/host everything on my own. We shouldn't pursue idealogies too far and neglect the reality.

Aside from legal issues, to hoard even a decent amount like 50 TB on my own is very costly, difficult, time consuming. Overall it's not practical. I don't know how much money my normal YouTube consuming habits would cost if I use an Amazon or Akamai CDN. Even using Cloudflare with zero egress the storage will be costly.

Cloud infrastructure also doesn't end well, since it is too much work. Keeping personal cloud infrastructure is like keeping a pet or kid, it requires constant attention. If you only use it for just the basics (hosting one website, using S3 as alternative to cloud drive), it's fine. But if you maintain a complicated video platform, the search and indexing of S3, the ML processing (subtitles, translation) in the background, the formatting of everything, the database management, then it's impossible to do anything else in life. Even managing something like a PeerTube, the security, DDOS protection and federation, API usage requires massive time. I know this since I did try to attempt it twice and both failed miserably.

So I removed the self-hosted instances from AWS and only kept one RSS instance.

You Must Know it When You are Using Social Media

The thing is to create a ticket system here where you note down each time you access harmful extreme media. Thus you completely know like how many times you have accessed extreme content and can regulate far better.

I don't support GFW because I need Github and there are many normal media (that I don't impose a ban on), but I fully agree that a firewall is needed and understand its importance and necessity. I just disagree with the specific implementation.

I must acknowledge my crime and wrongdoings, not finding ways to bypass it!

I will threaten platforms that works against me with sanctions.

Social Media Tickets

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20250130

Today's Takeaways

1. Please stop tinkering with your phone and computer. Use Pixel and Fedora, and spend no time in customizing your system. This is a great waste of time that leads nowhere. Using niche systems will only create trouble. I hate smartphone and we MUST compromise here.
2. Apps in development are not suitable for daily serious use. Only stable and widely used platforms should be used. As explained, spending time with niche apps would waste great amounts of valuable time. This isn't to discredit these platforms or independent open-source developers and projects, but to make my life easier.
3. Please back up S3 in 2 several places. S3 itself alone is very stable, but if you use rclone, you can very easily delete everything. I did rclone delete s3: and all my S3 buckets are gone. It's very scary. Also, please make meaningful names like cloudflare, digitalocean, instead of s3 to differentiate and make youself understand what you are doing.
4. Please don't continue very extreme thoughts. They are very harmful whether they are meant to be good or not.
5. Regarding social media, a ticket system is created here. Of course, ethical social media doesn't need a ticket.

20250131

Today's Takeaways

1. Please don't be radical. But also please don't go backwards. It is what it is.
2. No need to be judgemental. Instead of "someone suck", "someone is clearly inferior", use phrases "I prefer something", or just leave in these situations.

20250202

I tried to expand my knowledge for other European languages like Germany or French or Spanish, but the passion simply isn't there. No matter how hard like I try to get myself engaged, the strong, endless driving force simply isn't there. Germany and France seem to have not only a smaller population but a culture that doesn't particularly personally attract me. Russian fuels my endless passion and I could give in everything for learning Russian, but the drive is non-existent for French and German. I don't have the resentless push.

I have no plans to study French though.

I know even less Italians than French. Let's count how many current Italians I know.

• Dario Amodei
• Ludovico Einaudi
• Andrea Bocelli
• Salvatore Sanfilippo
• Carolina Kostner
• Giorgia Meloni (does that count? political figures shouldn't count)

So 5 or 6 in total. 2 musician, 2 athlete, 1 programmer.

• Andrea Bocelli: World-renowned Italian singer(tenor) with powerful voice.
• Salvatore Sanfilippo: Original developer of the Redis (the most popular open-source NoSQL in-memory database) based in Sicily.
• Ludovico Einaudi: One of the most famous minimalist composer and pianist, known for music such as "Experience", "Nuvole Bianche", "Primavera", "Fly", "Una Mattina", :Divenire", "Seven Days Walking", etc.

20250204

Today I went back to Shanghai. I got out of my home at 6:30. I barely got any sleep. I slept at around 3:00 am. I rode a shared bike to the subway station at 6:40. I waited 10 minutes and the subway didn't come and I searched on Amap and it took 1 hour by subway. I got out and tried to get a taxi on Amap app, it didn't work. I tried to get a taxi on Didi, and I got on the taxi at 7:05 am. Somehow I made it to the train station at 7:35. Then I stood for 2 hours and got back to Shanghai.

One thing I noticed was how much more subway lines there are in Shanghai. It just feels novel to me.

My mom kicked me out of the house to "go to a childhood friend's house". I returned to near my childhood home and it feels novel but yet somehow I remember glimpses of it. Anyway, the romanticization of my childhood that happened in around 2018-2020 no longer exist, instead my attitude is ambiguious, I don't know what to do with that period of memories. I went there and we talked for a while. I went to the house like so many many times. I can't comprehend no more. I feel like an outsider around the seemingly familiar streets. It's such a strange feeling.

I got on the subway and returned home.

20250205

Ok, yesterday I returned home. I want to go back to Hefei now.

My parents adopted this elite attitude and keep gaslighting me more. They are like "China is so good, far ahead". They also blamed my failures on me. Anyway, they are like "we have so much money, you suck and you should fit yourself in the system." My parents urged me to think in Chinese and claiming English is bad and whatever, overall just very feudalistic worldviews.

My parents ridiculed me and how I couldn't use Chinese apps. But I am using them well and my parents are just very stupid and behind. The more I tried to adadpt to the Chinese system, the more it alienates me. I was already using a lot of functions. I told them I need to prevent neo nazism and extremist contents from happening to me and they don't understand. They are always these nonchalant. I don't find myself in the society.

My mom constantly urged me to go out and exercise, and that I need to find friends. I am always alone. I can't. It's not like that is the main problem, but that I am so troubled by the school system all the time and it is impossible for me to basically function anyway.

Suicidal thoughts began to surround me once again. There is so far not one period in China that I feel normal and sustainable. It's constant burnout and collapse so far. My efforts didn't pay off. There would be no more hopes in life. I am so unique and I don't fit into the society. I don't see much light ahead of me and despite China's growth, there just isn't much to hope for in life anymore. My life would have no meanings and I would lag way behind anyone in China. But it's like... anyway. So many things are controversial. For one thing, the world is different from my lenses and from other people's lenses (of the general society), and by that I mean not a little but drastically different. The stupid cycle chokes me. The west isn't a savior and I don't know how to go there anyway. I feel real, jarring pain. I just hate everything and think it's a complete failure. All of my goals goes unrealized and I don't know what to do next.

I don't want to sleep or do anything. Everything is always wrong with me in China, just everything. It is impossible for me to adapt and there didn't even seem to be a future for me. My future would be filled with poverty, burnout from working and being grounded constantly. I would lose my value and eventually die of old age anyway, what is the point of going forward?

It seemed like I can't go abroad anymore. So the only option is staying in China. When I go back to Hefei, I can choose a late night and silently jump out of the window and everything would end there, right?

First of all I think it is a very great mistake to change major to computer science at start of second semester. I could have sticked to math and everything would be easier. Math is the only bearable thing in China.

Second of all I don't think there is any future of me in Chinese computer science and it's just not practical for me to do anything at all. After all, I would fail behind in everything.

Let's carve out the realistic working or life atmosphere/vibe if I plan to live and live in China. First I would not go for any grad school. I would be a "failing" student coming out of university, and hopefully I would find a job. Then I would not want to marry. I would rent a house. I would probably be in Shanghai. I would definitely not marry anyone. I would not start a family. I would not do a heavy job but a very light one and hopefully work only 40 hours a week. I would also live on my own expenses and spend the rest of the week (approximately another 30 hours) doing nothing at home. That's it. I would continue this lifestyle for like 40 years. I hate everything. I would have no money, like, barely enough to cover anything (around like 10000 Yuan as of now), live in a 4000 Yuan studio, spend 4000 Yuan eating, and use the remaining 2000 Yuan for all utilities like computers or phones or furnitures. I would be veyr poor and have no savings, but that's not the point. The point is that there is no dignity or future. I wouldn't want any woman to live with me, nor any children. It's just too sad. I would be listening to Russian podcasts probably for the rest of the time (remaining 30 hours per week). I would abandon my parents. It's still very, very sad. There is no choice. I feel defeated and worthless. I hate speaking Chinese at home. It's not because I hate it, but because of its nazism style aggression upon me for many years. If I live or meet my parents after self sufficiency again, I would be ridiculed and laughed and grounded at. All of my worries and pain was treated like "you are privileged so your not supposed to feel that" attitude. Grad school in China isn't for me. And my parents keep gaslighting me "they are treating me good".

I don't see my self worth in China, and it's very, very sad. My paternal babushka and dedushka left for good. I want to "leave" too, and the world would end with me.

My mom said I am very selfish and I never acknowledged her efforts. I said she never praised me and was always very controlling. Fact is I can't go all in right now because I have been violently suppressed by whatever system for many years and we haven't made a deal yet, so right now it's full of blaming. My mom started crying again. She said that she came to Hefei many times and was very tired while I viewed it as a surveillance attempt. She said she was angry, shocked, and disappointed at me. Well, no wonder she was disappointed, her expectations were always too high. I was constantly struggling while she was constantly pointing to my "normal" top in the school classmates and berating me "why don't you do what they do? Why don't you achieve what they achieve!" Just imagine how absurd my mom's standards were and how she picked these very exceptionally ones and looked down on me. I looked at these people, and I thought I tried 120% in school and I was far behind, and I had no self-worth. So I needed some space outside of school and need my own interests. I began to hate school far more after that. My mom was blind to my efforts and constantly blamed me on everything I did wrong, and even labeled herself as a lenient parent. She isn't lenient. Other parents, while maybe having more words and being louder, isn't being persistent and in particular, inflicting pain and shame on their child, my mom was. Other parents be like "we don't want you to play games" but they never enforced it, just yelling and the child not listening and everything worked that way. My mom was like "you must agree 100%, that's the deal." She kept blaming me not using Chinese media, not socializing, not exercising, and just anything I did wrong. It's insanely difficult, and when you point out these things, she became emotionally, burst into crying, and would deny all accusations "I never had any requirements!", and ground you on what a selfish little selfish brat you are, and how good she is at socializing, and how good she is, to you.

Being at home is unbearable. I mean, sure, I beared all those previous years. I thought about going fully back into the working mode. It's impossible. That would mean all my interests would be suppressed. But I can't let that happen. I need a life, otherwise I won't have a life, and I would rather die now. I need to keep my small interests.

There are 2 mistakes I've made. 2 huge mistakes. One is not pursuing math. So I changed major to computer science in October or November of 2022. That was a really bad mistake. Chinese computer science is unbearable, simple as that. Math sucks, but it's bearable.

The second mistake is not recognizing that I am already very tired and not like my godly classmates. I was tired to the point of exhaustion at the beginning of 2024 and instead of trying to relax, I still took many courses that semester. I should've known that doing research was unrealistic and just graduating was a great goal for me back then. Sad thing is I didn't. What is easy for others is difficult for me. What is easy for me is difficult for others. I was already at the edge, and I couldn't do anything, had no more energy at that time, yet my mom still kept bringing up ambitious goals and top classmates to me.

Well, no I won't blame these mistakes on anyone, but my parents objectively played a part in it, even though it's not their fault. I was young, I was naive, I was influenced by people around me, that was the reason of those mistakes, and they resulted in the worst year of my life and continued failing. Do every year go worse as you age? I don't know.

Tell you what, my parents would've never let me into a "lenient" school when I was young, or "happy education", like, ever. They are balant liars. I don't want a happy education, I wanted one where I can explore things myself. For one, language learning should've been started long before age 18. I don't want to go into a re-education camp or prison. And speaking out against it would result in shame, isolation, stigma, just resulting in being labeled a nasty or elite person. Well, if isolation must come, let it come. I can bear living without marriage or companions, but I can't bear living without my ideas. Did I know or expect the life I had been living these years before (like at 2020)? No.

Listening to my parents resulted in critical failures for several times. They aren't always wrong, but definitely not worth listening to. Failures damaged my self-esteem, values on the society, attitude, mental health. Now my parents are still manipulating and gaslighting me.

I do want to study and devote myself to studying. But what results did it yield back then? None. The oppression they had on me was too strong. I mentally cannot do it.

20250207

My parents got to be the most disillusioned people in the world. When they are talking about "good" people, they are either cherry picking people's merits and combining them, ignoring their downsides, or talking about billionaire like people. When they are talking about "average" people, they are talking about the top students in your school (not only class, but in your whole school). When they are finally talking about "low-performers", they are talking about decent, normal people that work normal white-collar jobs with good wages, living on their own expenses and having a normal life, just without too much "extraordinary" world-class talent. That is my parents definition.

I brought up the topic of "how the new generation cannot afford a house in Shanghai with 40 years of leftover salary" and how common Shanghainese people rely on their parents for housing. They usually get a house from their parents which is worth around 30-50 years of salary. My mom said "they can, if they work hard, they just don't want" and continue to educate me on how just 5-10 years of working everyone can afford a 6 million Yuan housing in Shanghai. Well, she clearly doesn't know anything about the society. My nephew got a 5 million Yuan house from his parent and his annual salary is around 200-300 k Yuan, while his wife makes around 100-200 k Yuan. It takes 20 years (assuming no child, no spending, no trips, no cars, no getting "frauded", not even paying rent, being healthy) to afford it, and it's a lower end housing in the outter circle of Shanghai. The thing is, your salary has interest, but the price is also going higher.

My mom concludes by declaring that she and all her friends in the circle had zero parent support and bought housing in Shanghai. I was like, "well, right now it takes 20 years." My mom denies, claiming "10 years is enough", and "the nephew can do it even if he didn't get support." It's quite absurd. She concludes by "I do look down on average people because I went here by my own. I look down on them." She also proceeded to "suggest there might be other random opportunities for young people." She kept claiming it take 5-10 years, and just "a late start" in life, when it literally takes 20 years. I mean, you get a house for 10-15 years but usually then you got to feed a child and for the mortgage to pay off it takes another at least 10 years. That is, from 25 to 45 years of age. That's not "a late start"! Simply the economy doesn't work out and the fact that my parents has been able to get houses at less than 1 million Yuan back then and somehow they are worth 10 million Yuan now doesn't mean the fact that GenZs are also gonna afford any housing and bear only "a late start" in life. Those houses became my family's main assets, that actually made us "equal" or even above many people with higher paying or more busy jobs.

Well, they did grow up from hardship, and they did come from rural China, but nothing erased the fact that Genzs are also extremely hardworking (perhaps even more so in holidays and weekends, in 1980s they aren't fully occupied by cram classes). They were poor, they worked hard, but there was opportunities in housing back then. It isn't the fact anymore for GenZ. The very high achievers in my school (who usually earns millions) can afford such a house in Shanghai, fine, but the vast majority struggles very bad without family help (even if they are normal working people without "troubles" or constant problems, or not unemployed, or not engaging in those gray area activities).

Personally neither my parent nor me want me to "inherit" a house from parents. I was like, if I have to rent, fine, I can rent all my life. But the fact is my parents started to have skyrocketing expectations for what I am to become and what is normal, and they keep feeding it into me.

I went to the Shanghai foreign language bookstore and everything changed. I used to go there a million times in 2017-2019. Basically on the first floor on the right there used to be the signet and bantom classics tables became non English language dictionaries and tutorials. They moved all classics to the left side tables of first floor. What used to be on the left were travel books. First floor middle was trending thrillers or best sellers as well. Everyone was talking in Shanghainese and all computers appeared to be running Windows 7. The non-English section was nowhere to be seen. Fourth floor used to be for children and Ya on the west and Japanese on the east side now became completely japanese. They moved all the YA and children's books to the west side of second floor, which used to be non English section. There are also huge amounts of English tutorials on the east side of second floor. Harry Potter theme song was playing and repeating for no reason. Third floor was like usual, some useless art books. I asked where are French or Russian books, and they led me to a small shelf on the first floor right side where there's some very limited french and German books and french and other translation of popular novels, while Russian is nowhere to be seen.

20250208

Usage Case

Internet Archive can be used in a S3 bucket-like way. Internet Archive doesn't allow uploading encrypted zip files (you can zip the encrypted file again to upload).

Many websites can be archived, for example, Wikipedia pages(since everything changes), Reddit communities before they go down or get banned, or YouTube channels before they delete their videos. Internet Archive also contains OpenStreetMap data.

If you use Internet Archive to save a large file on the Internet it will save around 200 MB. But there is no limit for uploading. It also saves YouTube videos by decoding the video url to some googlevideo.com and archiving it (you can download anyway). Internet Archive doesn't save everything, and if the webpage contains too much content it won't be able to save everything in external links.

Other Incidents

There is a hacker group "sn_blackmeta" that hacked and took down Internet Archive in the October of 2024. The service isn't totally reliable so don't use it like Google Drive or S3.

Internet Archive took down controversial far-right websites.

Other Tools

• Archive Today takes snapshots of websites.
• Archive Box is a self-hostable archive tool.

For all recovery please go to archive.org, that's the easiest way. I don't need to pay for anything.

Right now my worst problems are

1. Being too fat
2. Staying up and not getting up on time

I believe the first problem lead to the second. We need to lose weight. We also made a deal to not pursue the interests if we cannot solve the 2 problems.

20250209

I was losing weight for ages it seems. It's been almost 3 months, yet I am still not there. I lost around 10 kg, and now that I am home, I am eating too much and my weight is going to increase again. I got another 7 kg to lose to go under 70 kg, the safe zone. It's very difficult to lose the rest of the 7 kg, and it feels disheartening given how much efforts I spent. Long story short, never make yourself obese or it's like a death sentence. You are going to be in serious trouble.

Один грамм жира это один грамм лени.
Вот насколько поправились настолько и ленивые

When I am at home everything is beyond my control and it's just "off". I can no longer have any momentum or self-discipline. I better return to Hefei and starve myself more.

My weight gain in just a few days at home is savage. I didn't know how much I would gain but all I know is that it almost erased the 2.5 months effort. I am almost at 80 kg. I plan to go back at 0211. I can't eat like this anymore. At home I lose all my self-discipline.

Right now I am feeling really bad. My parents keep gaslighting me. When I am alone, at least I can control myself very good, not at home though. My weight is increasing 1 kg per day at home and my efforts are getting demolished. I am eating way too much and it is hurting me so bad. My goals are nowhere to be realized. I paid in so much effort. What do I do next? I don't know. It's really sad and difficult for me right now. ALl of these goals, I have achieved seemingly a lot, but they are just "off"! When am I going to finally accomplish them? Never?

I don't know how much I weigh now but in any case, it's hard to put in any effort again after you "let it go". And the effects would be devastating. I am so sad and I thought about how last year was completely wasted like that. I don't know, it's just saddening.

I turned on 1tv and there was this Lyube and Aleksandr Marshal and Red Army Choir and other singers concert, and I started to listen to it for some strength.

They started singing "Давай за" and everyone stood up and waved their phones.

20250210

China has those weird things I can never understand.

Most Chinese apps are actually app based and they don't have easy web access. WeChat, QQ, RedNote has limited or no web search and browsing functionality. Weibo, Douban, Zhihu, Bilibili, Douyin has full web functionality.

WeChat has an "Weixin Gongzhong Pingtai" which arguably translates to WeChat Public Blogs. Everyone reads it and it's quite mainstream, like Chinese version of Medium or Yandex Zen or OverBlog. But strangely it translates on the website to "WeChat Official Accounts". Nothing is official about it, as it is user generated. Why translate to "account"? WeChat has accounts, and not every account is automatically assigned a "Blog platform". WeChat does not allow outside links in its blogs (let alone embedded html tags). You cannot edit your previous WeChat blogs (like, usually 10 chars, it's insanely weird). WeChat "public blogs" can only be searched with Sogou on the web. Furthermore, it's very difficult to enable comments in your blogs.

Overall in my opinion WeChat Public Blogs is a subpar, authoritarian, user-disrespecting platform. However, it's almost a monopoly in China. Many people watch WeChat shorts (which is also completely unavailable on the web). It's very strange how this (clearly subpar and rigged?) thing got popular and people like it.
It must be my limitation in understanding!

Arguably Chinese contents are the least I engage with these days, compared to English, Russian, German, and French. It's quite ironic being in China for my first 20 years. I fit much better digitally in the western ecosystem.

Also China is advancing really fast, and everywhere tall skyscrapers and tech companies are bursting from suburbans, rural places. China's modernization is just insane. Every 2-3 years it seems cities changed their appearance.

The disconnect is this big. Whenever I tried learning or understanding about China my parents would ridicule me and I can never understand them. Oh, it would be much better for me in US.

I always have completely different thinking compared to Chinese. When I have a smartphone, I will try change the home launcher app and install a browser with extensions support. Chinese however, seem to care whether the default launcher is beautiful and the app store or whatever shit.

Meanwhile Russian is like someone that I haven't met for ages. The ironic thing is that I never met it but like it so much.

I slept and I had a nightmare about high school again (for the nth time), but this time it was 4 years. I was required to sit in the classroom till late night again. Everything with so difficult and impossible.

20250210 Understanding "normal" Chinese People Habits

Average Chinese people have several distinct traits.

1. They can't read English.
2. They can't bypass Firewall.

These are very difficult things for the "average" Chinese person. Thus they are efficiently cut off.

When the government cut something off, the thing would really go away. I thought it was as easy as installing a VPN app or something, but no, people just, stop using. I mean, they can read PinYin or like one English word among a huge paragraph, but an average Chiense don't feel comfortable reading whole English native contents (let alone Russian, German).

Anyway it is important to identify between platforms that are "great but alienating to average Chinese people" (YouTube, Fediverse, Reddit, Github), or "also decent and friendly to Chinese people" (WeChat, Alipay, Douyin).

20250211 Returning to Hefei

I am on the train and there is a person subjective to nazism gaming sitting next to me. I must repeat that I am fundamentally in odds with the rise of fascism, lead by gaming companies. Of course, gaming is their right. But I must strongly reject the fascism nature of gaming, and keep myself firmly in place!

By the way I just ate 2 sandwiches. It's not a lot, but I won't eat dinner today.

I am on the train back to Hefei! We are moving fast and fixing many problems!

I am pushing for higher efficiency in my life.

Low efficiency is the worst thing that can happen to me. Don't joke around, face it.

Please save your time. Stop tampering with smartphones please.

That's it. You don't have unlimited time to debug everything and create an "idealistic" version of smartphone. It is not realistic.

Sanctioning social media isn't sanctioning phones. Just use your normal phone.

20250212

I feel very emotional with another upcoming semester. The past year had been so bad, so bad that I wished it hasn't happened. It was worse than a "lost year" because a lost year means nothing happened and everyone else moved on and you suddenly got dropped to one year later and became one year older. My grades were so bad this year that I cannot even bear to look at it.

But at the end of the day it was me to take all the blames. Like literally I took the decisions for myself all the time and the courses aren't that difficult. It's just, I couldn't do anything back then. I had to watch myself fall.

I was consciously making decisions to kill myself, for one whole year, and even after the first semester, I only jumped into a worse semester.

I filtered out all the worst parts and I am actually posting all the random writings on my website.

I tried asking myself, "Did I know the semester was going to be this bad last year? Was I trying? Did I know I was going to fail like this last September? Last National Day Holiday?" I don't know how to answer.

Why did I give up? I couldn't even trust myself anymore right now. The procrastination was getting out of control last year. I have zero confidence in this semester.

For the most obvious reason I was burnt out. I didn't know I was burnt out, but I was, and I still took the heavy load. That could explain the first half of the first semester maybe?

But all the time I wasn't playing. I was seemingly busy all the time. Was school bad? No, it wasn't. School was bad to me in my freshman and first half of sophomore year but not last year though.

What caused me to fail 3 times? 2 semesters and in HongKong? I don't know. I was busy all the time, but I just hated school back then. I didn't need to hate school but I did. I went into my idealogies. I was never gaming all day long.

If I have to give a score, 2024 is a huge minus. It was undoubtedly the worst year in my life, hands down.

Stop blaming me for not talking to my classmates because not hating them in my situation is already difficult enough.

I did remember so many times last year thinking that I wished the year would pass and I was one year later and everything would be gone. Ok? And what happened? Something worse.

I really wish I can fast forward 1.5 years right now.

Especially the second semester, when I was like taking the decisions myself then single handedly failing it. I couldn't do anything, or, just what was it?

I am confused and I don't know what to say or what I could have done. Overall I am confused. I tried cleaning up everything and preparing for the better but there isn't anything I can do at the same time it seems.

It's around one year since the start of the blogs.

What I Must Know

I got myself in a very tough situation. I have no cards now and I need to react fast or I am not gonna have anything left.

Understanding "Grades"

Economy is everything. You can't fight back your sponsors, and in my case my sponsor is my parents.

Grades is economy for the me since I don't earn money. If you have high grades and go to good schools, everything will be fine. If you have bad grades as a student, well it's the end of your life.

Of course, not only grades for everything, maybe achievements or other measures for athlete training schools, ballet dancers, or singing schools.

The problem isn't with the statement that "grades decide everything", the problem is that I am inherently bad in tests and exams in school. They suppress my potential and I am always weak.

So then came the period of strong reflection. I thought I was supposed to gradually shift to a balanced way of living after middle school. But as I went on, nothing happened and everything got worse instead. Eventually I could go on no more and collapsed suddenly.

Good thing is unlike grades where there is only one way to obtain it, there are multiple ways to earn money.

It doesn't seem like we can do much right now honestly besides keeping grades at a passing minimum.

Reflection of My Faults and Wrongdoings in 2024

I believe that my problems in 2024 is mainly caused by disillusionment. Partly by incompatibility, partly by feeling of hatred, but mostly so by feeling completely lost.

Now, this feeling of disillusionment began late 2022, when I just began to have some freedom. Changing major, going in the exchange year all contributed to this disillusionment. In late 2023, most of my writings were already overwhelmingly lost, and it was already jarring. Disillusionment in the short term doesn't cause strong problems as long as you can change your environment, but it is deadly in the long term when you are stuck somewhere. You can't build your life upon idealogies. You must build your life with concrete goals, what you must do, and how to achieve them in the long term. I was completely disconnected from what I was going to do.

There were too many voices ringing in my brain what I needed to do, and what was good for me, among them school courses, research, courses in Chinese schools, appeal of foreign language, exercising, exploring the world, fear of the previous year, eventually too overwhelming. They drain out the need for basic academic performance in school, the most fatal one. So in the end I chose to do something to kill my time, and thus it lead to whatever happened.

## 20250213 Why Should We Stay Away from Adult Content

Let's talk about porn and understand why we should stay away from it. Note that first porn is different from love or marriage, or masturbation. Porn is the kind of content online that sexualizes people, as well as prostitution agencies that involve payment in exchange for sexual intercourse. They both dehumanizes people. Furthermore, most of the richest pornstars as of 2024 are white women.

Porn is just money, nothing else.

### Most Visited Websites

Let's look at the most visited adult websites and their revenue sources. Most of those websites are free and "mainstream" in terms of porn production, and benefit from ads. In fact, they are among the most visited websites in almost every country. If you use Ublock Origin, you can literally watch everything for free. Not everyone uses Ublock Origin, and they exploit the fact to earn money by feeding you ads. Then there is the second kind of porn websites which charge you for porn. Usually on "mainstream" websites they would redirect you there for "premium" contents. It is perhaps very easy to understand. They traffic woman and pay them for "job", or many poor women are forced into this industry, just like being forced into slavery. Would someone working as this job have any real affection or love? Their whole purpose is for more profits, in the "editing" and "shooting" of the different scenes and release of the videos. What do they want? That you watch more videos and buy more, and buy them instead of some other agency. They want you to neglect everything else in your life. Note that porn is strongly associated with diseases and drugs. Some pornstars are drug addicts.

### "Leaking" Websites

There is the kind of websites that leaks paywalled porn videos, usually with far more aggressive ads. These websites frequently face DMCA takedowns, but survive through changing their urls frequently. In fact, there are many free video hosting platforms. These video hosting platforms provide this for free for aggressive ads and usually uncensored contents or leaks. Of course they are not reliable and operate in gray areas. Hosting a video or content on AWS or Akamai or BunnyCDN takes huge amount of money, roughly 20 dollars per 1 TB. Then there is also the kind of torrent websites. Overall honestly it's very interesting how one group of people is trying to steal and hoard the money of another group of people who steal and hoard money.

### Very Dark and Chilling Elements

Now let's look at the darker sides like rape or underage sites. Such sites obviously exist, not only in tor onion sites but just everywhere. A search on Yandex would yield many of those. Many of shady Telegram groups and Twitter-X accounts are dedicated to such activities, thanks to lenient regulation of extreme contents. These websites are usually hidden or confiscated with very long urls, or available only in apps. These are usually available only paid. This is very chilling, and in fact, worse than gore contents. They exploit the darkest part of human perhaps. Imagine an underage child being forced to shoot videos for money. Ask yourself a question, why would an underage child willingly film themself? It's basically slavery and force. Would any children be willing to share those? Absolutely not. The people behind these platforms know very well what they are doing is very risky, and against human morales, yet try very hard to promote it. What do they do it for? Money. Money to criminals and slavemasters.

They lure you and bind you to it, and you would give everything, all money, and your mind.

### Fake Lesbians

Lesbians should be respected, not exploited. For some man, fake lesbian is multiple woman together for them. Some man view other male in porn scenes as competitions, so they would prefer woman only scenes. The uncomfortable truth? That most woman performing in fake lesbian scenes are straight and that most man are shooting these scenes or organizing these. Most of those fake lesbian scenes are consumed only by man. The real lesbians usually get ignored and objectified.

### Porn isn't Entertainment Industry or Literature with Explicit Contents

Watching porn isn't watching movies. Movies are to show something, more or less. Movies are to reflect the reality. Literature is also meant to enrich the human mind. Porn, on the other hand, does nothing but weaken you and allow human desire to take over everything. Porn is one-dimensional, about money and objectification. People need sex education, not porn.

### Nothing but Money

In conclusion, the porn industry is nothing but money, trading for so called "joy", the same with prostitution. Of course, money coming from objectification and oppression. This is why woman usually doesn't enjoy the mainstream porn videos. You will not have any real affection in porn. In the end you will not feel any joy, rot alone, and end up more empty in your heart. Everything is objectified into money, every woman, man, every hour, every scene. If you don't pay, you don't have. If you pay, you will pay and be addicted endlessly and become a slave to the porn companies. There is no free lunch in this world. The only free lunch is perhaps open source code. We must also understand some online dating services is nothing but money, especially those that explictly state "meet woman from somewhere". It's not place to truly interact with people. You must pay and there would be many scammers online. You must very well understand their incentive is to earn shady money to fuel crimes, desire, and slavery, not for your wellbeing.

### Understand Free Things Doesn't Exist in a Porn

Please understand that porn, a profit driven industry, would not offer you love, affection, or anything free. Your problems won't go away watching porn, but your time and energy will. You end up crying in a dungeon, old, ugly, broken. Please understand porn is rooted in exploitation. Many things, foods, clothing, housing aren't free too, but they are concrete things, while porn aims to damage your brain and neural system. I can like and admire a beautiful person but never anyone in the porn industry.

### Clarification

Staying away from porn isn't staying away from sex or masturbation. In fact, you can absolutely do these if your body needs. Staying away from porn isn't staying away from beauty or aesthetic elements. In fact, there are many sports and professions that create beauty without always selling yourself for a price. That's why it is called "art". Art offers much more depth and enrichment of the soul while porn reduces people to organs.

### Problematic Fame of Pornstars

- It's concerning that society often celebrates and rewards people for adult entertainment more than those who make genuine intellectual contributions. These individuals have achieved fame and recognition, but through means that don't contribute to human progress or knowledge, their fame is superficial and lacks substance, ultimately hollow because it lacks lasting value or positive impact. True achievement involves developing skills, knowledge, and making contributions that benefit society. This reflects misplaced priorities in what we as a society choose to value and promote. Their rise reflects a decline of social values.

~~A lot of times porn videos provide a kind of gradual engagement. When you are feeling horny, you don't know exactly if you are feeling so and would want to slack off a little. Then you start watching porn videos and masturbating. It does feel less sinful because you wouldn't want to admit it. This is completely unnecessary. You can straight off do the job and not be subjective to this harmful substance. ~~

Besides massive disinformation and vulgar contents, Bilibili also have many videos of foot fetish, usually woman showing off the pantyhose or heels fetish. Turned out there are actually huge amounts of people into foot or pantyhose fetish and they fill it with creepy comments. Obviously I don't read comments since I choose to not have an account and I don't log in (so I am always restricted to reading the top 1 comment). Obviously these videos are tailored specifically for man to masturbate.

There is this website of Russian conversations for a few minutes before following into porn. Can we massively crawl them and only compile the first few minutes of non-NSFW conversations?

What would happen if you quit porn and masturbation? Nothing. Except maybe you would start to have web dreams a little often.

I am not saving anything for the future wife or future sex. In fact, I am not sure if I will lose my virginity by age 30.

Here they are:

• Джиа Лисса
• Ева Эльфи: channel with 1.2 M followers, and she recently started dubbing also in English.

On А поговорить: Спорная профессия! Jia Lissa, Eva Berger, Ally Breelsen, Kira Queen, Lola Taylor // А Поговорить?

On this channel: Данила Поперечный (I didn't know this channel before): 🎙БЕЗ ДУШИ: Jia Lissa | Порнобизнес, игнор фетиш, deepfakes, белковое отравление и парень буддист.

Соня Блэйз

джина герсон: she was into drugs. Her YouTube channel was removed, but here it is on Archive.org.

Crystal Rush I don't know this one. I found it on a YouTube search.

I never visited Onlyfans. Onlyfans is an extremist website, full of human trafficking, gore, and horrible provocative contents (or so I think, I never used it before so I don't know exactly). I am not going to pay, I would rather pay for LLMs or servers.

We can also watch this from КОСАТКИНА

«Только не говори маме» | Ксения Стребличенко

This is a story in Arkhangelsk.

«Мы посадили отца-педофила на 20 лет»

This is a channel that talks about trauma and social problems.

We must realize that prostitution is everywhere in this society, in China, and firmly reject it.

They are prevalent and obvious. Again, it's not something you need your tor browser for. All those massaging in China, most of them called "drop-in massage", are prostitution. It's not very far from me or obsolete, though I had no previous knowledge of it.

20250213

Today I hopped on HelloTalk. Basically HelloTalk allowed you to create and delete profiles really fast.

So I trolled as and set my country to USA and used random profile photos from VK. I used the name "Andrei". I started chatting first setting the language to Polish, deleing my account, then setting the language to Ukraine.

Perhaps the first question they will ask you is "why are you interested in studying Polish/Ukrainian?" and that "Americans don't know anything about our country."

A Polish person recommended me a channel about an Asian American person who lived in Poland. Basically Poland have very strict immigration rules and they would judge you based on your race but they aren't very racist. The Poland person strongly rejected being labeled "Eastern European". I watched the channel she recommend. She is also learning Chinese and already understanding all the tones. I couldn't tell her I am native in Chinese because I was trolling as a white American with a photo of some random Russian guy! Then I searched and asked her if she knew some most popular Polish YouTubers like Blowek, Sylwia Lipka, and she said she didn't know it. I asked about onet and interia, and I made a typo and asked "interio" and she corrected me. I asked if there are many Ukrainians in Poland and she said yes.

Then I deleted my account and I signed up again. I switched to Ukrainian language. Like, among 10 people there might be 1 who would want to talk to you. I tried askign about Ukrainian shows and channels. Some people said "I don't have time to follow anyone". Whenever I said "Ukrainian culture is great and I love it" people would be more likely to chat with me. Then there is a Ukrainian person Іринка who got dislocated from her family, who were in the occupied territory. She lived in Novopavlivka of Zaporizhia Oblast, west of the Dnipro river. Then we chatted in Telegram. She sent a lot of voice messages and would occasional make mistakes in English but overall very understandable. I feel like they feel good if there are someone listening to them.

Then she sent me a lot of messages about school, life, and how the war started on February 23th, and Russian military were killing with weapons in villages. The school began to go online and the invasion started on Friday. She lived half a year in occupied area. She had a strong sentiment against Russia and told me how in history Russia invaded its neighbors and is now killing and taking Ukrainian people. She said Russians usually lie and everyday someone would die. She was very talkative and told me about traditional Ukrainian foods like Kutya and Borscht. I always thought Borscht was from Russian though! I did a brief search on YouTube and there was a DW video about how Borscht is Ukraine's identity. She told me Russian tried to steal the food. She had many photos in Odesa where her sister studies, and she studies in Lviv in Lviv Polytechnic National University, but she studies on a budget. She also said she doesn't use any social media, only Tiktok because she might worry something very bad will happen.

I also found another thing, when you are having a conversation if you know everything or nothing, you are not going to have a good, long conversation. If you don't know everything and try to "guess a little", and the other person would follow up, and you would then say "that's so interesting!", and the conversation can go like forever.

After that I deleted HelloTalk again and deleted my Telegram account.

Then I opened account again in HelloTalk(like 3rd or 4th account opening/delete in a day) and changed everything back to normal, going with name "Андрей" and setting native language to Chinese and target language to Russian.

I tried adding Ukrainian on my keyboard but it take forever to switch from Russian to English to Chinese to Ukrainian, so I ended up deleting it from Google Keyboard.

Then I went to my old experience of chatting in Russian, and I was much better in Russian than in Ukrainian or Polish(close to zero knowledge), and I began chatting very quickly again. Some people replied, other don't, and I usually just copied messages to multiple people. There would also be situations where I would chat in Russian and the Russian person would answer in Chinese, pretty weird honestly. The app would still recommend some Ukrainians if you set your native language to Russian but usually they are expats and not living in Ukraine. But it's quite hard to get people to reply. (Maybe because in Russian I have zero problems with basic conversation and I was spamming too fast?)

So anyway it got very boring and I ended up deleting the goddamn Hellotalk app account again.

It's pretty hilarious thinking about it since sometimes it take people over 1 day to respond to a message and I deleted my account 3 times this day.

20250214

I feel quite strange on my way riding the bike home at midnight and on the bumpy road. I feel a weaker kind of control compared to normal days, and on road bumps I would be kinda more uneasy. I went out at midnight for some times but this time it was just... something wasn't right. There was a motorcycle passing me, and I yelled and screeched when it passed, then I rode the bike home, when I reached the front of the housing compound, like after some 5-10 minutes more there was 3 people from what appeared to be a motorcycle crash, 1 lying on the ground, 2 leaning against the fence, vomiting and very very weak, and 2 policeman, they just called an ambulance and it was about to come.

Only one motorcycle passed me as far as I knew and I didn't notice until it was close to me, and I yelled a little, and more than 1 person was on the motorcycle. The things didn't immediately link together and I really forgot or lost track, maybe there is a different motorcycle, who knows? But still like my guts tell me this is the motorcycle

Is it psedo science or really something?

In any case, I need to stop wandering out at midnight. It's not a good activity. Going out alone at midnight is just creepy. Why don't you choose more suitable times to go out?

You know what? A motorcycle crash is fatal and life threatening, it can permanently paralyze you or break your limbs. I should have known better.

In my opinions motorcycles around here are far more dangerous than homeless people or beggars. Once I rode my bike at a very dark entrace of my living compound and when I reached there a motorcycle sped out. I stopped just in time very dangerously. Riding a bike is a very dangerous activity, especially in the presence of aggressive motorcycles. Walking is also dangerous, but less so.

Why do I feel the urge to learn Eastern European languages? Mainly because of depression. Eastern European has a certain kind of intensity, that doesn't exist in much other cultures. I have been depressed ever since late 2020, and I just can't walk out of depression. Now I am too focused on abstract things and neglecting the real things in life. The best solution is just go and study in the school library starting tomorrow.

I am neglecting and confused on what to do. I am very good at abstracting thoughts. However, this need to end and abstract thoughts lead nowhere.

Regarding marriage, it is very very far from what I am now. Do I want to marry someone from Eastern Europe? Well, no, not now, it largely feels like a deal or something like that.

But if I am to live in China I already thought I would be not very likely to marry after all. In eastern Asian countries it is difficult enough looking after and managing myself. You need to conform to everything in the society. I don't want to commit to anything else in Eastern Asian since the society forces you to already comply so many things.

Besides, if I live in China, I would need to speak Chinese everywhere, and I wouldn't want to speak Chinese anymore inside the marriage. Overall I would not want a marriage in China. I can't commit to anyone but myself if I stay in China.

I don't know anything about Eastern Europe besides my broken Russian. I haven't lived there for even 1 year and don't even plan on living there (since US or western Europe are far better alternatives). Eastern European does have on average more woman than man, around 0.87 ratio. But somehow the more I thought about marrying someone from Eastern Europe, the more I found out I have no idea about their culture at all. Everything online or the ways I find right now seem similar to "buying" a marriage, or just a deal.

My current state can be described by Russophilia and Ukrainophilia. I have a very strange feeling or attraction towards that particular area which overrides all other feelings. Perhaps it's a trauma response? Like, it's sort of a way to save face right now for me by redirecting my feelings toward something "exotic". I mentally romanticizes the north, and especially, the eastern European area.

My Russophilia is very different from what's traditionally "Russophilia" (supporting Russia in the conflict and being anti-West), but just fascinated with everything in that particular area, as well as Ukraine (perhaps even stronger). It is indeed very strange to romanticize a place in the middle of a conflict and keep imagining it as a paradise or escape. People are dying there everyday. Romanticize any other place, e.g. Nordic, Germany, UK, Australia, seems much more normal, but I don't have such strong, romantic feelings or idealogies developed towards these areas. My imagination is so weirdly inaccurate of what appears to be happeneing everyday in Russia and in Ukraine, and the economic developement is also lacking greatly behind the Western European countries. But I just can't help it anymore right now. The strong interest in Ukraine is also different from western support for Ukraine, since while the west may "stand with Ukraine", no one researches into Ukrainian music, culture, or tv shows. No one tries to learn Ukrainian language. No one has a strong fascination towards their culture. The English speaking people who had a Ukrainian flag in their social media username and lectures everyone, calling for action usually doesn't understand Ukrainian or its culture.

20250214 Connections and Reflections on the Past Years

Let me explain what happened and why everything lead to here. I am able to explain a lot more now, so let's try.

A belief has always existed and been deeply seated in my mind that math and computer superiority through working hard will make my life easy. This means: have a better position among classmates, manage homework easier, make my life easier and guaranteed a bright future. This belief has existed since elementary school and middle school. Also, this belief states that, first you work hard, then your life gets easier, then you will be able to enjoy other things and socialize and earn respect among classmates.

Now, let's talk about the depression. It all started in the fall of 2020. I was thinking, again, that after finishing middle school my efforts should somehow "pay off", and I should enter a period that I can easily succeed and beat my classmates, take a better position, etc. However, it didn't happen. In fact, my positions and scores constantly suffered in school and in each period I was always struggling, despite constantly putting in hard work. I had constant change of environment. In each change of environment I was able to find something to dig into as a catalyst to keep myself going, to keep wishing that everything would go better. It didn't. This happened till the beginning of 2024 when I returned from US.

Now we go back to the belief and how everything connects. At this point I was very, very disillusioned. I had zero strength but the inertia prompted me to take more courses that I can bear. Each previous period was going into a new environment or school, followed a strong influx of motivation and promises, to take more and hoping to succeed in the particular environment. When I come back, I couldn't find just anything, no motivation, no promises, in this period of returning to the old environment, yet there was this inertia to tak a lot of courses and try to succeed in them. I grew fully disconnected from reality. I did choose the courses myself because psychological inertia.

I repeat, I am not a weak, or constant underachiever. I demonstrated remarkable strength and perseverance during the 3 years of depression and didn't give up. However, it was just too much for me. I couldn't realize it was the breaking point back at start of 2024, and psychologically couldn't (cause why would I be in such a position after years of hard work?).

Let's talk about how this lead to my isolation in school environment. I was stuck in a position where I couldn't move and everything was against my favor, while I saw those test-oriented kids ace everything. I always thought, "I would be open to socialize once tests become easier for me." No, it didn't happen.

The bubble bursted.

Thus, the first half (maybe 8 months) of 2024 was a disconnect from reality and constant self-exploration, marked by failing grades and just inability to face reality anymore. I couldn't face it even before I started failing. How can I face it when I already started failing? I don't believe in hard work anymore. I don't believe in a good future anymore. I was waiting during that period for a miraculous moment where suddenly trouble will disappear, things will work in my favor (cause what else can I do?).

Another clarification: When I mean hard work here I always mean hard work as in school's system. I don't mean hard work as in like, my own interests. In fact, during 2024, there was a notable shift in prioritizing my own interests over school work. In fact, there was always this small shift of prioritizing my interests over school work, from 2020 to 2024. It just wasn't that strong, (got suppressed) before 2024. In early 2024 I would regularly stay up all night exploring cloud computing and frontend. I didn't game. It was just, my own world and alternative to what was happening around me.

In late June I was walking around the streets at 4 am, and I went to stores to buy food and just wandered nowhere, when I returned home the sun was rising. I could face reality no more, and I couldn't even acknowledge the fact.

As a result I failed 3 courses and I needed to graduate one year later.

Now let's talk about the rise of interest, or obsession to be more accurate, with Eastern European culture. During the period of disillusionment and failure, when my classmates are graduating one year earlier than me, and I hated school and classes more than ever, I felt very, very embarrassed and shameful. I couldn't bear it. I am in emotional collapse. I do not feel fairly treated, but more so that I just don't fit into the environment. I couldn't go on anymore. I needed to find an external, exotic source for my emotion outlet, and I found Eastern European culture as the source.

For one, Eastern European culture was one that I wasn't very much familiar with before. Eastern European culture offers a unique blend of beauty, partially through the prevalence of aesthetic sports they offer. Compared to Western Europe or Nordic countries, which offers stability, comfort of life, Eastern Europe has the sense of disillusionment, strong individual talents and devotion, complication, conflicts, and intensity. It rang a bell inside me and they just connect and resonate so deeply with my state of mind, back then and still now.

While collapse should lead to one picking themself up and restoring much of the strength, it wasn't like that for me. For me, largely, the belief itself shattered. I find no more motivation even after failing. I also did not get any rest in the summer, when I went to do a brief research, which was another huge failure. I didn't have any chance to reflect on my 2 months of summer.

On another hand, I couldn't rest anymore. I don't know how to rest. I thought I should've worked instead of resting or traveling since I was already failing. I feel guilty of playing when I already failed, leading into a state of emptiness. A normal student cannot be very happy if they fail like I did, well they just can't. They are either very sad and depressed or very disillusioned and feeling empty or both.

And the last question, why did I fail again last semester? I walked into a trap and I couldn't walk myself out. There was no light on the other side of the tunnel. Whenever I studied school materials, it felt like a huge cost of energy, and voices ring at the back of my head that nothing will come out of it and you will always be stuck here walking. Studying school materials took me several times the energy back then. Whenever I played, a voice said that you already failed, why are you playing? So I devoted nearly all of the time to studying Russian.

Procrastination and escapism could not be stronger. There was no time for me to catch my breath when I was already completely out of breath. In September I crafted a plan and I tried to redo with the courses in US exchange program since I did so very bad in that already. I do not want to do anything in school. The state worsened compared to early 2024 because my scores were already so bad and I was already going to be postponed 1 year in graduating. I do not know where to go after graduating. I couldn't go to classes anymore. In November I asked my parents to quit the semester completely. I was, however, faced with harsh criticism from my parents and they attempted to further gaslight me. I was lost, and tired. That's why I failed again.

Last semester's failure was largely unnecessary, but there wasn't any solution back then either. I alienated myself and school. I did very poorly in mid exams and didn't want to go to classes. I could no longer find any strength back then. It was a systematic collapse and I had, realistically, less than half of the working ethic I had in eariler years. I also didn't have any time to recover. I tried to escape into my own world and hope for a miracle to happen. Nothing happened, except more failures. Computer science is unbearable in China. Right now I finally had a time to catch my breath, I realized I had already fallen to a dark hole.

Well, what other belief do I adopt? That I should play all day long and miracle will happen? I just seem unfit in the system, that's it. But I fucking need to finish school. This semester I will go much more moderate, and I will just do as I needed and make sure I don't have a drastic failure anymore.

There isn't much I can do anyway besides waiting.

I am fear struck and I still haven't recovered from last semester's bizarre failure (largely mid September to mid November). That was indeed a period of unnecessary problems. My working efficiency was around half, so I cannot manage the courses anymore. I already fell, and I kept falling.

20250214 Being Confident in Our Weight Loss Journey

Despite recent slight increase, I am very confident in our weight loss program.

• [x] One meal a day
• [x] Fruits
• [x] Drinks, including Yogurt
• [ ] Any Snacks, Chocolate Bars
• [ ] Bread, any food other than dinner

So basically just stop eating snacks. Your weight isn't going to decrease if you eat 10 chocolate bars and huge amounts of biscuits and eggs. With just one meal per day, the weight IS going to decrease, and I repeat, and converging to a BMI of below 20, while our goal is around 22, so we will reach our goal, then we can stop.

I cannot yet find a reason to explain last semester's problems. I am very afraid of what will happen this semester in this moment.

Which means, that I need to be very careful this semester as well, as there can be no guarantees. I mustn't slack off like before and must be extra cautious.

A realistic estimate for finishing the weight loss is someday in April. A good range is below 73. We will lose at least 2 kg per month, and we are 78 kg right now. There is no need to worry, however, weight loss need to be conducted before anything else like happens. Then there is the end of the semester shit stuff.

20250215 I am not Ready for a Relationship Now

I feel like marriage for me right now seem like an artificial deal without strong commitments. Sometimes I am attracted to woman, sometimes I just want to be friends and get to know them. But I am a huge quitter in deals. It's not that I am a natural quitter, but I am an aggressive minimalist. I don't feel like I can live in a marriage for many years right now. You need something more than just beauty or the "I want to have sex" feeling. It does play a part but shared values play a far more important part.

I always quit on accounts, quit in hobbies, quit in commitments. Again, I am not someone who isn't persistent(a lot of these things like a random online account isn't related to persistence anyway). But I just always aggressively clean up everything after myself.

If I am without strong commitments to "randomly" enter a marriage, I would obviously very likely to quit the marriage.

This isn't to say that random entrance to marriage doesn't work for other people. Sometimes these kind of marriage do exist and they live happily for decades. However, what might work for others might not work for me. If I am to consider marriage, there must be obviously strong commitments or bonds that I would place highly on. And before that I must not be too busy in work or school, since work or school alone is a huge commitment, and that I will not be able to commit to a woman relationship besides commiting to work or school and also my hobbies.

Marriage isn't for everybody. I don't force or believe I must marriage. It is, though, most likely a social expectation, that most normal people get married and have sex and have children. Will I have children? I don't know. But if I do want children in my 30s or 40s I can just adopt one (and obviously only a boy, because who would allow a 40 year old single creep to adopt a teen girl?).

Are things going better? I don't know.

I found another personality of mine, or perhaps it can be concluded from other personalities. It is the lack of commitment and strong consideration being commiting to something, and easy rejection before that. It is a kind of cautiousness? But I am not a cautious person like my father, I am full of curiosity and desire to explore, but I am very cautious, slow and conservative when it comes to actual commitment on my side.

In conclusion, first I must live easier and be better in school/work, have some money, just be in a better status, then I can think of romance or relationship.

20250215

I glimpsed at an app called Verbling and it was charging around 15 dollars per hour in the very least for 1 to 1 tutoring, which is insane considering it's only a fucking language. Many people are charging 25, 30 dollars per hour, just one fucking hour. I looked at Russian and most of the people are Russians living in Turkey, India or other places, and some Ukrainians. I mean, 15 dollars per hour is much worse than burning through GPUs or with LLMs, A100 usually cost around 1 to 2 dollars per hour, even H100 are like 4 or 5 dollars per hour. LLMs can output 1 million tokens with 15 dollars (ignoring input length though). It's just one whole length VK interview video time. Why do I have to waste that much amount of money on some shit language learning app?

On Italki there are a lot of cheaper options as low as 5 dollars. Well, finally down to the price of an H100! Well, if only they would teach you anything. Most of those teachers list those so called reading or listening lessons. Why do I need you to teach me in those aspects? I don't, thank you very much. Watching a full hour of Vk Video or Rutube or any random YouTube video works the same for me. Also, I want to know about the culture and have in-depth conversations not talk about this bullshit. No thank you!

20250215

You can also go talk for 4 hours in the Hellotalk free tier (though not perfect), or send infinite messages in the Hellotalk or Tandem paid tier of like 60 RMB per month.

I switched to German language in Hellotalk, using the name "Andrew" and setting the native language to English and no one is responding. I waited for 15 minutes and used up my daily quota (like, you can contact max 10 people on free tier). People barely replied anything to me.

I figured out I better change the gender to a female. So I used a female profile photo and changed my name to Svetlana. Surprisingly Hellotalk doesn't provide a third gender. I tried talking to male people. People were much more talkative if you are a young, beautiful girl.

Almost every person I talked to replied. They also always asked questions like "Are you in relationship" or "What's it like in your country", something if you are male people never ask you. I was filled busy responding messages for almost half an hour. Everyone was so talkative. Some people speak Russian fluently. One person claimed "Americans are very stupid and Germans are smart" for no reason or no point at all. People usually answer you with only one word though and don't listen. I only reached out to like 10 people but around 7 of them immediately replied (the other 3 seem offline), and some people tried messaging me. Also most male tried to show a lot of toxic masculinity.

Man does not take you seriously and respond to your questions. Frankly nothing came out of their mouth when I asked them about German culture. I deleted the account again. I already know a huge collection of German websites and YouTube channels and nobody told me anything more, not even one more website. Nobody replies anything of quality to you if you are a woman on these kinds of apps. It's full of weird messages about your life. Man likes to shoot around the topic.

In the meantime engaging with Russian and watching VK video alone might not be a bad option if I want to learn languages.

I can learn a lot of relationship dynamics by talking on these apps. The takeaway is when man socialize with a girl many do not talk normally. If you have weakness, just admit it with a normal voice.

You need to listen more (please definitely just listen more when talking with girls instead of blah blah showing off yourself), and certainly not do weird things! Most guys are irresponsive, exaggerated claims and showing off, too intrusive and "flirty", not listening to what woman said, talking all empty words. Even if you are a little grumpy and less talkative, it's not that bad.

Switching to a female profile in those "real" apps would definitely help you know the behaviors to avoid! It can't be more apparent.

20250216

Largely last time this year I had too high expectations and it was too many steps ahead. I was disconnected from the reality. I can't accept the fact that the results didn't yet match my intelligence and efforts.

I couldn't tolerate the idea of slacking off. This is largely due to lack of work-work balance.

Looking back I should have chilled for the semester and I would have been here and then I would easily apply for a master's program at least. I was very wrong.

Now we introduce work-work balance, and hope to implement it in the future.

Also, it is what it is, and we must not lose anything more.

I am back on my feet and I will be working hard.

20250216 Watching Russian Grand Prix Figure Skating

Today I am watching Russian figure skating on 1tv.

Many Russian athletes are below my age and hugely talented and banned from any International competition. Then I thought about the ban and how sad it is. As a Chinese I feel more strongly about the sanctions and not that strong about authority decisions (since there is a consensus that authority and leaders should know better). In China people don't oppose the leaders at all, everyone is used to bearing the leaders (even bad) decisions. If we are in a system where our leader decides to start a war with some other country we can't act anything else anyway.

As a Chinese in a high-pressure authoritarian system you always lose if you fight against the system. Individually everyone is utilitarian. Of course this is just politics, you hate us, we hate you. Banning athletes make the problem far more complex. It's like in life you can't solve a problem by hitting something else.

A lot of people are claiming superficial support for Ukraine, adding Ukraine flags in their profiles. I am learning the Ukrainian langauge, listening to Ukrainian artists, and watching Ukrainian shows (after learning Russian). Seemingly very outsiders do that. I don't qualify enough to have a political position. There isn't any strong influx of Ukrainian learners though. Most of Ukrainian shows speak Russian before 2022. Nobody watch original materials, shows, or content in Ukrainian. Again, I am taught to not be aligning politically without knowing deeply about their culture or the situation they are in, while western media always simplifies everything. Original media and culture immersion, fact-checking, deep understanding of different perspectives, in my opinion, is needed as a baseline for any political activism (of course, I never plan to have any political activism in my life). Most people supportive of Ukraine seemingly did their research on Tiktok. There is also another possibility, these are just bot accounts sponsored by some country.

Russia could send only one person in 2026 Milan Olympics. Without much doubt Petrosian won, though she flopped the first triple axel, and succeeding in 2 quad toeloop. Sofia Aketieva fell on triple axel and several more jumps, she was crying so much! She was the 2023 Russian Champion, picked up these ultra-c elements after huge fracture injury in 2023 but seems denied any chance now. Gorbacheva succeeded in one quad sal combo and fell in the second quad sal, and took second, while Sadkova barely managed one quad toe combo with minus goe and fell in the second. Overall a lot of people are crying. Frolova took 3rd with triples only. On the man's side yesterday Gumenik won with a huge score over 310 managing 4 quads in the free program while Semenko and Kondratiuk took 2nd and 3rd, and Dikizhi 4th. It seems these people have been around since 2021, and haven't changed much except the relative rankings between them going up and down. On the man's side it was mostly bitter smiles, like nothing could be done about the situation. I once read an interview for Gumenik that he got 100 in computer science in the college exam and went to ITMO and he really wanted to go to Olympics and it seemed his last chance is in Milan since he said over 24 man will lose a lot of competitiveness. Overall it's really sad since Russia could have 3 world championship and grand prix final woman single's gold by now in woman. I briefly watched pairs and ice dancing but I am not very familiar with many athletes in those.

In the junior group there are around 5 or 6 athletes extremely strong, Kostyleva and Bazyluk are able to land 5 ultra-c elements in one program including 3 quads. Kostyleva is known for strong skating and performance, while Bazyluk more for jumping consistency, even landing a quad sal euler quad sal. Dvoeglazova and Andreeva also lands 3 quads in free program. It's mindblowing how hard they train and what records they could have broken. But there are no International competitions for them at all, and the new rule by ISU required minimum age 17 to qualify for the senior group. One injury and the athlete would be out, perhaps face early retirement. They would be forced into extreme competition. Over 20-30 athletes have ultra-c elements in training. Russian figure skating is both beautiful and cruel. It's watching a tragedy happening in real time, crying and grasping the beauty it presents.

I feel strongly about sanctions and the fact that Russians not allowed to Olympics, and strongly sympathetic about Russian athletes. These teenager spent their whole life preparing and having horrible injuries, and the ban seemed very artificial imposed these teenagers. Figure skating in Russia is top in the world, with multiple girls jumping ultra-c yet not having any opportunity to participate in World Championships, which they would almost certainly dominate the podium. The Olympic bans and other sanctions, restrictions are part of broader international responses seemed all western-centric, and it seemed like the entire world order is build by US. The sanctions against Russia even reminded me of the 8-nation alliance against China back then. You don't fix one problem by creating unrelated trouble, you only escalates the problem.

Someone below my age achieves very extraordinary things, withstand severe injuries, and keep delivering, spending their whole life on one sport, even when they can't go to International podium. It's a total devotion and sacrifice to the sport and to art. I can't even comprehend that and in my heart I have great admiration.

I previously thought Nordic countries are like heavens, now with a grain of salt. It exposed their weakness and fear, almost like succumbing to US. Furthermore besides Russia(Yandex, Vk) and Czech(Seznam) and perhaps France(Dailymotion), I don't think any other European country have their own social media. Even Iran has Aparat. A somewhat simplified and reductive view is: you don't have your social media, you don't have your military, and you would essentially be a satellite state of US, unable to make your own decisions and subject to propaganda you can't control. Of course I am a very practical person, and if I am offered right now a chance to be a west or north European citizen I would obviously take it.

But why am I worrying about Russia's athletes? It's obviously not related to me though. This is because when I am very, very sad, I began projecting my problems on other people's situations and hoping that their situation would improve? I don't know. It's complicated. I can't solve my problems, but the more you can't solve your problems the more you tend to worry about someone else's problems.

I still think figure skating is a very beautiful sport and Russia is got huge amounts of talents in it. Figure skating may be the reason I even started learning Russian.

20250217

Well, today is 3 years from Beijing Olympics figure skating, how fucking time flies, I only started to watch figure skating since then and now I am all-in fan.

I don't want to do anything. I have low motivation. My weight is increasing again. The only thing I want to do is learn Russian.

Yesterday evening I walked 2 circles around the school. 1 circle is around 2.5 km. I can't gather any strength, and my weight is increasing.

I went on Smotrim.ru and there was a live streaming debate about American politics. I watched for a while. It is funny and provided me some joy. I don't want to study in school. I don't want to do what I am supposed to do. I hate studying. I don't want to do anything. I only want to learn Russian. Only listening to Russian songs gave me happiness.

I hate doing anything. Winter holiday is ending, but I still want to shut myself in a house and watch Vk and Russian YouTube 24/7. I can't summon any strength anymore.

Some people, through some sort of phrasing, label themselves and their policies as "democratic", and calls for actions. Beware! This is propaganda.

People argue that you can choose how to act, and if you disagree with your institution, you can hold it accountable. Then people use this as a baseline and mix in Tiktok-researched facts to spread propaganda. Note that these opinions aren't yours, and are very specific rather than "your ideas". In fact, you should just hold yourself accountable for horrible things like staying up, going on stupid social media, gaming, watching adult contents.

You can't, however, do anything or act with some of your ideas. Can someone protest if they believe in Marxism and want America to adopt it? Can someone protest if they believe in two genders only? Can someone protest if they believe that severely obese people should be killed? Can someone protest if they believe refugees should not be accepted by any countries? I don't hold these opinions obviously, but I am saying this just to illustrate a point. Democracy doesn't mean you can make a change with your ideas. Can I propose a ban on all gaming, porn, drugs, alcohol, and non-useful social media? Nobody would agree with that. Government does a lot of things, and they not only fund wars, but also didn't ban gaming, didn't ban porn, etc. These are all decisions that I have to accept and bear with, rather than spending my time talking bullshit.

Second, regarding politics, why should I have an opinion or act on Gaza-Israel, or Russia-Ukraine? Have I been there? Do I know anyone or interviewed anyone from that region? Did I read their history books? I didn't. I don't qualify for it. I speak only bad Russian and very little Ukrainian.

Lastly, from a personal utilitarian perspective some things just don't matter to you as a single person. There is no possibility that something changes because of you.

Overall just beware of the political bullshit. You don't need to act. You don't need to make a voice. You should however, focus on your own wellbeing and put yourself first.

What is work (без interests/hobby)? It is simply completing tasks. We can break everything, studying, life into concrete tasks.

Where are your tasks? They should be written on the notebook and ticked when completed.

What do I do in life? It can be basically divided into work(без interest) and work(в interest). The first working is completing tasks. If you have other spare time or need a rest or working for tasks isn't yielding results, you do the second kind of work. Of course there are other times for body needs or necessary needs.

20250217 How Should the Sleeping Schedule Be

I think it's a good idea we don't stay up if we are in school.

A good baseline should be before 8:00 am in the morning usually now. You can respond to classes and meetings this way. Even if there are morning classes starting at 7:50 am and you miss it, you are not going to miss a whole day.

If you sleep on time everyday, you will find it normal. If you stay up everyday, sleeping normal would be almost unbearable. You will not be able to get up and last through the day. This habit is worse than a jet lag since in a jet lag your body still try to follows the natural circadian rhythm, while staying up late everyday would cause you to have instead a natural noctural patter, much harder to erase.

If I am out of this fucking school life, I will most possibly continue this sleeping pattern.

Two principles that always apply

1. No afternoon/midday naps
2. Enough sleep whether staying up or not

If you don't give your body sleep like at least around 8 hours a day (e.g. sleep at 3 am then get up at 6 am to start the day), then you must return the sleep to your body very soon, like in the. Otherwise your body will not be able to respond and collapse.

20250217 02:30 Low Motivation, Not Wanting to do Anything

I don't want to sleep and it is 3 am. I can't sleep. I can't do anything. My weight problem is not yet solved.

20250217 15:00

I got up at 14:00 and my weight is increasing. I don't feel good about myself.

20250217 17:30

I bought a notebook. I came to the school library. I still have zero motivation. I thought about all the times I have wasted and how I am still wasting time now. I eat dinner and I am very full. I don't know what to do. I know what to do but I don't want to do it.

20250217 22:30

I feel tired, I don't want to go on. I don't know what to do next. I need to chill right now. I reduced YouTube filters to only filter out comments since I can't maintain too many Ublock filters.

I am confused. I am tired. I hate studying. I hate doing anything. I don't want to be here anymore. I am worthless and I suck.

I want to go a western country. I got nothing to lose. China cannot define me. I am limited by the current environment. I hate everything. I have extremely low motivation.

I used to think like once you have been through everything, and went through a period so difficult that the next period is going to be better. Very wrong theory! Don't expect anything to clear after a difficult period, expect an equal or more difficult period next!

There is no exit to this literally. And so far it's like every period is getting more difficult. I am going abroad either to western countries or to Russia. I want an alt life for a few years.

If you go to Lifeline China or Lifeline US or Lifeline Australia whichever one you can chat with someone online. You can switch the VPN to go to the regions to try to find some fucking help. I hate everything. It's such a shame for me. I can't bear it no more.

20250218 02:30

Some things to clarify

1. Hating and evading school isn't necessary, it makes you hate and evade it more
2. Hating and evading school isn't "preserving your interests and autonomy"
3. Hating and evading school isn't "preserving your dignity"
4. Hating and procrastinating in school isn't going to make you more skilled
5. Cooperating with school is better than not, when you are already in school

Some other things

1. Work-work balance is needed, but balance means managing school well with a reasonable amount of effort, not evading it
2. Some bad habits are actively harmful, e.g. gaming, social media, being obese, which will strongly contribute to procrastination and evading school

Hopefully, things will be better? I don't know. Over the past years it's been traumatizing. Moreover I had done such a bad job that I am deeply regretful and ashamed of myself.

I need to have a deep reflection on my wrongdoings in 2024 some time later.

20250218 04:00

I just looked at ТРКИ-2, and I don't think it's too difficult. ТРКИ-3 may be more difficult? But the grammar part is quite annoying, I haven't formally learned grammar till now.

There are a lot of people with broken English and there is also the African American English and Southern English. You go to US and you talk to homeless people or very poor people and they function very well with broken English. In Russia, however, there aren't a lot of people with broken Russian. Russia may be poor, but the literacy rate is very high, and Russian just more than just immersion. People do study the grammar and vocabulary for years in school. There is a huge gap in Russian between B2 and native level.

To quote from Twilight, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Russian.

I take back my idea that learning grammar is pointless. However, I still possess the idea that grammar should come only after listening comprehension and large vocabulary possession.

20250219 23:30

Just a few days later and I will be 20 years old, then I will forever not be ten something age. Looking back at the years 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 it's remarkable how long I have gone. These ages were so previous and I don't want to leave each one. Now that I am 19 I don't want to move on to 20 years old.

Am I wasting too much time? I always thought about this. Yet I think my problem is more with mental health than with the time being wasted. I can't walk out of here. I struggle daily with so many things. I just slept from 4 to 9 pm and I don't know if I will sleep tonight. I don't feel tired at night and I sleep during the day. This is so harmful but I don't even know if I can stop this habit.

I hate being ordinary. Anyway majority of people are ordinary. Failing, procrastinating, not realizing your goals, feeling lost, these are all the themes I feel right now.

20250220 04:30

I must say if someone does some seemingly stupid things (by social standards or not), maybe they are just different from me. I am different enough from normal. Everyone is different and we just have different ideas.

Anyway, it's pretty funny how Germany, a country I greatly admired from childhood, are in so many political chaos now. (or maybe not? it's just the media? who knows)

20250220 Concerning Patterns in February of 2025

I am seeing concerning patterns in the February of 2025.

While I certainly dislike the education system here, I must understand that I already failed twice. I cannot afford to lose it anymore. I must address these concerns and make sure we do ok in school.

Staying Up

While staying up isn't inherently a bad thing, it isn't practical here in school.

I am staying up nearly all night. If you stay up all night and wake up around noon or past noon, please understand that this is going to fuel procrastination and escapism from reality. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in life but it is objectively going to harm your performance in school.

Excessive Pursuit of Interests

I was coding for almost 2 whole days before in for my userscripts. This shows a concerning parallel with June of 2024. I must understand that I can't neglect school like this anymore.

Not Going to School Very Often

I didn't spend whole days in school these past days. Spending more time in school is better for adapting and doing better.

20250220 12:30

I just got up and I cannot continue this pattern. We must fix the sleeping schedule.

The worst thing about sleeping schedule is that it take one day to mess up everything. It is much easier to stay up all night for one day than it is to sleep earlier.

20250221 11:10

Ok, we got up slightly earlier than yesterday but there is still a lot of work to do.

20250221 23:10

I am going to sleep very soon.

20250222 07:30

Ok, I got up now. Actually I have been awake since like 06:20. I am a little concerned whether I will fall asleep later in the day.

I cannot declare the sleeping problem as fixed. I am relying on pills before bed right now. It is fixed hopefully for today, but who knows how long I can keep it up?

20250222 08:00

Ok, right now we still got so many problems. Obesity isn't gone yet: below 73 is our goal, which will hopefully be achieved in April?

Before 8 am, below 73 kg is a good baseline or measurements right now.

20250223 10:00

I literally slept almost 12 hours from 10 pm yesterday. The sleeping schedule have a problem again. But I have been through such and I believe that I will succeed this time.

Anyway, tomorrow we will need to go to classes. I don't want to but I don't have a choice.

20250223 18:30

The disillusionment right now is overwhelming. I can't go on anymore.

20250223 20:30

I plan to have a temporary exit from watching figure skating until World Championships. I watched too much figure skating lately.

20250224 10:30

I got up just now and I slept at 1 am yesterday. I slept around 9.5 hours. It's such a shame and I couldn't respond. The circadian rhythm still isn't restored. I am so sad. I am so sleepy today and yesterday. Maybe we can try to sleep at 11 pm today?

20250224 14:00

Last year the Computer Architecture course teacher seemed to have consumed too much ecstasy, he is old and senile, and always shake his head seemingly in enjoyment. Consuming ecstasy isn't a good idea for anyone. Unfortunately, I failed the course and I am in ruins right now.

20250224 16:00 Rant in USTC German Course

So we are in this German language class. This is like one of the classes I am actually going to voluntarily? But I only want to go to the first class to see how it goes, join the class group chat then left.

Anyway this classrom is 100 degrees again and the teacher is like very old. A lot of grumpy students sits around, numb emotions in their faces buried in phones who don't seem very energetic. Overall it's a lazy afternoon, curtains are closed, and I don't even want to sit here.

So what has been happening these days in Germany is the shitty election among CDU, AFD, SPD and stuff, there is this Olaf and Weidel and Friedrich Merz. Like there are some shitty parties going on there, and today is around the election day. It's not like this is super important but I have been poking around for a really, really long while on ZDF nachrichten and some other channels. However this stupid crap teacher isn't talking about the damn election and what is happening in Germany, e.g. migration, job loss, EU relationship, woke culture but talking about some random shit about tests. And the teacher asked, all smiling, how did you guys perform last semester? Which made me quite frustrated since learning a fucking language isn't related to any fucking tests. (some context: this is a German so called intermediate class and they had a basic class already last semester and everyone was from last semester and they had a final back then) German is just a language spoken by a number of people in Europe and I hope to learn it after Russian, what's the stupid deal?

Maybe it's a good idea to chat with the teacher Mrs.Xu afterwards? Anyway, I had so much interest about German culture but the teacher is talking in Chinese very slowly, making me frustrated and even a little funny. German isn't like Russian which has something called Runet including its own ecosystems. German contents are only on YouTube and other western platforms, the exceptions may be gutefrage and Mastodon? Obviously some quite niche websites outside, and not even the top platforms within Germany. I learned Russian for a long time but I am only starting on German.

Then old Mrs.Xu started to talk about some cloze and paragraph and CET-4. Oh, how horrible is this course?

The teacher began recommending some shitty books and even the books she written. Why should I optimize for a fucking course? German is such a fucking interesting, rich language, why should I fucking do this to torture myself?

I went on brigitte.de and geo.de, I tried to read some and understand, but Mrs.Xu's loud, annoying Chinese voices is disrupting me.

Anyway Mrs.Xu tried to leave very fast and I didn't even get any chance to talk. So like I didn't get any chance to talk to her. It's such a shame.

Anyway after the class I sent Mrs.Xu an email. Here's the English translation:

Dear Professor Xu,

I am Jim, and I'm very interested in the German language and culture. Although I just started learning German, I'm particularly fond of and attentive to German cultural content.

I have compiled an article about German online media resources: https://jimchen.me/en/journal/German-Language-and-Culture, which includes German language resources (that I find interesting) ranging from news media, documentaries to music and lifestyle content.

I also wrote a Tampermonkey script (userscript) that can display both German and English subtitles simultaneously on YouTube in the browser, which helps me learn: https://github.com/jimchen2/userscripts

I find several current important topics in Germany quite interesting, such as the recent elections, the rise in AFD support, immigration policies, and woke culture. I wonder if you follow German mainstream media like ARD, ZDF, DW, ARTE, BILD, etc.?

Also, are you familiar with German social platforms like Gutefrage, Mastodon, Zalando? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you, Professor Xu.
Jim

She didn't reply. She read the email and didn't even click the links of my blog. I hate this damn course. I hate Mrs.Xu. Mrs.Xu is a very horrible teacher who doesn't seem to know how to teach and have no enthusiasm or passion. She better fuck off.

The worst thing about Mrs.Xu is that she completely ignores you. When you are passionate about something, she would go back to her bullshit textbooks and start reading very loudly (in Chinese).

I had a very horrible experience in school but my passion for German is only stronger!

Mrs. Xu is a bullshit, stinky, rotten piece of trash. I honestly hope that I never knew such a person existed. A failed teacher! Very ignorant, arrogant, dismissive, piece of crap. I should've knew it long ago. I hate foolish people.

I'll learn German anyway, but I hate this Mrs.Xu. What a waste of my time.

I feel angry and irritated and I do not want to go to ANY of these classes AGAIN.

I am determined to

1. Learn German
2. Not attend any more fucking language courses anymore.

20250225 09:40

I got up just now and this is around the latest time I used to get up before. Tomorrow let's go before 9.

If your usual get up time is 9 am, you will be able to scale up back to 7 am very quickly, in a matter of days. If your usual get up time is 12 am, you will not be able to respond if you need to get up any early, and it woule keep going back and forth, and your plan would fail.

20250225 14:00

Ok, I am in database course again. Things aren't going great so far. I hate everything.

20250226

Man, I hate mouse, it's so annoying and loud.

I am tired. I have no strength left. My brain is foggy.

I no longer have any strength left. It seemed like we are in the middle of nowhere. We drove partially there, but we are not there yet. We are far from there and we are, in every step, having dangers that could change and damage everything. But I am in the middle, and I have zero strength or energy left.

20250226 18:00

The issue isn't solved yet. A good idea I think is to eat 2 pills of melatonin on 8 pm today. I am going crazy with these issues. It's going back and forth, back and forth all the time. Apparently I have already recovered a little and I feel far more hungry at lunch today.

The point is pushing this sleeping schedule is hard while keeping it is easy. So a good sleeping schedule, once you get to keep it, should be more persistent. I hope I get up before 8 am tomorrow.

20250227 05:30

I got up at (freaking?) 5:30 today. It's so weird. But we must be aware that there is still possibility of a rebound.

20250228

I got up at around 9:00.

Right now I am trying to rebuild with some limited success. We keep trying for a while at least.

20250301

Ok, it is 22:30, I should sleep but I am watching the World Junior Championship figure skating woman's free skating. And I just finished watching the Russian junior championship (since Russians are sanctioned now) and they happen to be on the same day (junior girl free program). Anyway, nearly half of the skaters in the World Junior(sorry, actually around a third) are born or associated with Russia, some of whom still train in Moskva, and they compete for Switzerland, Italy, Azerbajian, Israel. On the YouTube stream there are a lot of comments in Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, Japanese (of course English). Anyway, I reckon that Chinese would dominate (or at least be very, very strong) the sport in a few years to a decade since there are so many people in China and they are getting richer, they can train better. But now my favorite is Elena Kostyleva. She is so beautiful, flexible and strong, landing 3 quads and 2 triple axels clean in the free program.

Then I looked through WeChat moments of my rich Shanghai high school classmates and a lot of them spent the winter holiday in Spain, Germany, UAE, France. Anyway, I don't want to travel now except to the north.

It doesn't matter who wins the damn World Junior Championship since Russians are excluded. If Russians are there the whole podium would be theirs. I want to sleep early but it looked like the Junior Championship isn't ending soon. So many talented people come from Russia.

20250301

I went on HelloTalk again today. It's almost a routine activity now. Download HelloTalk, go on it, delete the account, delete the software. I talked with some Russians. Anyway, there was a girl who lost her husband to war in Ukraine and she cried a long time about how like she was sad and how she loved her ex-boyfriend. And she played some music by Andrey Gubin, Shaman, Lyube in the voiceroom. I could understand more than half of Russian now (around 60%-80%), though not everything.

20250301 Relationship is Off the Table Now

I can't engage in any relationships until I have my hands free. Woman relationship for me is off the table now. I have a kind of nonchalant or even indifferent, randomized attitude right now towards marriage.

I would want to marry someone who speaks a different native language than Chinese and English, possibly Russian, German, so that we can speak that at home and I can have another culture in my future family.

Oh, how good is it to have another culture in the family! Anyway, I don't find a lot of girls attractive anyway, and the most important thing is, well, that they appreciate and understand me, and can read and listen to what I want to say, understand my perspective well. Of course, the ability to earn a lot of money is decisive in the future.

Maybe when the time doesn't come, I will never have a girl relationship? Who knows? I have been in such a tough situation for almost 10 years. How can I have anything romantic when I feel like I am going to be blown to death at any moment?

20250302

Within a day, the weight can vary 1.5 kg (lightest compared to heaviest time). So say, I reach 72.9 kg, then my heaviest point in a day would be around 74.4 kg, while in winter, if I put on clothes weighing around 2 kg total, the weight would be 76.4 kg.

Then my parents called for like 20 minutes. Just 20 minutes and I got like 5 unreads.

20250302

Today I am trolling on HelloTalk again. I tried so many combos and today I took a Russian model's photo and set my native language to be Russian and to "learn Chinese".

People are surprisingly responsive and I found an awful lot of people wanting to marry or date Russian girls. What's more, these people don't know any Russian at all. And it was just so funny when you can respond negatively and these guys would still be there! And you can freely can them "stupid". You would be flooded with endless messages if you are a woman in these apps, while no one responds to you if you are a man. Also seeing those "try-hards" man is so funny.

To my great surprise there is someone claiming to be an AI-researcher in US who is of Chinese descent. That person seem to like the only person who isn't vulgar.

Anyway, I deleted my account quickly after.

20250305

I never pay for premium on HelloTalk or Tandem, they are too expensive. They limit you to like 10 new initiated conversations per day. If I have money, I can access the API and use a Chatbot on the backend on Telegram and do some mass scraping to talk to people (which would be very expensive).

I signed up for HelloTalk again. I used the name Danny with an AI generated profile. I talked to someone from Kaliningrad. I talked with someone from Minsk. She asked me "What do you know about Belarus?" I tried thinking for a long time and I said "Palina and Bi 2 are from Belarus and I also know a few Belarusian figure skaters. I know Belarus TV." She then said "a lot of people left Belarus". It is very interesting to found out indeed. Anyway I deleted my HelloTalk account quickly.

I signed up for Tandem again and they approved the account very quickly. I used my own profile photo and the name "Dimitri". I hopped on and started to text Ukrainian person, start by commending them. But since Tandem only allowed one learning language and I wrote Russia (I guess?) they don't seem to respond to me. I texted Russians. I met people from Samara and Новороссийске. So you very quickly look up those documentary films and show culture curiosty and they would like to chat with you.

Today I am trolling on Telegram. I created an account again. I went to 5-6 Russian channels. Telegram has this weird feature that seperate channels and the user accounts.

If you aren't a premium user, Telegram isn't going to let you talk to anyone. So I bought premium. Anyway, perhaps this time I can keep my account for a while?

I think it may be a good idea to scrap those group chats and look if they own a channel, and if they own a channel with over 100 subscribers, keep it in a database, so that you can basically know who is "popular".

Anyway, random messaging on Telegram had far more replies. I previously tried random messaging on Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte with almost no response. People like to use Telegram. There are a lot of Russian individual athletes personal accounts on Telegram, if you bothered to look, you can find more than dozens in chat groups.

You can start by commending their looks or their skills You can ask people a question, like "what is your favorite music?" or "what is your favorite athlete?"

Some people responded briefly, while some expressed surprise, "ты кто?" And I was very honest, and said I am fan from China. I am completely honest today on who I am (except I used Dimitri as my first name). Anyway, young people are usually very friendly, and you can start explaning and start a conversation easily.

Still, it is quite difficult to have any deep conversations. People keep questioning why you texted them (if they reply). I don't know why I texted you! I just want to know about you and Russian culture. I went randomly to like 20 channels and comments and group chats and texted people that seemed real (like a profile photo, some with their own channels). I texted around 100 people.

Beyond just basic greets I cannot get anything out. I don't know about them anyway. Sometimes they asked me to give a screenshot of where I found them. I message 10 accounts at one time and I didn't know where I find you!

20250306

I already deleted my HelloTalk account again.

I exported around 100+ conversations from Telegram (more like I texted until I got restricted to no longer being able to text anymore, even with Premium).

So to talk to the people behind those channels on Telegram, you can try to search around a little. Most times you can try to search in the comments for some fan channels on Telegram, then inside those fan channels you would be able to find smaller chats (like 10-20 people or just 2,3 people) you might find the specific people behind the channels. Sometimes you can find larger chats and there are some interesting real people inside it.

Somehow in Tandem cannot export your chat data. It can only export your own data. I didn't talk much on Tandem. Maybe I can use some Javascript tricks next time to attempt to export the data myself? But there really wasn't just anything worth exporting this time. I deleted my Tandem account again.

If you text Russians on Telegram you are not going to compete with a bunch of Chinese idiots, like on HelloTalk. But people would always question why you text them and then ignore you. I can't effectively carry on conversations.

What else do I have? Telegram. I done texting, so time to delete it again... Then I quickly deleted the Telegram app. Maybe I should use a female account in Telegram next time? Who knows.

Telegram is bothering me. I get it that you need a phone number to use Telegram. I didn't get it that you need a smartphone to use Telegram (just like WeChat!). So basically you can only log in to Desktop or the web they send a code to your Telegram app on mobile. It's so annoying.

Like, I remembered once in 2023 when I changed my phone number and I could log in to someone else's Telegram. Well, I instantly saw the person's relationship messages, but I was locked out like 5 minutes later because I think the person got notified and added 2 fa on their phone.

If I do decide to use Telegram I better use a burner phone number so that I would never lose it. You travel somewhere and you would choose another phone number.

20250307

What should I do about the upcoming test? I don't know how should I prepare for it.

I can't study. I don't want to study. I don't want to do anything.

I am wasting every day of my life.

What I have been through is repeated collapse and efforts that doesn't change the whole picture. Repeatedly I would go through periods of difficulty that undermines any long term plans. It's so difficult.

20250308

Remember that you have no cards now.

20250308 How can I Get Out of Here?

Regardless of how I went to this damn situation in the first place, I need to get out.

But 2 things are standing in my way.

The first thing is guilt. There is such a great feeling of guilt in everything that I had done and it is impacting me, pushing me to find spaces to evade this guilt. Fear of failing again and again came to me. No matter what I do this, guiltiness rain down on me.

The second thing is feeling of suppression. I feel reluctant to study because of all the horrible memories. Whenever I am studying I feel strong suppressed and couldn't go on. All those memories of efforts leading to no results repeatedly replayed in my head. I need some temporary clear victory before this feeling of suppression ends.

There is just no way to get out of this trap and vicious cycle right now.

Neither guilt or the feeling of suppression is going away anytime soon. I want to die.

20250309

I am not going to have a life anymore. I dedicate all my time to school and fuck it. I am not going to have anything left. I want to die.

Necessity is stronger than anything else, turns out.

Elementary school textbooks are more important than I realized. It fundamentally shapes a person's world views. It also offers a insider perspective of the country's culture, history, and society.

Maybe such an education is part of what fundamentally separates a native with a foreigner. You would have lost all nuances in Chinese if you never recited dozens of the most well known poems. You would have a complete different mindset that make it hard to find common grounds with natives sometimes. I also share a significant amount of Chinese literature education from my parent's generation, around half of the texts remain in the Chinese textbooks. Also, wearing red scarves, doing synchronized group exercise over radio, and studying several political courses (from Marxism, Maoism, to modern Chinese history and current politics) are important cultural touchstones in China. Some are inherited from Soviet, while Russia abandoned much of them.

Having grown up in Shanghai, I used Chinese textbooks for 9 years. (well, more than 9 actually, but the first 9 years are mandatory for all and arguably more important). There are a huge selections of ancient poems, modern and current era essays, excerpts from Chinese classics, etc. There are also a few foreign works, though much more limited.

I also used English textbooks throughout elementary school. (not the stupid English textbooks for typical Chinese but ESL courses used in America) English textbooks comparingly aren't very deep in cultural sphere. After elementary school I no longer used ESL textbooks and I didn't do IB or AP, but I read hundreds of English novels and watched YouTube daily.

I think the western education system in culture and literature is arguably less "rigorous" than the Chinese or Soviet/Russian literature, partly due to globalization, since English is no longer confined to a shared history, but spread to every corner of the world. People who speak English no longer assume that you know all the nuances.

20250310

I remembered this trip to Gansu in 2019 summer, to connect with my grandfather's roots and a break from school for me. I boarded the train from Shanghai to Henan, Henan to Xian, where my grandfather had some remote relative connections, then finally to Tianshui, driving into the Guojia village of Qinan.

Before arriving at Tianshui, my grandfather got very excited, over 80 but with something familiar on his face. Maybe he remembered the youthful ages he had, or the difficult ages of cultural revolution, the great famine of 1960, and the period of China so chaotic that, despite being gone, remained forever in that generations memories. My grandfather would walk 40 kilometers in the mountains to go to school.

We arrived at Tianshui, and what a contrast it was with the metropolitan Shanghai that I live in. Dozens of taxi drivers were hollering at the station biding for customers, and obviously, inflating the price. After a while one person came to me, my mom, and my grandparents, and we went to the hotel for 15 Yuan. Even if inflated for them, the price was nothing compared to Shanghai.

We went to one of the most expensive hotels there, at around 100 RMB per night. Upon arriving I walked around the streets, carrying my dumb phone, some money, and just exploring this unknown place. There are some restaurants around.

Leiming greeted us. A medium aged man, he had 2 kids, a boy slightly younger than me and a girl. He spoke harshly to the boy, while softly to the girl. He invited us to one of the most expensive restaurants in Tianshui and drove us around. I noticed a Xinhua bookstore somewhere.

I ate a lot, man, and his son is slightly younger than me. We talked and I told him about my math competition life, and played the rubic, while he seemed to have less resources and harsher parents. My mom told Leiming that there are benefits of living in a small city, like how you don't need to travel 1 hour to walk. My mom told me, however, just don't laugh and be arrogant of the difference. My mom also made a remark: despite the harsh treatment of his son, perhaps he views his son far more important.

I climbed the mountain myself the next day, with my dumb phone by my side, and it was around 6:30, the sun was still high. I climbed halfway up the mountain as there were fewer and fewer people and cars, it wasn't an attraction anyway, I could see lakes in the distance. I walked into a fruit farm, and there was this guy, mid aged but so sunburned and brown was his skin.

He looked up at me and asked why I am here. I said that I just came here for fun. I asked if there are dogs. "They don't bit", he told me. His job is probably working here in this fruit farm full of apples, pears, and peaches.
I began to walk down. There were dozens of trucks down the mountain carrying full of fruits. down the mountain there were stalls all along the road selling peaches, apples. I bought 6 peaches. Did my fruits in Shanghai come from here?

We traveled to Guojia village. Occasionally the high speed rail would zoom by. Hongtu and Dongxi greeted us. Time for a feast! They prepared a whole table of meat, rice, soup. The toilet is just a hole with a lid on top.
Song Dongxi was in his 60s, a man that smokes frequently. Hongtu is in 30s, cooking and smiling at us. My grandparents would stay here for a while, around one month.

In villages they don't close doors, everyone can go everywhere, and one or two people from neighbors joined. Nobody scolded them or told them to go away. There were those real mud paths. In the afternoon my mom and I went away in Hongtu's brothers truck back to the city while grandparents stayed and would live with them for one month

Ok, just one more detail, the day spent in Xian. I went out at eight in the evening to see Dayan tower and the Tang dynasty palace. There aren't a lot of people and the palace was closed. The next day I went to Banpo primitive remains, and man, it was raining so hard. Xian rarely rains yet it rained both days. I had to buy an umbrella. I remembered trying to find my way through a newly built building off the subway to Banpo. Then I remembered walking around the city wall, and walking through parks with many selling Liangpi, a kind of noodle like food.

That's the end!

Despite (of because of) modernization, the regional differences got worse. Back in those days all university graduates were assigned jobs in cities in China, sometimes depending on how much you bribe the official.

Tracing my family roots from the food scarce 60s, to the chaotic 70s, to the prosperous Shanghai, this trip is 1/4 of my roots (My maternal grandfather come from Guojia village, the other 3 grandparents come from Henan).

20250313

I think HelloTalk and Tandem are the last places to actually chat with people, so I am not very much interested in adventurism in these platforms anymore.

For quick chatting or questions you can use Twitch. Just go on a channel for "just chatting" with few people and ask your questions.

For more in-depth chatting involving both sides I think Telegram is a good option. But still, you must thought about what to say for this kind of chatting, otherwise you would run out of words.

I am deleting my Telegram account again.

20250317

I vow to end the problem of obesity (drive down below 73 kg) before end of May festival. So basically, the labour festival spans from May 1 to May 5, and before that I got around 50 days. Now I am around 78 kg. So I got to decrease 0.1 kg everyday. That equals to approximately 10 km of walking without excessive eating. Let's do it.

Goal: 3.20, below 77 kg; 3.31, below 76 kg; 4.10, below 75 kg; 4.20, below 74 kg; 5.5, below 73 kg.

It is non-negotiable and very important.

20250320

I think that walking out occasionally is a very good idea. No matter if it's midway, no matter if it's in the dead of night, or no matter if there are crowds, or if the place is very isolated, it's just a very good idea to wander around.

I never realized that there is a huge integrated circuit industrial park down there, and I went into it today. It was so big and clean. Like, it was just 1 km down the street south of my home and I literally never been there before. I went there around midnight and there wasn't anybody besides like one guard, but it was so big with so many beautiful buildings and dim lights in the windows in the dead of the night, a playground and a basketball field. I thought about like how fast China changed and like the construction of everything is so amazing. If you are immersed in some virtual online places, it's not going to motivate you. I think if I go out often and feels the vibe of Hefei, it can drive my bad moods away and give me some energy.

I always find myself wandering around nowhere during the isolated hours. I don't see much people wandering just like me so I am assuming the vast majority of people don't like doing that. There is a certain isolation personality inside me, at least my personality embraces or bears isolation more than the average in almost all crowds.

Also it's not like you would run out of places to walk around near your home. I remember during the first days of covid in 2020 I would walk out daily for 5-10 km around my home and everything felt fine, walking to the same park and back.

I thought about prostitution and the power imbalance of having sex. In almost all prostitution man would pay woman, not the other way around. Can this be explained from the fact that man have stronger desires for sexual intercourse? Or maybe in sex man get more satisfaction? Since if someone desires something more, they would pay a higher price for it. Sex isn't just love. There are a lot of love songs from the woman's perspective, but that doesn't conflict the fact that maybe woman do desire sex a little less than man do. It's not even tied to who have the money. Man on average have more resources than woman, but poor men would also have to pay for sex. However, the script is flipped if you look at powerful or rich man, no matter young or old, would naturally have "huge supplies" of woman.

Regarding this semester, there is still huge amounts of works to do. I want it to be better, and I can't lose anything. My weight has been around 77-78 kg for almost 2 months by now. It's neither going up nor going down, even though I am very hungry much of the time and only eating one meal a day.

I feel very guilty, disappointed at myself, dissatisfaction overall. I feel my experiences in China left a big scar, and it's still bleeding now. My motivation, trust, and optimism of the future are draining through this scar. I feel I couldn't reach my maximal potential. I desperately want to go abroad for a few years, or at least explore a true alternative for my life. Perhaps if I go somewhere for a few years the scar would cure and I could come back and everything would be fine. It wouldn't be cured even after leaving this university--the dissatisfaction and discomfort has been there since 2016, or especially since high school in 2020. It left me disillusioned and frustrated. Even though I am witnessing China's development, I still desire to just go out. There isn't anything to lose.

20250320 What is Russia to Me?

To be honest, my interest in Russia has increased mainly because of figure skating, and I have found that there is a great fascination in watching figure skating starting in 2022, especially Russian figure skating. I watch a lot of videos a day and I'm very interested in the athletes. Age also played a factor, and the skaters tended to be teenagers around my age who had achieved success in their field. After some search and after being a fan of them for a while and learning about their background, my perception changed to pure beauty and admiration for their resilience, hard work and recent achievements. In comparison, as a teenager I accomplished literally nothing and spent a huge portion of my life doing meaningless, routine work.

If it wasn't for figure skating, I might have never learned Russian. In fact, I was planning to learn German in 2022.9. It's like, figure skating, classic songs, and the interview channels are bridges for me to dive into the Runet.

Russia is home to the some of the best figure skaters in recent years. Currently my only interest in sports is in watching figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics.

Russia have 3 main ice shows, directed by Tatiana Navka, Ilya Averbukh, and Plushenko. Valieva, Shcherbakova, and Zagitova performs in Navka's shows, while Trusova performs in Plushenko's shows. Medvedeva holds a interview channel on YouTube.

The junior girl stage is very strong in Russia, with multiple athletes performing 3 quads and triple axel clean in a free program. Russia holds its own Grand Prix series and championships after being banned from International Competition, usually around the same time, so there are a lot of competitions to watch!

I started encoutering strong disillusionment in late 2023. I desperately needed help and guidance back, I didn't see any solutions, and I could not see the light from the tunnel. It eventually turning into a full crisis in 2024 into 2025, and I no longer had any more motivation. I was burnt out, completely failing, hating school, and didn't have any concrete goals anymore. Then Russian came and offered to me an alternative world. It's also kind of a way to save face and avoid the humiliation and shame I would otherwise face. I increasingly felt isolated in life despite attempts, then ultimately gave up altogether. As long as I am in this world, all my immediate worries are gone and I could dream on. I don't have to go out. I no longer buy the idea or promise of school or society anymore. I wasn't the stupidest, wasn't the one with least efforts, wasn't the one with the worst tempers, yet I consistently struggled like in a dire condition throughout all my school years for almost 10 years. I couldn't command myself anymore-I stopped believing all my previous goals and questioned the incentives. Thus Russian is a way to detach myself from the harsh reality I no longer want to face anymore, and it is no longer a casual hobby. I can spend entire days, months, or even years given my computer and food at home binging Russian videos on YouTube and VK. As long as I face things in my life, I would be very very depressed.

New interviews started to turn up and be "trending", and I started to build up the big pictures of Russian culture and society as well as the niches. With each new interview, song, I discovered something more about Russian language and culture. The more I explored into Russian media/culture, the more I find that many topics I previously paid no attention to seemed very interesting and attractive.

I thought about Russia. On one hand it is a country with some of the greatest culture and aesthetic arts, as well as math, technology, and space exploration. But Russia and the Soviet Union could never reach Western standards in infrastructure, living standards, and economic development overall. It's a country full of paradoxes, complications, and beauty.

I created this romantic mental retreat to escape whenever possible, a detached haven, whether it's the Lena, Ob Yenisei rivers, lake Baikal, the Black Sea and the White Sea. I began living in an imaginary world, this time not in Narnia or Hogwarts, or Condor Heroes.

I've never been to Russia once. It's an alternative to both US and China. So it is very convenient to create anything in my mind. Think about the beautiful palaces, think about the Black Sea, and the mountains, gorges, sea of Crimea, shamanism of Tuva, historic city of Kazan. And finally, the river delta of St. Petersburg, in Tsoi's song "The Sun is Also a Star", think Mariinsky Theatre, the city circles, Pushkin, Akhmatova, ITMO, draw bridges, and the still, white nights. I looked at Odessa on Google Map Street view in the summer of 2020, the endless sea with people laying on the park. Everything is so exotic and you can craft stories and adventures in this semi-reality with imagination wrapping up everything else. Somehow I wish I would never go there. Sometimes it's better to just dream on and never wake up.

Before 2022, I didn't know anything about the world. I didn't know what is NATO, Ukraine, EU, BRICS, UN, I didn't know different forms of government. Another anecdote is in February 2022 I didn't know anything happened, I didn't watch the news and just didn't pay attention to it and thought it was boring and people were just joking. At the time, I was attempting TOEFL and GRE and did not have anything else in my mind. Until Russian figure skating was banned from the World Championships at the end of March, I realized for the first time indeed something had happened.

Many companies stopped operating in Russia, including Google, Apple, MongoDB, Grammarly, Openai. Some pro-government YouTube channels got sanctioned, but you can easily find them on archive.org, like, how their channels looked like. For example: Group Lyube before it got sanctioned.

And things changed. After learning languages I am exposed to far more news, perspectives, geopolitic situations, besides vague concepts of geography course in school. And not only did I learn a lot more about Russia but a lot more about Europe. Somehow these news started to get into my ears. It is pretty hard to ignore what was happening in these countries anymore.

Once you began to watch them, you began to notice them everyday. It's like they are bombing you 24/7. They are not only on major news channels, but on many forums. I began consuming news in different languages and a lot of different opinions, propaganda, extremist content, provocative statements started getting to me.

Learning Russian is completely different from learning English. Learning English is a journey to connect to the world, to reshape my default identity. English is default for me, while learning Russian is like adding something else. I won't change my interface to Russian permanently, or use it as the default language. I started to learn English from 3 years old, as long as I could remember, and using English just seemed better.

Russia isn't the typical happy country in the world. Russians have been immigrating to US, Europe but not the other way around. Russia has been absorbing immigration, but mainly among central asian countries. For Chinese, Russia has been a dumping ground for people who cannot pass exams in China. People who go to community colleges level in China go to a Russia university instead. I have no decent classmate who seriously considered Russian as an option, it's like going to Vietnam or Indonesia. And it's not like these "wreckages" of Chinese education are inferior or something because when you think about it seriously, they seem to be the right tier to go to Russia. The moment you compare it externally, you instantly feel it's so terrible from the brutal fact. When it gets under your nose with a personal reminder of the devastating failure of academics, it feels suffocating, and it is no longer pleaseant.

And at that moment it would turn from this pristine haven to almost a feeling of disgust. I could marvel at Baikal, I could spend hours watching Yakutia documentary, I could sincerely admire the culture. But I never considered actually living in Russia, and that's the difference.

No matter how much I want it, how many years I try, or how fluent I became compared to other learners. I can know more than Russians about certain media sources. I would talk to Russians in social media and they don't know much of the Russian songs, stars and media I listen to, they aren't familiar with most of the teenager athletes and niche TV shows, let alone tech channels in Russian. I can look at Yandex Maps and walk through Moscow in my dreams a hundred times in my dream and memorize every street inside MKAD, I can list down all the major cities along Lena and Yenisei, I can use Yandex and VK daily and change it to Russian, and even watch 1tv every day for 1 hour in the evening. But I would always be an outsider and the culture and language would always be "foreign" for me.

I am a very special case. I am almost 20 year old and I lived most of my life in China. I been to US only 1 year total (that was 2 years ago), and upon returning to now, I started to predominantly think in English. Before that year, I got a TOEFL score of 109 and I spent two 1-month summer camps in US. However, my main thinking language was Chinese. I could think in English and I could watch YouTube without any problems, but naturally I would mostly think in Chinese.

It's not only thinking in English now but I am living my whole life in English. I attempted to change all interfaces to Russian a while ago and changed it back. I always talked to LLMs in English. All my interfaces are in English. I occasionally go on Chinese websites but not a lot. I watch a lot of YouTube right now, and maybe Vk Video. I used only English to learn Russian.

But the problem is that I found most Chinese people don't think in English. I am disconnected hugely from the society and environment around me. And it took me one year to realize that. I previously thought it was because the people I met were strange. I thought it was only my parents who are very "outdated" and "stupid". Most people never browsed YouTube or Reddit on a daily or weekly basis-they never even heard of it. Turned out I am the weird one. What a discovery!

Both the Chinese and English Internet are incredibly big and diverse, while mostly separated because of GFW. Runet is smaller but also independent alternative, while the German Internet is mostly built upon English platforms. I am just diving into German right now. Chinese isn't a small language. Nor am I in the same situation like some former Soviet states. However, I didn't show any interest in other east Asian languages. It seem unreasonable that I would reject the Chinese Internet and culture while embracing English, Russian and German.

One such reason is my prolonged struggle in China. Since 2016 when I left my International school, I struggled to find my identity in China. I was always failing. People aren't like me, I am no common person. My problems, despite my efforts, seem not to get solved but instead worsen. I couldn't bear it anymore. I began blaming it on my incompatibility with the Chinese society system. Comparingly I always viewed US as a much better and happier place for me. I wanted to break out. English became an emotional refuge, representing hope and freedom.

Personally, I have strong isolationist tendencies in me, which may evoke some connection with Siberia. I would wander off alone to isolated roads and places with dim light well past midnight these days.

I don't know about what to do next? Should I take it more seriously and pursue a formal certificate? But I always despise formal tests. Is there a limit of learning languages? I also feared that learning languages may be a problem for me in the future if I spend too much time on it instead of focusing on other things. Learning languages would somehow further isolate me instead somehow, since nobody I met in my daily life watch Vk Video or regional news like ever, and it's insanely difficult to explain this very niche hobby to a non-Russian person. Or perhaps after all it would be consumed by work later on in life had I lost the addiction? Is it something I would do for 3 years or how would I do it for the rest of my life? Perhaps regularly consuming contents to maintain my fluency? Overall I have zero ideas now, except the obsession and desire to escape from this hell of a situation.

Being Able to Think in the Language

I think true fluency is the ability to navigate daily life only in that language. It isn't vocabulary, isn't grammar, isn't tests, isn't listening skills, it's just the ability to think in that language, without relying on any other languages.

Difference Between Me and Others

Motivation: Internal vs External

• My end goal is to enrich my life and nothing else.
• Others are learning languages primarily either for study or work or as a required school subject.

Approach: Immersion(Top down) vs Textbook/Courses(Bottom up)

• I am completely off on my own immersing in "normal" authentic content on day one (the videos that natives watch)
• Other people seem to be primarily use textbook or online courses, or attend university courses, or language learning channels, or language learning apps, building first on grammar, vocabulary in their native language.

End Result

• I build my knowledge on contemporary music, entertainment, channels about culture, society, celebrities, travel, sports etc.
• Other people usually know little about the modern media in that country

Does Speaker Counts Matter?

Speaker counts matter when you are considering which language to learn. After I learned the language it became part of me. I can't imagine removing the language just like I can't cut off my limbs or forget how to talk.

20250322

I used a lot of Python, Javascript, Sh, Golang.

I used a bit of C but I never really learn C++ or Java. Python and Node cover everything from ml to web dev to app dev of some sort and backend.

It's actually 3 language. Python and Sh are kind of closely related, like in Colab you use both, and in normal python I would sometimes use subprocess. They are separate but still pretty close mentally. And I am going to temporarily stop using Javascript (I already didn't use Golang for a long time). And it's time to do some C programming.

Javascript: Full Stack (I used Next.js, react-bootstrap), Userscrip

Python+Sh: Terminal and Default Scripting, Server Management, Machine Learning

Javascrips is the web, Python and Sh is the server, C is the system.

So each language goes one level down.

20250322 Return to Exercising

How I Quitted Running

I quitted running around 2023.9, and it was arguably one of the worst decisions I made.

My fitness decreased so much in this 1.5 years. I went from 18 years old to 20 years old. Arguably my running times should be faster or at least stay the same. But previously I could run 5 km below 22 minutes, and 1 km around 3:10 time, now my 1 km time in 4:30. I went from 70 kg to 86 kg. It was so humiliating.

Then in 2023.9 I grew disillusioned and things didn't work out for me. Then I stopped runnning. I kind of decided back then it's not "aesthetic" and make you look very old. By the way, I was never a fan of any sprinting anyway.

Running athletes had overwhelmingly negative scandals. Besides, distance runners in China are quite poor, and not only poor but generally give you a very dirty and scummy impression. Some of the things that happened in running are nasty. African runners sometimes say they run to sustain their family. It's usually associated with poverty, and has no elegance thereof.

Sports I Like Watching

So now all my idols are figure skaters and rhythmic gymnastics, mostly teenagers from Russia. The athletes are mostly very young around my age, and in Russian Junior Championships athletes are much younger than me. I could name and identify all the jumps and spins in figure skating and I know the names of 30-50 Russian athletes who participates in the sports.

Now the only sports I watch are figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics (one summer and one winter sport), and both mainly from Russia, on 1tv.ru and matchtv.ru. I also watch some artistic swimming and high jump. These sports are objectively just so much more beautiful and aesthetic. I only prefer watching aesthetic sports now.

Not only the sport itself but the athletes are very beautiful. Russian figure skater girls are the most beautiful creatures in the world. They are athletic, beautiful, young, thin. In my opinion, Russian girl figure skaters are like angels. I think these teenagers achieved much more than me.

You can watch 1tv for hours and not feel bored. When you watch those sports you feel your whole heart and soul dedicated to it. In fact, this fueled my passion for learning Russian to an obsessive degree.

I think if I have a child, I would want he or she to participate in figure skating or rhythmic gymnastics seriously. It's the most beautiful sport in the world and just very beneficial to a person.

Other Exercises or Activities

I find running the only practical exercise for me.

I am shit in all ball sports, no matter if it's a big ball or small ball, or if you use your hand or foot with it. I was so bad and no matter how hard I tried it couldn't work for me. I think it's a genetic problem.

I don't like going to the gym because it's indoors, and it's kind of boring. I like outdoors much more. I bumped my hand and knee once on the treadmill in the summer of 2022 and it bleeded a little and I still have the scar (when I turned the treadmill on 3:00 km pace and I jumped on it).

I took the swimming class this semester(so in USTC everyone must take 4 PE courses, and I took 2 in running, and the first one is compulsory and the same for everyone, I finally decided to take swimming). I learned swimming in 2017-2018 for a whole 2 semesters (how many years have passed?). I only learned frog style swimming. Overall swimming was fine, though I don't think I am good at it, or I would do it regularly on my own (because it takes a lot of time, going there and changing clothes).

I hate calisthenics, taichi, yoga, or anything of that sort. It's very boring and granny like.

I don't like pull-ups. Back in 2020-2022 I could do around 10. But my hands are very tender. Whenever I was doing pull-ups, I would get hard calluses on my hands. It looked like those who did farm work. It doesn't really hurt, but I just don't like it anymore. I don't bring a glove with me everywhere.

Cycling and Walking

I liked distance walking. Sometimes I walk 20-30 km, without much difficulty. I like walking in the rural areas and countryside, sometimes after midnight and into the early morning hours. Distance walking allows me to rest myself and I would sometimes listen to Russian podcasts I hoarded from YouTube. Distance walking is also an Olympic sport, though it get little attention, and for me walking is more like relaxing.

I also like cycling. Sometimes I ride a bike far into the isolated areas to the outskirts of the city. Cycling is also an option.

My Previous Journey of Running

I began running in the summer of 2019. My 1 km time was 3:50, then it improved to 3:27 by the fall of 2019. I was still not the fastest one in class in 1000, though. In the spring came covid, and I continued running. But there wasn't any more running classes in school. In the summer I ran 3-5 km everyday. Then in the fall of 2020 my 1 km time was 3:18, and I was the fastest in high school class (which was very bad in sports) but only around 5th in the grade. I thought I wasn't very genetically gifted in short and middle distances. I improved my 5 km time to 21 minutes in 2022.

I didn't run a lot in the spring of 2021, but I contined running in 2022 and first half of 2023.

I thought at the same of covid lockdowns in China that I would rather die running than die locked in the house from government lockdowns. Then after Kipchoge kind of half retired I stopped watching distance running all together. I remembered in the fall of 2022 following total running productions, watching Kaptagat videos on NN training team, and several other channels like Lex and Leo Young, Allie Ostrander.

Strangely covid and USTC didn't break my running habit, but I defeated myself later.

Different Apps

I need to export the gpx files from different apps. Each running activity is basically a gpx file. Here is an unofficial repo to export these data for Chinese apps. Strava export

Keep

I used Keep mainly in the first half of 2022 till end of September.

Codoon Running

Codoon was the first running app I used. It is a Chinese app. I used it in 2020 but I lost that account, and I opened another account. I used it in 2022 October and November of 2022. I run 12 km and 15 km on this app in 1 hour and 1 hour 30 minutes.

Strava

I used Strave mainly in the first half of 2023. I didn't run a lot on Strava. I was in US and the roads were really hilly, so if you run 2 km it had an elevation of 20-50 m up and down.

The Importance of Sports

The importance of sports in undeniable.

Olympics performance greatly correlates with a nation's military strength. It has less correlation with a nation's demographics or economy. Demographics do play a part, but countries with huge populations are not guaranteed to succeed.

For example, Germany won the 1936 Olympics, and the Soviet Union won the Summer Olympics in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s. The US won most of the Olympics and China became a very strong contender lately. These are all cold countries from the north, and all have world's strongest military at the time they won the Olympics. Kenya and Ethiopia however, only won very few medals in the Olympics.

We can observe that most records are broken in Europe like in Spain, Germany, France and Japan (which are richer and developed countries that can host these events), while most top-tier athletes are from Africa (who sees running as a way out of poverty and to support their family and have 6 children). There are few records broken in Africa.

So sports and exercising is the second most important thing for me. I should be regularly exercising and it's non-negotiable.

Return to Running

Since it's quite impractical for me to do any other sports I am returning to running.

Doing sports have a lot of benefits that you don't realize. For example, doing sports regularly can help with sleeping, obesity, and porn addiction. I don't have a problem with sleep deprivation, but I usually stay up too late till 3 am.

Anyway, I don't have a high goal, only to maintain some fitness.

20250323 Becoming 20

I am turning 20 today. I hate playing number games, but here we are.

Recurring Theme of My Teen Years

I don't have a lot to say as I already wrote a tons of journals. These days can be generally summarized as chaotic, disillusioned, isolated, and frustrated. I don't know what I am going to do. I have little motivation to do the things I am supposed to do. I don't want to do the school work which I am supposed to do. I feel guilty and anger at myself, often slipping out of control.

This became a theme not only recently but throughout my teen years. I seem to be going somewhere and going nowhere. I am also getting older, and time's ticking for me to do something, but I got no drive at the same time to do anything.

Relationship

I am not expecting romance or marriage in the next 10 years. Relationship and marriage is not an option for me right now. I am overwhelmingly disillusioned. If I can't care for myself, there is little room for any enjoyment. 2024 has been a crisis for me. I don't even expect to lose virginity by 30.

If I have an option, I hope for a partner fluent in a foreign language so we can communicate in that language in daily life, I would not have to always consciously maintain the language, and I can have another culture inside my family. I love learning languages more than finding partners. Let me choose between a romantic relationship and a new language to master now and I would choose the later. But of course, most things don't always happen the way I think.

Now we are speaking about marriage. Right now, I very much want to marry, actually. Just thinking of the idea of having a loved one being a native speaker of either Russian or German makes me excited. Contrary to the belief of not marrying and having a child, I would want to marry and I would want a child. I can have the child later or just adopt one, after I settle down and have money, but still I would want one. So overall I want to marry. My main desire is to marry someone from a culture of these 3 languages. Just imagine talking the dream language in the household! Just imagine having a mixed culture child!

Leaving University

I don't expect any happy future or utopia after leaving this fucking university. When I was 14, 15 years old, I was trying to finish the stupid middle school. I wanted to leave middle school so badly and I envisioned a very happy, utopic future, but it was anything but what I thought. I don't buy it anymore. Most likely I would be in the same state after leaving university just like leaving my middle school, feeling somewhat isolated, nostalgic, and inadequate.

Not Getting into Serious Trouble

I seemed to have written nothing. I just hope things wouldn't go terribly wrong in the future. I am keenly aware that 20 year old people are heavily subject to movements and propaganda, or just doing things for toxic masculinity or showing off. It's not a good thing to screw your whole future in say, just one night.

I defeated gaming and most harmful social media proudly. I never drank alcohol or smoke. I hope to stay away from that in the future. People say it's easier to control the impulsive behaviors in your 30s than 20s.

Money, and Looking Forward Living on My Own

One thing I do genuinely look forward to is living on my own salaries. I hope that this day will come soon and I can find a job I don't hate, and at the same time I don't need to demand any more money from my parents.

I think that for me, the more money I have, the more exponentially happier I would be. Money is almost everything. Money is critically important up to infinite. Have more money, and your life would be better. People say that money is important up to a reasonable amount and it doesn't matter beyond that. Totally wrong, a billionaire isn't the same as their driver.

With money, you have choices. Without it, no nothing.

It doesn't conflict with me having almost no materialistic needs: living in a small studio, very cheap shoes(< 500 RMB), clothes, very cheap smartphone(< 1000 RMB), basic foods, strong preference for open source apps and very few online subscriptions (Object Storage, Internet Proxy, VPS), (in the future) cheap cars.

Exercising

If there is one thing other than money that matters as much, it would be health. If you got billions but you are in late stage cancer and dying, wealth would not matter much at that point. In most of the situations though, money is still more defining.

So I think exercising regularly, whether it's distance walking, cycling or running, should be part of my life.

Culture Identity

The older you become, the deeper your cultural roots are. I consider myself lesser nationalistic or attached to the Chinese culture than most other Chinese people might be. I rarely watch Bilibili and I dislike WeChat, Baidu, Douyin, Weibo, no one uses them anyway, I like YouTube and Reddit.

But Mandarin would be instantly there even if I abandon it for a decade. Also I can speak Henan dialect and passively understand most of Shanghainese. For me, that's already unerasable. Yet I would never achieve anything near in another language, even after relatively intense, obsessive interest for outsiders. So I guess I am always a Chinese in my lifetime.

By the way I am listening to Viktor Tsoi and Bi-2 songs right now.

Traveling

I don't want to travel right now. I don't want to go anywhere. I feel guilty traveling on my parents' money. Besides, I make zero friends after traveling. I only want to travel if I can make deep, meaningful connections during traveling. I would rather lay in bed the whole day watching travel and regional channels like The Люди, ТатарстанДа, Якутия 24, ТВ-21 Мурманск, Ростов-на-Дону | 161.RU, 29RU Архангельск, Телеканал СТВ. Севастополь, МИР НАИЗНАНКУ(1plus1.ua), WELT Doku, taff, ZDFinfo Dokus, ZDFheute Nachrichten, and a million other channels.

Reading

I used to read a lot books from 2015.9-2022, but I don't want to read now. Perhaps when I am mid-aged or very old, I can pick up my literature interests again. Anyway, hopefully I would be reading not only American/English literature but also Russian (Достоевский, Толстой, Чехов, Тургенев, Гоголь, Булгаков, Солженицын, etc) in the original language by then.

I used to recite a lot of poems, specifically Song Ci, in 2016 and in 2020. I don't want to read poems now. Perhaps when I am mid-aged or very old, I can try to read more poems, hopefully by then including Russian (Пушкин, Ахматова, Лермонтов, Некрасов, Тютчев, Пастернак, Рубцов, etc) in their original language.

Blogging

I am still blogging and I would probably continue to blog in the future. But it's not my main job.

Language Learning

I previously envisioned a life where I spend all the remaining time on language learning after studying and some exercising. But how to define "remaining time" if you are a heavy procrastinator? I lost control of the "studying", and what happens is I would often start to study school subjects but instead chill on YouTube for hours in Russian channels. I can't think about the "right amount" of efforts to put into studying. Besides, my academic performance is extremely poor and often fluctuating beyond my control.

Computer Science

I study computer science, but my experience of studying computer science is drastically different to what others call 'studying computer science'. Also there are a lot of fradulent people in our society adding "computer science" tags to their profile with no evident connections. Most of my time went into frontend Next.js, backend, cloud, machine learning, random scripting and distro exploration, all of which not required by the school and for no benefits. I remeber last year at right before my birthday I built this videotube from react-bootstrap, but a disaster in school followed. What is the future of my role in computer science? I don't have the answer. I would though, look into some C related, system stuff though, which I am still quite weak in.

20250325

I use Coreutils everyday. When I open my computer I would frequently use the command line, and I run commands like ls, cp, mkdir, du, grep...

Coreutils is preinstalled on almost all Linux. Alpine use busybox, which is a smaller version. It was always on my system

user@fedora ~/Code> rpm -ql coreutils

/usr/bin/[
/usr/bin/arch
/usr/bin/b2sum
/usr/bin/base32
/usr/bin/base64
/usr/bin/basename
/usr/bin/basenc
/usr/bin/cat
...

However, I have never looked at Coreutils source code.

We run git clone https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils

So Coreutils was once 3 projects: sh-utils, fileutils, textutils. Then they merged to one Coreutils in 2003.

There is also a rust rewrite that got almost 20k stars on Github for a full drop-in replacement.

It is surprisingly easy to compile and run it. I ran ./bootstrap and ./configure, then I can make, and all the executables are in the src folder. I am not installing it since my system already has it.

user@fedora ~/C/coreutils (master)> src/uname -a
Linux fedora 6.13.6-200.fc41.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Mar  7 21:33:48 UTC 2025 x86_64 GNU/Linux
user@fedora ~/C/coreutils (master)> src/whoami
user
user@fedora ~/C/coreutils (master)> src/pwd
/home/user/Code/coreutils
user@fedora ~/C/coreutils (master)> src/du -sh
369M	.
user@fedora ~/C/coreutils (master)> src/true && echo Success
Success
user@fedora ~/C/coreutils (master)> src/cat README | src/head -n 3
These are the GNU core utilities.  This package is the union of
the GNU fileutils, sh-utils, and textutils packages.

We enter the src folder and see how many lines are there

user@fedora ~/C/c/src (master)> find . -name *.[ch] | xargs wc -l|sort -n
      0 ./coreutils.h
      1 ./show-date.h
      1 ./version.h
      2 ./chown-chgrp.c
...
    2275 ./longlong.h
    2366 ./stty.c
    2547 ./tail.c
    2564 ./dd.c
    2697 ./factor.c
    2869 ./pr.c
    3475 ./copy.c
    4014 ./primes.h
    4909 ./sort.c
    5618 ./ls.c
    96458 total

And there are around 150 files total.

Surprisingly the ls command is longest here, over 5000 lines.

The file size range from quite short (less or around a hundred lines) to thousands of lines.

So most all the files are like commands you can run in the terminal normally (which are in usr/bin). The files are kind of more independent then other software projects so it's easier to read, despite more lines in total. Moreover, most of the lines aren't necessary if you want something like a simple ls, they usually include far more functionalites than that. There is one folder blake2 which should correspond to b2sum.

You will probably need to look inside gnulib to understand some functions. The first ./bootstrap command clones the gnulib to local. The code would include some files from gnulib, for example

#include long-options.h
#include quote.h
#include readutmp.h
#include fprintftime.h
#include system.h

The functions are defined with the type in one line and the function name in the next line, which, if I run prettier in VsCode, would automatically format it.

Here are some short files.

uname-arch.c

#include uname.h
int uname_mode = UNAME_ARCH;

false.c

#define EXIT_STATUS EXIT_FAILURE
#include true.c

whoami.c prints the username associated with the current effective user ID.

The function parse_gnu_standard_options_only is for proecessing only the standard GNU options.

But it quickly became impractical to read everything like that.

I checked the lib and it used 180k lines total. I think it's not a good idea to read Coreutils right now because it would take like months to years and be like a full time job with the huge library. I just want to be better in C language right now. Also the rust implementation of coreutils on Github is also more than 70k plus lines. Besides, I am still an idiot in Rust. Either way, it's sad but there isn't anything I can do right now about it.

I think redis is a great thing!

20250325

Ok, the teacher said, "After you finish this database course, you will probably never touch it. If it wasn't for teaching this class, I wouldn't touch database much." This is very striking and disturbing to me.

Even before I studied this bullshit database course I used MongoDB extensively. I used MongoDB in my website hosting with Mongosh, and I used Mongosh every now and then to look into the MongoDB database. I self hosted a Miniflux, which uses psql. I don't use sqlite much but on my computer there are a lot of database I don't even know, say, libdb. Also, nearly every app uses database, in particular, sqlite. It's more of a heated debate: "whether you use this or you are a diehard fan of that", rather than "forgetting and moving on".

Is this a justification perhaps to never go to this required class anymore? Maybe I can watch more of Andy Pavlo after all, who said "my life is my family and database and nothing else."

Think Twitter, Mastodon, VK, any social media. Think noSQL in Google, Amazon. The teacher isn't right. He is not right.

20250326

Today the temperature shot up ridiculously to 32 degree celcius. I damn hate hot weather. It was so hot all day long and I feel out of motivation. I am so fat and I think that played a part too. I have no motivation whatsoever for everything. I need to lower my weight but then for 2 months my weight stayed the same despite having only one meal per day. All my clothes are sweaty and I also felt the humiliation of my years here. But I remembered that last time I left such an environment in the end of middle school I only went into another hell place without even one day of rest. I don't have much hope left.

Then I looked back and the last time I wrote down the tasks was March 1st. I broke down since that.

20250328

I don't buy MBTI.

I think the introvert/extrovert is fine.

However, I strongly disagree with the other 3 measures.

Here's the deal, someone might have very strong both intuition and sensing abilities, while another person might not use their intuition and sensing much. It's very difficult to tell their traits based on the MBTI.

Look into some common statements: Sensing people process information using their 5 senses. Who don't process information with their 5 senses? Sensing people tend to be grounded, realistic, and present-focused. Well, I cannot life myself up the ground. Intuitive people process information using patterns and associations. Who doesn't?

Thinking vs Feeling. Again, someone have very strong math abilities as well as emotions, while another person might have few emotions and doesn't think a lot either.

Judging vs Perceiving: A leader usually judges and perceives a lot, while another person might neither judge a lot, nor perceive a lot, focusing on themselves.

Overall it's not like these are opposite traits that you must choose from, except for the introvert/extrovert choice.

If everyone is like that, why do we call some people "intense" and some people "boring"?

Think salty and spicy. Is a food more salty or spicy? A food can be both very salty and spicy or none. Is water or apple juice more salty or spicy? This is like judging a food if it's more salty or spicy, sweet or sour? You never know the difference between water and very strong tasting foods this way. You don't know a person's personality this way.

It might be better to just lay out the 6 other traits and let you assess yourself based on 1-5 on each. If you must force me to say my MBTI, I would say, "ABCD".

Let me rate myself on the other 6 traits on a scale of 1-5. Intuition: 5, Sensing: 3, Thinking: 5, Feeling: 5, Judging: 1, Perceiving: 1. I am obviously an introvert.

Honestly is there a better personality rating mechanism?

Let's look at the Big Five Personality Traits, in a scale of 1-5

• Openness to Experience: 5
• Conscientiousness: 5
• Extraversion: 1
• Agreeableness: 1
• Neuroticism: 5

20250328

I need to act fast now as I haven't been to the class Mathematical Logic for 5 weeks now. It is insane and if I don't act now I am not going to have a semester left.

20250328

I found out that HelloTalk starts limiting me from signing up! Anyway, we can sign up with mail or Google or anything. But I signed up again and I talked for a while, few people responded to me. I talked for a while and deleted my account.

RSS

I am consuming social media through RSS partially. I self hosted an RSS instance on Digital Ocean by the way. Overall RSS is a very good thing. It is the right way to consume social media.

So, nearly all websites used to support RSS. However, the predatorial, corrupt companies decided it's not good for them. So the wicked ones no longer support RSS. There was even something called Google Reader but ended long ago.

Every open source social media support RSS. Those who still support RSS are the good ones.

A Look into Internet's Dark Places

We are going to look at Internet's dark places, identify the risk, and know how to protect against them.

Concealed?

For a forum to thrive (even a dark one), there needs to be large amounts of people for an active community. The websites would be mentioned everywhere, on social media, blogs, wikipedia. Google does block some, but most sites are one search away in Yandex. Yandex also have a Turkish and eu console which is generally more permissive. Not that their algorithms is superior or different, just Google takes it down.

Incentive

What is the point of maintaining illegal instances? The answer is probably related to money. People don't do it in their free time.

Taking Advantage of Geo-politics

To prevent the domain from being seized, the websites would generally rotate their domains and get domain names like ".st", ".is", ".hk".

Obviously, these websites, just like every large website, need DDOS protection. Cloudflare would be unwilling to offer service to them. You can look up the domain's dns server on whois easily, some examples are DDoS-Guard(breachforums) or DNSPod(kiwifarms).

Different Levels of Illegal

Websites with copyrighted videos or movies or propaganda contents are everywhere and you can even find them on Google and watch most copyrighted movies within 5 seconds. They aren't strictly prohibited.

Websites with political extremism, gore contents, torrent sites, or illegal drugs (Kiwi Farms, 8chan, BreachForums, Stormfront, Infowars, etc) are more "illegal", and sometimes banned from firewalls in certain countries, but overall mostly very accessible. You can even find them on Internet Archive. I strongly reject the ideology and I understand that extremism is very dangerous for young people.

The thing needs to be really, really bad for it to be only available in the onion web. Most of the times those shady places are on the surface web.

20250402

Today I received a warning paper from the teacher and I saw all the courses I failed during the past 2 semesters. I thought I want to die again. I don't have any hopes for the future nor do I expect the future to be any better.

No matter what you do, no matter who you say you are, school will always bring you back to the harsh reality of failing courses and a struggling student. I hate school. I will hate USTC forever. I am the worst person amongst my peers right now.

I don't have any future expectations. Maybe? Who knows. I don't have anything left since I don't have future expectations.

The 4 years (and the upcoming 1 year) is just pure tragedy, depression, frustration, and humiliation, or something combined. The same applies to my high school and mostly applies to my middle school career. The same, I think, likely applies to my future job and my life.

I can't think of a worse event happening like this. This is a major life obstacle. But major life obstacles would happen to me all the time, so instead of being major as compared to other people's lives, it is not major in my life. Unless I get a late stage cancer or get into a serious fight with someone else or set the classroom on fire, I can't think of a worse thing happening to me.

Right now I am stuck and I can't find any strength. There is nothing left in me.

20250409 Gratitude for the Academic Guidance Teacher

So this is what happened from 0407-0409.

I need to have this paper of academic warning signed by the academic guidance teacher since I failed 5 courses over the past 2 semesters. I contacted Mr. Jiang in 0403 and he wasn't available on that day.

On 0407 I stayed up till 5 am. I got up at around 12 in the morning, and when I opened WeChat Mr. Jiang sent 2 message telling me he was available in a room at 8 am in the morning and urged me there. I sent him a message and he replied "meet again" at around 2 pm.

On 0408, I stayed up till 3 am and I got up at around 12:52. I had my phone on DND all the time. Mr. Jiang sent several messages to me again at 7 am, 8 am, and 10 am. And he not only called me on WeChat but also called me on phone and sent me an SMS. At 10:53 he said, "I am leaving the room soon and please come." And then when I looked at those messages. I was filled with panic and guilt. I went to the classes in the afternoon and at 4 pm I could finally try to reply something back on WeChat. I replied, "I am sorry". Mr. Jiang sent me the location of his office and told me he was available next morning.

On 0409 I stayed up all night till 7 am and I suddenly fell asleep lying on my bed. Then the teacher called me on WeChat at 8 am and 9 am in the morning. I didn't reply. He called my by phone and I just turned off DND the day before. I got up from the phone call. I woke up at just before 10 am.

So I neglected the teacher's WeChat and phone calls consistently for almost 3 days.

Turned out that this Mr. Jiang is a full professor and kind of a deputy director of the networking labs here in USTC, that he didn't have a lot of vacant times. He was kind of senior, born in 1956. I thought he was a full-time "guidance teacher" before and I didn't look up on Google. Turned out he was part of the edcuated youth and once electrian and also the "most loved" professor in 2012.

I figured out that this is actually the school's attempt to save me. My school is doing something good for me. I was humiliated, but who can I to blame? Myself.

And I got the sheet (which printed all the courses I am taking this semester). Mr.Jiang's office was in IAT. The top floor of the building. I tried to ride my bike there. I went to the wrong place. I went to the national lab (it was also a kind of campus-like place adjacent to IAT). I tried entering and I wondered why it was guarded. Amongst my nighttime wanders all around the city and desolated places, I never went into IAT. The guard at the national lab pointed me to the place down the road.

Then I entered the tall building. And the teacher's office was right there, inside a locked corridor at the top floor. I began realizing that this is of prestige, not some "full-time" guidance teacher. Someone coming out of the bathroom asked me who am I trying to find? I said "I am trying to find Mr. Jiang" and showed the WeChat messages. I went in.

Mr. Jiang briefly asked me, "How do you feel about classes this semeseter?" I couldn't answer. We tried briefly to recount the classes I selected this semster.

Mr. Jiang asked me, "How many credits do you have now?" I couldn't answer.

Mr. Jiang then asked me, "Why did you not reply to my calls and WeChat calls?" I told him about my communication problems.

Then he opened my phone and gave another WeChat call to me. He gave a WeChat call, and it vibrated a little. He looked into the settings. Obviously my phone is in English. Then he somehow found the sound setting and turned it on, then tried calling again. The truth is evident though: I just didn't get up and I didnt hear the calls.

I said, "I am sorry", and Mr. Jiang replied, "Ok, you are fine."

Mr. Jiang asked me what time did I get up today. I said, "9 am". And Mr. Jiang told me that he was going to the High-Tech campus yesterday and wondered if he could reach me that way. Of course I was sleeping. Mr. Jiang then said, "Why did you get up so late?" All over I wasn't reponding much.

Mr. Jiang finally told me that if I wanted to see him, I would probably tell him beforehand what time I can be there. And he was here all morning today, not that he would always be available.

Overall, Mr. Jiang is a very gentle man and I was surprised he wasn't even grouchy after I neglected this conversation single handed.

I complained about everything I don't have. I couldn't see and cherish the things that I do have. Amidst the late night staying up I got detached with reality. I viewed the world in a very literate sense through my immaturity and lack of consideration.

Who would be kind to you and consider from your perspective? Especially when they are from a higher status than you? It's very rare and I always heard that professors in USTC are kind to students, turned out they really are. If I go out into the society, I would find that kindness and understanding are hard to find.

Also it taught me I was the one I hate and that sometimes things are more complicated than they are. For example, I couldn't even get up in the morning. But I did try many times to change this habit for almost 2 years, and I consistently failed. Can I always blame everyone else for everything when I don't feel happy?

It doesn't mean I have to obey everything or blindly follow anyone or my peers. Sometimes these obstacles don't go away if I do that. But it doesn't mean I should start blaming my classmates and my parents and everything and isolating myself from my environment.

Right now I have 145 credits in school. So the graduation standard is 160, with 8 credits in graduation thesis, which I haven't completed yet. So the course credits required are 152. I failed a total 14.5 credits in the past 2 semesters, essentially all the courses I have failed. My main problem is in the required courses.

Anyway, the point is it would be too pitiful to be kicked out of school right now, despite failing so much. It is a bad idea to be expelled right now.

And now my heart is filled again with gratitude towards the teacher and the school. And I began to think about gratitude. The blog started with gratitude, it ends with gratitude. I came to the world with gratitude, I would leave USTC with gratitude, I would be gone from the world with gratitude. Besides the complacency with what I have not, I would have gratitude for all that I have.

The past is in the past, and there is no need to fuss over it everyday. I couldn't believe how much I have written. Let's bury it in the ground for now.

The main focus should be the current, my weaknesses and what concrete things I can do.

Here's the deal

1. I returned to Telegram and Tandem with my real name, I don't think I would delete it for a while
2. My weight loss goal isn't completed yet

20250411 How to Control Your Data?

How to control your personal data? This is a difficult question. Very surprisingly.

The Short and Easy Solution

Don't care about your data. When you need to pay for storage (e.g., your Google Drive gets into the paid tier), empty it, without backing up. Or even better, forgot where you stored things.

The Complicated, Impractical (Horrible) Solution

Why do I claim it's impractical and horrible? Because I have tried consistently. I am now too tired!

I don't even use X, Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, Whatsapp, Discord, Apple, Microsoft, etc. But I am still far too overwhelmed.

The main idea here is try to hoard everything montly either officially or unofficially hack a solution and put into my S3 (and potentially into a database later in json or csv) and another storage place (to prevent human error, I deleted my whole S3 once, for example: put it in a Telegram group or Google Drive or Internet Archive). As for online medias and blogs I usually viewed, the idea is to unify them into RSS to put them into my RSS reader and PostgreSQL database (and potentially in the future add AI and all sorts of cool stuff).

• CDN Bucket

rclone copy s3:cdn .

• Github

https://github.com/settings/admin

• Mail

https://takeout.google.com/

Or offlineimap for other mails

• WeChat

https://github.com/LC044/WeChatMsg

Needs to be run on Windows, first move the chat history there.

Note that the official way doesn't export any chat data. WeChat doesn't even store your data on the Cloud (you don't even have the option to tell it so, you can't even pay for premium for your chats to be stored on the cloud, however, it's proprietary, and chats are valuable training data, so who knows??)

• QQ

This one I really don't know. Do you know?

I downloaded the QQ client. It has the option to copy the data from your phone to your computer, and perhaps in the other direction. But how do I export the data?

Someone did implement some solution on Github, but I haven't tried it yet.

• Telegram

https://telegram.org/blog/export-and-more

Download the desktop client and easily export all data (maybe you can use a bot?)

• Tandem

Note that the official way doesn't export any data, it's just your personal information.

Tandem has a web app, and if you open the web app you can see all the conversations you had with other people. The web app uses Next.js I think. I tried traversing with puppeteer. It easily cost me a whole morning. I did export the text data. Tandem stores the image on S3. But my solution is far from perfect. Do I need to also download the images from S3 to preserve the whole history?

• Vk

I haven't thought about this yet. I used VK but I never said anything there.

• FreshRSS

https://freshrss.github.io/FreshRSS/en/admins/05_Backup.html

Very easy.

• Mastodon

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/#export

Also very easy.

• Reddit

https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request

• OpenStreetMap

This is easy, just download the map. For example:

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/ru/me/download?map_id=1163238&map_id=1153037

• Strava

https://www.strava.com/athlete/delete_your_account

This isn't deleting your account. The button for personal data is there somehow.

• Other Running Apps

Try this repo: https://github.com/yihong0618/running_page

Some doesn't work, some does, who knows? Most do work though. I tried to export Codoon and Keep and I was successful. You may need to try twice.

• Alipay

Export: go to web: https://alipay.com

https://my.alipay.com/portal/i.htm
https://help.alipay.com/hall/index.htm
https://cshall.alipay.com/lab/selfHelp.htm
https://consumeprod.alipay.com/record/standard.htm

“服务大厅”
“自助服务”
"交易记录"
“下载查询结果”

iconv -f GB2312 -t UTF-8 output.csv > alipay_record_utf8.csv

For csv please delete the first four lines, and the last 7 lines

• ICBC

Go to download the apk https://mywap2.icbc.com.cn/ICBCWAPBank/servlet/PortalInject?inject=invest

Log in to the app, then

首页 ->账户 -> 更多 -> 历史明细打印

Then manually type everything

• Linode

https://cloud.linode.com/account/billing

Download the invoice

• Openrouter

https://openrouter.ai/credits

"Print"

• USTC Card

https://ecard.ustc.edu.cn/paylist/

Save as HTML

• Vast AI

https://cloud.vast.ai/billing/

Select date then export csv

Type:All, not only payment, both payment and charge

• WeChat

Export WeChat: Service Notification -> Click on the "微信支付凭证, not the top but in the middle -> Click All transactions -> Click FAQ -> Click Download

Wechat is connected to ICBC Bank card.

• Openai

Go to https://platform.openai.com/settings/organization/billing/history

Then ctrl+p

• Google Play

Google Takeout: https://takeout.google.com/

Google Pay: Google Transactions

• Citi Bank

CitiBank: On PC: Click on Accounts -> ... -> Transactions is at the bottom of the page -> Custom Date Range & Show All Transactions -> There will be this stupid download button next to "View Last Statement"

• AWS

aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
    --time-period Start=2024-05-01,End=2024-06-01 \
    --granularity MONTHLY \
    --metrics UnblendedCost \
    --group-by Type=DIMENSION,Key=SERVICE \
    --output table > output

RSS How To?

Currently, which platforms support RSS?

• Native support

  • Mastodon
  • Medium
  • Reddit
  • Lemmy
  • Peertube

• Mostly? (I haven't tested)

Most other platforms have support through RSSHub, which may or may not work. But I am not interested in useless platforms anyway.

YouTube has native support, however, it doesn't return the videos in embedded htmls. RSShub works fine.

• Partially/Hackable

Telegram has partial RSS support through RSSHub. Mostly it works but for big media it doesn't play. It's just like the Telegram preview in browser. There is absolutely no reason why you can't view big media through the Telegram channel preview in the browser. Perhaps they just want to avoid DDOS and force you to have an account, use their clients? Anyway I am too tired right now to do anything about it.

Vkontakte doesn't have native RSS support, but the API turned out to be mostly free and surprisingly easy to use. So I got an API key. I processed the images and videos into embedded links. I easily used node.js to build an app to convert it to RSS through the Vk API for me to subscribe to. For example: https://vk-rss.vercel.app/group/{groupId}?apiKey={key}.

I wanted to read Dzen through the RSS. There was no RSS support for it, even on RSSHub. It's because they block a lot of IPs and it's not SSR (if you are headless, you get nothing). So I hacked together a Selenium script to generate it and put it on my S3 bucket. Well, it's just a temporary crawl. But it can partially work. To fetch new articles I just need to run it locally and upload the same things to S3 and refetch it.

So if I can view it through browser, I guess I can call that "partial support"? Because I can always use Selenium and hack together a script to partially upload it. Then I can run it every half a year or so.

Conclusion

This is a horrible solution because I turned a simple thing into a full-time job. And when something doesn't work and I tried to debug, whole nights would be gone. Face a problem? Solve it because you are technically superior, and you are always right. Turn every minor detail into a full debate. Photos? Don't even bother thinking about Google Photos since it's GMS. Try self-hosting photoprism, downloading an app on the phone and sync it, as well as sync it to S3 periodically. Spread hate on Google because we hate consumer apps. Spread more hate on Baidu and WeChat. So we hoard everything, and this is on top of actively avoiding popular apps or services.

Arguably it's worse than the easy solution.

Before 2023, I sticked to the easy solution. I went to US twice and I didn't take a single photo (because I didn't have a camera). I took a few photos in Boston with my philips feature phone, I lost the phone later. I sent an email to the camp coordinator back then for the photos. He sent me some, and I could no longer find them. I had a 163 mail, I deleted it somehow. I frequently cleaned my Google Drive and Dropbox. Where's my data? I didn't have any data. I was the data and data was me.

I give up.

I figured there are mostly 3 kind of data that cover almost everything: Blobs(usually in S3), Text(usually with Git), and Database Relational Data (with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc).

I deleted all my database clusters except for my blog cluster. My blog is managed by Git but somehow I figured the idea that generating a static website based on a static blog isn't very cool, so I write to remote database everytime I update the blog with a Github action. So the database is unimportant to preserve anyway. I moved from MongoDB to Postgres.

By the way, HTML, XML, RSS, CSV, JSON are considered Text, while Word, PDF, ODT, PPT are considered Blobs.

The New Solution

1. Change all local blog image path from CDN url to ../../media/..., and download the media from Cloudflare R2, add media to .gitignore
2. Use rclone, register an app on Google Cloud to sync the media folder to Google Drive
3. Delete all DNS records. Delete the Cloudflare R2 bucket.
4. My main services/data backup: Github, Google(Drive, Photos, Gmail, etc), Telegram.
5. I created a Github action to backup my Github to Google Drive every month.
6. Telegram has unlimited storage. Telegram can be the backup for my Google Drive.

So I deleted all my S3 buckets and just use Google Drive for storage, and use Google Docs/Sheets as main editors.

Now my data is in Google-Github-Telegram. Github as all the code and periodically backed up to Google. Google as everything else. Telegram as backup.

20250420

No Longer Using Cloud Services

I am going to remove all distractions from my life. This is what I am going to do: I am going to study and try my best to get myself into schoolwork.

First thing I did was to remove Telegram, Tandem, and a bunch of other distracting apps. I am going to focus on studying in school until the day this semester ends.

There is no other choice. I can’t kill myself, though. So I am going to stay in school from 8 am to 8 pm and try my best to make my days better.

I am not going to play with the cloud anymore. VPS is no different with my laptop. If the laptop runs windows I would use Git Bash, and the only difference is that the commands are running on a fascist operating system compared to running on a good, functioning one.

I am returning to using Google Docs. I have completed de-industrializing myself. Now I am using none of the developer tools in daily life, I think. After all, it’s not going to make me any better.

Listen, I cannot afford this failure anymore. If I do, I would kill myself. I would no longer exist in this world. I thought about jumping off the building. I can’t face such humiliation. But I must. And now, we must return to doing whatever it takes.

Listen, also, if you want to use YouTube just buy YouTube premium and stop wasting hours, days, weeks trying to figure out another solution, whether it’s hoarding videos, independent frontends, vanced apps, or etc. It is not good for your life and time and wellbeing. But I can’t use YouTube right now because my life is on the brink of devastation.

I grew up being intimidated and told of the horrors of school, and failure in academics. It’s something that will always stay with me in my life, and maybe, make me a more conservative and less interesting person.

Also, I don’t think this is of any good to me. But I don’t doubt its usefulness in society though. After all, it may not be good for me but good for other people or the stability of a whole country.

But this is none of my business.

Systemizing is Futile-It Depends on Your Desire

I have tried many times to craft out a function, formula, for how to “succeed” and “force” myself to work hard in life. Turns out that this is completely futile.

I hold the opinion that how much work you would do or how much you can achieve depends largely or mostly on how your heart desires it. The rest, like 10%, depends on the environment, or the effectiveness of your methods. But most of the time, most methods are similar in terms of effectiveness. Just don’t choose the worst for you and you would be fine (e.g., learning grammar in language learning at first is absolutely bad, or using Windows to learn computer science, by the way).

If you are on a mostly competent method, and you are set to do something, the rest is whether you have the desire in your heart. I have long set goals for myself, and thought out how to do them, but for the things I hate, I just cannot carry them out. I thought about removing distractions, motivating myself, or thinking “is this wrong”, “is that wrong”. Nothing is wrong. I just don’t want it that badly.

The formulas doesn’t work out exactly because when your brain or heart doesn’t desire something, it would go off thinking or doing something else on its own, and the only way to do it (or the only formula perhaps), is to force it to desire, to hope, to accomplish the “right thing you are doing”.

But once you want something badly already, there is no more, basically, need for external pressure anymore. You can just finish it off on your own.

Doing something largely depends on your desire. There is an exception, intimidation. If someone scares you, that if you don’t do something, a very horrible thing would happen to you, it may also work sometimes.

However, being scared isn’t the consistent option because after being stimulated enough times, your brain or body stop functioning based on “being scared”. It would veer to “I just want to give up and I don’t care anymore.” This is because fatigue builds up this way.

Fatigue and frustration doesn’t “build up” the other way--if you want something, you aren’t tired of it most of the time. But if you are scared, and coerced into doing something, you would be damn tired. It is likely that diminishing returns would be observed, and you can’t indefinitely sustain the effort.

Say, you are a deer, and you are chased by wolves, you can outrun it for a while. Ultimately, if there are always wolves chasing you, you would collapse. Why would the deer “give up” its life? Because it cannot take it anymore.
That is why, for most people, weekends are a “must”. They dislike working, and work based on social pressure, or fear of losing a job, fear of losing money. Society creates a fear “net” around losing jobs, and expectation of doing it well. After doing it for a while, e.g., finishing a day’s work, such people would be very, very tired.

Conversely, most people desire traveling, gaming, or tiktoking. This is what they do in their free time, weekends. People don’t feel tired doing them generally.

However, if you are doing a job out of heart’s desire, you don’t need weekends anymore, you can devote all of your time and energy to the job, without even feeling that tired. Of course, I still think adequate sleep and regular exercises would be much better, but the fact is the time of a 2 day weekend is usually more than that. Such people would be thinking or doing their work much of the weekend time.

Being scared and forced to do something does work temporarily. But after that, you might develop complications or hatred towards the thing you have been doing. Anyway, it works in the short term, but it glitches and falls apart in the long run.

So in conclusion, all those schedules, plans, whatever, doesn’t matter that much. You would not carry the tasks out if your heart is flying away to Siberia, Ural, or Kafkas. Your heart must be in it, and everything else would be solved.

20250421

I deleted all my cloud services. I left Digital Ocean. I left Cloudflare. I left MongoDB. I only kept Vercel and one Psql node in it. I decided not to publish any more entry this semester in my blog. Leave the rest to adjustment when I am in school.

I was in total collapse. By total collapse I mean, irregular sleeping patterns ranging from 4-12 am, 5-13, 7-13, 2-10, or 3-8 plus an afternoon nap, completely out of my control. I didn’t go to half of the classes and I don’t wake up in the mornings to go to any classes. I only wanted to scroll the website and do nothing else. Gaming, once a thing I defeated, crawled back to me again, twice recently. I was also in total isolation and just a situation nobody wants to be in. I was in self-doubt and severe depression, and my weight couldn’t decrease over 3 months. I didn’t want to put on Invisalign. I kept spending time on Javascript and other things that are completely irrelevant to life. I couldn’t face anything and anybody. I don’t know what I was studying literally. Was I studying for a Russian major?

I have been in this kind of condition for over a year now. I repeatedly tried to change for the better, but consistently failed. Even easier times like this semester see no improvement in anything. I am failing almost every course I take and handing in zero homework.

I woke up today at 5:48, panicking over the fear of dropping out of school, after just 5 hours of sleep. I thought about killing myself if I can’t take it anymore and I had to drop out of school. I can’t do that.

I don’t know if this would ultimately work out or not. Maybe even if it does, you can argue that I am not too disadvantaged in these courses, you can argue that the semester’s workload is very light. But it is working out now. That is all I need to know.

'Cause I, 'cause I
I don't know how to feel
But I wanna try
I don't know how to feel
But someday I might

20250423

Types of Misleading Activists

To be a good computer science STEM student, you shouldn’t be politically active. These problems are too big, too abstract, too useless to think about.

You know what? Westerners know nothing about Chinese culture just like Chinese no little about the west. But at least Chinese more or less study some English. Westerners didn't read the same poems, or essays like I did growing up, so that is a complete different culture, worldview, whatever you call it. And thus, the western understanding of China is usually deeply flawed, especially when comparing China with "Russia, Iran" since these are completely different countries, and Russia is much closer to the west than it is to China. I need to be smart and not be stupid.

Four People are Discussing Banning Websites

The first person said, there's no point in banning websites because you can always access them. You can just download another browser to access it. The act itself is useless.

The second person that will sanction websites is always good for you. It lets you take control and taking control is always a good thing. We must sanction harmful websites because some of them contain harmful materials, and it's a good idea to ban them to take control.

The third person tried to help the first two people reach a compromise. The third person said to the first person that basically, it's not completely useless to ban websites because after banning, there is less usage. The third person said to the second person that, sometimes it is too time consuming to even consider banning websites, for example certain websites work without JavaScript, even after you disable it. The third person said that there is basically no build-in method for YouTube to block certain channels from showing up in the search result, and implementing such a block takes a lot of time with userscripts and it might break. Furthermore some browsers don't support user scripts. Overall it's a very complicated business, while the idea is very easy.

The fourth person said, why are you guys even worrying? I can just hoard YouTube videos into some third party storage and then do whatever I want with it, and not use YouTube at all. Any harmful websites I just crawl it, and consume it in my own way. Easy.

All first three people turned on the fourth person and told him that this message is very impractical and too time-consuming. And they told him it's not like people haven't tried it before but it's just not practical.

And the four people still argue, way past midnight, unable to reach an agreement. The issue remains highly contentious. And the four people are four voices in my head. And I don't know what to do right now. And there isn't any clear solution.

But they all agreed to stop wasting time and they all agreed to keep userscripts.

They reached an agreement to keep the userscripts to block the websites in archive but not use it right now. We are ready to use it, but implementing a mass surveillance just isn't something very healthy. And focus on studying in school right now instead. And that I would only maintain one userscript.

Using Google Docs

I am back to using Google Docs as my journal tool. After a while I would dump the Docs into Github, I think.

Oh, I hope some day I'll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night or a hundred years
Need a place to hide, but I can't find one near
Wanna feel alive, outside I can't fight my fear

20250424

The school is holding another meeting for me with the academic counselor, which is not actually a counselor but a senior professor and manager of the labs. I should have figured that out when he told me to go to the top floor in the main building of IAT. Again this is the school's repeated efforts to try to save me. Last time I saw was just once but it turned out that well I'll probably get counseling for three times. So it's three times face to face with an expert for free. Sad thing is I am going there as a failing student.

Right now I'm figuring out I will go to school all day long. I have no more resistance or urge to fight this anymore. I don't have any more rebellion because survival matters more. So yeah anyway things are going much better I think.

I did another thing, which is, migrate all the dogs into Google docs instead of putting them on GitHub. Well I figured out this way when I make changes to a text file it's easier on my phone and also I don't have to push them every time I make a change.

Okay so this thing happened when I got there by bike basically I found the teacher, at the bottom of the building and he said that we just talked and there's no more things so he just let me go so basically that's it. To be honest I lost another chance to go to the top building office of IAT. But anyway everything's getting better now.

I have a history of not being able to ace traditional measurements, whether it's awards, grades, or whatever.

What I want to say is that, there is simply no point in worshipping or following these measurements because I am not optimized or built for it and I am too fucking far behind, that I can achieve enough optimization simply by doing what I should do, and focusing on myself.

And we must acknowledge that university isn’t the end, and life is long. All the “top” measurements already became fictional and something out of my imagination. So let’s not talk about it. I should not give a damn about it, and life shows that I messed up mainly by myself in the past year.

If I don’t act now, I would keep messing up myself, not something very good!

Ok, another thing I want to say is, you need to have a role model when you are doing something, whether it’s computer science, math. In language learning I don’t explicitly need a “model” like in other domains, since every Russian is the “goal” or “model”, but you still need to identify with the country, to agree and be interested in the country itself. As for other things, if you strongly dislike the role model in the field, then your motivation would almost certainly run lower.

20250426 Out of the Crisis

I am riding the bike around USTC high-tech campus and USTC IAT in the twilight, and I circled around both campus twice. I think the university is very beautiful. I couldn't even imagine not being in IAT much before. Like, there is an entrance right next to the subway station that you can directly enter IAT, then through the path in the middle of the road, south to the high-tech campus. I never even been wandering around the campus much like I used to. There are tall buildings, but mostly like you can notice how green it is inside the campus, like there is just a lot of space for trees, a lake in the middle of IAT, and wide roads to walk or cycle comfortably, unlike the narrow east campus. But even though I think this university is beautiful, I still want to leave this university as quickly as possible, as well as leave the horrible memories behind in yet another location.

If I come here as an alumni someday, perhaps I can admire this beauty better without feeling much stigma and humiliation? But I never went back to my high school ever after the summer of 2021, never ever, even near or around it, never took the subway there. If it's not for my high school classmates, give a choice and I would glady erase the year off my memories. I went back to my middle school like, 3 times, twice in 2020.9 right after graduation and once last summer, though I only circled around the area without entering. I simply don't care anything about my high school anymore while I think my middle school life is some mixed memories at least with a tiny bit of value. I went back to my second primary school once in 2016.12, but then I lived in Shanghai not far from that area and circled around it multiple times. I went back to my first primary school once in 2015.11 to see my former classmates, and I walked around that neighborhood many times, but mostly before 2019, when I was deeply nostalgic of my childhood. So overall it's not like I will have a deep connection with some place after I leave it. Maybe stronger with university as it's far more important than anything before it? And also university is the top of the academy career generally since further degrees are still done mostly in universities?

So I think I am out of the crisis by now. I am not at the optimal state but I can say I recovered 70-80%. It all started with self-doubt and disillusionment taking over me in around 2023.8-2023.9, then the full scale mental health crisis started at the end of 2024.2 and start of 2024.3, where I didn't go out of my rented house for one week and I remembered the garbage pile piling up so much that it took me several trips to clear, and after that the strange obsessions to build a video tube and hatred for school took over me.

And it continued for around one year, so nearly all of my 19 year old was in a highly depressed, sad, overall crisis-like mental health state. I had money from my parents. I had food. I had a separate apartment. I didn't even do a lot of work. Yet I was still in this dazed state.

University isn't the end of my life, even though I know that if you get kicked out of the university it would almost certainly result in suicidal actions.

Ok, we don't talk about it. In short, I begin to recover at around the end of 2025.3. Now I am at school almost all day long till 8 pm at night, doing what I am supposed to do and not feeling much contempt or loath, and my sleeping schedule has mostly recovered and stablized. I am getting the upper hand in most of the classes this semester, even though 3 out of 4 main classes I am taking were the ones I failed one year ago. We don't talk about it anymore.

20250427

I learned that one main course in university takes about 1 full day a week if you didn't pre-cram everything. Half a semester's coursework takes more than 1 full week to complete, and this is from a hot start. Usually if you don't study normally and suddenly start in the middle of a semester, you are from a cold start, which may take 3 days before you even get started.

So if you are taking around 4 main courses per semester, you would be working 4 full days a week, and adding attending classes and other minor courses on top of that, you would be working around 5 days.

I was expecting to work 1-2 days a week back in the start of 2024. Now, I am not going to debate what exactly is right. But the point is it's not going to work if you only work 2 days a week in a serious university. I didn't use to do this or have this kind of expectations in 2022 or 2023, I was working the right amount or sometimes more.

So double major people work 7 days a week, but some people are better at time management, or maybe they cram a lot in the holidays.

The point is, I can certainly work 7 days, but I want to get a double major in Russian or German. My school of course doesn't offer any such majors, as it is fully Stem, having only one liberal arts major or none, I don't know. But then I am also extremely dissatisfied with most Chinese universities teaching of foreign languages, deeming them as “unoriginal” and “subpar”, textbook heavy and lacking the real materials, with classes actually taught mostly in Chinese. So the graduates in China in foreign language majors have a very, very low practical skill. Besides, I have a profound distrust in universities now, questioning the rigid approach which I may deem ineffective.

But I want to spend 5 days a week immersing myself in Russian or German and spend the rest 1-2 days studying in school. Of course this is extremely unrealistic but it is what it is back in 2024.

Also I was largely disillusioned and think I learned nothing in school. I asked myself, “Why am I sacrificing 5 days a week for nothing, sacrificing my happiness throughout the best years of my life? What did I get in return?” I thought, “instead of rotting here, perhaps I could learn German, Russian, and computer science the right way,” I thought I learned most of computer science on my own and school isn't teaching the right way.

Let's not dive into that extremely complicated debate either, the point is, I am at nearly the end of my bachelor's, having 145 credits out of 160 required (with 8 credit being the thesis), the main problem is the required courses. So anyway, this debate can be postponed to perhaps when I have a child and they are going to school? But then I would probably be in a different country than China and that's different.

Ok, the past is in the past, but you can certainly get my perspective of how I walked myself into disaster to my doom.

It's almost 2025.5, and I am starting in German. I tried planning to learn German as early as 2022.9, but, lol, we don't talk about it. I already tried familiarizing myself with German for a few months since around 2025.1, but I watched more Russian back then.

There are problems though.

• Russian came to me so I started learning Russian, and I was able to find music and shows I like, going with the flow naturally and passively. While for German, I am initiating and doing this myself without that much that "came to me suddenly".
• As of my experience, Russians are more chatty towards Chinese people on social media or Tandem, HelloTalk, and Telegram. Some Germans I met on Tandem actually speak Russian natively and there are less German native speakers on Tandem.
• WhatsApp, the popular chatapp in Germany (as well as many other places) doesn't support searching for group chats the same way like Telegram does. (for example, you can go to your favorite athlete's group chat in Telegram easily, or Yandex channels, but not so easy on Whatsapp as of my knowledge)

There is a German course in my school but I went there once and it was full of dermo and I am not going to go to the nahui anymore. Basically the teacher was teaching grammar in Chinese without real, authentic German language immersion.

But on the pro side

1. German is MUCH easier than Russian without a different script (though I would very much love a different script) and similar to Anglisky.
2. I was hunting around for approaches, trying many combos myself when learning Russian, now I know the way and don't need to do so much useless work.

My approach is pretty much the same.

20250429

Ok, so here's the deal. Some days earlier I saw a Yandex Frontend Interface Summer internship on Telegram. There are some people asking in the Telegram group chat from CIS countries whether they can join, and Yandex Frontend channel replied that they can. So I also filled out the questionnaire, attaching some of my Github repo links. I also mentioned I liked the "Yandex Frontend" Youtube channel and Gravity UI (the Yandex Javascript framework like Bootstrap). I did it just for fun.

Then you have to finish 2 tasks (each 4 or 5 hours with like 3 problems). It's mostly about HTML and Javascript. The problems are mainly like modifying the DOM, returning a response with string manipulation, etc. The last problem uses Vite and asks you to modify something and integrate it with browser APIs. I just don't want to spend too much time on it so I gave up. And I completed 5 out of 6 problems. I didn't take it seriously at all.

I thought that if I got rejected, I should at least receive an email? Since otherwise I would think I made a mistake on my part perhaps because of mg carelessness. Then Yandex sent a bunch of Young & Yandex mails, but nothing related to the summer internship.

Then they sent me an email 2 days ago, saying I didn't fill out the motivation letter and the questionnaire, and I must fill it before Moscow Time 4.27 midnight. I went back to the application page and I could only find the 2 tasks I completed and nothing else. I already filled out the form. I replied to them. Then I thought there must be a problem on my side and then I would gave up anyway on this thing. Then they responded "if you fill them out then everything is fine."

And like, they are asking me for an interview tomorrow at 5 pm Moscow. A person called Ilona sent me the message on Telegram (they asked you to fill out your Telegram in a form). I already deleted my Telegram app but somehow happened to check it again today. So the interview would be around 6 problems within one hour (so each one would be very easy I think) and some personal motivation questions. It was so unexpected. I was not feeling very good today and watching German TVs all day long including WELT, ARTE, ZDF and multiple other channels.

I would almost certainly be rejected because my Russian isn't that good now. I translated to English a lot when trying to solve the problems. But I think it's a good idea to attend the interview at least.

Honestly I think Yandex is a very good company. But I can't even imagine going to Russia.

I used Yandex Browser and Yandex Translate some time before, but I am not using that anymore on mobile. But I now use yandex.eu (not the ru one) now and then for unfiltered results.

So it's like I have generally positive feelings toward Yandex, and I would still be checking their YouTube/Telegram channel in the future once in a while. I almost certainly wouldn't work there, but I think it would be interesting.

And today I had the interview. It was extremely awkward and failing. So basically I had a headache at 8 pm, and my brain was spinning. Then I went to the zoom meeting at 10 pm. I was talking to someone named Dimitry Bagatov. And he was a very nice young person.

Then I found out my Linux has a problem with Mic because the other side cannot hear anything on the Zoom. He typed in the chat that you can log out and log in again. Anyway, I switched to my other Windows computer and I needed to install Zoom, it took 6 minutes. It was 22:06.

I was very scared that I couldn’t speak perfect Russian. The point is that it’s not like in a language exchange app or speaking with your language exchange partner on Telegram where they “assume” you are learning the language and not speaking it perfectly. Russia doesn’t attract a lot of high-tech workers, so it's not like in the US where everyone has their accents in English. I am at b1-b2 maybe? But honestly for this kind of interview you can assume everyone applying is native in Russian.

I tried talking Russian but my Russian was so very bad. He asked about motivation and I could understand a lot but when I tried to speak, the words came out fractured several at a time instead of in a coherent sentence. He couldn’t understand me. He said “Я не понимаю.”

Then we switched to English. His English is very good. I didn't know I could do the interview in English.

He first asked about motivation and why I want to be there, and what projects I build and if I am able to commit time to the summer school. I said, of course, and I told him I build some userscripts and my personal website which uses React and next.js. He even asked me why I am going to Russia which I didn’t answer. I don’t think that I am going to Russia. But I really like the company.

Then he gave me some questions. It is like this. He pastes some code into a code editor shared online, and asks you what the output is, what you can do with it, etc.

Overall, my Javascript is pretty bad because I over relied on GPT for coding full stack platforms, and I don’t remember much in my head. The problems are all very basic, like how a function would manipulate a variable and what it would log. And how to iterate over a string and see the output, and organize it into something.

I am so thankful that this guy could talk English with me. He would explain every problem in English to me very patiently although I could read pretty much it.

Then there is this await async promise problem which I failed to solve or tell why. Like, seriously, you need to explain why. I don’t know how to explain clearly because I have been vibe coding all the time.

Then he said thank you for the interview. This is very surprising. He is such a patient person honestly. Anyway, I am far more thankful from my side. Then he asked if I had any questions. I said I have no questions. I do have a question: How do I apply for a Visa if I want to stay in Moscow for the summer? But that isn’t the right question to ask here because I don’t even think I will go there.

After all it’s like, I am glad I finished the interview. I would have a serious problem though if they accepted me.

But I would still like Yandex and Telegram whatever the case is. Yandex split into 2 companies in 2022 and a lot of employees fled including the former CEO. I don’t know what the situation is at the company. I thought that could make the thing easier? Also I think MGU clearly wants diversity right now as they showcase their International students all the time on their YouTube channel as well as guidance in Chinese. The entrance bar for MGU is extremely low for Chinese. I know Koreans, Chinese, and black people in Russia who are very popular and mainstream, for example, Kimin Kim(Marinskii dancer), Feiya Zou(actress), and Sasha Makarov(black male actor born in 2009). But I don’t know about Yandex. And Russia got 10 times less people than China. Still, I don’t think I can qualify. School damaged my self confidence to make me think I am a failure whatever I do.

It is very embarrassing to be honest. But I thought embarrassment doesn’t matter.

Also I think if I am not planning to go to Russia now. My Russian is basically enough for most understanding, but lacking in grammar and speaking. I should go learn German first then Spanish. Then if I have time I can go back to Russian. German TVs are roasting Russia by the way.

Also I better not care about anything happening 5000 km away. Honestly, let’s finish this semester’s school. I am pretty much a failure. I am so sad. Everyone else goes to internships. I will do nothing and cry this summer. If I drop out of school I would die, so crying is better than dying.

So I am back to watching German TV and being sad or bored instead of being excited or scared. I hope though I don’t drop out of school.

I never paid much attention to JavaScript objects. They are incredibly versatile and fishy. You can pretty much put everything in it without pre-defining anything, unlike C, and you can dump whole JSON into it. Also Objects aren't pass-by-value in JavaScript, which is very strange. However, say, you first define x is some {value: number} and try passing it into a function, if the function reassigns a {value:number} to the object it doesn't get changed(because it point the local variable into another location), if the function reassigns only to the value the Object get changed.

If you assign one Object to the other it's just a pointer to the same memory location. Sometimes you should create a copy manually.

JavaScript functions may or may not use global variables. So say, x is a global variable and it isn't passed into the function, the function can modify x, if it is passed into it, that's the standard behavior, x doesn't change.

So the Yandex frontend interview taught me these things I overlooked for 2 years. Obviously I am going to fail because I couldn't explain fluently basic concepts like these

20250505

Getting up late in the morning is the biggest hurdle in school.

I don't think it's a bad thing in life. I think getting up later is actually not bad because it enables you to utilize the late night productive hours. However, in school it's not the thing to consider.

You are not going to have a regular “late” schedule, since when you are getting up late you are also getting up irregularly late. Then it's very dangerous because mornings are completely out of control. Basically you won't attend classes or do anything in the morning, and probably go to school in the afternoon, followed by another several hours of little productivity.

This is mainland because school isn't the thing we like. We can't maintain productivity in this way because we always try to avoid it passively. After avoiding it in the early morning you are going to try to keep procrastinating throughout the day, eventually doing nothing and pretending to actually do something in school, leading into late nights of also, not doing anything productive schoolwise. But now we can't avoid it and must do something.

Basically I am not going to get up astronomically early. I am making a schedule for now to get up before 7 and sleep before 22.

I hate school in general, especially making an effort towards it. But it is what it is. I can't kill myself. I must survive for now.

So what happened during the labor day festival?

• I went home to Shanghai
• I went to a vacation in a luxurious hotel in Zhejiang for 2 days
• I didn't do any work during the time, mainly chatting with my parents
• I went to climb mountains(well, actually just walking a short path or route alongside the mountain for 2 days
• I returned to Shanghai, and I am returning to Hefei now

Basically my focus would be entirely turned on school now. I deleted Telegram and YouTube from my phone again.

Porn is completely out of control for me right now. So I had practically little sexual desire before the age of 18. I mean, sure, I sometimes find attraction in girls, but it's not a constant, relentless, driving force to either watch porn or masturbate. I did have it since late age 12, but I quickly and successfully restricted it at the start of age 13. I masturbated less than 5 times in my ninth-grade life. Back when I was in high school or first year of university I masturbated around less than once a month. The driving force behind something is always desire. Pushing down the desire is the only solution out of the vicious cycle. But the problem is my desire increased every year since age 18, and now I am 20 it's impossible not to do this multiple times every week. Porn is a bad thing I think. I am still a virgin, but I don't care about that, we are talking about porn addiction. Until I figured out a way to reduce my desire to pre-18 levels, I don't think there are any efficient ways out of it. I think if I wait until I am 35 maybe my desire will start to decrease? The problem would be easily solved in 20 years, but then aging isn't anything good either.

As problematic as porn is, there isn't an alternative way to fulfill my desire right now. Maybe I can cope with it better if I am not in this damn school system.

For example, I got out of gaming not because of my strong resistance to it, but because of my deep interest in language learning kind of off-loaded the desire in gaming. Thus there aren't much desire like before and I could manage it easier. However, if I am to kill off language learning, gaming might return.

So right now, the desire to game has increased significantly. Just one day back home here at Hefei and I am at the old, horrible state. I cannot do anything. I cannot respond anymore.

My whole body started aching. My legs and arms and face. I don't want to do school work and I am starting to procrastinate again.

I am on my knees. I am struggling ever so difficult. And it is never ending. I don't want to work anymore. I hate school. I don't want to do any school work. But I don't want anything.

Now that I quit language learning again, gaming took over me easily. I gamed from 4 pm to 7:30 pm. It is impossible to quit.

But if I take up language learning, I would start failing courses all over again. There are no more options.

I can't take it anymore. I always feel like I need to respond something to show my "sovereignty" because I feel so suppressed right now.

I don't want to work even one hour. I question everything. My weight is still increasing. I don't know what to do honestly. And I have been in this state for ever so long.

Whenever I work, I would be distracted by everything. This is because there isn't any desire holding my heart into the thing I am studying.

Not even the pride of my school. It's good, but it's mainly good in math and physics, not computer science. What's more, like basically I have nothing, no GPAs, no research, no friends, I am not buying it anymore. I would rather have a happier life with better grades in a worse university than being here.

The only thing keeping me studying and going is basically the fear of dropping out of this university. I don't know what I am studying in school. I seriously don't know for a really long time already. And that is kind of scary.

You can't focus on something when your heart is flying everywhere. No wonder I am so inefficient and usually procrastinates when I am doing literally any school work. I better fuck myself.

So basically it is what it is. A good option is to say to yourself, "no youtube videos, no going on Reddit or other websites, no doing nothing before finishing all the homework." I don't know if it will work. I am scared.

20250506

I am still not out of the loop. But you know what? I think staying up till 5 or 6 am to do the work is a good idea. This is because at night it feels quieter and you can have more efficiency.

My parents frequently gaslight me, claiming health is more important than studying. Both my mental health and my physical health are crippling under the goddamn school work. My confidence is at all time lows. My parents are professional gaslighters. Studying is obviously far more important than your health, and if you fail, you basically die. To make my health better, the best way is to drop out of school, but paradoxically, that is not allowed, and I would have no money, and I better jump off the building before doing that.

But in late 2023 it was like this, staying up all night long frequently and sleeping in the mornings or even in the afternoons. I am feeling very very horrible right now. I think I am going to have a heart attack one way or the other. Since my health is crippled and I am on my knees, maybe let's forget about sports? I don't want to do sports anymore because basically running with a disturbed sleeping schedule make you feel worse. I hate everything but it's not like I can do anything about it.

Now I suddenly felt like the past year has been completely lost. I can remember most of 2023, but what did I do from 2024.1-2025.4? I did nothing at this time period. I can't remember any details but vaguely remembered failing constantly.

What can I do to make my life seem more "meaningful"? Like, basically, when months and years pass, leave an impression? I think getting out of school is a solution for me since in school there is no meanings.

I am not banning websites anymore.

20250508

I need to integrate a romance language into my life. I am going to use German interfaces and I followed many Russian accounts on Telegram, but there I still haven't thought of a way for Spanish.

You can't join a group chat in Whatsapp easily. My Whatsapp account just got suspended when I didn't do anything. I am going to just leave this open.

Also I better find an internship or anything this summer. I am not serious about Yandex. Let's be practical. Basically even if I hate school now I better do something in the summer. I don't know why but it is what it is. If I am earning money myself then I can decide with more freedom, but I am sponsored by my parents right now. I am going to try to find something to do this summer.

I am making a bold (likely wrong) prediction. In the near future, there would be significant foreigners in China. This is the feature of any big, highly developed country, historical or current.

In Shanghai, a major place Green City in Jinqiao, Shanghai used to be a hub for foreigners, but foreigners are leaving. This is a short term reverse. In the long term however, China is projected to surpass US and become developed.

China isn't international right now. There are very few, negligible foreigners here, much less than 1% even in big cities like Shanghai and much less than 0.1% in Hefei. You never see one sometimes when you go out for a walk in the city center. What will happen?

1. There would be at least 20 million foreigners in China(since there are over 3 million for both Germany and US with significantly less population and bad geopolitics), as well as millions from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines. So in a top tier city like Shanghai(25 million) there would be around 10%, 2 million foreigners. In a medium tier city like Hefei(10 million), there would be at least 1% foreigners, so 100k. In a low-tier city like Xinxiang or villages, there would still be very few foreigners, but an increase from the completely zero it used to be.
2. GFW: Great Firewall would be laxed after government have more confidence. Huge amount of foreigners in China need to communicate with their family and use the basic services. No developed countries historically is closed to foreign knowledge and culture. It would create a shockwave when every Chinese can visit YouTube/Google without VPN, but will stablize in the long term as Chinese users still predominantly use Chinese apps (WeChat, Douyin, RedNote, etc).
3. Language support: All apps and service interfaces (Bilibili, QQ supports only Chinese language) would be supporting multiple languages, just like Google/Facebook/Any American app. Smartphones has China ROM and Global ROM, and on the Chinese ROM it only supports 2 languages (Chinese and English). Even Chinese ROM of phones would be supporting multiple languages and typing. There would be significant influx of foreigners to platforms like Bilibili, mirroring YouTube, with many creators syncing the contents between platforms.
4. Replacement/Improvement of Baidu: Baidu and Wechat search is awful for foreign languages, try searching in Russian and nothing would come out. Either they improve, or they get replaced by better Chinese alternatives.
5. English education would be much better than today. It wouldn't be as good as German or Nordic's English level, but decent.
6. There would be a lot of foreign students in elementary/middle school classes in big cities, or a huge expansion of International schools.
7. There would be entertainment places, shopping centers, much more mini neighborhoods for foreigners (like Green City, Jinqiao). There would be much more foreign restaurants that is actually owned by foreigners.
8. Cross-cultural marriage would increase, especially between Chinese male with white woman, but this remains a minority trend.
9. There would be racism, but it's not intense or dramatic, more of a subtle rejection like other eastern asian countries.

On the other hand, countries like America would probably be studying Mandarin instead of Spanish as the foreign language(there are more Chinese speakers and only Spanish is developed among Spanish-speaking countries). English would still be the dominant global language, but Chinese would obviously be second. A lot of Russians would be studying Chinese instead of English in schools.

Then there are the geopolitics, culture, immigration status problems. Well, these doesn't matter much honestly. This is because a highly developed country just naturally attracts foreigners with no exceptions in history. There are opportunities, there are money, there are the world's best people. China isn't as open as western Europe or America, but my estimate (20 million, around 1.5%) is very modest and conservative compared to European or American levels(30-50%) or even Japan(3%), Korea(5%), Taiwan(4%). These things might matter in the short term (in the Shanghai Jinqiao example) but I would say it's the trend in the long-term.

20250510 What are My Dissatisfactions?

1. The rating system (university, high school, middle school) is consistently unfriendly to me
2. Lack of Internationalism in China

In my imagined future, if Internationalism got solved in China, and I have the opportunities to demonstrate my skills (or acknowledged by the system in China), then I think China isn't bad for me at all.

"Huge amount of efforts" is actually not my dissatisfaction since I am willing to put in efforts.

So these 2 points are the main driving factor behind everything that I don't feel right in the past few years basically. I thought then, how good is it to attend an International school in Shanghai, or even my elementary school, since it solved the second problem, and it is much more friendly in the rating system to students.

I think staying in China is an option in the future honestly. And it's a high probability, given that I can marry someone who speaks Russian or German and live inside China together. I don't know honestly. Time to focus on the present though.

Today I started thinking about the Russia Ukraine conflict and I couldn't control but keep thinking about it.

This is my conclusion:

1. My job is to study Russian, not to comment or debate endlessly on some shit
2. I am mainly studying Russian for now, not Ukrainian.
3. For channels that speak Ukrainian, it's not the language I am studying now. I may study it in the future though
4. I seem to think of Ukraine with a highly romantic, sexualized image. This is of course because currently I am not in a very good situation. My job is to learn Russian.

Will I study Ukrainian in the future? I don't know, it doesn't matter. What about Dutch, Swedish, Italian, French? Fundamentally my incentive right now is Russian, German and Spanish. Adding another language similar to any of those would require only a fraction of the effort.

Russian was spoken natively by 300 million people in 1990. Now it's spoken by at least 150 million people. Baltic(total 6 million) no longer speaks Russian. Ukraine(non-occupied regions, 40 million people) is not speaking Russian. Russia and Belarus speaks Russian. The 5 middle Asian countries(total 70 million people) and 3 Caucasian countries(total 15 million people) are still more or less speak Russian. There would probably be less people speaking Russian in these regions in the future? I don't know honestly. So Russian lost a lot of speakers, but 150 million is still far more than German.

20250513

Debunking the myth, does the 10000 hour rule hold?

It doesn't hold if you don't like the thing and put in 10000 hours, you will still be more or less a noob.
It doesn't matter if your method of learning is too inefficient, Chinese students spend 20000 hours or more in middle school and high school, no one is an expert in anything. It doesn't work if you read one textbook thousands of times.
It doesn't matter if the thing is inherently useless, say, playing low cap video games for 10000 hours. Blue collar workers do their job for far more than 10000 hours, yet it's still low paying.
It doesn't matter if you are inherently a genius (with a strong interest and native talent in a field), you will go to the top anyway. On the contrary, someone inherently very bad in math would not become an expert by 10000 hours.
It still doesn't beat people with a good environment, someone who grew up spending 5 years in each of China, Russia, Germany, and France would speak these 4 languages better than someone who dedicated 10000 hours studying each of them(they spent more than 10000 hours naturally).

So I am pretty skeptical of this rule.

So in my opinion it's more important to find a meaningful hobby/interest than to believe in some blind rules. In that case you are likely already integrating the activity into your life and naturally spending a huge amount of time in it.

20250516

Dear blog, today I am in such a bad mood that I played video games again for 4 hours. You see, I started playing at 17:00 and it's now 21:00. I didn't do anything but played video games. You see, video games is coming back at me. Mainly because I am just tired, tired of everything and I don't want to do anything anymore. Well, at least I am not engaging in sex or drugs or something like that, only gaming now. Then basically i tried to do language learning and I felt gulity every time I tried to put in efforts in language learning. I blamed myself for everything and eventually it backfired on myself. And it became unbearable. I saw 2 signs of "we are graduating" in school and thought how I was supposed to graduate this spring but I failed so many classes and I wasted one year of my life. I can't help but feel so so horrible and there is no friends around me. And this is because I am closed and I didn't try to make friends. Overall there is such a huge blame on myself and no hopes for the future since I was in such a disadvantaged situation pretty much all the past 10 years of my life. And my father said to me "how much have you been through". And I want to say that nearly all I have been through has been in a disadvantaged situation where all my interests and advantages are ignored and everyday is the same thing again and again. Right now I am zero trust in anyone. No trust in authorities, no trust in my parents, no trust in myself, no trust in the school, no trust in the society. The society may get better but it doesn't mean I am feeling any better. Everyday I can't help but feel bleak in the future. Overall since I don't expect anything better to happen after graduation right now honestly I am not feeling any motivation. You don't have any energy if you don't have anything to fight for. I don't want to do anything. It is so horrible right now. I can't bear it. But the whole journal has been about this thing. And honestly I don't know what to do or what to say as I have zero trust in myself as well. I have been fighting gaming for so long and very successful from this September to April, but then it came back to me again. Fighting gaming is basically meaningless. It seems I have always been fighting these kind of things without any gains in anything else. And in the end of the day I don't feel like working. I am just waiting for graduation and then I desperately want to go abroad. I think everything is a hoax and I am living inside it. There is zero incentive to fight for anything anymore because the system I am living in is suppresing me and causing these problems and it's not gone! Everyday is a wasted day and I feel so horrible now.

No, I do not believe I need to try harder. I tried hard for many years and achieved nothing.

I think the main thing is to

1. Stop trying at all and do nothing
2. Dedicate all your energy into something you like(Russian and German)
3. Also try to avoid gaming because you can use that time for the thing you like

No, I do not believe my hobbies are causing school problems. Because I remember in 2023 I was partially addicted to gaming, and that caused a huge waste of time too. By engaging in language learning I largely avoided gaming for half a year! One way or the other your body needs to release something from the suppressive system.

But then I have to deal with all the humiliation. There is nothing I can do about that.

It is a very, very bad problem if video game returns. I must take care of that in the future. It's worse than social sites, much worse. It would be an emergency. Video games, I don't know, just kills you. Kind of because these days I want to get killed? Hopefully it wouldn't though. Video games is very harmful for me.

20250517

Today I played video games again, for like 4 hours. Listen, I had enough.

I see no hope for the future. For the past 10 years, all that has happened is failing, in this system where I can't breathe anymore.

This is a battle that I have been fighting everyday, and cannot be won. Everyday I am procrastinating all day long. This is a grind that cannot be finished, this is something that always get on top of me. It is right now 4 am again. I haven't been doing anything but gaming. I hate everything. I don't want to do this.

I don’t see any point in living this life.

It’s a long grind, and I don’t see any light in the end of it, only more prolonged darkness to come.

I exhausted all energy at the end of 2023.

I don’t want to live anymore. I had enough. I said so many times that “I had enough”, “I am tired”, countless times over the past 10 years, and I continued to bear the burden. Today I can’t do it anymore. I really can’t go on.

I have no friends. I failed my courses. I see a bleak future ahead of me. I see no advantage of myself being recognized. I don’t see a future in this society.

Listen, I hate computer science. I really hate it. I don't see myself doing computer science in China. Ok, I don't hate computer science. I like computer science but I hate studying it in school. The terms are so confusing aren't they.

There is no right or wrong and I lost trust in everyone, including my parents. I hate this fucking school. I don't want to do this anymore. I know I can't do it. I always can't. I spent already 1.5 years again in this damn state. I cannot go on anymore in school. It is impossible to study anymore. Everyday I look at the shit I want to jump off the building.

I want to quit, and it's not "some time in the future". It is right now. It is basically impossible for me to do anything right now. I am tired. Video games return to me again after fighting it successful or unsuccessful 3 times in the past 2 years, and many more times in the past, I don't know how many, years. I can't fight anything. I lost energy and hope.

School is a hoax to imprison you to give up your freedom and your life and obey in the damn society that rips you off whatever thing you are doing.

My parents pressured me again to prepare for the final exam. I mean like what is my life besides exams? Nothing! My life is empty just like my hollow soul. Like how many times did I think about it. I am just so afraid right now of anything that happen to me regarding the scores that I frequently dream about dropping out or just failing everything. I have been in this state for almost 10 years. I can't do this anymore. My body and will are collapsing. My life is nothing besides exams, and it is a field where I am very, very bad in. I am gaining nothing. Ok, let's do gaming since at least in gaming it's better than real life in many aspects. Gaming is barbaric, exploitative, and harmful, but it is also sort of liberating from the school life honestly. It's like doing something you are just so so horrible at but you need to do it all the time for 10 years already. And you are always pressured. If I am good in exams I wouldn't even complain. Not now. Now I am dying. I am on my knees. I am crying. I hate computer science in school. I have absolutely nothing left. I can't do anything. I am stuck in a BDSM game!

All these years the exploitative system is ripping me off, leaving me with nothing. I can't escape and I don't have anything left in my brain or body. It's not ending. It's not ending after this university. It won't be ending until I kill myself someday.

20250518

I only slept for 3 hours today. I couldn't sleep at all in the night. 1 am, 2 am, etc. I was playing video games. Then it was 5 am and then it was 6 am. i slept at around 6:30. I woke up at 9;45 and I couldn't fall asleep. But I have no strength left. I half lied in my bed all day long. Anyway, then I played a lot of video games again, nearly all day long till 3,4, in the afternoon. It was impossible.

• 2022.7-2022.12: 太湖路 111 号新鸿意瀚海星座 3219
• 2023.1-2023.5: 2212 Martin Luther King Jr Way Berkeley
• 2023.6-2023.12: 2555 Virginia St, Berkeley
• 2024.1-2024.6: 肥西南路 556 号永新大厦 905
• 2024.7-2024.8: HKUST Hall II & PG Hall I
• 2024.9-2025.6: 长宁家园 10 号一单元 1702

Here are the places I lived in during the past years.

20250523

Do people even have sex in university? I think in my university it's around 5-10 percent undergraduates who had sex though. There definitely are, I know one person, but definitely not many. I heard people lost their virginity at age 17 on average? Do over half of the people do it at least once in university?

Overall the point is, I am pretty open to this kind of thing. I am 20 and still a virgin, will sex happen to me one day? I am not religious and think you must be married blah blah blah. But at the same time in school it's impossible. It's impossible to do anything in the situation that I am in right now. It is so uncomfortable that I want to kill myself if I keep studying computer science in China literally.

I guess as long as I am in this university, the chances I will be having sex is astronomically low. If I do this someday though, it would be a transition process. Yeah, things happen fast but it's not like any day a woman knock on the door and do it in my opinion. I think that I would have to undergo these stages, first, get out of the situation I am in right now and be able to (easier) manage my academics, second, rehabilitate and make more friends, vibe with everybody, boys and girls, (since I have very few friends, not none, but very few, and given the situation I am in right now, lol, no chance), three, try to know people deeper and have more talks, perhaps go on a date together, or go to parties or events (last time is like Elementary school when I went to any serious parities) . And then develop an intimate relationship, perhaps kissing, by then I would already figure out whatever to do. So without the first three steps, thinking about sex life is like attempting to speak Russian without learning. Sure, maybe in a few months, or even one month time you can finish the three steps, but that's like, you can learn German very quickly but you must still go through the learning process. You can't just skip everything. If you do, I think the result is basically horrible.

Of course, you can just call a prostitute. For example, like massage, a lot of people here are basically providing this kind of service. But then that's no difference with masturbation anyways, empty feeling. Honestly I just don't want to be associated with prostitutes, that's too horrible.

So sex not only about orgasm, but also more about communication and connection of souls with a different gender. Which, you don't need sex for communication and socializing, you can just do it in my opinion. The core problem is loneliness and craving for communication with the opposite gender in an environment scarce of woman.

What about trying dating apps? Well, I think my 3 steps to rehabilitate are better, and I should rather go through that instead.

So again, we should focus on getting out of the situation right now, and again, I repeat that it's beyond my bearing abilities, the school I am in, the thing I am studying, so I very much want to quit. But dropping out of school is literally suicide.

What if I stay in China for another 6,7 years? What if basically this man woman ratio stays 10 to 1? Well, it is what it is, there's no changing that, and I will take it. But I would need to have another way of fulfilling the desire/thirst I felt from daily life. What about traveling as much as 2 months a year to Russia? Sounds like a good idea, and the trip isn't too long. From Beijing to Krasnoyarsk or Khabarovsk or Irkutsk or Ulan Ude or even Novosibirsk is just 3, 4 hours, so I would spend significant time traveling, yes. But anyway, hopefully this wouldn't happen.

This reminds me something: there is a certain thirst beyond the 3 core things: language learning, math and computer science, and I desire constantly. It's called socializing? But I want to get 2 C1s before doing anything else. (Annex Russian and German into my brain) Then for language learning, we can just passively maintain it. Then either we do math or computer science, the other just stay at a typical bachelors level, very typical indeed. These two things are craved more than sex right now.

Then we basically mainly have one thing left, and then we can address the thirst. Anyway it's almost beyond my imagination at this point, since right now I am suffering so much. It's not like you have to actively address the thirst, but if you are in an international city, or even in Russia, this “thirst” would be solved already.

Maybe traveling honestly? Traveling can be the 2nd interest in the future? That would address this desire or thirst adequately. So traveling wise the places I want to visit the most are Russian and Belarusian cities. I don’t want to list 30 cities here but anyway, I like the north. I hate it right now when it's over 30 degrees Celsius everyday outside. I plan to go not only in the summer with eternal sun, but also in the winter. Nordics and Alaska are too experienced anyway. But in Russia or Belarus I heard you can make it with 40 dollars per day(20 for a bedroom and 7 for each decent meal). Even in Saxony you need around 80 dollars per day I think? But you need far more in any other German speaking (whether it's in Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, or Austria) places. Then my second tier of cities to go are Dresden, Leipzig, and Israel, and places like Bolivia, Chile and Argentina (cheap but the plane alone takes around 30 hours). Maybe Finland?(Kinda expensive and I don't understand Finnish, but I wanna visit at least once in my lifetime) Hungary, Czech, Bulgaria, Serbia(sounds like Russian) and obviously Ukraine (but I heard you go to Russia and they sanction you?) so basically East Germany, (South and West) Slavic Countries, Uralic language countries, Israel, Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan, Southern South America. Either it's more expensive, much further, or I don't speak the language. That's it! First I want to go to Russia and go there many times. Then that’s the second tiers of destination for now.

Again, our hobbies (or just main things to do) would probably change from language learning, to rounding up either math or computer science, to partner searching and marriage, to traveling (whichever one comes first, it's fine). All the beautiful life given that we basically managed to live through the current semester.

20250524

Let's count the US-based services I am using, (and, if I stop using them, what do I do?), so I really like American softwares

• Github
• Gmail, Google Photos
• Digital Ocean S3
• Vercel
• Internet Archive
• WhatsApp (but mainly for German since Germany doesn't have their own app)

And I spend a lot of time on

• Google Search
• YouTube
• US-based LLMs

So I am incredibly integrated with the US ecosystem, far more than the Chinese/Russian ecosystem. So if I try to de-US(obviously not now, just hypothetical), what do I do?

WhatsApp and Archive I can't do anything about it since WhatsApp is only for German and the latter is a non-profit. Vercel and Digital Ocean can go to Timeweb, Yandex, or Nebius(EU based), it's incredibly easy, and Timeweb accepts Chinese payments. I tried Upcloud and Hertzner and they instantly banned my accounts, generally I think US based (I tried AWS, Linode, Digital Ocean, Cloudflare more or less) are easier and better, at least for now.

Then there's my core data. Github can go to an independent reliable Gitlab/Gitee. Gmail/Google Photos can go to Yandex(Yandex Disk and Yandex Mail) or Proton(Proton Mail and Proton Drive)? Anyway, everything can be easily replaced. So there is no need to worry about it.

For the last part maybe for search there is only Yandex out of US (or Naver from Korea, or Seznam from Czech, but I don't speak either languages). Baidu is a piece of crap for every language. For Chinese there is Sogou. You search any Russian on Baidu/Sogou, you get completely trash irrelevant results(string doesn't even match). So indeed Yandex seems the only plausible choice for English/Russian search out of US (I tried Seznam, it can find results in Russian, but not good results, Czech is west-slavic and a great deal difference with Russian). Instead of YouTube, I can think of mainly Vk Video. Again, I use YouTube to watch German, so Germany better build their own platform is possible. US-based LLMs is the hardest, there are Chinese ones that are decent, but other than that, Yandex Alisa is too bad, and there is Mistral from France. I don't know, I would probably have to use Chinese ones here.

For now I still like "American" tech the best, second tier is European tech, Chinese tech is still my least liked, usually closed and user-alienating.

20250525

So today my father came to Hefei and visited me and I printed the database slides. I have 4 courses this semester, main courses, and I cannot afford to fail one anymore. But if after 2025 I continue to study this shit I tell you, I am literally going into a mental hospital.

So the 4 courses, out of them 3 are the failed courses last year. Listen I think numerical computing and mathematical logic are the ones I am least likely to fail. The ones I am most dangerous are Computer Organization (which, till now I have done 1/7 labs and 1 homework assignment) and Database, two courses i already failed last year. The humiliation I am feeling is overwhelming and it's pushing me past my breaking point. I literally want to jump out of the wind from all the pain I am feeling.

Which, reminds me again of my "caring too many things" blog yesterday, as there just isn't any point in caring for these things when literally I want to die everyday. There isn't any point in caring for politics. Living in China and studying, man, is worse in many ways. I only have humiliation and I can't ever win in my life It's impossible right now.

I cared about too much again. Right wing movements doesn't matter if you want to go to a mental hospital right now (which is exactly what I want to do). My head is hurting like hell and I can't sleep.

If everything ends right, I will define January 23th as the liberation day. So January 23th, 2026 will be the liberation day for me to celebrate the ending of nazism and the oppressive school.

My plans are easy. For the next 3 years: gain proficiency in Russian, German, Spanish. For the next many years, my life will be math/computer science. Very easy! Besides these, for the next 3 years basically I will just try to chill a little. I think relaxing and "lying flat" is the best way for me after all!

I came into this situation again and again in my life. So it would be from 2016.9-2026.1. Anyway, overall it's almost 10 years of being very sad. Well, looking back my middle school isn't bad after all. It is called "normal". So I made a mistake, and I am paying the price for that, and I would probably finish paying the price at 2026.1. It is not right.

20250526

Lesson for today is: Stop having so many manifests or personal statements. Stop trying to maximally organize life, otherwise your life would be nothing but "organizing your life" which will basically become empty.

20250527

Aiming for a perfectly ordered life is not a good idea. It is a mess inherently. And that's when creativity, curiosity, and freedom spurs.

So I am not paying for anything online besides the damn VPN right now

Ok, everything is intuitive, and everything should be intuitive in life. Intuition is all that I rely on for navigation. Intuition is the thing I have when I am born. Never lose intuition to rigid, human defined rules.

It's 3 am, I better sleep though

20250528

Today I played a lot of video games again. I have no desire to study and honestly I think I am going to fail again.

Till when is this going to end? Till when? I kept asking that question. but now I think life has given me an answer: that I live in this life itself and there is no exit. I always thought, "till when can I be in a better state?" Sadly I don't believe in lies anymore. I believe in nothing. I think that, if you want to stop doing something, stop doing it today. That's why I don't want to study at all right now. This month or next. So I am heading towards another failing final. And after that I will be even more depressed. And my life is not going to be in any better direction. And for 10 years it's always being stuck.

I just want to give up right now. I want to stop studying today. It's just useless. So why don't we just stop doing everything right now?

I don't even want to hate the school, or hate my parents, or hate whatever, classmates. But it's not controllable when I literally, can't get out of here, like forever. I am chocked and my parents look down on me and nobody understands me, yet there is no option to simply quit. I spend half of the day gaming and the other half watching Russian videos. For 20 years I didn't even study a foreign language. It is unthinkable of how much basically I could've done, if I am not trapped inside this totalitarian system. I have a bleak present, so I have no optimism for the future. I want to drop out of school, but what am I going to do then? Kill myself after dropping out? It's a rat race all along and I don't want to do anything. I fucked myself into this cage and here we are. And when all my classmates are already graduating. Imagine that.

I am so hungry in the night. I spent the rest of the night watching Russian videos.

20250528

I think reading 5000 words a day is actually a lot and very efficient. So back to the days of 2016 I read 366 books that year, and revolutionized my English skills. Basically the books I read back then were very easy, from Junie B, to Magic Tree House, and A to Z, then Nancy Drew and Boxcar children, Narnia series, Babysitters club. Then in 2017 I read Harry Potter, full 8 books from January to June, and some other books I don't remember well. Let's do the math. Harry Potter totaled 1 million words and I did it over say, 200 days, everyday I am reading 5k words. In 2016 I was reading one book per day, that was the goal, and I ended up doing exactly 366, a few days more and a few days none, and those children's books were around 5000-10000 words. I think 5000 per day as a baseline is really effective over a long period say, 1-2 years. It's a baseline, and I am also doing some other reading, for example, short updates on Telegram channels. So I am not learning English right now, I am learning Russian. On Dzen one article is around 1000-2000 words. So I will be reading 3 Dzen articles a day with minimal translation, and hopefully things will turn out good.

Honestly, I never thought Russian would be a problem for me. The problem is school and I cannot even go all in for Russian language. It is so sad and everyday I don't feel like doing anything.

Also, my computer touchpad have a problem. I have a lenovo computer and when I jam the touchpad too hard it dies. Well, not only when I "jam" it, just when I just normally click not using the top 2 buttons, but using the touchpad(so not tapping it) after a while. Sometimes the touchpad would just get very laggy. I don't ever use mouse so touchpad is important for me. So I have only been using this computer for one year, and I found out that I bought it from a refurbished retailor on Pinduoduo. So when I bought it it said "official store" and it was new, then I looked at my previous purchase from one year ago, and it said "offical refurbished shop".

It's not related to the operating systems, since if you boot into the bios or whatever it is, and jam it very hard, the touchpad also stops working. Also the touchpad isn't like "slow" but laggy. Like it would work normally then suddenly became very laggy, and you must drag it twice or three times across the screen to do something. It is so stupid. I can't assemble a computer anyway. I think it's too time costly.

Honestly I better buy a Huawei computer in the future. I think Huawei doesn't have this sort of problems. It is impossible for me to debug and pretty embarassing for me to have this kind of problems as I tried so many computers and use (only) Linux and this kind of problems should inherently "be solved"? But then noobs doesn't encounter this problem like even once in their lifetime.

I used to hate Huawei, not anymore. Huawei is the pioneer in China, and it is, honestly speaking, at least not bad. I am not using a Huawei mobile phones because of lack of compatibility with Google and Yandex softwares. (maybe you can work it out? But it's still not first-class support)

Oh, and I went to Huawei official website and it said Linux supported. "It is the version equipped with the Windows operating system, and a third-party Linux version is available，" And Huawei is one of the core contributors to Linux kernel. Whether I like it or not, balantly hating something isn't a good thing.

Ok, which brings us back to the anxiety or assumption that "hundreds of millions of Chinese are cramming up on Linux system" and potentially my computer skills is quickly falling behind (which it is).

So I went on to the offficial website of Huawei and they have 5 brands of laptops(one of them is convertible laptop, which I don't like), main difference in space, cpu, which doesn't matter to me as I rely on cloud for any heavyloads. The cheapest one (guess what?) is 2999 RMB, so 400 USD. And then I went on the official website of Honor. So Honor provides computers with more battery life at a low price I think (92 Wh vs Huawei's 56 Wh or 70 Wh). I care most about battery life on computers. Anyway I previously used an Honor computer for 3 years (not intensively the first year) and everything was fine. So I think Honor is good too.

So my next computer will probably just be an Honor computer with 15/16 inch with 70 Wh+ and AMD? That's easy。

Why did I switch my computer in 2023.6 then? I had exactly that kind of computer back then and I later flashed BSD into it, changing the wifi chip into a very old and slow chip to be compatible with BSD. Amongst these I thought I am smart. Anyway, I am such a fool.

Ok, so I just read on the news that Windows revokes Huawei license. Ok, everything is so confusing. Windows is the evil in the world. But? I don't know. So I thought nobody uses Windows anyway so it's like a spoiled child whining for attention. I searched on Bilibili and there are a huge amount of videos recently concerning Linux usage and Huawei. It's none of my business. But I can rebutt my parents easier in the future.

So today morning I met with Mr. Jiang again to discuss final perspectives. There isn't much thing I talked but after all I said three courses this semester are the ones I failed last year. Mr. Jiang said that computer organization isn't hard but there's a lot to remember. Mr. Jiang borrowed 3 books. (he asked me if I borrow books, I say no) He asked me to return those books to the library for him. And all 3 books are about 6G technology, and one of them is written by a pretty notorious teacher called Zheng who recently appeared in the news to have bullied students to ace a science exam for her kids. Anyway, it's strange.

Then a teacher contacted me on WeChat. I actually deleted him on WeChat, and there is this feature that if you delete someone they can still see you as a friend? And when they attempt to talk to you you will receive a notification to add them? I don't know but like basically I agreed and the teacher asked about why I graduate one year later. And I said I had a breakdown and that how come I had a sudden interest in German/Russian/Frontend/Cloud etc. But anyway he tried giving some advice, and how come it's worse to not have an interest, and how to integrate the interest to school life, but somehow I got touched that a teacher would contact me. Like then I thanked the teacher and there wasn't much meaningful things that we talked about anyway.

Then like I started gaming and I got furious at nothing but at everything. I suddenly got very angry. So I guess I am angry at myself.

Then I thought about buying the 4000 RMB (around 600 dollar) Honor computer with 75 Wh. But it's the middle of a semester! I am not supposed to do anything, I thought, during this critical time. I don't know. I just got very scared. I thought like somehow in this period ... It's a weird thought. I think everything I am doing is wrong. So I thought maybe I can buy the new computer at the start of the summer holiday? Also I think like the hardware is always more important on a computer because you can replace all softwares but once the hardware wears out, it's dead. After all I can buy a temporary mouse to replace this shit for some time?

Anyway, so today Yandex sent me the email for rejection of Summer school, or whatever it is. It is totally expected but I still feel very sad, mainly because of failing even in frontend which I spent so much time in. It's like I spent so many time building platforms with LLMs, using Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Bootstrap, React, Userscripts, whatever, and I already built 2 or 3 decent full stack platforms, and a dozen other small personal projects. Like I even skipped much of school to do this, so this is supposed to by my "hobby" or "strength"? And I can't even qualify for such a shitty entry-level internship, which requires nothing but basic Javascript. I can't even answer the question about async await because all the time I was relying on AI to complete 90% of the code and I can debug a little bit on top of it. I forget about all of these because I am relying on AI, but shouldn't I use LLMs if they are available? This honestly made myself feel like a more complete failure in everything I do. Of course one thing does not define you, but coupled with school failures and various other failures, it's unbearable. So I guess Yandex does have a bar for entrance unlike MGU, which accepts Chinese students of 30% in math scores as I have heard.

Of course there is the argument, "if you want something, you prepare and you quickly achieve it", which doesn't apply to me because I don't want it, nor do I like preparing for anything. Besides, I have no strong desires now. If you are in a situation like the one I am in right now, the primary wish is to make yourself happy and de-escalate the situation, hopefully going to a lenient environment for a few years. I understand the principles, but I don't want it, seriously. I don't want anything before cooling down for a few years and regaining control. In a burnout period, even if you have the time and energy, you just can't bring yourself together to achieve the task. This year and last year there are multiple instances like this that happened. Right now I am too much burned out, and a clear exit, happy time is all I hope for. I don't hope for achievements or "whatever I should do" anymore.

Since I am stuck here already for nearly 10 years, I hope for at least 5 years of cooldown in the future? Or at least 3-4 years, so hopefully next year, and then 2-3 years in a very light environment. I can't bear it anymore. If you keep asking me to do something, my efficiency will continue to decline and I will just continue to not cooperate, and almost certainly fail whatever I am doing.

I got nothing to do in the summer, like nothing at all. I saw on MGU and ITMO's website about "Russian language and culture" summer camp but it's already past due. You must apply before 5.5 or 5.10. I think they would probably let you in if you apply, since what's special about a Russian language summer camp? There are also Japanese, Turkey, German, Polish students feedbacks, as well as Indonesia, and a lot of African countries' students. I don't expect it to be perfect anyway. Honestly it's kind of weird. I figured this could have been a good oppurtunity to "play" and have some fun. But I can't apply for this year anymore. It is not very expensive, with totaled 35,000 Ruble (400 dollars) for 2 weeks.

Ok, I am fully on the mouse right now, and I would say it's usable. It's not completely bad or something. But my gaming addiction came back and it's very difficult again. In the meantime I am supposed to make up for the homework, sadly, I didn't do anything.

So it's 4 am again and it's 5.29. Oh and by the way my father is 51 years old today. Anyway, damn but I remembered sending my father a "birthday gift" like 10 years ago exactly on this day? Sort of like, I wrote 10 English essays, back then they were very short and fully "Chinglish" before my "English revolution" happened in 2016 and early 2017. And my father was teaching me English back then, VOA stuff and teaching me words like "data", and what that means. Of course things were grumpy back then when I hated English and my father tried to force it down on me everyday. But anyway, I wrote 10 essays on my own I think, with the help of dictionaries, no matter how Chinglish they were.

So I should wish my father happy birthday later. But it's 4 am and it's not a good time to do that.

20250602

Everyday felt like torture for me right now. I do not want to study anymore. And again, I am dragging myself on. When I returned from US last year, I didn't want to study or do the "required things" anymore, nor do I want to do it now. I had enough. I do not want to do anything my parents are "planning" for me to do. I do not want to travel because it's my parent's money, not mine. I do not want to do anything. But of course this is all in vain. I don't even want to study math because I know it's not a simple process and it requires efforts (which is better than damn computer science, a field I am a retard in). But not right now. Right now I want to give up everything, including math.

So if I have a child, I would teach him/her/whatever gender they choose to be free, relaxed, and responsible. So I won't force them to do anything, unless they are doing sex without condoms before age 16 or engaging with drugs, or trying to endanger someone else, or being a racist, or whatever that "cross the line".

Community College is a great achievement. C equals pass. Pass eqauls good job. Right now I am failing a lot of courses. So I am below that. I am so depressed and underperformed so much. In fact, not only did I sacrificed my grades, but I also sacrificed my health, my happiness, and all those times for seemingly nothing at all.

Imagine at the fourth year of university literally dying to squeeze the final 15 credits out of the already extremely miserable univesity life, and your whole very miserable, constrained life. I am working everyday, but at an extremely slow pace, usually with long uncontrollable gaming intervals, articles about suicide, and YouTube sessions in between. I just want to pass the courses right now, let alone "A" or "B". So getting "C" or 60 is indeed such an achievement.

I have been taught my whole life to "rely" on someone, to rely on school and succumb to it, to rely on parents. That's exactly what the society is teaching me. I am taught to depend on the peer students. This is what I am taught. China doesn't teach you responsibility and freedom, China teaches you one thing, conformity.

I have literally been traumatized over this experience. I have literally, everyday is so much suffering that I do not think I deserve.

I would need a long period of "rehabilitating" before being even "normal" again. I strongly think this summer should be spend in a mental therapy hospital to prevent suicidal thoughts instead of doing any internships. People say that before someone is suicidal, they would usually reach out or whatever. But when you are trying to reach you, you would find that people ignore you. So it's kinda ironical but true.

Also if I have a child there would be no such studying pressure. I won't be like my parents "You must bear this, and it's easy, and I know you can bear it", "I literally spend so much time and money on you and I always love you but you must excel in school for all your life", "I don't have hobbies and so shouldn't you". My parents pushes me when I am at my most vulnerable. Honestly compared to a lot of Chinese parents my parents are "mild", and I frequently feel like I don't "deserve" to feel this bad and I am taught in my life that many other people are in a worse position than me and they didn't complain, and "so shouldn't I". My mom always strongly criticized me for "thinking too much". "It is not right that you have such hobbies. We don't so you shouldn't either. You should prioritize school." My mom said, "It is not right in China to have mental problems, if you do, the stigma is unbearable and will stay with you all your life, and people think about the mental unstable person when they saw you."

How ironical that with the background of China's unprecedented development that I am feeling so difficult everyday! That I am feeling without a future, without a present, without a friend. My life is full of ironies anyways.

When I say "I can't bear it", my parents don't take it seriously, ever, and suggested me keep studying like for the thousandth time. They don't have any methods but this is the idea.

But the saying goes, that "if you want to do something, do it now", which means "no waiting until graduation but quit studying right now". If I am waiting until graduation, then I would probably not decide to "not cooperate" anyways, and the problem would drag on, which is exactly what is happening right now. So I would probably decide to not fight back at all in the future if I do not fight back now. So I guess eventually one day I would collapse under the weight of studying, very literally. But how can I even "fight back" besides "jumping out of the window"?

And if I fail Computer Organization again I would need to study it a third time. This is beyond like my tolerance range now. My life is so screwed, so horrible so far, and especially right now. The problem is I don't want to do anything literally right now. Not math, not even open source projects.

Every attempt at "doing something" ultimately led to Huge School Failure, and decreased confidence, and strong guilt and fear into doing that thing, and eventually I would stop doing it.

I think I am blaming my parents a bit too much because it's all my fault. My parents always denied or revoked whatever they are saying. Anyway, maybe it is all my fault though. I don't even want to study math right now. Maybe it is inherently what I will go through being born in China.

Then I started scrolling WeChat and I started looking at middle school admission stuff and you can still feel parents trying to "force" and push their children to the best middle schools. Shibei middle school became even better these 3 years. Of course I am proud of my middle school being one of if not the best middle school in Shanghai. But at the end of the day, does it matter? You go out and tell someone and your middle school isn't worth a dime. I do miss however, the vibes of SMIC school, and now more than ever. Going inside the pod should not be something "eternal". To be honest, I hate this rat race I was forced into so much that just looking at these people gave me distaste, the standard picture of a person without hobbies, carefully conforming. Why don't you go into a temple and become a monk? You don't marry or start a family or have joy in life. To me trying to "compete" in studying is like this.

Then I thought about the imminent population collapse happening soon! I think 2020 is the year according to statistics where newborns are fastly decreasing. So there are around 15 million born from 2000-2020, but only 9 million in 2024 (or so I think in China). So right now it's primarily impacting kindergarten, I think a lot of kindergartens would be closing soon! Then in 10 years all the freaking high schools would face problems and be closing. Newly opened schools are most certainly doomed! I remembered when I was in primary school and the school was expanding (so 7 classes for 3th graders, 8 classes for 1st graders, then 9 classes for 1st graders when I was in 3rd grade). Well, this would certainly start reversing soon, maybe now already(since I left in 2015)! What's more, entrance to schools like "USTC" would be drastically easier when half of the population got wiped out.

In a few years China's young population would drastically decrease. "Population decrease" isn't something horrible, in fact it's the decrease of young people, the structure that would be causing problems. The only way out of this is to increase fertility rates(in countries like Uzbekistan or Israel maybe?), or else you face an aging population for every generation. Someone said it's like throwing a rock into a pond, creating a ripple effect on other effects of the society. I say it's like a shrinking lake, with the water draining away that the ecosystem cannot survive anymore.

We can't put all people above 70 in a concentration camp and kill them. Right now China, Russia, US presidents are over 70. It's the people who are "dying" that cause problems. You can call me Gerontophobia but I am.

Also, I am thinking of having maybe 3 or more children. Why? Because I want to spread "part of me". Also, having a child seems something happy. Still it highly depend on my wife's desire to have kids. I don't care about the argument for humanity when making my own life choices though. To have 3 children I need a huge house. I am not planning for much childcare expenses. Anyway, that's something far into the future.

So this taught us a lesson that you should only put effort into 2 kinds of things, one that leads to immediate joy (like Russian videos on YouTube), or one that gives you significant more money/power directly. Other kind of things, e.g., middle/high school rat race, should be avoided at all costs. I should basically avoid such people completely for my mental health. Going into a rat race is like stabbing yourself in the head.

Besides, the difference between cities and smaller cities would just shrink. So what's the point of trying to win a rat race in a city? When you look at it from a decade-long point of view, all of the value gets detrimented effectively. We are left with joy in our lives, nothing else! And it's already 5 am and I haven't slept all night...

By no means is this denouncing China's future as I believe it would surpass US in the next 10-20 years before the population decrease drastically happens, and most other countries are in a similar situation too. But just how number 1 are you if you are so sad and gloomy all day?

So if I did survive to the future, I plan find a foreign-language-speaking wife, go on a normal life, try to have some kids, spend much of my money instead of saving it in the bank (unlike my senile parents who carefully preserved the second 2 million dollar house and doesn't spend one dollar in daily life). The money certainly goes to the direct wellbeing of me and family, no questions asked! And of course let's be affordable if I am not rich, but I thought Siberian trips cost 40 dollar per person per day. Certainly not like my parents, "We can only spend money on your studies but not on your happiness. If your studies are bad we know you are sad." Anyway, people 100 years ago, much poorer on average, have 5-7 children on average. The society shouldn't be heading towards a dystopia. Actually, we ourselves should decide whether it's headed towards dystopian or not, and I choose, obviously, to not make it worse.

Ok, it's now almost dark. I have wasted another day on gaming and watching YouTube and doing nothing. And basically what I want to say that I am very much done. I can't finish one homework problem after a whole day. Right now I am in a mental crisis and I want to go into long-term therapy. But nobody takes this seriously anyway.

I think the reason religions exist is because that they bring some benefits in the long term. It's like natural selection, the evolution of human beings over the centuries, except that it is not the way you think it is, that "smart" people will remain after generations. If "religious" people are more likely to have children or "stupid" people are more likely to be confident, and live a better life, have more children, gain more influence, then certainly they will have more influence on the future generation. Anyway, the worst thing that you can do is to sabotage your happiness like what I did in the last 10 years. If a society is so depressed and people commit suicide and don't have kids, then it will naturally die out.

If the whole society is engaged in a "rat race", then it's the problem of the whole society, not mine. My parents don't understand that and is always confused over "why are you always underperforming?" My parents always blast about my failures in front of friends. Religious people or certain rural people don't do that, and they thrive though, maybe "poorer" in total but not like Chinese people keeping 90% in savings.

It is indeed confusing what I am going to do if I don't cooperate, but then what? I was taught by education and by the environment to lose my interests and not know what to do. My previous initiatives all fail. I have such overwhelming guilt. I don't know what other things to do.

20250605

There are a lot of graduation speeches these days, from top universities. I can't even graduate and I don't know what I am doing. I am gaming for many hours every day again and I have literally no strength left for school. I felt so bad! Who answers you if you feel unfair? Can I pursuade the school to "graduate" me? No I can't. This is such a difficult period in my life, but my life has already been like this for so long that I felt numb. I don't know what to do. I tried so hard for the past how many years to try to shape my identity, my worldviews, my values, and this is what I want? And right now I don't want to face the next day. I want to sleep on forever.

So today my mom surprise visited me, trying to "help" me through the finla. I am in cripples. I have to eat 2 melatonin pills to try to sleep at 0 since I usually sleep at 4-7 am. But I had 2 melatonin pills and I am lying fully awake in bed right now.

20250606

So today as I went into the west campus class for a Mathematical Logic class and I got there like 10 minutes earlier, and the teacher sat down to talk to students one by one... It was so unexpected. And the teacher was asking for advice. Anyway, I said the class was very good. And then I asked if the teacher worked in "Zhangjiang High Tech" park and he did, and I said that "I lived there". If every class is like this maybe I wouldn't have had problems anyway? Actually honestly I think it's one of the better classes these two years. But it doesn't mean I am out of this shitpile picture as a whole.

So my mom came and "doesn't persuade me to study", "give me the freedom to choose", "stop complaining of being forced", but then actively forces me to "finish this semester off". My mom was basically worried sick about my situation and then "came to help me again". Then went on to say "I didn't expect you to have problems at this point!".

Then my mom continued to downplay my situation, telling me "everyone has mental problems", and "other people have their worries", as if these kind of problems are ordinary or whatever. Maybe it is though. Who knows? It is already "normal life" for me, continued problems for 10 years.

Ok, so today my dual subtitle userscript on YouTube broke. YouTube fortified its subtitle fetch. Who did this? The player response returned nothing. I got so angry! I spent so much time on this shit. But now it broke because of corporate greed! What a fascist company! Anyway, all the other extensions also broke simulatenously. It needs something called Po token to fetch the subtitles. I am helpless and it seems like everything is working against me! Everything was fine from 2020 then when I specifically had that script working, it suddenly broke! I only used it for 4 months and it was so unfair! But there was nothing I can do except wait for this sucking semester to end.

My dad called again saying "finally just this time, you must put in efforts". Well, so after a million "finals", a million time being deceived and summing up efforts, only to end up in a situation that is worse than ever and I am suicidal? My mom kept claiming "studying is less important than your life". Well there isn't any way out of it. Then my mom tried to have a chat with a classmate's parents, about how "basically everyone feels inferior so they don't socialize." Problem is with this much pressure and fear mongering consistently applied, there is no need to socialize, there is only need for killing myself. My mom kept claiming she won't mind anything, which cannot be more balantly a lie. In the meantime everything got so much worse and linger on the unbearable. I would have my finals finished at 0627, but I don't even know if I can live to that date. It was simply unbearable everyday. Everyday of my life literally. It was not bearable anymore. There is not even hope.

Right now I have again, an unprecendented hate and aggression towards my classmates, towards everyone in general. I hate people because I am in such a difficult situation. This is just normal and not specific, just general animosity. I don't even want to take drastic measures. I don't know how I landed here. How long would this hatred erode? Probably 3-5 years into rehabiliation, if there ever is one, otherwise I would have to carry it on with me all my life, or just end it once and for all with suicide. I feel constantly cornered in this society, for 10 years I am in constant fear and anxiety. I don't have to feel this anyway, but yeah I do.

Ok, so Language reactor turned out to be working for dual subtitles. I am not going to build another tool.

20250607

Today my mom went back to Shanghai in the morning and I spent literally the whole day gaming. I am so guilty and sad. I was so disappointed in everything and myself.

Then I learned like there are some famous poets in Iran called "Rumi" or "Saadi" that's comparable to those Chinese poets. So basically what is the point of language learning? I am only focusing on European languages, and Russian is definitely worth it, but then I would be studying zero Islamic languages. I would also always be missing out parts of the world that is "important" or huge amount of population that speaks some language. I am studying Russian, German, and hopefully a Romance language, but I can't even find an alternative video platform or apps in those other Germanic/Romance languages other than the US ones. That is so unfortunate. What is the point of it anyway? I should stop calling it "connecting with something" or "exploring around the world". I am not exploring around the world and I am not connecting with anything. I am not learning Turkish, Persian, Arabic, nor do I even plan to learn it, and they are of great cultural value though. And then like there are those African languages, Indian languages, Southeast Asian languages, etc, that got huge amounts of speakers, more than German or French. So I better stick to claiming it's "a harmless pastime to prevent me from gaming". I got selective interests, not "interest in the whole world". It's not even "interests". Do I know even one Arabic poets? No. Maybe yes, I can memorize their name for today, but then I would never read the poems in depth in the original language. Yet I am gaming today. This gaming is mainly resulted by not wanting to study. I said a million times I don't want to study yet nothing changed. I need to get the homework handed in and it is 10 days before the damn Computer Organization exam. Hopefully it would not be the end of my life though.

Plus I learned: That while I am struggling like this, the western world are also going stagnant. So people nowadays cannot afford housing, jobs are difficult, debts, food pricing, etc. So the best times are gone. So the vision I had for US was merely a dream that doesn't exist in reality, or disappearing really fast, or reserved only for the richest people. I don't hope for anything particular anyway. And I am talking too much and not focusing again. it is 3 am in 0608, I am so sad.

20250609

I cannot believe how much I am gaming these days. My daily cycle is: get up, do a little work, go to school and start watching YouTube, go back home and game till 3,4 am, then sleep in sadness.

My primary frustration is that I cannot see a way out of this fucking state. I do not even believe that "I will go out of it", no matter how close graduation is. (Unless you promise me like a western country residence permit after graduation)

This promise is failed so many times, and this is the third or fourth time I heard this rhetoric. Of course my heart deep down does not believe in it anymore.

So gaming has returned, and as you can see, nothing motivates me to do school anymore.

But I need to graduate. If I don't graduate, how can I do anything else? So schools in China have stolen my childhood. Or not actually my childhood but all of my teen years. All teen years of a children in China is for getting a graduation certificate with extraordinary effort. Obviously everything would be easier in the near future, it has to. But for me it seemed like I sacrificed all the teen years for nothing. That is deeply depressing. Stuck in a system fundamentally disadvantaged towards me for so long without an exit. I am venting again and it seems like everyday I am venting the same.

After my mom left like I couldn't control my gaming anymore. I controlled it perfectly from last September to this May, that is, 8 months. I didn't game at all. It returns now, uncontrollable again. I need to use the userscript again, to basically block the websites and restrict the browser activity.

20250610

External

Birthrate is declining now, and it is meaningless to engage in a rat race. The society is so screwed that we would not have enough people for a future rat race anymore. Birthrates largely crash around 2020-2025, creating a rippling effect across the society. However, it only affects kindergarten now so people don't see it.

Boycott fascist re-education camps!

It is hard to imagine having 3 kids or more in cities because it is so dystopian.

About nature selection: don't point fingers at religious, uneducated people if they are happier and more carefree, or "do better" in this society.

It is a little surprising but schools in our society are remarkably limited in scope. Many Chinese people can't even speak English despite having studied it for 15 years. This points to the inefficiency nature of the school system. The re-education camp is nothing to be proud of, it is pure stupidity.

People use brainrot Tiktok anyways. What is the point of being a try-hard your whole life only to rot your brain?

There is no point in doing school if LLms can do it, which they can now.

We are engaging in a huge BDSM game in the society. You don't have to be part of it.

I don't want to video game for myself, there is no nuance about that, but I would not ban it or be crazy about co-existing with people who do play video games.

Communication

When people tell you "feeling frustration in studying is normal", it is an intentional way to gaslight you into complying more. No, you should not be forced to study all your life.

When people tell you "it's the last time (before an exam) you ever have to work hard", it is an intentional way to gaslight and exploit your vulnerabilties! They bear the same saying everytime!

"Once you get into a good university, you can finally relax." (The lie told to high school students, immediately replaced by the next hurdle.) "Suffer now so you can enjoy life later." (The "later" is never defined and rarely arrives, as new demands always emerge.)

So you ended up losing your soul after studying, into this submissive, conforming machine.

You got little prespectives if you "wait until later" to do something, either do it now or drop the thought completely.

Spend money while you are young before inflation and your anxiety kills it all.

It is unfair for others to blame you for your shortcomes, showing their disrespect and exploitative mindset.

Freedom

Freedom is the most important thing in life.

Stop "protecting" yourself from dangers or threats. Freedom itself is about openness.

Whether you succeed or not in an environment ultimately doesn't come down to you or your efforts, but mostly luck, the environment, and how much you actually enjoy doing it deep in your heart, all of which largely immune to manual intervention.

If you want to quit, please quit. There is no point for uninterested people to spend 150% of effort to join the rat race. Believe me, you would be depressed and lose everything if you don't quit at the right times. Life simply doesn't work that way.

I will celebrate Liberation day in the future instead of my birthday, not because how special this day is, but because only Liberation can give me life and happiness.

Responsibility

We should be taught responsibility. Responsibility is the most important thing in life. Responsibility is what protects freedom from going too far.

Languages

Language is the most beautiful thing on earth.

20250611 The Constant Impossible Gamble and The Downward Spiral

I have identified a core reason why I am feeling so bad, and it's not like I can solve it. The reason is I am constantly gambling with a seemingly impossible task. Studying was always too hard for me.

I am not resting on weekends. What am I doing last few weekends? I likely spent half a day in school and the other half doing I don't know whatever thing, basically no work at all. Why don't I do something else for my wellbeing? Because I don't think it matters and I always thought I must do schoolwork and I must do this do that, I must pass the exams. Anyway, until like I was too burnt out to even respond to that. I was gambling with the impossible all the time. And like recently I am so reluctant to doing even the littlest studying and I hate school so much, yet the incentives seemed unchanged. I can't bring myself together. I can't even rest on weekends because I felt too guilty to rest, but no energy otherwise anyway.

I am doing no work! But I can't do anything else anyway!

It was so bad! The guilt all started in high school, at least even though my middle school wasn't the most pleasant, I didn't have that much guilt coming at me whenever I do something. In middle school I defeated gaming, masturbation, and didn't use a phone, and I was really proud of myself, of my self-discipline. Then in high school all that was wiped out. I lost all my confidence that I couldn't regain.

I can't be rational anymore. Like the system and my parents force me to study even at this time like how can you even do anything?

I hate this fucking thing so much that I hate it every fucking day and I needed to do it. It was always like this for the past 10 years. I can't bring myself together anymore.

But at the same time my efficiency is so low and I couldn't get any work done. This is the system. This is my explanation. I was forced to do something I reject mentally with constant threats, and so my mentality goes broke.

This is classic "gambling with the impossible" scenario. Yet I don't dare do anything. So I am falling on this downward spiral.

First, they let you burn out and apply constant pressure on you and that you hate school so much. Then, they create a guilt based system to let you know that if you are faling behind, you are guilty. So you would always live in your guilt for the rest of the life by failing in the system even if you get out of it. Then they tell you that it's the norm and everybody else is "experiencing the same or worse". And finally you do burn out, and collapse, and commit suicide. That is the path for the Chinese system. And the only thing preventing me from commiting suicide is my interests: math, cs, and languages. Though vague, this might give me a shimmer of hope despite the overwhelming desperation I am facing.

Right now all over the school they erected those graduation posters, really big, and whenever I walk around it I feel profoundly inferior and abased.

20250612

Ok, today my dizziness continues and I literally could only slept at around 7 am today, and I slept till 13:00 or so. Anyway, my parents called me again and they were like "I am privileged", and I thought maybe I am, since I grew up in Shanghai and my classmates grew up in rural areas. I don't want to think about them. Classmates make a huge climb while I am stagnant, falling behind.

How can I compare myself with others? How? Literally I can't. And I hate these kind of people. I am not a studying machine. I need rest, I need interests, whatever. Everything I am doing in inferior. My classmates are already off to US to the best universities and I am the one stuck in China. I am inferior in studying because I am. I don't have motivation, energy, and I got a desperate, non-negotiable need of "interests". Anyway, it is so sad and it makes me feel very, very abased every time I think about it.

It is 2025.6 and I went through an incredibly difficult period in my life. I need to rehabiliate and try to return to "normal life".

Invisalign

I neglected Invisalign for a really, really long time but I think I am halfway through it now.

Clothing

I face a problem: my clothes easily get very smelly after washing and dried. It's like, I don't usually take the clothes out from the washing machine immediately because I just forget about it. Then it starts smelling, and I have to throw it away and buy new ones. Some clothes don't smell and I can wear them for a long time. Not a perfect solution but anyway.

Walking

I am proposing a plan to walk around the city (around 5-15 km) 3 days a week, Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday. It doesn't need to be very long, probably 3-5 hours total (including the time in subway/taxi) or at most half a day. I am not exercising at all right now, and I am not interested in any ball games, and there isn't any skating rinks here. By the way I may document my walks on umap.

I think maybe one day can be used for shopping every week? So in China you don't need to shop very often because you got everything in school and JD/Pinduoduo, but I think going to the shopping mall physically is relaxing and happy even if you buy nothing. Besides, I better buy clothes more often. Right now I have only 2 pairs of everything and 4 t-shirts.

Social

I have been in isolation for far too long, for 1.5 years now I think. I don't have friends. It has become a problem. I don't even want to be hypersocial but I can't isolate myself constantly. I know I failed in school and I feel inferior to my classmates but it's not a constant excuse from complete withdrawal. Sooner or later I would try to address it.

Acceptance

And then we are talking about acceptance

1. Acceptance of being inferior in school
2. Acceptance of most or certain students being far better than me
   (remember that the catastrophic failure is caused by myself and not these "top students", I may not be the best but I certainly should not be in this position)
3. Acceptance of my limits, including not feeling guilty when failing to achieve an aim
4. Acceptance of the time I spent on "forced" studying/working, including not feeling guilty and having the weekends, weekday evenings off
5. Set the boundaries and recognize the decision to withdraw from something(work or study) I dislike that is taking up too much of my time

Of course this will still take a lot of time to process and change.

Tiktok

If I feel sad, I can just watch Tiktok. I started watching Tiktok from some time in 2025.6. I didn't use to watch shorts, like, ever, and I really liked it so far. So I am just like the majority of people enjoying the shorts, except I don't watch Chinese or English but only Russian and German.

Quotes/Lyrics

Кружит Земля, как в детсве карусель
А над Землей кружат ветра потерь
Ветра потерь, разлук, обид и зла
Им нет числа

Им нет числа, сквозят из всех щелей
В сердца людей, срывая дверь с петель
Круша надежды и внушая страх
Кружат ветра, кружат ветра

Сотни лет и день, и ночь вращается
Карусель-Земля
Сотни лет все ветры возвращаются
На круги своя

Но есть на свете ветер перемен
Он прилетит, прогнав ветра измен
Развеет он, когда прийдет пора
Ветра разлук, обид ветра

Детство кончится когда-то,
Ведь оно не навсегда,
Станут взрослыми ребята,
Разлетятся кто куда.

А пока мы только дети,
Нам расти ещё расти,
Только небо, только ветер,
Только радость впереди.

Взмывая выше ели,
Не ведая преград,
Крылатые качели
Летят, летят, летят!
Крылатые качели
Летят, летят, летят.

Smartphone Wallpapers/Apps

Computer Wallpaper/Apps

Profile Photo and Logo

20250613

Ok, I feel irritated by my parents. Everyday they ask me when I sleep. How can I tell them I sleep at 4-7 am at night? Everyday I am having nightmares and I can't sleep at night. I can't tell them because they don't allow it. They are paradoxical. On one hand, they tell you "life is more important than studying", on the other hand, you tell them suicidal thoughts and sleeping problems, they think you are joking and not serious.

And my father mentioned a million times the idea of "going to work for tourism for your Russian skills" which is completely ridiculous as far as I consider it. Why? Because basically I don't think I am good at being a tour. I am tried enough shit like this and lost all my confidence in doing anything. I think I am terrible in being a tour. I am terrible at a lot of jobs. I did try to find something to do this summer and I failed.

Now I am trapped in a system that I am fundamentally always inferior in. Listen, it's not about "poor kids wanting to escape to big cities" in this education system. My parents fundamentally misunderstand and always apply their perspective, the "poor kid escaping the rural China" to me.

My parents does not have any logic but only hierarchy in their minds. Their core logic is:

1. We succeed in the fucking system so you should too
2. We are poor and we are rich now
3. We don't allow rebuttals

Which they ignored

1. The people who didn't succeed in the fucking system despite tremendous efforts and talents in other things, and yes, despite being very "poor"
2. How they are justifying everything they did many times a day to tell you that "we are living the best lives"

And they think you must suffer to do anything. We know all along. But you must suffer, only through meaningless suffer can you feel good in life. You should be guilty of being happy. This is the education system or whatever I think.

I am fundamentally inferior in this system and I had already been fucked up 3 times (middle school, high school, freshman year) and when you are fucked up like that you don't want to do anything. Like, it's not about efforts cause it doesn't matter anymore. I was always expecting for a "beautiful afar" but it never came and I fundamentally hate this system that rates me so low all the time. It's all their fault! None of the fault is mine! I feel so bad right now.

So I lost everything looking at the graduating kids. I lost one year, I lost my confidence, I am left with depression, without friends, let alone doing any literally research or internship, and that is how I am going out of this fucking university right now. Why do you want to talk to people when you are feeling that way?

And remember my father saying that "although you failed 3 or 4 chemistry tests in school after trying a tremendous amount of effort, I think you should keep trying and maybe the next time you would be better" which is basically like strongly encouraging and recommending me to try suicide. If you jump off from the 5th floor chances are you are still alive though if you fall on the grass. I hate it so much these days. Because it takes away your soul, these words. My father is good at stealing away your soul and life through not beating but more gentle ways. I cannot fall asleep at night. Every night I am filled with nightmares. I cannot even think normally during the daytime. And it crushed me. And now that it is 1 am again, lol, what do I do? I don't know. But I only got gratitude for my parents because without them I would be suffering on the streets!

But hey the final exams are coming. They would be coming in the next 2 weeks. I got nothing left already like literally. My classmates are all going to top PhD programs in the US, but I am left without internship, without research, without GPA, without clear graduation time, without friends, left with a depression and no more motivation or drive forward.

By the way these days I am starting to use Tiktok. I am finally starting to use Tiktok because I haven't used it like much, like ever before, maybe less than 1 hour total before. So I think Tiktok is brain rot, but brain rotting is an awfully efficient way for learning Russian. So I like Tiktok, and whenever I feel bad I can just scroll Tiktok until I feel better? But scrolling Tiktok feels guilty. Like literally doing everything makes me feel guilty these days.

At one time in April or May last year I thought that maybe if I was given a chance to pause everything in school, and spend 2 years locked up completely in a house with food studying French and German on my own completely but locked up, I would gladly take it. That is still how I feel now maybe. I went through 3 very difficult periods(middle school, high school, freshman year) waiting for some "happy" times or some relaxation and found none, and so I cracked under the stress. It's not like I can go any further. Just imagine like spending like 2 years being locked up with nobody to interrupt you and you can play. Oh, and back then I was surprised because I thought for a normal person, being "locked up" in a room but able to do the thing you want to do for 2 years isn't good or what they would crave for. But that's what I wanted though, and maybe wants right now. But I don't know what a state I am in right now.

20250615

Dear journal or random writing or whatever, here I am again. Days are getting noticeably slower. For example, today took forever to pass, where the end of May or April passed so quickly. Anyway, today I went to the fucking math logic test. It was a mess and I did horribly. I don't want to talk about it. I had to go to the west campus at 8:30 and I ended up sleeping at 20:00 last night with the help of melatonin and I got up today at 4 am and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I started scrolling Tiktok until 6:30 or whatever. And I don't want to study.

I found out that the Chinese education system forces you to think inside the box and stay disciplined and in conformity, all of which didn't land any effect on me but made me kind of rebellious. I think the primary way I broke out of these systems is because of curiosity. It's just like in Peter Pan where they kill those children from flying ever again or so (I forgot the story). But anyway, I think by acquiring languages and doing what I should do in math would effectively protect me against this toxicity from this Chinese system. In the meantime I am thinking about walking out more.

The final weeks are really killing me. Everyday I am not feeling well, I am more hungry than ever and I eat a lot of yogurt, fruits and not concrete food these days. I feel dizzy almost all day long these days, my head in a mist, and I only want to scroll Tiktok. I don't want to do this and there is like 12 days left to the end of 20250627? Right?

20250616

Today I am dizzy as usual. I didn't do anything at all in the daytime. I mainly went to school, watched some YouTube, go back home, and it's it. At night I grew ravenously hungry, and I ordered on Ele/me again(4 yogurt, 4 or 5 waffle, and 2 piece of toast).

Here is the deal: I am going for the computer organization test the day after tomorrow, and I have been studying it for like 3 times or 4 times. I selected CS 61C in the summer of 2023 and I quit the course then because I couldn't complete it. That was the beginning of the emotional problems. I barely managed to pass(C+ grade) in the autumn of 2023 for CS 61C in Berkeley. Then I returned back to China and in the first semester of 2024 I took this computer organization course and I failed. Now I retake it again and it seems like I am going to fail again.

And you don't know this feeling of stagnation, of profound disappointment, of just seemingly something that drags on forever.

It was like, basically I did not get good results, and I was constantly pressured and cornered, by the school, by my classmates, which created something called my own "guilt", and in the autumn of 2023 my state started getting very, very bad. I was in big trouble. But throughout all the time, I didn't take a rest, I didn't get any good results, so every semester on I was in a much worse studying state. My parents don't allow me to rest. Even this winter holiday I was tasked with "retaking the digital circuits exam", which I honestly already hated so much, and prepared poorly, and failed at the beginning of the semester. Just imagine what a profound failure you must think you are... And in what horrible state of mind... Like literally you can't rest through the winter holiday, and you are still marked failing.

And my morale is declining and declining with no good results and no sense of rest or relax, and I am on my knees, at an all time low. But this all time low is constantly declining. Just imagine, omg. I wanted to take a rest last November or something but my parents did not allow it. My mom last year always urged me to do research. You know what state I was in? I better kill my parents and take their money to immigrate to the US for a light-paced university and I can have fun and be happy again. Just kidding. But I am being pushed to suicide everyday. I am already collapsing lol. It's not being pushed towards "collapse" anymore. And so the state would be worse next semester, and so on, until I .... I don't even want to face it. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. To think about it is torture. To look at my classmates is torture.

So I guess computer science or the Chinese system is like this. The more you try, the worse you feel.

And right now everyday in school I see students with the graduation clothes shooting pictures all around the school. And I don't know. It was just, one thing after another seemed to be "in order to piss me off" or "in order for me to feel bad, inferior". And I do not know what to do for this exam because all day long I do not want to study for it. If I fail it I do not want to live anymore. My parents always say "priotize life more than studying" which is complete nonsense given their actions. My parents always threaten me and humiliate me, and I feel humiliated indeed. I feel no self-esteem. And I can't even blame my parents anymore. It was me, pushed by a strange sense of guilt, that pushed myself into the position I am in right now. First time I can blame my parents, but it was them in high school, it was them in the first year, it was them... always, well no, it was me all the time. I am the one to blame for myself. I am the one failing, not only in school, but also to manage myself.

Which brings me to the topic of acceptance. I wanted to have "Acceptance of my limits, including not feeling guilty when failing to achieve an aim" and "Acceptance of being inferior in school", but when and how? I am not going to accept myself anytime soon.

The Chinese system makes me feel insecure. I feel like it can crack down on me at any second, and maybe in the future, anytime, literally the same episode of high school or the 3-4 year of university can happen again. Like a system where I cannot escape this sequence and fundamentally make me insecure and anxious. I don't want to work or study, let alone doing "996" in the future, which is in itself, a horrible idea, to force conformity and obedience instead of working. I mean, I can voluntarily work "996" or even longer but it should be strictly voluntarily, obviously the required time better be less than 40 hours a week. But then do I have a future? I want to kill myself now lol. I don't want to do the exams this semester. I seriously don't.

20250617

Ok, tomorrow I am going to take the test and I am failing. I am literally, I am so hungry today and I don't want to study.

Which brings back the topic that if everything goes alright, this wound would still go on for 3-5 years, after that it would heal and everything would go back to normal.

But if it doesn't heal and I enter another era of depression, deprived of hope? Then the wound would basically never heal. I would have to carry it with me all my life. The way I saw the world, I saw philosophy, I saw everything would permanently be through that lense. The profound failure in my university career. It filters the entire perception of reality.

And like it's nothing new but I had already been in this fucking place for almost 10 years. It's like heading for a final defeat. It's like seeing the entire life in a deception, and everything crumbling.

And honestly I don't know how to deal. How am I supposed to deal with this? Just how? How am I supposed to deal with the promise that "things would be better tomorrow if you study hard"?

Firstly I would hate everyone intensely(which I already do right now), my classmates, the school, every school since middle school, my parents, myself. I would not want to work or socialize for several years.

Secondly I would not be motivated for several years at all, like, literally. I would hate my parents strongly but not be motivated to do literally anything.

But lastly I must find something to do? Anyway seems like suicide is the best way to end all of these. For my hatred towards people to go away, I need to at least get out of here and have least 3-5 years of cooldown period.

My parents always apply an impossible standard to me and claim they do it easily, creating a sense of guilt me inside me.

I don't want to do this anymore. I want to die every single day studying this school bullshit that I already failed and already deceived me for a decade, sucking the soul of out me.

20250618

Ok, it is now a little past midnight. I don't know how to cope. I scrolled Tiktok for a while.

Then basically like it's in the evening and I was gaming for a while and my parents called and I told them today I knew nothing from today's exam, and then basically my parents told me "whatever you want". I said "Everything I do or decide is wrong and I am going crazy". My parents said "you should go work as a delivery man in the summer." My parents said, "You can cry now." I said, "it works like a loop, every year I try to graduate, every year I fail the same courses, every year I watch others graduate and go, then I would be 70 years old then I would be over."

Ok, so I continued gaming into the late night and I didn't stop. I don't know what to do right now.

Ok, so I thought there is this vision that (almost destined) in China I would go worse and worse and to this step (but maybe it's not the end), since middle school every step is going here anyway. I was just lucky it didn't happen earlier. But was I lucky? If this is a destined failure, then going a little further and failing isn't luckier.

Then of course China wants to trap you with its systems. It tells you that overcoming these systems is some kind of good thing. But then of course it wants to eat your life. And I am going to die, later or sooner.

It takes courage everyday to not die, but it takes only one successful commit one day to end your life.

20250621

Long story short, I am planning to visit Russia this summer.

I got repeatedly blocked on HelloTalk so I just went to Telegram to chat with people. I told a friend(she was from Novosibirsk) that I am going to Russia and asked about ballet, train tickets. I did some research myself. Anyway, she told me she just watched ballet and on trains people chat with each other in Russia, and there aren't a lot of foreigners between the train from Novosibirsk to Krasnoyarvsk. Then she showed me a picture a supermarket.

Then I thought about what names for myself in Russia? Jim is a localization of my name in English. I better find a localization name in Russian. Should I choose "Vladimir", "Konstantin", "Yuri", "Dimitry" or "Ilya", or maybe just go with "Джим"? I haven't decided. "Чен" isn't a normal surname, besides, Russians sometimes call each other by middle name, like Vladimir Ivanovich, Sergei Viktorvich, etc, you can combine most names like that. But then if I choose "Vladimir", then to make that work I have to maybe have a name for my father (whose name is Zhigang, Zhigangvich?), which is awfully weird. Unless say, I rename my father just to be say, Mikhail or Viktor, then I can go by "Vladimir Mikhailovich". But finally I need a last name, do I replace "Chen" with something like "Petrov" or "Smirnov"? But I don't have any connections with these last names unless I marry someone. Then again, you would go by "Vladimir Mikhailovich Smirnov" while your passport goes by "Jim Chen" or something like that, which is very strange. I better just go by "Dimitry" or "Dima", and keep my last name "Чен". Should you also think about a localization name for German? Perhaps Karl? So you would go by "Karl Schmitt" in German...

But then anyway Russians don't localize their names in English. So Konstantin, Sergei, Vladimir, Andrei would be the same in English, although pronouced slightly different maybe. Andrei loses the rolling "r" and stresses on the first instead of the last part. Vladimir stresses on the second part (Di) instead of (Vla) part, and the "i" should be pronouced as "ee".

Then it was 4 am and I began talking with an old woman from Odesa who is 72 years old on Telegram. I asked if everything is good and she said "Thank god things are good". She is learning English but don't know anything yet and we talked only in Russian. I said I heard about "Odesa film studio" and movies like "The Adventures of Elektronik", songs like "Крыталатые качели" and she said she lived near the studio. She told me she have 8 children, 17 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren. I am really impressed, especially in this very sterile society. She said that she knew how to drive an airplane, the як 52. She said she love helping people. She said she is in the "Heavenly Civilization" with someone called "Yakovishin". I asked if they speak Ukrainian, she said some people speak Ukrainian but everyone knows Russian. I asked what movies she like, she told me she liked "Chkalov", "Tarzan", and she liked the music "Крыталатые качели".

Then she told me about the Andrey Yakovishin and Celestial Civilization stuff, and I looked it up and turned out it's like an alternative spiritual movement that reinterprets Christianity through a mystical and esoteric lens, so it's like a cult.

She asked me why did I learn Russian? I said Russia has everything, from ballet to math to figure skating, literature, classical music, philosophy, movie, Russian has something deep to offer. It was like 5 am here and around midnight in Odesa so she asked me "what kept me up at night"? I said, "I didn't like school so I couldn't fall asleep and I sleep during the day".

20250622

Right now my state can be described as fundamentally unable to function. So I got 2 shorts and one of them had a hole, so I got like one of everything right now. My clothing is in shortage but I can't execute to buy it. I got 3 t shirts, and 2.5 pair of socks, 1 underpant, 1 short, and basically I have to wash it and then wear it directly. Anyway, this is the state of me right now.

On top of that my head is fuzzy almost all day long and I cannot function or command myself to execute anything. I have lost control. I spend a huge part of the day inside the classroom or library alone to try to study. But I went to the library and I would not study. I went to the classroom and I would not study at all. I just open my computer and start browsing the web and waiting for the day to pass. Even inside the studying room, no study occurs.

Also my hair is long and anyway it's just executive disfunction and cognition decline.

On top of that my home wifi broke down. So I have to use the mobile hotspot for now in my home.

Anyway I don't want to talk about everything. My head is dizzy almost all day long. My schedule is messed up.

20250625

Some days ago a beverage and ice cream store opened in the school cafeteria, and it got flooded with students everyday. In the morning at breakfast it was open, at noon it was open, and till 10 pm it was still open. There were only like 4 people working there and they have to work almost all day long, maybe 10 or 12 hours. Do they feel happy or sad that students are coming all the time anf they are open that they can earn more money? A woman working there had a bad bruise or something below her palm and across the back of her arm, and it looked pretty bad, but she did everything like it wasn't there. I like eating ice creams and sundaes so I ordered it there everyday the past few days.

Then I thought about the school fruit shop which is managed by only 4 people, an old man, an old woman, a young man, a young woman, opening from 7 or 8 am till midnight, 7 days a week (maybe slightly earlier on weekends?). They constantly need 2-3 people working there, so everybody was working like 80 hours a week, but that's not including logistics or buying the fruits. It was the only fruit shop in this campus though. The 2 other main campuses had each 2 fruit shops, which would close slightly earlier than midnight, more like 10 pm?

The only store working less hours is perhaps the fruit juice shop and the bakery. The fruit juice shop wasn't busy, and it would operate around 12 hours a day from like 8 an to 8 pm with 1 person inside, and there was 2 different people at least doing that job. But there was also another person inside, preparing, sometimes. The bakery is open around 8 hours a day, from 15:30-19:30 and 9:00-1:00, or maybe more.

I am not a morning person so I never go anywhere much before lunch, so I am not sure about the opening hours.

But then like I also heard these jobs are highly favorable compared to, say, jobs from outside. Say, a worker for a dirty, non air-conditioned restaurant, or a delivery person working 10-15 hours on his motorcycle. If you only have to support yourself to a bare minimum with a house to live in, then you can work like 6 hours a day and possibly 20-30 hours a week I think, with this kind of jobs. But if you have parents, children, rent, anything else to pay, then the work slowly becomes grueling.

So I searched for Rumi and Saadi on Aparat, and there turned out to be some interesting contents. Moreover, on Aparat you can find university vlogs, city tours, cooking channels, much like YouTube or any video tube, though some videos are imported from YouTube. I think the Persian culture is very interesting and I would want to know about it, but Aparat is highly slow and unstable (and it's somehow built with Nextjs if you look into the browser debugging console). I just lack a trigger, whether it's external one, or internal one. I know no Iranians yet. I am not yet specifically obsessed with any concrete parts of its culture(unlike Russian). Also their woman have to wear scarves.

It's not like I perceive scarves as backward or something but it's very complicated. I remember when I first went to US summer camp there was an coordinator, she wore those scarves, and she was super nice. Did I perceive this as a threat to the culture or bad thing then? I didn't, nor can I say now. Besides I am not a woman, and it's not a conflict involving Chinese people. Back then I didn't even distinguish that much between people of different races. There were East-Asian, White, Black, Indians(maybe Hispanic?) people in the camp and that woman coordinator with scarves, and I didn't even care that much at the time. People simply get along. There are propaganda and echo chambers on the Internet everywhere, arguing for extremist opinions and seemingly in a competition trying to sound louder and more convincing. The problems are real I think in many parts of Europe but the method to address them or the rhetorics are simply stupid. I think there are some things about race that I would need to experience and think about. But the ones online are highly irrelevant. Some people complain about being discrimated when they can't even speak English in US fluently. Well people's attitude would naturally be worse to you. Anyway, it's none of my business, as I am stuck here in this never-ending hell.

Anyway, it doesn't matter and right now I am still caught between finals and not studying.

20250627 Story of My Life (unfiltered)

2015-2016 SMIC School

Smic School, the School in My Dream

I transferred from a disliked public school to a new international private school, Smic School, primarily to improve my poor English. The year is marked by significant growth and happiness:

• Discovering a Love for English Reading: I discovered the Junie B. Jones series during a school reading week and becomes an avid reader. I won the school spelling bee. I set a goal to read 52 books in 2016 and I eventually read 366 books(including whole Junie B, Magic Tree House, A to Z, and some from Ready Freddy, Magic School Bus, Nancy Drew, The Boxcar Children, Baby Sitters Club, etc).
• Math Success: I got prizes in several math competitions, including a second prize.

The year ultimately ends with me being admitted to Shibei Middle School, the best middle school in math in Shanghai. My confidence grew significantly.

2016 Summer Camp

My America and Canada Journey

The journey begins with a family trip to Canada and the United States. The second part is my time at the A-Star math camp at Concord Academy for AMC10-12. Despite the challenges, I find success, ultimately graduating ranked fourth in his class. I also developed an interest for Song Ci.

2016-2020 Shibei Middle School

I went to the best middle school in math in Shanghai. My class gender percentage is 26/6. My major achievements include qualifying for AIME in 7th grade, passing "Advanced Interpretation and Translation Test" in 8th grade, and getting 2nd prize in a competition held by "Part-time Mathematics School" in 9th grade.

My Sixth grade Life

I faced a heavier workload, with three daily math classes and frequent tests. The pressure of homework and a competitive class environment led to procrastination and frustration, finishing my homework frequently around 8-9 pm or later. Despite these challenges, I adjusted to the demanding middle school life, though I heavily missed the lighter days of primary school. In the first test in Chinese I got last in class. But my math was always at least around average. I was good in number theory but bad in geometry. I failed both the science(59) and geography(56) exams at the end of the first semester, which were considered minor subjects. In the summer of 2017 I went to the same A star summer camp again.

Continuing to Read

I continue to read a lot of books and write some book reviews, the hobby preserved from my primary school.

• Harry Potter Book Review
• The Tiger Rising Book Review
• My Journey in Reading
• A Wizard of Earthsea Book Review
• The Fault in Our Stars Book Review

My favorite authors were Ann M Martin, Judy Blume, Barbara Park, John Green, etc. I also read the full Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Twilight, Narnia series. In 7th grade I would frequently go to Shanghai Foreign Languages Bookstore.

Challenges and Some Fun

I had only one math(Xueersi) and a physics cram course every weekend. In my class I was around normal or average in math, never top but never dropping behind.

Gaming took a relapse at the start of 7th grade(in 6th grade I largely didn't game much), but it's not that severe. Masturbating also began around the same time. I also started having Paruresis.

However, I successfully defeated gaming at the start of 2019. I successfully mostly defeated masturbating by 2019.9 and it came back more frequently only after 2022.

During the 7th-9th grade I would frequently walk back near my childhood house near Century Park, deeply nostalgic about the childhood I had.

I had some problems with Physics at the beginning of 8th grade, but I studied myself, voluntarily taking another cram course (9th grade physics in Xueersi) and successfuly managed to catch up, winning 3rd prize in "Part-time Physics School" competition in the summer of 8th grade.

I started running at the summer of 8th grade, and improved my 1km score from 3:50 to 3:27.

I had a lot of trips in 8th semester. In the Winter Holiday we went to Suzhou and Hongkong. In the spring semester the school had a trip to Chongming and my family and I went to nanjing. In the end of the semester my family(my grandparents) went to Gansu.

End of Ninth Grade First Semester

My parents initially planned to an International high school. I prepared for high school entrace tests and math competitions in the fall semester of my 9th grade. I applied to international schools, and got admitted by Shanghai World Foreign Language High School.

I was bad in Chinese. The Chinese teacher made a table of all Chinese scores of the students in my class summed up and I ended up last. The Chinese teacher switched me to the front row and applied pressure on me. School became unbearable, with pressures that I do not think I deserve or is worth it. To cope, I took long walks along the Huangpu River, hoping for the year to end. Fortunately, I got 129/150 (a relatively high score) in the first "Zhongkao Chinese simulation test".

At the time I tried to systematically completely understand every examination paper given by the school.(around 2 everyday sometimes as homework, the same difficulty as math competition) I won second prize in a competition held by "Part-time Mathematics School".

Covid Period

In the winter holiday I would study daily at Huangpu library. I briefly took a Physics competition course in Xueersi but then quit.

During the initial covid period(early 2020), school ends temporarily and the interest of Song Ci and accordion came back briefly. I finished reciting the whole Song Ci book in my home with around 60 poems(I recited around half back in 6th grade). Despite covid, I walked out long distances daily. After the initial covid period school resumed.

I then applied to the IB program of "The High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University" and ended up going there. I don't need a high score in Zhongkao as I got pre-admitted, but I needed to participate. When I walked around the parks, I saw no students my age, either old people, or small children.

My middle school career is mostly focused on math. It was difficult but mostly manageable. I had a belief that "the next period would be much easier and happier, perhaps resembling the last year of my primary school".

I did not have romantic relationships throughout the middle school. I didn't use smartphones throughout middle school, being the last person in my class. However, this is largely a decision on my own.

2020 Summer

Zhongkao ended with heavy rain. The immediate next day I was called by the high school to go there for pre-courses and tests for 5 days. I was selected to represent the school for "National High School Mathematics Competition", 5 students out of 400 in the first grade. I strongly resisted it because I thought things would be easier after middle school, but I had to go. I received my first smartphone just after that. I went into my middle school class group.

My primarly activities in the summer were: Chinese(Song Ci), Math(National High School Mathematics Competition), English(Reading), Walking, Running, and Accordion.

2020-2021 High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University

My Thoughts About High School

I was a boarder student. I was enrolled in the IB program. In the first year of the IB program students are split into normal Gaokao classes and have a choice to remain in Gaokao. Due to Covid, my parents suddenly decided not to enroll me into IB and focus on Gaokao instead. I did well in the class placement test and went to the second best class in the grade (out of 16, or 11 main classes and 5 Xinjiang classes). The high school class initially had 19/25 male/female ratio. This period was marked by intense academic failure, a growing disillusionment with the high school education system and an abrupt ending.

Academic Failure and Personal Struggles

September was a catastrophe. I did poorly in everything. In the beginning test I placed 41/44 total, and the second last in class in English. I got only 83 in TOEFL and I didn't get a prize in "National High School Mathematics Competition". This is the first major math competition I didn't get a prize in since middle school, which was a massive disappointment.

I couldn't adjust to the 6:20-9:15 daily schedule. I faced sleeping problems in the dorm and I couldn't sleep enough almost everyday, leading to napping in the afternoons in class. I could not adapt to the Gaokao trainings of repetitive homework and inefficient teaching. I felt a disconnect with my classmates, who seemed content and "tamed" by the monotonous school life.

Parents Coercion

My parents drastically changed the rhetoric and started to criticize me for my bad performance in school, including blaming me for not trying hard in Chinese, English, Chemistry, and Biology. My once-strong confidence in English waned as my English scores was relatively low in class.

We took a trip during National Day's festival, and during the trip my father started to scold me and lecture me on the importance of scores in school. I couldn't argue back. My father said, as long as you paid attention in class you can get good scores in school, and he did get better scores in high school. My father said that before tests, your head should be full of knowledge, and you should not laugh loudly or show excessive emotions in high school because that is a sign of not making efforts. My father said not being able to sleep in the dorm is my problem.

Efforts and Failure

After that I voluntarily went to the front row in class. I tried to put serious efforts into Chinese, English, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, and Politics. I did not play any video games. My midterm tests score was 28/44, and I only got 60 in Chemistry. My Biology, English, Chinese are all still below average, while my math and physics were pretty good as usual.

Then I tried harder in school. I took extensive notes for each of the courses. I didn't do anything distractive. I quit accordion. I tried to pay full attention in classes. But then in the final I did worse, 35/44, including getting 58 in Chemistry, and flopping my math(just above average) and doing normal in physics. Nearly all my other subjects were slightly below average. Upon seeing the Chemistry score I layed on the table and cried. Then I went to the floor above the classroom and I wailed and I kicked the desks and chairs in the empty classroom.

In the winter holiday I voluntarily signed up for a Chemistry course in Xueersi. I also took many practice sets. I got 80 in Chemistry in the test in the beginning of the second semester and a total of 14/44, a huge improvement, largely because my math and physics were the top 3 in class. But my Chinese was 82, and the last in class, 8 points below the second last. My English was still below average. Geography I always did so-so.

Then came the catastrophic second-semester midterm. I got top in physics and number 3 in math. However, I got only 56 in Chemistry. I went to the back of the schoolyard and I didn't eat lunch that day and I cried again. And I just sat there crying alone for a while.

Disillusion and Admission to USTC

I grew significantly disillusioned with my high school life as my efforts translated to lower scores. I began to start playing a little video games again. I had one math competition course every weekend. I signed up for the extensive math tutoring in the summer in Shanghai and Hubei province for 2 months to prepare for the annual "National High School Mathematics Competition" as I did not win a prize, but then I canceled it after admission to USTC.

In the May Labor festival, I went to math training for 7 days. My parents signed me up to the program for USTC School of the Gifted Young. Upon returning, I began to prepare for the USTC program. I quitted school for 2 weeks and my parents arranged private tutoring lessons for Gaokao. I went to Gaokao(but only Chinese, Math and English), and I got 88 in Chinese, 134 in Math, and 125 in English. To get admitted to USTC School of the Gifted Young you have to qualify for a mark in Gaokao and combine that score with the math and physics tests you take inside USTC, and get in the top 70% in each province.

By extreme luck I got admitted to USTC School of the Gifted Young. And I was the last person to be admitted in Shanghai. It was the best day ever

2021 Summer

My primarly activities in the summer were: English(reading, reciting TOEFL words, watching news channels, and writing), Calculus and C Programming, Walking, and Running. I managed to finish studying most of Calculus by the end of the summer.

Reading and Walking

Here are some writings

• Walking in Pudong

• Green City in Shanghai

• Riverside Promenade in Puxi

• Riverside Promenade in Pudong

• The Fellowship of the Ring Book Review

• Peter Pan Book Review

2021-Now USTC

在中科大的一学期

Freshman Year Conclusion

Upon arriving at USTC I was nervous and anxious. There was no excitement or celebration. Maybe my parents had some. I spend most of the times in math analysis and C programming course. I managed to get into L4 in English, the top level, regaining some confidence. I joined the USTC English Club. The first year is largely math and physics courses. I did decent in math(all above 85, 90 and 90 in Analysis) but not so good in physics(74 in Mechanics and 78 in Electromagnetics). I got a GPA of 3.75/4.3 and 14/70 in the first year. I strongly hated the C programming course, not the C programming language, but the way it was taught. However, I did manage to get 99 in the course.

Challenges

One of the major challenges is living in a dorm. All my dormmates played video games and stayed up late. I used to do a lot of work in the daytime and chill in the evenings. I faced major sleep deprivation most of the year due to one of my dormmate setting many alarm clocks on his phone at 6 am everyday. It keep ringing for hours and he would just sleep on and not close the alarms, and it was so loud that I could no longer sleep. I couldn't sleep "early" in the evenings because the lights turn off only at 11:30 pm. And I have to sleep a while somewhere in the afternoon everyday. Despite trying to communicate the problem, he didn't acknowledge it. We didn't talk one word for most of the year. The 2 other dormmates didn't complain, strangely. When I told my parents about it, my father largely dismissed it. My father said "It wasn't a problem and you are not allowed to rent." This strongly broke my trust. My mother got into a depression due to the zero-covid policies in Shanghai in Spring, and said "You are lucky enough to not be locked inside your dorm." It strongly break my trust.

I voluntarily gave up my smartphone since National Day Holiday to my parents. It was not until the covid shutdown in April that forced me to use smartphone again.

At the end of the first semester, in the Taichi exam in PE, I did horribly. While this is minor, my high school horrors came back and I cursed the teacher in the anonymous feedback form. As it turned out, the feedback form wasn't anonymous and I have to write a letter of apology, as well as being stripped of one year scholarships and awards.

Winter Holidays

I studied TOEFL and GRE in the winter, and took a course in Xindongfang. I started heavily watching YouTube in English after the winter holiday, averaging 2-6 hours per day, largely because previously I didn't bypass the GFW and finding this as a way to improve my English fluency to "near-native" level. I started using VPN and knowing the world through YouTube, as well as using Google services and checking social media like Instagram. I took TOEFL and got 109. Then I spent a week and I recited 3000 GRE words. I took the GRE and got 155 in Verbal and 166 in Math.(very terrible in math)

Disillusionment

Random Writings in 2022 (17k words)

Upon finishing the first year, I returned home briefly and returned back to Hefei. I chose math major. Then I got my parents to allow me to rent a house in Hefei to escape the dorm. Due to the zero-covid policy I stayed in quarantine for 7 days. Then I began living alone and I spent the rest of the summer studying math myself, mostly abstract algebra.

In the fall semester I was frequently blocked from the school living off-campus due to the zero-covid policy. My main activities was mainly YouTube, running, and school.

I tried to participate in the first programming competition, and I suggested "using Microsoft Word's translation function" to a teammate who repeatedly complained about not understanding the English and it turned into a cheating accusation and a disqualification for the entire school(though later reversed). As a result, I was asked to write another "apology letter" to the school.

I had a period of intense confusion and depression. I found the focus on cramming and scores to be meaningless and damaging to my passion for learning. This disillusionment was compounded by loneliness, indecision over my major (math vs. computer science), and an escalating addiction to video games. I thought there is no point in staying here for the next semester.

Exchange Year in UC Berkeley

How I Applied to the Exchange Program at UC Berkeley

I applied to UC Irvine and UC Berkeley for an exchange year and both admitted me. Then I chose UC Berkeley.

Switching Majors

I thought computer science major is more useful so I decided to switch to computer science major. Another reason is I didn't like the Differential Equation course and teacher. Then I stopped going to the class and I decided to quit this course, and in USTC you can only quit "non-mandatory" courses, while Differential Equations is mandatory for math majors, and you can only quit/remove the grades after the transfer, which is after the end of the semester. Then I didn't attend the final exam(also I was in US at that time) and I got 0 in that class for not taking the final exam. Then I was quite afraid I couldn't remove the score and I didn't contact the teaching assistant. I only removed that score in 2024.2.

My Exchange Year

Before 2023 I didn't know how to write Python, and the only cs course I took was the stupid C course. In the first semester. I was under concurrent enrollment with low priorities to select courses. School ended at 12.14 and I returned back to Shanghai. I got covid and I went to US with my parents. I rented a single bedroom. Then the semester started.

• Visiting Berkeley High School
• Class is Starting, and I am Getting Ready

I had to take the finals of last semester in US, including 2 math courses (Analysis 3 and Linear Algebra 2), a data structure course, and a politic course, and it ended at 3.1, right before the midterms that semester.

I failed in my attempt to socialize. I chatted with some people on Discord and I tried to get into the clubs and decals. However, most clubs required applying at the beginning of the semester and I had to do the finals of last semester, so I didn't apply.

I first selected the AI course but I couldn't write the Python code. I started to ditch Windows and only use Linux. So I ended up taking 3 math courses which I was more confident in. I took 4 courses, 2 cs(170 Algorithms, 161 Security) and 2 math(probability, abstract algebra). I got an A in 170 and abstract algebra and it wasn't hard. The probability course turned out to be harder than I imagined so I changed it to PNP. I self studied machine learning on Coursera in around 2 weeks in March after the midterms. In nearly the whole April I procrastinated on the second project in the 161 course and I couldn't learn Go and gaming came back again, and everything was all so difficult again. Then I copied code from Github for the project, which is clearly cheating and against the course guidelines, and I failed the course.

In May after the end of the semester I visited Alaska alone. I was really happy, but only briefly, in this period.

• Visiting Anchorage
• Visiting Seward
• Visiting Denali
• Visiting Fairbanks and North Pole

In the beginning of June I received a letter for cheating in 161 so I retook it in summer. Starting in June my circadian rhythm began to mess up, and I was staying up all night and sleeping through the days. In June I learned full stack web-dev and rebuilt my website. Then the summer semester began and I selected 3 course. In the summer I retook the 161 course, and also took 61C(Computer Organization) and 188(AI), but I dropped 61C because the workload was too much. I got A in 161 and B+ in 188.

My parents kept pressuring me to do research but my course grades are so bad and I wasn't confident about myself. I learned web-scraping and redesigned my website.

Then autumn semester came. I applied for clubs again and didn't get in. At this point disillusionment began to surround me again. My sleeping cycles got messed up and I would sleep through the day and stay up all night. I have to select courses again. And I selected 4 CS courses, 61C(Computer Organization), 149(Embedded Systems), 182(Deep Learning), 285(Reinforcement Learning). I was even more overwhelmed over the 4 stem courses in one semester.

I spent some days traveling around in Bart

• Visting Richmond
• Visting San Francisco
• Visiting Oakland
• Visiting Walnut Creek
• Visiting Emeryville
• Visiting Lafayette
• Visiting Concord
• Visiting Ocean Beach

I also began to explore ArchLinux, Grub and Pinephone. But nothing useful came out of it. I couldn't understand 285, and the workload overwhelmed me again. I quit running. In the Friday morning experiment for the Embedded Systems course at 9-12 am, I would stay up all night till 12 am then go home and briefly sleep. I started posting a lot of things on WeChat private moments(which I later deleted) throughout the night, and I started getting a lot more emotional and depressed. I did stop gaming at 10.15 though.

There were projects for multiple people for both Deep Learning and Embedded Systems. In the Embedded Systems course project I didn't manage it well and we ended up piling the workloads till the very end of the semester. For the Deep Learning course, I lost contact with 2 team members and I didn't know what the deadline was, they released the projects too late anyway. I started writing for the final paper for Reinforcement Learning 4 hours before the deadline and wrote complete nonsense. Then I got a flu and I felt terrible. Then I wished the semester was over. I took the CS 61C final and it was a disaster. I tried to extend the deadline for the last 2 projects in CS 61C(basically I did almost nothing in CS 61C in the semester). My grades dropped to B+(182), B-(149), and 2 C+. Then I took the TOEFL right after, and I couldn't sleep the night before again, and I only got 105. Then I walked a while after a night of no sleep in San Francisco, and I went back to Shanghai. I didn't want to go back to China.

Brief Return Home

I booked a weird plane ticket from US to Canada to Japan to China. An incredibly kind San Francisco airport worker reassured me and miraculously rebooked me on a direct flight. I am immensely grateful to her for saving my journey.

Upon arriving at home I spent several days trying to finish the remaining projects of CS 61C unsuccessfully at the end of December, I managed to get C+ somehow.

Then immediately my parents took me to learn driving and correcting my teeth. What I wanted to do was try to review for some of the CS courses, including Reinforcement Learning. My parents took me to the driving school and I didn't like the instructor. I ended up not doing any reviews for cs courses I took. Then I needed to prepare for the multiple-choice exam for driving, and I failed it. My parents laughed and humiliated at me, amused that someone would fail that. I prepared intensively for several days and I was repeating them all the way towards the test center. I took it again, and I failed it again, scoring 89(90 is passing). I ended up sad and I couldn't face my parents and I walked all the way from LuJiabang Road to Nanjing Road to Huangpu River, then up to Fuxing Island alone at night. I thought about all those things that are "beyond my control", like no matter how hard you try you can't do it, yet you are constantly forced into things like these. Then I began gaming again. My parents were worried sick at home because I didn't answer their phone calls. Then I called some high school classmates for an outing and then quickly returned back to Hefei at 1.21.

Catastrophic Failure

Random Writings in 2024 (127k words)

It is wrong to say the exchange year was a failure because only much worse things were to come.

Upon returning at Hefei I was not motivated to do anything. What was I supposed to do? Get an reimbursement for the exchange year, try to substitute the courses I took, select courses for the new semester. My mom suddenly became obsessed with the Stanford program and started to compare me with the top students in my school, questioning why I wasn't doing what they are doing. So I procrastinated all those things. I did get an Invisalign in Hefei though, but I rarely wear it.

I was so disillusioned and I spent the whole week at the start of the semester inside my rented house, ordering deliveries. My garbage piled up so high that I had to throw it away several times. My weight skyrocketed from low 70s to 80 kg. Then I began to try to adjust. I first adjusted my sleeping, and I did wake up pretty early, 5 or 6 am several days, but I was doing only my own projects, which is a full stack videotube with React Bootstrap. I began deep diving into device specifics because I thought they were kind of fun, and a good way to pass time. I applied to the HKUST summer internship right before the deadline when I saw it on the website and I miraculously got in.

Then during those times I took 10 courses (4 CS: Computer Organization, Operating Systems, Database, and Formal Languages, 3 Math: Probability and Statistics, Mathematical Logic, and Math-Physics Equations, and 3 general courses). Why did I take 10 courses? Because I wasn't rational, I was already feeling too guilty. And I couldn't think straight and I had to these courses this semester to graduate in 4 years(because you can't take courses in the last semester I think). Why did I take Computer Organization again? Because I used 61C to substitute the "Intro to computer organization", anyway courses here are a little bit complicated. My total credits are enough but there are so many required courses for each major in USTC. And I did little of the required courses since I spent zero semesters studying CS here.

I thought the school is "crappy", and the courses mainly teach concepts, and I disliked the experiments. I disliked everything. During that time I heavily explored on my own. I don't know what I was doing.

• Self Hosting and Consumer Apps
• Booting LineageOS(Finally)
• Coding a Full Stack Video Platform
• Exploring BSD Incompatible Wireless Card
• Booting PostMarketOS
• Asahi Linux
• Moving My Website to Next.js

And I did only one lab for the Computer Organization course because I didn't want to do the remaining. And I defeated gaming again at 4.7 but it was of little use. I didn't prepare for the exams at all. I was playing with AWS on my own and I stayed up the whole night before the finals playing. I failed 3 courses: Computer Organization, Database, and Mathematical Logic. And the other courses I did horribly too. But I didn't even dare see my grades until after the summer holiday.

Summer in HKUST

Start of Summer in Hong Kong Forgetting D Visa

Some Updates in Hong Kong

The summer started with troubles. I went to HongKong right after the finals, forgetting the D visa completely(because of my declining cognitive state). So I had to go back to Shanghai and apply again I came back to Shanghai and I turned in the last few labs for the Operating Systems course in my school and I ended up getting 60. The professor gave me the task for determining the indoor magnetic fields with data. I was tasked with working on a project with existing code from a graduate student with fundamental errors, including data leakage and flawed logic, and my partner student was uncommunicative and also struggled. My own efforts to apply models like LSTM and Transformers to the problem led nowhere. My sleep schedule became completely inverted, staying up all night and sleeping through the day.

I made a brief attempt to seek mental health counseling at the university, but my mother was coincidentally visiting me, so I canceled it. My father said to me that I need to have papers to apply to universities, but I was already not thinking about applying altogether, I wanted to escape. I started to feel cognitive decline, struggling with simple tasks. I spent most of my time in the dorm, the library, or Starbucks, and didn't go anywhere in HongKong because it was too hot. I felt completely disconnected from other students from my home university. As a coping mechanism, I retreated into what I could control: my personal technology projects. I spent my time setting up my own Mastodon and Peertube servers and building personal web apps with Next.js. But it further isolated me.

The summer concluded not with a sense of accomplishment, but with a deepened feeling of failure, hopelessness, and alienation. I watched the trees outside and I thought about my grades, but I couldn't even look at it. I thought that if I looked at it I would completely break down. Just before I was leaving HongKong, the coordinator(whom I contacted before about mental health counseling) messaged me that she booked a mental counseling for me, and whether I would go or not. So I went to the mental counseling, but it wasn't much help.

Interest in Russian

I began to obsessively dive into Russian media—figure skating interviews, news, podcasts (e.g., Надежда Стрелец), and music (e.g., Bi-2, Pelageya, Kino). I have never been to Russia before. By 2024.5, I could recognize 10-20% of words in sentences, and by autumn 2024, I understood most basic words but struggled with sentence meanings. By 2025 spring, I could understand 80-90% of the videos.

I created a userscript for dual subtitles on YouTube and I watched over 100 hours of YouTube videos with 2024.12–2025.3 (then I stopped tracking), listened to 30-50 Russian songs repeatedly, and followed Telegram channels like "ход коньком фигурное катание" and "Мариинский театр". I improved Russian blind typing from 6 WPM (2024.11) to 50 WPM (2025.4). I created an 860-page Russian-only Wiktionary PDF (2024.9) and hoarded 400 GB of subtitled YouTube videos (2024.9), but found these less effective (Web Hoarding Attempts).

Then I also dived into German language.

• Русский язык и социальные медиа
• Русские видео, которые я смотрел
• Русская песня, которую я люблю
• Русский, альтернатива жизни
• Набор текста на русском языке
• Deutsch Sprache und Medien
• Deutsche Videos Ich Gesehen
• Mein erster Blog auf Deutsch

Losing Weight

Потеря веса

I started to eat one meal a day for over half a year. My weight was 86.3 kg in 2024.11 and 75 kg by 2025.5.

Fall 2024 - Spring 2025: Crisis and Collapse

Random Writings in 2024

This period marks the absolute lowest point of my entire life, defined by complete academic disengagement, severe depression, and a desperate struggle in a system I felt was destroying me.

I returned from Hong Kong and returned to Hefei for the new semester. I still didn't have the reimbursement for the US exchange year, nor do I have the course substituted. I first self-studied Computer Networking. Then I tried to review for the courses in Berkeley again, namely Reinforcement Learning. I still couldn't understand everything after rewatching the lectures, but I did manage to rewrite the lab reports. I selected the Compiler (H) course in school, which is a more than average course for specialized classes. I selected this course because I thought I could manage it. I also selected Digital Circuits, Digital Circuits Lab, Graph Theory, and a politics course, all of which required for graduation. I used my own Markdown platform I developed, which connects with a MongoDB backend, and when you paste an image it automatically uploads the image to the CDN. Then when I uploaded a homework to the Compiler course platform for submitting the homework I found that they rendered my CDN image directly, and that they didn't parse HTMLs, so you can hijack the TA's cookie (it's not Httponly). So I reported it to the TA and they fixed it. Then it was one year since my paternal grandmother died, and I went back to Henan. Then I tried to review for Deep learning course. But I realized I was in big trouble. I didn't even attend one Digital Circuits course or Digital Circuits Lab. Then there was midterm, and I didn't know there was a midterm for Digital Circuits because the first time I showed up was after the midterm. And I did really horribly for the Compiler (H) course midterm. I largely abadoned all my cloud stuff. After the midterm I went to the Compiler (H) course again and the teacher met with me and it was like the first time I been there. The teacher said to me that I should attend the class more. Anyway, I am still grateful to the teacher for talking with me.

Then my parents found out about my failure in the end of November. They came to Hefei and try to intensely intervene and "de-nazify" me. Then I ended up dropping the Compiler (H) course. I proposed a temporary leave from school but my parents rejected that idea. My mother was very angry and disapppointed, and began to weekly visit me in Hefei. My parents wanted me to finish this semester, even while intentionally failing the Digital Circuits course, since there is a chance for a make-up exam in the beginning of the next semester. Then my paternal grandfather died and I went back to Henan again. However, I was largely emotionally detached during the funeral. I got into an emotional outbreak with my father yelling at me again, and I was crying in the room uncontrollably. I didn't turn in almost one homework and I got 60 in Graph Theory.

Winter holiday came again but there was no joy. Then I went back home briefly. My mom said she is really disappointed in me, and that I blamed everything on my parents. I needed to use the winter holiday for the make-up exam for the Digital Circuits course. I tried to study, but then I still failed the make-up exam. I failed another 2 courses in university. I was put on academic probation.

Then spring semester came again, and I finally solved the US course substituion problem and got the reimbursement back. I took 6 courses, one politics, one PE, and 3 courses I failed last year at this time (Computer Organization, Mathematical Logic, and Databases) and Numerical Computing. How are you supposed to study for a course you already failed?

Since I was on probation, I was supposed to meet with a academic advisor. Mr. Jiang, a senior professor, tried to contact me to schedule a meeting, but he always scheduled in the mornings and I always slept in the mornings, waking up in the afternoon, so I "ghosted" him for 2 days straight. His patience and concern were a stark contrast to my ignorance and lack of discipline.

Why didn't I travel to cope with the difficulty and inability to function since 2023.5? Mainly it's guilt and a feeling of not deserving travel (since my academic performance was going downward) and a feeling of "trying to sort through in school, trying to fix myself out before traveling out first" (no matter how unrealistic that sounded). But before I could fix things, the more I tried to do that the more I was actually falling into a worse escape inward. So I ended up not even traveling.

During the May Labor Holiday, I went with my parents briefly to Lake Tai, but I wasn't even happy, partially because I was with my parents. My parents said they had nothing to lose, unless I go insane. They said that even if I drop out of school I should not be mentally ill. We spent a little time in the mountains and I went back to Hefei. Gaming addiction, which I had successfully suppressed for eight months with language learning, came back again. Usually I would sleep through the days and only work 2 or 3 hours per day. I would go to school and do nothing at all in the libraries other than watching Russian/German YouTube. Then I would come back home and do nothing at all again. I could only do tiny amounts of work everyday with strong procrastination.

I finished all the homework for the logic and computing course and missed a few for databases (largely because I was asleep in the morning and it was the only way to hand in homework) and computer organization courses. I still didn't attend much of the Computer Organization course. And now it's the end of the semester again. All around campus, I saw students taking graduation photos, a constant, painful reminder of my own stagnation and failure. I still couldn't finish the labs of the Computer Organization, and I did horribly on the final exam. I feel no energy, no confidence, and seeing no way out of the endless cycle of failure and humiliation. Normal life on my own terms was not possible, it's a wet dream, so I either endure or collapse. To achieve a normal life(as in, minimal anxiety, having the weekends back and freely having hobbies, having social life, good sleeping schedule), I need a "light" and "easy" environment. I haven't had one "easy pass" for almost 10 years.

20250705

Ok, in short I returned home.

Now I am going to look at the scores. The exam scores of the previous fucking semester. Ok, everything I do is wrong. But the scores are there no matter if I look or not.

I would update you after I finished looking at the scores.

I want to find something to cling on. I can't.

Ok lmao only the politics and the PE course score is out, nothing else.