To see farther, one climbs higher; yet beyond the clouds, the path disappears.

2024-01-01

Another year gone. 2023 passed with the familiar sensation of having achieved nothing and built nothing worth mentioning.

So: work harder. Maybe this year something will finally get done.

And, well, yes.

The New Year holiday drifted by in a haze, without much reality to it. I did not rest properly, and I did not work properly either. Body and mind both remained exhausted.

2024-01-02

Looked in the mirror. Sigh.

Ordered a remarkably pure takeout dinner at night.

The spicy soup base contained not a single visible chili flake, and the so-called beef rolls were plainly duck rolls. The owner knew it was all industrial food science. I knew the owner knew it. The owner also knew that I knew he knew. I appreciated that honesty. It was far better than those overpriced chain takeouts that use premade meal packs while pretending everything is “freshly cooked on site.”

A modest price, unadorned food technology, a simple meal, and a pure kind of enjoyment.

2024-01-03

So much time has passed, yet when I saw my first love’s eyes again through a screen, my heart still skipped.

2024-01-04

Some two-dimensional characters are dressed perfectly decently, and yet they still look unbearably suggestive, the kind that makes me want to pounce, hug them, and rub my face against them. Why is that?

Damn it. My first love was harassed in Japan by some unpleasant overseas student, so she made her Douyin account private. Now I cannot even quietly look at her posts anymore. Absolutely unreasonable.

2024-01-07

The open space in the basement where I usually practice Vajra Qigong has been filled with random junk. I have no idea where I am supposed to do my radio calisthenics now. :(

“Bird’s Poem” is nowhere near as difficult to play as I imagined, but figuring out how to embellish it and make it shine will take real work.

2024-01-11

These past few days I helped my boss revise evaluation materials for a certain major academic title. It felt like high-intensity prison labor. After almost a week of grinding, the content was finally stitched together with much wailing and misery.

Then today I was thoroughly sabotaged by some design company my boss found from who knows where.

They were pure chaos. The logic of the slides was mangled beyond recognition. Text ran in and out like it had been chewed by a dog. The colors were garish enough for an elementary school project. Most absurdly, key literature citations were shrunk to a tiny font, as though the reviewers must be prevented from reading them. I seriously doubt these designers have ever received any academic training. This money is far too easy to earn.

Their efficiency was also appalling. Slides sent to them two days earlier only came back this afternoon, disfigured beyond recognition. So the underlings on our side then had to merge two days of massive revisions into their ruined version, one piece at a time.

If I failed to restore the specialized terms they had confidently wrecked, I would be scolded by the boss. If I did not change the rainbow-gradient mess back into something consistent, I would be scolded. If I did not have time to fix the font sizes they had scrambled, I would still be scolded. Other people made the mess, but I was the one carrying the pot. I wanted to go over there and give each of those professionally illiterate clowns two solid punches.

After enduring the boss’s anger and painstakingly producing one version of the PowerPoint, the outside company destroyed the formatting, and then I had to be scolded a second time while fixing it again. The entire afternoon and evening were spent cleaning up after them.

We held our noses, corrected a version, and sent it over. The company then returned another deck in which the obvious mistakes we had just corrected had somehow been restored. I could not tell whether they were simply arrogant, whether they had not even looked at our revised version, or whether they had just resent their own garbage with a few random changes. In any case, nothing good was happening there.

I can somewhat understand why my boss was explosive: the deadline was close, everyone had been working late for days, and nerves were frayed. But I am only a tiny shrimp. Having this bucket dumped over my head still felt terrible. If the boss actually gets this title, maybe there will be less thrashing around for the next few years, and the small fry beneath him might indirectly catch a breath. That would not be a bad thing. But judging by the current situation, the odds do not look great. Contradictory, as always.

Still, this is not something an academic untouchable like me needs to ponder. Do what I am told, collect the rice when it is due, graduate on schedule, and that is that. Why so emotional? Getting furious over this kind of thing is honestly immature.

More experience is needed. Once you have gone through this once, maybe you will be calmer next time the same thing happens. Then again, better not to have a next time.

Too much Red Bull made me restless and aggressive. Seeing anyone take pictures of flowers, grass, sky, or ground made me want to stab something.

I am still far too immature.

I was not especially hungry late at night and technically could have skipped supper, but by the time I got off work it was already past midnight. So I ate a revenge meal. But revenge against whom? The damage was still to myself. Fortunately it tasted acceptable.

It was already 3:30 a.m. I had typed a long string of complaints, yet still felt the scolding was not satisfying enough. Perhaps only a real-life duel with the illiterate designer would cure this hatred.

Unfortunately, we live under the rule of law.

Graduate quickly. Work hard to become a parasite.

Looked in the mirror. Sigh.

2024-01-12

A half-baked scholar easily develops unrealistic fantasies about his own output: “Ah, this thing I poured my heart into has been ruined,” and then the emotions begin. That simply means not recognizing one’s place. Whether something is worsened or improved, I am only a worker. I am nowhere near the level of being ultimately responsible. I should simply follow the person in charge and keep the task moving. There is no need for extra feeling. The goal is to complete the job and solve the problem, not to create art.

After receiving the badly damaged slides last night, the postdoc senior sister working with us did not break down like I did. She remained calm and restrained, communicated with the other side, and even forced out a few compliments such as “It really does look more attractive now,” before re-emphasizing our nonnegotiable requirements so the work could continue. That is how a mature person behaves.

I have too much to learn.

2024-01-20

The lower back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain—pain everywhere—has started again.

2024-01-21

After nearly two months, I finally grew a single crystal, but the solved structure was ambiguous: quite different from what was expected, yet not completely unrelated. Headache. Still, at least it is a solid, reliable data point.

After drinking the taurine-enhanced Red Bull, I did feel that my attention and focus improved a little.

Now 2XL clothes feel too small, while 3XL feels too large.

No more sugar-free drinks. They may be harmless, but they do not do much either, and during meals they may even make me think, “I usually drink sugar-free drinks anyway,” and then eat a few extra bites. Better to honestly control intake and exercise more.

2024-01-22

WeChat’s image-and-text handling is idiotic. It forcibly splits pictures and words into separate messages, and even worse, after sending, the carefully arranged order of images and text in the input box gets scrambled. Bad omen.

Setting up equipment is exhausting. Just communicating back and forth with different people in a field I barely understand, confirming needs, and building a workable plan is already enough trouble.

2024-01-23

The solid-state drive dropped out again. Waited an hour, restarted, and it still could not be recognized. Annoying.

Changed the comb on my main harmonica to a titanium one. Afterward I could not hear any difference. But I did discover that disassembling and reassembling a chromatic harmonica is not quite as terrifying as I imagined.

When I keep avoiding starting something, maybe deep down I am still afraid of failure. But what is there to fear? Only by doing the work can problems be found and solved. I should not scare myself into standing still.

Read an excellent light, warm, pure-love yuri sensual novel at night. A soft, cute, mischievous, understanding little fox-girl was simply wonderful. The shifting of initiative back and forth was also quite fun.

Damn it. Why am I not a beautiful girl?

2024-01-24

The hard drive recovered. I really need to think seriously about data backups.

2024-01-25

On the way home from work, an SUV came toward me in an alley with high beams on the entire way. Disgusting.

2024-01-26

The petite senior sister is so cute. Her outfits are far too good.

Unfortunately, at dinner tonight I barely got to speak with her, and she even mocked me for not having a partner. :(

During the meal I also learned that some already-graduated creature had once smeared me by accusing me of lab bullying. How does one make a person like that pay for running their mouth? There is no way.

2024-01-28

I have gotten too fat recently. Need to find a way to lose some body fat. Planning to try running on the elliptical for an hour at night.

Watching anime while exercising should reduce some of the boredom and let me catch up on shows. It took some effort to figure out how to play Blu-ray video on my phone while loading external subtitles, but I solved it in the end.

At night I happened to run into an acquaintance at the gym, and he corrected quite a few mistakes I was making on the elliptical. Good luck for once.

2024-01-29

Unexpectedly, I saw the petite senior sister again at another lab dinner tonight. Today she was cute too: red top, gray little skirt. Her taste in clothes is excellent.

At the table she asked whether I like mature women with a petite appearance, and my brain short-circuited.

These two days I have tried watching Rick and Morty while using the elliptical. When I reached the end of season six, Mr. Poopybutthole also happened to be watching Rick and Morty on a treadmill. Coincidence.

2024-01-30

Before I even got home, my family had already arranged a pile of inexplicable activities for me, without asking in advance whether I had time. Annoying.

I am far too fat now. Every time I see my swollen self in the mirror, I want to punch it twice.

2024-01-31

A very large sum of rice was paid out. Asking myself honestly, this was another year in which I basically did nothing and contributed little to the country or society. Receiving this money made me panic with guilt. This year I really must produce something.

At night I was tripped up by a collaborating senior sister again and had to process data urgently in the middle of the night. Fortunately, it barely met expectations in the end. Working while listening to Bach is extraordinarily efficient. Thoughts pour out like a spring.

2024-02-01

The figures made by the senior sister are hard to describe.

But the project has already reached this stage. The important thing is not proving who is smarter or who understands better. The important thing is collaborating, solving problems, and publishing the paper.

2024-02-02

On the train home, I finally watched the famous Lycoris Recoil. It is a little bad, but not that bad—more like chocolate with some chocolate-flavored filth mixed in.

The background setting is quite poor, but almost every small unit of plot is very good.

A mysterious underground organization controlling everything, highly trained orphan schoolgirl vigilantes, an on-call super hacker—these premises are too edgy and too casual. Meanwhile, the show’s environmental depiction leans toward ordinary slice-of-life realism. The conflict between the two creates a strong sense of dissonance while watching.

It feels somewhat like the uncanny valley. In pure slice-of-life anime such as K-On! or Seitokai Yakuindomo, even if there are unrealistic elements, the audience does not feel uncomfortable. In works such as Fate/stay night or Sagrada Reset, which announce from the start that the world is full of magic, powers, or fantasy rules, that can also be accepted. Lycoris Recoil sits awkwardly between the two. It emphasizes ordinary reality while also deliberately rendering a mysterious, almost cosmic hidden world, and the result feels self-contradictory and confusing.

That said, the plot construction is extremely skillful. The whereabouts of the firearms, Walnut’s employer, the truth of Alan, the green-haired man’s goal—different chains of clues interlock like Tetris pieces. They are buried together without fully overlapping. As the story develops, character relationships gradually clarify, and the different plotlines converge in one place like a satisfying four-line Tetris clear.

The smaller plots inside each route are also excellent: Walnut’s fake death, Chisato helping Takina get revenge, Mr. Yoshi’s fake request, and the photo-based person-finding thread that echoes earlier details. These were clearly thought through.

Conflict is one of the engines of drama. Chisato, Takina, the green-haired man, the Alan Institute, Lycoris, LilyBell—their conflicts interweave and carry the anime forward at high speed. The story is of course human-written, but the viewing experience feels layered. Each character does what they should do from their own position, even when the decision is foolish, because it still fits the setting. A negative comparison would be Arcane, which too often uses absurd coincidence to force the plot forward, as if pushing food into the audience’s mouth while grinning, “Hehe, watch me do a reversal now.” Too strained.

Even so, excellent unit episodes and careful overall structure can hardly save an overly grand worldview apparently built for sequels. Once chocolate is smeared with filth, it becomes hard to eat. Interesting plots become ridiculous under strange settings. I am curious how the later story will develop and hope it will not end in a catastrophic mess like DRXX.

At first glance the show has a bit of a Kyoto Animation flavor. The eyes and facial features have traces of the Kyoto look, and the bright, vivid background art also resembles KyoAni’s style. I wonder whether any related staff were involved.

Mizuki Nakahara, the unserious older-sister type, feels intensely familiar. She easily recalls Asuka from Sound! Euphonium and Sawako-sensei from K-On!. Ami Koshimizu is also impressive: no matter how different the character personality, she handles it effortlessly.

Walnut’s character design resembles Yuko Yoshikawa from Sound! Euphonium and Sanae Dekomori from Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions. Perhaps I simply have not watched enough anime, and KyoAni occupies too much of what I have watched, so everything looks like KyoAni to me.

The portrayal of hacking in this show, however, breaks immersion badly. Supposedly top-tier hackers are repeatedly found in person without explanation. Someone wears VR goggles, waves their hands a few times, and breaks into mysterious organizations through mysterious technology. The second-best hacker in Japan wears a strange helmet and yells all day. It is all too jarring. Still, Walnut is genuinely cute.

Chisato Nishikigi’s character concept is very appealing. I have recorded similar thoughts before: a white-haired, red-eyed, energetic, helpful beautiful girl—who would not like that? Child Chisato is also extremely cute, faintly reminiscent of Klee from Genshin Impact. Yet after finishing the show, I realized I did not love Chisato quite as much as expected. She is too dazzling, too radiant, and that creates a strange distance. I am a damp little rat with little talent, and for no clear reason I resist people who are both overwhelmingly gifted and completely free-spirited. Of course, Chisato is a wonderful child, an ideal all-capable model, and I admire and envy her very much. As an aside, Chika Anzai voices the cool Reina in Sound! Euphonium and here becomes the lively Chisato. Voice actors are amazing.

Takina Inoue fascinates me. She almost feels like the audience’s projection into the show: unfamiliar with the new environment at first, gradually moved by Chisato, throwing that revenge punch at headquarters, and finally breaking down and going all out for Chisato’s new heart. As an ordinary person, I find Takina especially approachable and resonant. Watching through her feels like following her perspective into this strange, magical world. Of course, I remain aware that I am not a competent beautiful high-school-girl vigilante.

Outside the story, the production quality is undeniably high. Scenery and faces remain delicately drawn throughout. Fight scenes are clean and satisfying. The yuri sweetness is thoroughly supplied. A-1’s sincerity can be felt. ClariS’s opening song “ALIVE” is not unpleasant, but it is ordinary and weaker than the ending song “Hana no Tou.” Sayuri’s voice is distinctive; I remembered her from FELE’s “Tsuki to Hanataba.” The two songs are on the same album, so I should try the rest of it when I have time.

Lycoris Recoil had stronger aftereffects than expected. After finishing it on the train and returning home, I remained a little immersed in that bright world of beautiful girls close together, unable to pull myself out, with a faint sense of loss.

Looking forward to season two.

2024-02-04

With the New Year approaching, the washing machine at home broke, so we hurriedly bought a new one. My room also happened to be missing a desk, so I took apart the old washing machine and left only the shell. That is now my new desk.

It seems my boss may have obtained a major title. Excellent. Perhaps from now on we will finally no longer have to write another major-title application.

2024-02-06

Napping in a sunny room while tightly hugging a freshly washed, fragrant, soft, smooth anime body pillow is pure happiness.

2024-02-10

Chinese New Year. These days have been busy every day: visiting relatives, going back and forth, with no time at all for my own tasks.

In the future, when I am at school, I cannot keep thinking, “I’ll finish this after I go home.” There simply is not that much time after going home.

Bringing a pile of work and study messes back home is itself evidence of incompetence.

My six-year-old niece is extremely cute and very lovable. She is obedient, almost never cries or fusses, and as soon as she sees me she sticks to me, asks me to play, hugs my leg, and wants to be held.

Even with such a top-tier human cub, if I had to play with her every day, I truly would not have the patience.

No wonder so many parents choose to hand children a phone or tablet. It really saves a lot of trouble. But is that actually good? If parents can seriously help filter information sources and keep children exposed to healthy, fresh content, it may not be bad. But most people probably do not have that energy.

No wonder so many young people do not want children. Raising one is genuinely hard.

I also grew up from a tiny thing, and I vaguely remember the unpleasant feeling of being ignored by adults when I wanted to do something or express something. So I try to respond to my niece’s ideas as much as possible.

But then again, whether my niece’s ideas or my own childhood ideas, most of them were childish and boring. Responding to them really can be irritating. Contradiction again.

Enough. These are not questions I need to think about carefully, or at least not questions the present me needs to think about. Maybe I am the type who rather dislikes children.

2024-02-11

The air in the mountains is so good and fresh. Air at more than twenty degrees below zero even tastes a little sweet when inhaled.

These past few days have been full of meals and drinking with relatives.

I like quietly doing my own things alone. But the northeastern bloodline somehow also lets me drink a few cups, speak a few words at the table, and feel a little of the so-called family bond in the lively gathering of relatives. I do not really want the trouble, but to put it bluntly, with many elders, every meeting may be one fewer left. They should be accompanied when possible.

This too is contradictory.

Perhaps the contradiction comes from my wrong understanding of Spring Festival. I mistakenly treated the holiday like an ordinary vacation: a period to rest, adjust, and organize myself. In reality, New Year means spending energy at high intensity on social activity. There is no rest.

Before going home I should have prepared myself mentally. I should have held no expectation of “doing something after I get home.” Anything that can be finished outside must not be dragged home, or problems are inevitable.

New Year is exhausting, but maybe it is supposed to be exhausting.

Later that night I played mahjong with my first love. Mahjong is complicated. Fortunately, I had already given her the thing I wanted to give, so there were no regrets.

Maybe I will learn mahjong properly someday.

2024-02-12

The overall situation has not been good lately. After chatting with relatives and friends and comparing conditions, although I complain every day about work being difficult, my own circumstances seem acceptable enough. Of course, people may also exaggerate their misery while chatting.

In any case, I should cherish my current environment and work hard to produce results.

2024-02-13

Today was the most uncomfortable drinking experience I have had.

I slept badly last night, got up in the morning, and drank a bottle of Red Bull to wake myself up. I did not expect to be drinking with relatives so early in the afternoon. Baijiu first, then beer, and fast too. I doubled the damage and confused myself thoroughly.

The total intake was not even that high, probably one cup of baijiu and three or four bottles of beer.

Unfortunately, one relative played tricks. Before the round of toasts was even finished, he drank his own cup of baijiu first, then ran off to sleep in a corner, throwing everyone else’s rhythm into chaos.

Before I had eaten much food, I chugged a cup of baijiu, immediately followed by several beers mixed on top, and got drunk at light speed.

At night I vomited and had diarrhea until even bile came out.

In the future I need to be sharper at the drinking table. I still lack experience and do not adapt quickly enough.

2024-02-15

Pegasus 2 really is a top-tier crowd-pleaser. The plot advances steadily through layers of twists and finally pays off the flag planted at the beginning. There are many small jokes, and quite a few details echo the first film beautifully. I especially liked the part where an obstacle that caused an accident in the first film is used to smash the cooling device.

The middle was slightly sleep-inducing, but overall it is a rare good film.

2024-02-17

I just discovered that I bought my train ticket in the wrong direction. I was supposed to return to Beijing, but I bought a trip departing from Beijing instead.

2024-02-19

On the way back to Beijing, I watched the first season of The Demon Girl Next Door. The relationship between Yuko and Momo is far too sweet. Please get married immediately. Ryoko is cute too. Aunt Seiko is also cute.

The bouncing bass in the ending song is extremely catchy.

I used external subtitles from the Chinatsu subtitle group, and the translation felt a little too liberated.

The dog-walking older sister was voiced by Aoi Koga.

Momo from The Demon Girl Next Door, Kaho Hinata from Blend S, and Noa Himesaka from Wataten!: An Angel Flew Down to Me are all voiced by Akari Kito. Voice actors are amazing.

2024-02-22

Episode six of season two of The Demon Girl Next Door is divine. It neatly resolves earlier suspense while naturally opening the later story. Very smooth.

Momo’s darkened form is both cool and cute. I love this kind of pure-love corruption.

And the scene at the end where Momo finally smiles is beyond divine. Too sweet. Please, the two of you, get married immediately.

2024-02-24

The natural environment in the capital is honestly terrible. In Beijing I sneeze all day, my nose runs, and my throat feels uncomfortable. On the second day after going home, I recovered; on the second day after returning to Beijing, the symptoms came back. :(

The Notepad app in Windows 11 is infuriating. It adds tabs where tabs should never have been added. Every time I open a text file, previous documents jump out together as if attending a meeting. The baffling save mechanism is also impossible to understand: either a document deleted long ago still clings to the tab bar, or changes fail to synchronize and an old version overwrites a new file. Truly cursed design.

2024-02-25

Pizza Hut’s “Little Sweetheart Berry You Can’t” pizza was awful. It was basically a heart-shaped baked flatbread covered in cream, and they did not even cut it. The advertised strawberry bits and pistachio bits were pitifully scarce. It cost 59 yuan. Whoever designed it must have had water in their brain, and so did I for buying it.

2024-02-26

After running at night, I was thirsty and hungry, so I chugged a bottle of iced drink. After returning to the dorm, I ate five or six packs of konjac jelly. Then my stomach started acting up in the middle of the night. Large chunks of konjac churned by my gut kept surging through the digestive tract in waves. Those fictional magical girls forced into bizarre egg-laying scenarios in certain notebooks probably experienced nothing beyond this.

2024-02-29

A rare February 29. Four years ago on this day I apparently left no words behind, though there probably was nothing worth leaving.

This little place has been around for more than four years now.

Sigh. Not much progress.