I have a feeling this will be a rambling account, but let's just leave it as is.

A Steadily Progressing Research Journey

In fact, I increasingly feel that I'm more suited for industry rather than academia. Perhaps I should be grateful that I chose to pursue an Engineering Doctorate.

Over the past year, my research progress has been quite slow. I've been working on a project for nearly a year and a half without any results yet. The paper text is already written, but I still need to supplement experiments and further improve performance. Unfortunately, there's no server usage time tracking implemented—maybe if I pulled the data, I'd rank first? At one point, I even wrote a script to email me when experiments finished so I could check results quickly, but later I felt the pressure was too intense so I deleted it.
(* ￣︿￣)

Besides my own project, there's also a collaborative project with another lab. At least this year, we successfully encoded an image—yay! But it will still take some time before we have tangible outputs like papers. The professors from both labs are still uncertain about the next direction. I hope they reach a conclusion soon so I can determine the next improvement plan.

I hope to get the paper published early next year, ahhh! Server, please work harder and run faster.

No Poetry, But the Distance Still Exists

Since deciding not to work overtime on weekends, life has become much happier. In 2023, because I wanted to hustle hard (or perhaps for other reasons), I felt I never truly relaxed wholeheartedly. This year, whether alone or with friends, I noticeably went out of campus much more often. I used to think I was quite a homebody, but now I find going out for walks is quite nice too. I visited many cities (Shanghai, Chuzhou, Suzhou, Shenzhen, Hefei, Shaoxing, Weihai, Wuxi —surprisingly, only the first two weren't for business trips), and returned to my hometown twice (Yichun, my bittersweet homeland, yet that nostalgia...). I also explored quite a few places in Nanjing, like walking 30,000 steps in a day to cover all the attractions near Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum.

The reason for this change might be that I bought a used car at the beginning of the year (my wallet instantly flattened), and it all started because transportation in my hometown was inconvenient (plus some reasons why I had to be independent). On the other hand, it's also because I got Jiangsu's Three-Free Card, which allows free rides on buses and subways, and free entry to many scenic spots! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o

However, compared to scenic spots, participating in various events feels even more enjoyable. My favorite event this year was probably ChiliChill's tour—the atmosphere was absolutely amazing! Of course, BA Only was also pretty good.

Whoa, It's a Weeb!

Compared to last year, this year I had more time to detach myself from the phenomenal world and immerse myself in one story after another.

My favorite anime this year was undoubtedly "Too Many Losing Heroines!". While the animation was exquisite, the sense of youth created by the story was also memorable enough. After finishing the anime, I couldn't help but read through the original light novels. I'm Kotsuki Chika's dog! A1, you're not planning to skip a second season for such a great work, are you?! (´；ω；`) Perhaps you haven't noticed, but every time this homepage refreshes, the theme color is one ofYanami Anna,Yakishio Lemon, orKotsuki Chika's theme colors (I might be a bit too obsessed).

I also have to mention "Oshi no Ko", both the first and second seasons were truly excellent anime. But I really can't stand Akasaka Aka—he always hooks people at the beginning, then gets adapted into great anime, but the endings leave people speechless. Although I prefer happy endings, I can accept less-than-perfect endings too (like "Plastic Memories" or "CLANNAD"). But after finishing the second season of "Oshi no Ko" and learning about the subsequent plot, it reminded me of the painful feeling when I finished following the "Kaguya-sama: Love Is War" manga. I'm not that fragile though—either I won't watch Akasaka Aka's next work, or I'll be mentally prepared for the pain.

I didn't watch many movies this year. Miyazaki Hayao's "The Boy and the Heron" as always takes people into the world he has built and conveys a vision of peace. "Spy x Family Code: White", like its anime series, brought me a joyful viewing experience. Honestly, "The Umbrella Girl" was quite regrettable—the story background was too grand but couldn't be developed in just 90 minutes. If they could maintain the same production quality, it would have been better to tell the story in an anime series format. The hand-drawn emotional expression in "Look Back" really struck my heart, and this emotion further made me feel it's a good story, even without a happy ending. I'm talking about you, Akasaka Aka (gnashing teeth)! A short year-end summary and you got a second callback. Perhaps we will all experience separation and loss. No matter how deep the sorrow, time will continue to flow, and life will move forward.

Stay Curious

Recently, a labmate said I have a lot of exploratory spirit—perhaps that's true. New things always attract my curiosity. This year's biggest progress might be starting to learn some frontend knowledge. Actually, I had thought about learning related knowledge several times before, but always gave up because I thought watching tutorials would take too much time. This year, because I wanted to write a Lab GPU Monitor and Electric Vehicle Charging Station Status for my own convenience, I started learning while coding, then improving while learning. On the other hand, it's also because of this personal homepage based on Mix Space and Shiro—I really like this style, but there were still some things I wasn't satisfied with, so I made some improvements with the help of AI and my own understanding. I'll write a blog post to introduce these improvements when I have time.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the mijia-api I wrote was refactored this year and turned into a PyPI package for others to use directly. Since then, the stars have been growing faster. But after all, it's just a simple tool with simple functionality, so I don't expect it to have much impact. Recently there's also been an official Home Assistant integration, and my solution provides a simpler Python interface, so perhaps there's a slight advantage.

Hope to maintain the curiosity for learning next year, with infinite progress.

Hello, 2025

I really like my current life—perhaps it's contentment bringing happiness. I hope to continue this way in 2025. Of course, my research progress has been a bit slow, so I hope to publish some results soon to create positive feedback and give me more motivation to keep moving forward.