Week 8 - Material Desires and Wishes

November 21, 2025 Weekly en-US

Table of Contents

Another Midterm Season, Let Nature Take Its Course

In a new college year, my mindset has changed. When the people around me were anxiously discussing the borderline scores for postgraduate recommendation, I surprisingly felt somewhat indifferent. I want to just let nature take its course... or rather, my life has mostly been like this anyway. Where exactly does "change" happen? Macroscopically, I merely maintain a sense of awe for every DDL (deadline); microscopically, true changes are often hidden in the scrolling of the timeline, unable to be captured by the coordinates of this moment. So let's just continue to let nature take its course.

This is also my secret to being able to drift with the tide and write a blog right before a midterm DDL~

Generally speaking, I'm not that lively. It's just that things have been going smoothly lately, so I managed to briefly capture some sparks, record moments of happiness, and then organize these moments into this "Weekly" that updates every two months.
This is destined to be a fleeting state.
But leaving behind the happiness of this moment might also be very meaningful.

Switch your language | 将语言切换

After switching the system language to English, the whole phone felt much cleaner due to the "sense of unfamiliarity." I heard about the post saying "switching phone language to English removes Bilibili ads," so I gave it a try. Although Bilibili's splash screen ads remain stubborn, there is indeed much less interference from pre-roll ads.
But more importantly, I fell in love with this inexplicable Modern feel of the phone interface.

Suddenly it felt like it turned into an international phone! And there is no barrier at all to using those software apps daily!
And for Bilibili, besides fewer ads, you'll find that all big data is now measured in "K" and "M". Then the time also changed to a 12-hour format!
Of course, I also experienced many things I never noticed in the past, revealing my traits of an uneducated illiterate (丈育):

It turns out "comment" isn't limited to the full word "comment"; just "cmt" is enough.
IP addresses changed into English. I haven't touched this kind of practical, common-sense English expression in so long that looking at Shanxi and Shaanxi, I have to pause and think for a moment about which is which...
Here's an even funnier one: when I copied a package tracking number, my Xiaomi Dynamic Island popped up an "open Cainiao". I thought Cainiao was some high-class Italian-style word, even thinking the English name for Rookie Parcel Station (菜鸟驿站) was pretty good. Only one day did I suddenly remember, isn't Cainiao exactly "Cai Niao" (Rookie) Parcel Station...

However, there are drawbacks too. Social software like X, Instagram, Xiaohongshu, WeChat, etc., will synchronously change their language and automatically adjust your "Translate" target language to English. Even if you are reading Chinese, they will thoughtfully append a "translate" option below. Coupled with English's relatively lower information density, the pages actually appear much more cluttered than the Chinese version.

Very interesting. All in all, occasionally switching your phone's default language is a very good idea.
Unfortunately, my barren linguistic vocabulary only supports me using Simplified Chinese and English. This "interestingness" depends on one's level of cognition of the non-native language. When I know absolutely nothing about that language, relying entirely on guessing to glean a vocabulary's meaning when using it, this kind of thinking grinds away the joy of perceiving expression. Languages like Russian, French, or Arabic would be like this.
For languages I'm relatively familiar with, I also tried changing it to Japanese, thinking it would be fun to string together "Pseudo-Chinese" by recognizing Kanji. But—"Who can understand a screen full of Katakana!" 😱...

Doing something like changing the default language is probably used by most people in their daily lives out of a desire to "learn this language well." But experiencing it yourself, you find that setting aside the strong objective of "getting to know the word corresponding to the vocabulary," and simply feeling the expression tied to the vocabulary—the purity of this novelty is enough to feel the joy of a language.

The Disenchanted Material Desires of a Coming-of-Age Ceremony

I want to give myself a gift for my 18th birthday! So I'm hesitating between buying the Switch—which I've wanted since high school but never bought—or the Bluetooth headphones that I really want to replace right now.
TWS headphones are just consumables. The Sony WF-1000XM5 noise-canceling earbuds I want to buy don't have very good reviews, and the XM6 version will come out next year.
Thinking carefully, I'm always obsessed with buying the previous generation's flagship...
Should I buy the Switch then? So hesitant...
Strange shopping desires are born again. I feel that every year during Double Eleven (11.11) or 618 shopping festivals, consumerism is wrapping around me...

In the end, I still didn't buy the Switch that is destined to gather dust, but gathering dust is only a small part of the reason for not buying it. Another reason is that the games I want to play on Switch are probably highly online games like Splatoon and Animal Crossing, which also requires buying a Switch membership! Plus, no one plays with me 🥹!
I finally placed the order for the XM5 anyway... but my heart aches...
Spending money bought me heartache, why is that... 😱

It arrived!
Me, belike, after test-listening to a whole favorite album:

Reflecting on it afterwards, what I bought is no longer a "gift", because a "gift" does not need to consider practicality. So whether I bought new headphones or a Switch, I would always have a tinge of regret. This is probably also why I'm still unhappy after spending the money.

Flipper Zero

Similarly, I've been tortured a bit painfully by the Digital Circuits and Logic Design course recently. But I found that, putting aside the analog circuit content that makes me suffer, I am still interested in the "circuit design" part. It's a bit like building Redstone circuits in Minecraft; triggering different switches can piece together very incredible things, which surprisingly gives me the joy of building Lego.

Of course, this doesn't mean I yearn to solder boards; I am just a bit less repulsed by hardware.
Since I started noticing the fun of hardware, I began to fantasize: Are there any ready-made "toys" that can satisfy my curiosity? Thus I accidentally learned about Flipper Zero, this Hacker Tool nicknamed a virtual pet! Besides being able to clone wireless signals to open card-locks, moreover... maybe it can save me from the trouble of swiping my water card? 😂

However, the 1000 RMB price tag of the authentic basic version of Flipper Zero still made me flinch. 1000 bucks is enough for me to swipe my water card and take showers for four years. Plus, I'll probably only be passionate about it for three minutes. After finishing this electronic circuit course where the teacher sleep-talks through classes, I don't know if there will be an opportunity to pick it up again. (Maybe not...)

Upcoming 18th Birthday Wishes

On my 18th birthday, I might go to Xi'an to participate in a competition. I want to see snow, so I formed another wish.
I remind myself as usual, plans can't keep up with changes, and I cannot predict what the future will look like. Under a chaotic system, I cannot predict whether it will snow in Xi'an, nor can I predict whether I can even get to Xi'an.

Update: The original plan was to be able to go participate in that competition, but now the organizers temporarily changed their minds and opened another preliminary round...
Just like everyone discussed before, plans fall far behind changes. And today, I cannot even ascertain whether I can go over there.

There are simply too many uncertain things in the world. I hope the 18-year-old me will never know how my 18th birthday will pass. Imagining and predicting what will happen in the future countless times—when the result truly collapses into a determinate state, it carries too many variables that have already changed.

Moreover, I've started falling into ♾️ cycles of doubt. A remark on the internet magnified my fear:

Ten years later, you find out you didn't become a very awesome person, and you no longer believe you can become such an awesome person...

Perhaps it's knowing that I'm destined to slide towards this kind of ordinariness that I started doubting myself again. What wraps around me more is "the fear of being unable to realize the ideals of the past 18 years." My wish for my 18th birthday this year should be: May the 18-year-old me no longer be afraid of the past 18 years.

As I get to know more and more netizens on campus, perhaps some people are also curious about where I hang out. Generally, when I go out, if I'm not in class, I'm hanging out with kittens or birds or small dogs and big dogs.
Of course, most of the time is spent sleeping in bed in the dorm. In this winter...

If you see a fool on campus wearing a black cat hat, wearing a red scarf, blowing in the cold wind, that should be me.

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