The Four Seasons of 2021
It’s surprisingly hard to find a selfie when you’re a homebody going through your photo album.
I dyed my hair a flashy red at the end of last year and wowed everyone. Then I shaved it all off mid-year and wowed everyone again. Now I’m back to being an ordinary adult male with natural curls.
Work, Study & Life
Not much changed at work (mostly due to laziness). The first half was spent on a confidential project — mainly coding and computer vision stuff, not much to do with graphics. The second half was the usual graphics work.
This year I also read a fair amount of books, articles, and took some courses. Key progress:
- Physics engine algorithms and usage
- Can now write shaders using Unreal and Unity node graphs
- Learned some interesting genetic algorithms and AI agents
- Some plane geometry
- Circuit theory and probability
(Looking at this, it feels like I made zero progress.)
I spend most of my time at home, but I did sign up for a flower arrangement class. My feminine side leveled up!
A business trip took me to Chengdu, where I ran into cold weather and rain — but ate plenty of great food.
Back in Shenzhen, an online forum friend came for an internship, and we happily had several meals together and talked plenty about galge 👏
Organized a Christmas gift exchange and ended up with a Genshin Impact mug 😁
🌟 Oh, and at the end of the year I built a PC with a 3080Ti. Weekend gaming sessions at home just got a lot more enjoyable.
My luck was remarkable this year:
Ordered curtains, and Alipay randomly comped the full order.
Opened only my second CSGO case ever and got a knife.
Reading
The Nature of Code — I’ve loved Daniel Shiffman’s Coding Train videos since university. Read through this on a weekend; very content-rich.
Thinking in Complexity — found this interesting back in school and finally pulled it off the shelf this year, only to discover the Chinese translation was terrible. Abandoned it.
Artificial Intelligence for Humans — saw that the third volume came out in Chinese and bought all three to read before bed. Finished volume one, halfway through volume two.
Cats, Einstein and Cryptography — read the ebook back when I had a Zhihu membership; bought a physical copy this year and reread it. Great popular science, especially the early chapters.
Living Only What Is Necessary — skimmed through it quickly and left a Douban review that read: “Are you trying to tell me what to do?”
Detective AI and Criminal IA — Hayasaka Rin’s AI detective series. The first is reasonably fun; the second falls a bit flat.
Drone Detective — I assumed from the title that a criminal would be using drones to commit crimes. Turns out it’s a tiny detective who uses drones to investigate cases.
Spirit Medium Detective — Aizawa Sako’s new book following the thigh genius. I’ll forever love Shiratsuka Hisui!
The Young Inspector — my coworker glanced at the cover and thought I was reading BL 🤣
Song of the Goat — bought this after finishing Mangekyou 4 last year. It sat on my desk for a year while I occasionally flipped through it.
Inherit the Stars — I rarely read hard sci-fi, but this was genuinely good.
Nettaijuu — Morimi, GOAT.
A few Otsuichi short story collections — plane, subway, and restaurant waiting reads.
Picture books and manga: read a few Junji Ito volumes from the Shinsei Publishing imprint.
Finally read Made in Abyss, which a coworker gave me the year before. Now I understand why she gave it to me.
Communal Sisters wrapped up. Confetti time 🎉
Saeki-kun was a pile of 💩 — dropped it.
Read volume 1 of The Gambler — pretty decent.
Blackmailed by My Student — loli-con, Sagara So, worth reading!
Read The Assassin because of the anime adaptation — boring, but it works as a sleep aid.
Anime
This year was again mostly light slice-of-life stuff.
Anime I’ve watched (bangumi.tv)
My high school politics teacher screened two seasons of Prison Rabbit in class; I finally watched the rest. Also remembered my middle school French teacher showing Barbapapa — maybe I’ll catch up on that this year?
The Detective Is Already Dead — I’d been seeing fan art of the female lead on Twitter for over a year. The plot is wild, but watching it to the end was… okay, actually.
HELLO WORLD — a sci-fi animated film. Enjoyed it at the time, but I barely remember it now.
Adachi and Shimamura — a wonderful, well-crafted slice-of-life story.
Lupin III Part 5 — always loved the Lupin series; Ami is great.
Films
Films I’ve watched (douban.com)
Didn’t make it to the cinema this year. Everything was watched on the couch at home via projector.
Snowpiercer and Cube — both films I’d seen partially as a kid, now finally completed.
Escape Room — the sequel came out, so I watched the original first.
The Omniscient Detective Agency — I own the source material but haven’t read it. I expected episodic mysteries; it turned out to be one long continuous arc. Sticking with it was worthwhile.
The Blue Planet (animated series) — enjoyable, and the live-action version wasn’t bad either.
Games
Steam Community :: Aspi_RIN (steamcommunity.com)
Didn’t finish many games this year. Plenty of popular titles where I only got through the opening.
Early in the year played a domestic Chinese game — a solid experience.
Catherine — phenomenal music. I listen to its soundtrack and Horizon’s OST at work all the time.
Watched someone play through the Spider-Man game. The story was… nonexistent.
Bright Memory — looking forward to the costume DLC in the new year 🤩
Twelve Minutes — watched a playthrough halfway through.
Got a VR headset and played some minigames. Honestly, the graphics don’t feel like a major leap over the original VIVE.
Some small puzzle games, plus the visually stunning ABZÛ.
2022 Resolutions
In the new year I want to do more things I actually enjoy — like drawing (I’m putting down the keyboard!).
Keep learning, keep reading, keep practicing sketching, keep exercising.
I’ve read so many books, so I’d like to work on my writing craft — stop starting every sentence with “and then.”
Declutter. Ruthlessly toss things I don’t use and sell books I’ve already read.
…And go to the dentist.