Hustling and bustling, by the time I came back to my senses, it was already the tail end of 2024. At the beginning of the year, while there were still slots available, I chose to transfer to the doctoral track in spring, three more years to renew! Now I can no longer just drift along and slack off; I need to take the initiative and think about my own graduation. CCS rejected me, and I changed to submit to Oakland and got accepted, unexpectedly receiving my first first-author CCF A-class paper, with graduation now in sight. In the autumn-winter semester, I became my advisor's TA for the C-Sharp course, helping update slides, answering questions during lab sessions, supervising experiment exams and grading theory papers. Although there was a lot to do, it felt quite interesting too. At the end of the year, my advisor had me participate in a project competition, with short timelines and heavy tasks. Together with brother Lin, I experienced the work efficiency of "two days, one meeting", and realized that if you don't slack off, you can really push progress forward extremely fast (turns out I'm slacking off uncontrollably every day! No wonder progress was so slow). Slacking off feels good in the moment, but it really is empty. You can't keep staring at the things you need to do; whether big or small, you have to start first, and let inertia push it along. In the process, I also learned more convenient website development tools, slide-making and recording techniques, which were quite fun.
Every day I'm busy pushing forward new research topics, and for a while I haven't gotten around to updating my personal blog, which is shameful to mention. Lamenting that my literary cultivation needs improvement, I bought a year's subscription to Sanlian Lifeweek to learn about life beyond campus. Besides that, other paper books need to be put on the reading agenda. There are many things that, if you keep not doing them, gradually you lose the spirit to do them, and they get shelved indefinitely, lacking the catalyst for change. Beneath the calm sea surface, undercurrents surge. Without the bitterness of life, there is also a lack of passion for creation, not to mention any output of words.
I still need to plan early. I need to look three years ahead, focus on actually improving personal abilities, and plan early. At least let me start with summarizing each day to expand my knowledge content, and going to bed and waking up early! Beyond research work, every day I should learn some new knowledge and organize it into notes, improving my personal ability. Going to bed early and waking up early improves work efficiency and protects the body. Starting at age 25, the free trial period for the body expires; after that, I need to pay attention to health. At the end of the year, my physical exam revealed abnormal liver function, and a further B-ultrasound found heterogeneous fatty liver, so I need to exercise more and control my diet. Running in the dead of winter and letting cold air enter the body isn't great, so I joined a ping pong appointment group, and go play every two or three days, which counts as physical exercise.
This year I also met quite a few online friends from all corners of the country, but most of them, after adding as friends and chatting two or three sentences, never sent another message. We only liven up around holidays and festivals by sending happy holiday messages. Read ten thousand books, travel ten thousand miles—from freshman year until now, I've never traveled to other cities just for the sake of touring. Lab classmates occasionally travel to Changsha, Shanghai, Harbin and other places to check in, and it does seem really fun. Maybe one day I too can stop pushing myself so hard, and on a (non-existent) vacation go out and wander around, treating it as overcoming social anxiety.
Something rather comforting is that I can still maintain a bit of spirit. Even though I haven't really accomplished anything concrete, just thinking that I will accomplish these things still excites me. To do a job well, one must first sharpen their tools—these past few days I've repeatedly realized the role of refining the toolchain. Otherwise, blindly working hard everywhere is just inefficient, and doesn't bring much growth. Especially in the AI era, with technology developing rapidly, you must ride the wave and go with the flow. For instance, when investigating the state of a field, previously I'd say to first find a survey for the outline, but now I can directly ask AI to refine search keywords, recommend papers, and summarize the current state. The most important thing now is to race against time, and accomplish as much as possible in as short a time as possible.
Finally, may the new year be peaceful and safe!