The theme song for the game "Erta Saga: Future" by Zhang Jie. His signature high-pitched voice has incredible penetrating power, and the progressively building chorus melody paired with passionate rock arrangement instantly ignites the listener's fighting spirit. Fourteen years ago, "Contra Online" accompanied countless players through their formative years, and now this "Storm Boy" reawakens those memories of fighting side by side, allowing people to rediscover the passion and courage of their youth through the familiar melody.
Cover Image
Lei Yi that I made with Perler beads and the Lei Yi skin in the game Seer (赛尔号).
Topic: Standing at the Crossroads of Campus and Society
There's about half a year left until the end of my student life. At this juncture, I want to write some reflections to summarize my graduate studies and my thoughts on entering society.
Graduate life has been relatively comfortable for me because my advisor doesn't really understand much and essentially leaves students to fend for themselves. In my second year, I secretly spent my own money to publish an EI conference paper, meeting graduation requirements early. Subsequently, I wrote another paper and submitted it to my advisor, publishing it in a low-tier journal to appease him and demonstrate that I had fulfilled the graduation conditions.
Pursuing a master's degree at a non-prestigious university (双非) gave me feelings exactly as described online: "A master's at a non-prestigious school = a suspended death sentence." Advisors want you to keep writing papers with them as the first author, but the reality is that my advisor does nothing—no funding, no effort, doesn't even read the papers. It was always Teacher Pei who guided my papers. In his eyes, you're just a tool for his promotion, requiring you to continuously produce papers. Even after meeting graduation requirements, he still wants you to write papers; even after your thesis passes the pre-defense, he wants you to write software copyrights. Thankfully, with the help of AI like Claude and Gemini—I remember near the end of my second year, seeing my fast progress, my advisor asked me to write a review article. It was later accepted by a Chinese core journal supplement, but he asked me to withdraw it and resubmit elsewhere (the school doesn't recognize supplements for promotion evaluation 🤪). I've become indifferent to this review article currently under review—I'll procrastinate as much as possible. Besides, review articles become outdated quickly, and this one already has.
Meanwhile, university faculty are like hungry wolves wanting to add their names to your papers for their own promotions. I remember near the end of my second year's spring semester, Teacher Pei told me that a lecturer from the Graduate School wanted to add their name to an accepted paper. What could I do? Just add it—it was a low-tier paper anyway. The absurdity of it all.
Additionally, I feel that few of my lab mates and roommates during graduate school were genuine. They're thinking about competing and freeloading off your intelligence. Initially, I always had an attitude of helping whenever I could, but later I changed—taking care of my own business and only responding to others' inquiries after half a day or so. Although I've recently shown some improvement by being more enthusiastic when helping lab mates and roommates, I'll continue to stay aloof afterward. Don't meddle in others' affairs—if you're not sincere with me, don't expect me to be sincere with you.
Of course, during group meetings and daily interactions, remember to keep a low profile. Modesty or purposeful concealment is a required course for graduate students. Being too aggressive or revealing all your ideas means endless work, and your innovative points might be stolen by academic thieves—those who know, know. I just want to graduate; if my ideas become known to others, it might affect my thesis plagiarism check later.
I've completely seen reality for what it is. The Bilibili uploader "Paper-Churning Programmer" speaks nothing but truth—this is human nature.
Last fall, I participated in recruitment for state-owned enterprises. After passing written tests, interviews followed. Sometimes I didn't attend interviews, and sometimes after interviewing, there was no follow-up. Currently: 0 offers.
I was fortunate to reach the interview stage for the national civil service exam, scoring 4 points above the minimum interview threshold. After the interview weighting, 2 out of 6 candidates will be selected, with a significant elimination probability—I'm mainly just trying my luck. For the Jiangsu provincial exam, I ranked 33rd for my position—didn't make it. I'll continue trying the March 15 provincial exam and public institution exams. If I end up with nothing, I'll just go back to my small county town and find a factory job.
Standing at the crossroads of campus and society, I have confusion and worry, but time always pushes people forward. Keep running, be a storm boy—even knowing the sandstorm is coming, still choose to walk forward holding flowers.
Interesting Finds
I haven't organized my bookmarks for a long time. I used Karakeep before, but its user experience falls short of Raindrop. After browsing for most of the day, I couldn't find any interesting content, so I won't list anything this issue.
Link Shares
OpenAI's "translation-specific portal" makes the translation experience feel more like conversing with AI rather than mechanical conversion. Of course, Google Translate has also been enhanced by Gemini.
IPPure is an IP purity detection platform, mainly for users who need to check IP address quality. Keeping your IP clean is crucial and can mitigate the risk of ChatGPT being nerfed.
This is the Qikawa Perler Beads Pattern Generator—an online tool for converting images into Perler beads (fuse beads) pattern designs.
Quotes
My favorite model right now is Claude Opus 4.5. Paired with Claude Code or Claude Cowork, it really feels like having an assistant.
Happy New Year in advance 🎉! The next issue might be published when I graduate, or during the New Year holiday break from work next year.