The First Day of Primary School
A parent’s account of enrolling a child in a Shanghai primary school, from online registration and document verification to preparing supplies and watching him enter the school gate on his first day.
The Last Days I Spent at AUST
A personal account of the final days at AUST: a failed postgraduate interview, adjustment applications, graduation defense, gratitude toward teachers, and a quiet farewell to campus life during the pandemic.
I Took Advantage of 618 and Built a Desktop PC
A first-time desktop PC build during the 618 sales, from choosing an i5-12600KF and 4060 Ti to learning the hard way how the power switch actually works.
Renovating a Home from the Ground Up
A practical guide to starting a home renovation, covering style decisions, hard renovation budgets, contractor communication, designer input, construction supervision, and final inspection.
How WordPress Pulled Ahead
Why WordPress overtook Movable Type: licensing, installation, PHP, community momentum, Automattic’s migration push, and Six Apart’s strategic mistakes all played a role.
A Spring Walk Through Chenshan Botanical Garden
A spring visit to Shanghai Chenshan Botanical Garden, from fading cherry blossoms and blooming wisteria to the Quarry Garden waterfall, blue flower fields, and the park’s surprising history.
Maybe “Boyishness” Is What Remains After a Part of Him Died
An introspective essay on developmental arrest, shame, childhood humiliation, and the kind of “boyishness” that may be left behind after a part of the self shuts down.
A Practical Java Developer’s Toolchain for Faster Coding, Debugging, Testing, and Delivery
A practical guide to 17 Java development tools covering IntelliJ IDEA plugins, Lombok, Arthas, JProfiler, SonarQube, JaCoCo, Postman, OpenAPI Generator, DBeaver, Flyway, Gradle, Docker, CI/CD, PlantUML, and knowledge management.
How Elasticsearch Places, Replicates, and Updates Documents Across Shards
A practical explanation of how Elasticsearch routes documents to shards, coordinates primary and replica shards, handles writes and reads, and performs partial updates safely.
A Late-Night Phone Habit, a Sudden Glaucoma Attack, and a Close Call With Blindness
A real-life acute angle-closure glaucoma scare shows why using a phone in the dark can be dangerous for people with narrow angles, shallow anterior chambers, or other risk factors.