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If you see this, it means that I’ve not fully started working on my grad school application yet, as this is the procrastination. But anyway, hope everything is going well for you! Let me know what’s going on (if you want, of course. I’m happy to hear more. It would still be nice to say hi )

I also procrastinated this for almost the entire November. I hoped to finished this before working on my writing samples. So, by the fact I just got this done, I haven’t been able to work on my paper neither.

Here are the brief summaries of what I’ve done/gone through:

1) Work : I’m still alive after 60 days of working. Congratulation! My coworkers are nice, and my bosses sometimes are hard to grasp but they are nice as well.
1) Note: I work as a data analyst intern in a mid-size game studio in Beijing. My job is mainly just using SQL to make tables and reports for my designer colleagues. I can’t imagine myself designing the game I’m working for (for it is moneymaking and evil). So I’m only working on the data part. Plus, it can be very argumentative to prove a point with data compellingly.
2) Note 2: I want to work on games, but I’ve not gotten any chances to. I’ve some game ideas. Which I will work on. I promise.

2) Auditing Class in Beijing University: This is one of the best things happened to me after I’m out of school to go. I’ve learned a lot, and it has also kept me sane from working. So, I really appreciate the person who let me audit and the person who introduced me to this
1) Note: for the sake of privacy, which I’m more or less very obnoxious about recently(explained later), I’m not putting names here. So, treat this as if you know, you know type of writing.

3) Nietzsche Reading Group: Me and two more friends reading Nietzsche. We just finished Beyond Good and Evil, hooray. My reaction to Nietzsche’s writing: What the hell is he talking about😭😭 Wow, he is so right😎😎What the hell is he talking about😭😭 Wow, he is so right😎😎 (in repeat)

4) Dating: The fore-mentioned person dumped me, lol. Almost 365 days later I was dumped last time. To point out a few reasons for this time: someone is overly anxious(namely, me), lost interest(not me), not ready for a committed relationship because of the current life stage(not me). But anyway, however sad it was, I think I learned something I otherwise wouldn’t know about myself in the end, so I guess it’s not bad. And I started seeing a new person(fortunately or unfortunately).

5) Learning Ukulele: by the time I’m writing, I’ve sort of stopped, because of what happened at event No.10. But anyway, I found playing Ukulele, despite it being dramatically small in my arms, was cool.

6) Writing short poems: Inspired by the Japanese Poet Ishikawa Takuboku, I started writing my own short poems in Chinese. Most of the them are just about slice of life. But they are in Chinese. I will show them to you if you ask though.
1) Note: Ishikawa Takuboku (to my experience) was a very creative and sensitive poet. He passed away at a very young age. Some of his poems are in the appendix.

7) Blood Donation: I donated 400 cc. That’s was it. I wanted to do that in the States but they wouldn’t let me for the first three years. Donating blood made me feel I’m more connected to the world.

8) Workshop on Games& Education: It’s a 50 people size workshop hosted by Mengfei Liu from Beijing Normal University. It’s like what Phil 11005 did – make playing games a part of the teaching. But I had a sense that the people at this event are treating play not as play anymore…

9) Trip to Guangdong: My sister is making an indie game – Meowzic Survivor. It’s a music-based roguelike game. She was invited to host a booth at a culture market in Guangdong to show case, but she got too busy. So, she sent me there. Guangdong is nice, I didn’t want to come back to Beijing anymore. But anyway, wishlist my sister’s game!

10) Sickness: I became sick and weak the week after I came back from Guangdong. Take care.

11) Grad School Applications: This is going. Good luck to me and whoever is applying this year and reading this part. I need to come up with a new writing sample. But that’s manageable, I wrote the entirety of this document in one sit through, so I can probably finish that in four sit-throughs 😤😤.

The End

Hew, it was still a lot. I suppose I do can talk a lot. Hew.

Sometime last month, I ran into a very subtle way of answering “What kind of people should do philosophy?”. It goes like “the kind who always doubt themselves, but nonetheless devotes themselves to philosophy.” It reminds me of Socrates and Nietzsche, as the counter-example though.

Sometime in November, on my way back from work to home, I was thinking about that I stopped “doing philosophy.” In some sense, outside of the auditing, most people around me do not seem wanting to engage in a philosophy discussion. Even though I do discuss with someone, the conversation couldn’t last long.

Take this to say that I miss Philosophy Club, and the philosophy department.

Here is one thought I had and I couldn’t have a conversation about. What does it mean to keep a secret? To what extent does it count as breaching the trust or oversharing? Should we keep secret at all? And when does it becomes a dedicated lie?
These thoughts were generated after I wrongfully and unwillingly conveyed some secrets.

And I also read Nussbaum’s article The Professor of Parody(1999) attacking Judith Butler. I don’t think she had a very charitable reading about Butler, but reading the complains about the bad writing in the beginning was so much fun.

Anyway. Thanks for reading this far. Wishlist my sister’s game (or ask me for the demo). And please say hi and stay in touch! Love and Peace. And happy Thanksgiving or not, depending on if you are American.

Appendix

Ishikawa’s Poem

From: Takuboku: Poems to Eat, 1972,Takuboku Ishikawa (writer), Carl Sesar(Translator).

–
I talked
casually
you listened
the same–
that was all

–
somehow
tomorrow will
be better —
yeah, sure…
I go to sleep

–
accidentally
broke a teacup–
reminds me
how good it feels
to break things

–
doctor says
‘Well now,
tired of living?’
I keep my
mouth shut

–
wife and friends
must think
it’s pretty sad–
sick, I keep talking
of the Revolution

–
wrote GREAT
in the sand
a hundred times
forgot about dying
and went on home

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