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Tag: Reflection

2023 Lookback (English Version)

Dual language post warning!! Chinese version is over here. 雙語po練中文!中文在這裡。 Coming to Seattle from Austin was already two years ago! The last time I wrote such a long reflection was Thanksgiving 2019. It’s about time to reflect a bit on life and the past two years. Thoughts on Moving to Seattle I came to Seattle in September of 2021. At the time I thought Return to Office was happening soon, so I made plans with the company to move in September.

2023年尾回顧 (中文版)

Dual language post warning!! English version is over here. 雙語po練中文!英文在這裡、簡中在這 裡 。中文如果有可改進的地方請致郵vincent (at) vincent-lee.net指點指點或者私信我。謝謝你的反饋。 不知不覺,從奧斯丁來到西雅圖已經是兩年多之前的事了。上一次寫長篇的回顧已經是2019年感恩 節了。夠時候再回顧一下人生,說一下對過去兩年和未來 的感想。 剛來到西雅圖的感想 我是2021年九月到西雅圖的。當初以爲公司快要Return To Office就跟公司約好九月搬過去。公司福 利豐厚,幫我把私人物件包括衣服、電腦、印刷機等都送到西雅圖並且在當地租了一個暫時公寓,再請了一 位顧問幫助我找長期住宅。這些服務都是免費的。 在奧斯丁最後一天是九月九號,當晚出去跟大學音樂俱樂部幾位朋友吃了一頓道別餐。回家的時候二家 姐做了Crème brûlée甜品給我們吃,還記得那時候我內心各種感想冒起,沒吃幾口就不吃了。希望二家 姐沒以爲我覺得她做得不好吃,其實非常好吃,每一口都包含着家裏對我的愛…… 次日就飛去西雅圖。那天藍天白雲,非常的美。當晚跟有緣一起到西雅圖工作的兩位大學死黨John和 Ben吃火鍋洗一下塵。之後就這樣在離辦公室不遠的臨時公寓住下了。 這段時期印象最深刻的一天是九月二十一日,中秋節那一天。白天沒什麼事,就在公寓裏工作,但晚上 覺得節日不做點事應節總感覺不太對,於是乎點了杯奶茶,把吸管插進杯蓋的同時打電話給媽媽。 那時候臥在沙發聊的瑣事都不記得了,只記得聊着聊着言語突然就停留在喉裏,再也說不出來了。媽媽 也沉默了一下,然後問了我一句「是不是哭了?」。可笑的是我那時候並沒有哭,但被戳了這一下當場 就淚水盈眶了、說出想家的種種言語。媽媽接着說「離開家人就是這樣的啦」,我這才明白長大離巢的 感覺。之前2018和2019都在西雅圖做過三個月實習,那時候並沒有什麼思鄉病,因爲知道夏天結束之後 一定會回到家。這次反而區區十二天,心內已經非常想家了。 次日是九月二十二日,是我疫情期間第一次踏入Facebook Seattle的辦公室、找到自己的桌子並且工作 起來。當時公司還在分A/B組輪流進辦公室以免病毒散播,室內也還強制戴口罩的。之後陸續的找到長 期的公寓入住,年尾也回家過感恩、聖誕兩節。 爲了防止這博文變得又長又臭(後記:結果還是變得又長又臭……), 之後2021—2023年具體發生的事就不多說了,只想談談一些比較 大體的感想。其實這些感想都亂七八糟的,並沒有整理得很好,只是想用最單純直接的說法表達出來而 已,有所不善請見諒。 關於工作 我是2020年畢業,當年八月在奧斯丁老家裏開始遠程工作的。那時候在家裏飯米住宿都是爸媽提供的,疫 情之外生活其實蠻輕鬆的。我加入Facebook之後直接回到2019實習時候的組。比起遠程重新認識新同事, 我是比較傾向回到關係人緣已經建立好的舊隊去。 剛畢業進Facebook的軟件工程師都是第三級的 (E3)。拜我實習學到的技術所賜,我沒一年就升到E4了。 搬到西雅圖之後再過半年就升到E5了。Facebook的體制是有點獨特的,E3和E4的員工強制在指定時 間內升職(每級給兩年),到了E5就可以選擇停下來或者繼續拼。如果指定時間內升不了職就幾乎可以 拜拜了。我非常幸運有老板看起,隊裏也有項目做,比我自己想象的快就能達到E5了。 2022剛達到E5還沒半年,年尾11月Facebook進行了前所未有的大裁員,幸好那次和今年春天兩次都沒砍到 我,但我還深刻地記得11月裁員前一天下午我們附近的人都舉辦了一次「臨時Happy Hour」,因爲明天 不知道誰還能在這裏工作了。那時候我問了大家一遍「被裁了會做什麼」,大家的回答都挺有意思的。 有的說會休息半年,有的想去旅行,有的想做遊戲,有的卻想對電腦以外的愛好衝刺一下。我就在後者之內。 2023年頭經過一次burnout(職業倦怠)。2020年畢業之後沒能好好地旅遊一番、遠程開始工作的過程、 Facebook的「強制升職」體制、2022年尾的裁員種種事情都讓我對工作的熱情消去了一半。但與其說是 消去所有熱情,更是讓我和工作找回一個健康的平衡。我二三月休息了一會兒之後跟老板說想轉組學學 新東西。我這位老板很體諒我的情況,幾個禮拜後就順利轉到現在的新組。 這都是想說,我終於明白了工作不是人生的所有,而且對工作之外篇碼各種活動越來越不感興趣。我還 是喜歡電腦的而且不會在上班時間過分摸魚(畢竟是Facebook,大廠的員工還是必須拼的),但在 辦公室充分發揮完這份喜愛就足夠了,回家一點不會去想工作的事情。人生除了工作之外還有很多很多 值得去發掘和享受的事情呢。 放下的重要 我2013年就已經開始寫「我的世界 (Minecraft)」的非官方模組(mod)了。其實各種角度來看可以說是 「我的世界」的模組把我帶進電腦、篇碼這個業界,重重地影響了我的事業路途。隨着時間的推移我也 開始跟比較大比較有名的模組合作,大學的錄取信也專門指出我這些業餘工作特爲突出。

Retiring from and Reflections on Modding Minecraft

Well, here it is. It’s been an open secret within the Violet Moon Discord and community that I would be retiring from modding Minecraft soon, and here is the announcement. This comes exactly 10 years from the day I publicly released my first mod (the timing wasn’t a coincidence, I saw it while writing the post and decided to release it today, as a nice whole number). I wanted to spend some time reminiscing about my journey with Minecraft and modded, and where things will go next from here.

Vocal Music I've Been Enjoying in 2023

It’s the end of the year, which means my stories on social media are flooded with Spotify Wrapped posts and similar “lookbacks” from other services. Unfortunately, I don’t use Spotify (or is it fortunately?), so I’m missing out on the action. To deal with the fear-of-missing-out (FOMO), I thought I’d write a blog post about some vocal music, new and old, I’ve been enjoying this year. This is a rarity because most of the music I listen to is non-vocal, video game music, but on the plus side that means I appreciate the vocal music I do like a lot.

Thanksgiving 2023

I’ve gotten lazy and not done any Thanksgiving post for three years(?!), which says something about how those years have just evaporated and blown past in the wind. I feel bad about missing so many, so here is one for this year. It’s two days late though, oops. I’m thankful… For my parents and siblings. Moving away from home in 2021 has made me much more conscious and intentional about maintaining our relationships with regular video chats, a siblings group chat, phone calls etc.

Thanksgiving 2020

I forgot to do my usual Thanksigiving list yesterday, but it’s a tradition I’ve been holding myself to since middle school, so I had to do a make-up today. Nothing complicated this year, no essays, etc. Just a simple list of the people and things I hold dear. I’m thankful for… My parents and siblings, who have lovingly cared for me over the last two decades and more. My continued good health.

Thoughts on Renaming Master

GitHub announced several days ago their intention to rename the master branch on the main GitHub interface. This stirred up some thoughts I had about this and renaming “offensive” technological terms altogether, so I decided to make a post. Disclaimer Let’s get things straight first. I respect the rights of all people to be who they are, and support diversity efforts in technology. Please don’t go around claiming I hold extremist views as a result of the very narrowly-addressed opinion here.

This I Believe (2017 archive)

I just finished my final presentation of my entire BS and MS career on Tuesday, so I’ve been going through old school files and cleaning them up. Today, I came across a short piece I wrote sophomore year for a Dean’s Scholars seminar on happiness and positive psychology. The topic was just to write a short piece about something you believed in. Enjoy! The last line is a quote from Nichijou, by the way.

UT Class Commentary

It’s my tenth and final semester at the University of Texas at Austin, so I thought I’d rage a bit comment on which classes I enjoyed the most and least. This will be a random discussion, and won’t exhaustively include every class I’ve ever taken. Perhaps some current UT students will find this of use. I’ve separated them into three major tiers. “Low tier” are the classes that I despised or were an absolute joke.

Thanksgiving 2019 Reflections

TLDR: Life updates and musings from the past 5-8 years. In order: CS, Music, Life, Future Plans. Feel free to skip parts that don’t interest you. Looks like I’m going to be graduating soon. This semester, my class load has been substantially lighter, which naturally leaves me lots of time to reflect on my feelings about the past 4+ years at UT and high school (and also to play games). I thought I’d write it down, so if you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to, or you got tagged, here’s your one stop shop to find out.