2010 Year-End Summary

It’s Christmas, but it has nothing to do with me. The Christmas atmosphere around me is just something the merchants have carefully packaged. If they could make money off Ghost Festival in July, they wouldn’t hesitate to package that too. In a few days it’ll be 2011. Looking back at the entire past year, my 2010 didn’t bring many surprises.

This time last year, things weren’t much different from now. I was busy dealing with exams, spending every day on the sunny rooftop reading while sunbathing, then muddling through the tests. I bought a train ticket and, together with a high school classmate who’d come here to study with me, we couldn’t wait to head back to Chengdu. After arriving, despite being exhausted from the overnight train ride, I called my parents to say I’d arrived, dropped off my luggage, and went with him on the bus to Chunxi Road to buy clothes. First, because Chengdu is much colder than the south, and second, because he was heading back to his hometown. I still remember the salesgirl at Gap looking at us in disbelief as we tried on clothes wearing just a jacket and a T-shirt. We quickly explained we’d just returned from out of town. A few years ago, a middle-aged couple was shopping at my mom’s store. Seeing how lightly they were dressed, I said, “Uncle and auntie, you’re so tough!” Their explanation: they’d just come back from Hainan.

After buying clothes on Chunxi Road that day, my classmate went home. Finding work during winter break in Chengdu is easiest. My plan was to do some temp work at Carrefour. Since my mom works there, it would’ve been easy for her to get me a job. But Carrefour only needed people for moving stock and cashier positions. I didn’t have much strength and wasn’t quick with my hands, so I didn’t go. I stayed home surfing the internet, watching American TV shows, occasionally hanging out with relatives and friends. A few days before Spring Festival, I went back to my hometown alone, catching a ride with a relative of a relative. He’d just gotten his driver’s license and bought a car, so he didn’t dare drive on the highway. My uncle helped drive, and I got to see my cousin. I was speechless when he showed up in a military ambulance to pick us up. The remaining national highway had to be driven by this new driver relative. Sitting in his car made me break out in a cold sweat from nervousness, though he was even more nervous than me. Now, from my perspective, even though I haven’t gotten my license yet, I think he doesn’t drive as well as I do. Riding in his car, swaying back and forth, swaying back and forth, after a long time I actually made it home alive!

My youngest uncle and aunt, who’d been living away for years, chose to come home for the New Year—that’s also why I went back. More people means more lively, and the grandparents would be happy. Actually, there’s hardly any New Year atmosphere in the countryside anymore. First, most young people in rural areas work or study elsewhere. Those working in Guangdong far away don’t have enough money for train or plane tickets, nor the energy to endure China’s characteristic Spring Festival travel rush. Better to stay at the factory and get double overtime pay. People living closer usually take the elderly out for the holiday. These reasons leave the countryside without much energy. Second, the lack of people means merchants don’t bother decorating for the festive atmosphere. It was better when I was a kid—I would never have complained about lacking New Year spirit back then. A few firecrackers going “pop pop pop” and the atmosphere was complete. Their New Year tradition is playing mahjong and Dou Dizhu. I don’t know how to play either, so I felt helpless. I thought about going to the county town to find classmates to hang out with, but it always came back to mahjong and Dou Dizhu. No choice. Even though I say there’s no atmosphere in the countryside during New Year, I’ll still go back this year. This time I must bring my dad’s laptop and wireless card.

After the New Year, I stayed in Chengdu for a while. One time—seems like it was the day China Heavy Industry listed—I was watching the economics channel with my dad. The news was reporting on China Heavy Industry’s listing, and we started talking about the stock market. My dad said China Heavy Industry would probably rise. As we talked, he said, “How about I give you ten thousand yuan to buy stocks?” I’d never had that much money in my hands before. Afraid of losing it all, I only took five thousand. Together with Da Tao, I went to Guosen Securities to open a shareholder account. The next day, when Jinan Securities hit the daily limit down, I bought all in. In the afternoon, Jinan Securities was inexplicably pulled up to limit up. That day I made over nine hundred in profit. The third day it rose a bit more, with peak profit over a thousand. In the end I only made eight hundred. This was my first stock trading experience—completely accidental. Good thing I didn’t buy the China Heavy Industry stock my dad mentioned, otherwise I would’ve lost badly. With the mindset that losing a small amount wouldn’t matter, in nearly a year of stock trading, I haven’t lost money, but I haven’t made much either.

Soon I returned to school for the second semester of sophomore year, occasionally playing with stocks.

The second semester of sophomore year was as calm as still water, listening to teachers talk nonsense and classmates brag. Later I got obsessed with building websites. Although I’d registered my first .CN domain and second domain from GoDaddy back in ‘09, I didn’t actually start building sites until April or May. I started with HTML, learned CSS, then after understanding a bit switched to the easiest-to-learn PHP. From there I moved on to CMS programs. Unfortunately, I still haven’t accomplished anything. This blog of mine has lasted the longest and is the only program I somewhat understand. Saying “persisted” isn’t quite right, because I’ve already decided to keep writing this blog indefinitely—whether I persist or not doesn’t matter. Now I have four domains and can’t bear to abandon any of them. This blog has been renewed until May 2012, and I’ll renew the others too. I have a forum made with Discuz, domain PZHU.NET. With such a good domain and Baidu homepage ranking, having no energy to promote it is also a source of frustration.

After going through the exams I hated most, I took the train—no hotpot, no little tunes—and entered vacation overnight. My Summer Day.

My summer vacation experiences: went to Jiaotong University twice, had Da Tao take me around his Wangjiang campus at Sichuan University, went hiking Qingcheng Mountain with my cousin and wrote “Qingcheng Mountain Travel Notes,” helped another younger brother and a younger sister buy computers, cooked dumplings and noodles with my brother at noon, helped my dad with budgets every night, watched “The Big Bang Theory,” went to bed at 1 AM. Didn’t go to Chunxi Road to shop, didn’t visit any malls. The place I went to most was taking the 45 bus to Moziqiao Computer City. Near the end of summer break, using some money I’d earned plus some from my dad, I bought a phone—HTC HD MINI. Didn’t expect they’d release a G9 with the same appearance later, otherwise I would’ve waited. The afternoon I went back to school, the ink cartridges I’d ordered from JD for my family’s printer finally arrived and my mom picked them up. She had a lot going on that day but had to stay home waiting for the JD delivery, constantly complaining that I insisted on buying things in such a troublesome way. But she didn’t seem to realize it was dozens of yuan cheaper than buying at Moziqiao Computer City.

Then came the first semester of junior year. Looking at the schedule, it seemed like I had quite a bit of free time, but that wasn’t the case. There were fewer regular classes, but after-class assignments were more than any previous semester. Much of the textbook content and practical work needed to be completed after class—hours and hours of homework time, troublesome and exhausting. One memorable thing this semester was my trip to Dali—see “National Day Travel Notes” for details.

In the second semester of sophomore year, I’d already had the idea of buying one book per month. I actually started doing it at the beginning of junior year and will keep it up, hoping to have many, many books in the future. At the start of junior year, I wrote down several work goals for the semester on my blog. The semester still hasn’t ended, but I’ve already failed at some of them.

That’s about all that happened. My 2010 year-end summary ends here too.