leilukin-site/feed.xml

194 lines
28 KiB
XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xml:lang="en">
<title>Leilukin&#39;s Hub</title>
<subtitle>Leilukin&#39;s personal website.</subtitle>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/feed.xml" rel="self"/>
<link href="https://leilukin.com"/>
<updated>2025-03-25T13:51:02Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/</id>
<author>
<name>Leilukin</name>
<email>contact@leilukin.com</email>
</author><entry>
<title>Changelog: 25 March 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-25"/>
<updated>2025-03-25T13:51:02Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-25</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Add new mod, &lt;a href=&quot;/projects/videogamemods/kotor2/#Consistent-Bastila-Recognition&quot;&gt;Consistent Bastila Recognition&lt;/a&gt;, to my &lt;a href=&quot;/projects/videogamemods/kotor2/&quot;&gt;&lt;cite&gt;Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II&lt;/cite&gt; mod page&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 21 March 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-21"/>
<updated>2025-03-21T14:05:19Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-21</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;New blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;/blog/posts/2025-03-21-purelymail-online-accounts/&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Purelymail and Online Account Spring Cleaning&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Purelymail and Online Account Spring Cleaning | Blog</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-03-21-purelymail-online-accounts/"/>
<updated>2025-03-21T14:05:14Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-03-21-purelymail-online-accounts/</id>
<content type="html">&lt;p&gt;I have switched to &lt;a href=&quot;https://purelymail.com/&quot;&gt;Purelymail&lt;/a&gt; as my main email service provider.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have been looking for an alternative email service provider to Gmail and Outlook for my personal use for a while, to reduce my reliance on Big Tech services as much as possible. However, price has always been the main obstacle: as an internet user who lives in a country with cheaper currency than both U.S. Dollars and Euro, I need to be conscious about how much money to spend on Western-based products, and I am honestly not comfortable spending on most of the alternative email service providers, especially for the ability to use custom domain names and create extra mailboxes or users for different purposes.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Purelymail, on the other hand, is really cheap: its standard pricing is already as low as 10 U.S. Dollars per year, while offering no hard limits on storage, and no extra charges for using custom domain names and creating extra mailboxes or users. After trying out Purelymail for a bit, I decided to officially activate my account with &lt;a href=&quot;https://purelymail.com/advancedpricing&quot;&gt;advanced pricing&lt;/a&gt;, which is its pay-as-you-go model, because I calculated that my usage would require spending less than 10 U.S. Dollars per year.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I created multiple mailboxes on my Purelymail account with my various domain names for different purposes: for personal communication or registering accounts on online service. This means I changed the email addresses of most of my online accounts as well.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Speaking of my online accounts, I also took this opportunity of changing the email addresses of my online accounts to close and delete the online accounts that I do not use or need any more. Thanks to a password manager like &lt;a href=&quot;https://bitwarden.com/&quot;&gt;BitWarden&lt;/a&gt;, I am able to not only save passwords and generate unique passwords without having to memorise every one of them myself, but also keep track of how many online accounts I have, including ones that I no longer use or need so I can get rid of those accounts. In the end of this round of online account spring cleaning, I closed and deleted at least 60 accounts.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;After inspired by the resurgence of personal websites to code my own website for the first time in 2022, I have learned more about the importance of taking control and ownership of my online life and presence. It is telling that many of the online accounts I just deleted were related to services that I had settled for alternatives that I have been satisfied with.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For example, &lt;a href=&quot;https://obsidian.md/&quot;&gt;Obsidian&lt;/a&gt; has become my go-to note-taking software for pretty much everything, including projects, so I do not need other online project management services for personal use any more; &lt;a href=&quot;https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/&quot;&gt;Affinity Photo&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/&quot;&gt;Designer&lt;/a&gt; have replaced Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for my photo editing and vector graphics needs, especially given the fact that I do not work as a graphic designer any more, so I do not need an Adobe account any more.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, I am satisfied with my switch to Purelymail, and I have found online spring cleaning a good practice in declutter my online life.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Shout-out to Porkbun&#39;s support team for helping me to resolve a DNS issue with the leilukin.com domain name after switching from Porkbun&#39;s email forwarding service to Purelymail that was caused by the DNS records related to Porkbun&#39;s email forwarding being cached in leilukin.com&#39;s DNS records longer than expected.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 19 March 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-19"/>
<updated>2025-03-19T11:10:52Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-19</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;In the website&#39;s RSS feed, changelog items are now linked to their anchor links on the changelog pages, instead of the website&#39;s home page.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;New blog post, &lt;a href=&quot;/blog/posts/2025-03-19-ne-zha-2-impressions&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Ne Zha 2&amp;quot; Impressions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>"Ne Zha 2" Impressions | Blog</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-03-19-ne-zha-2-impressions/"/>
<updated>2025-03-19T11:10:47Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-03-19-ne-zha-2-impressions/</id>
<content type="html">&lt;p&gt;On the afternoon of 18 March 2025, my parents and I went to the cinema to watch &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha 2&lt;/cite&gt; (&lt;span lang=&quot;zh&quot;&gt;哪吒之魔童闹海&lt;/span&gt;), an animated film produced in mainland China.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To be honest, my parents were more excited about watching this film than I was. After finding out that &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha 2&lt;/cite&gt; was a massive box office success in China, my parents were looking forward to its release in Malaysia. As soon as &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha 2&lt;/cite&gt; started to be shown in cinema in Malaysia, my parents talked about their plans to watch the film, and even watched its predecessor, &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha&lt;/cite&gt; (&lt;span lang=&quot;zh&quot;&gt;哪吒之魔童降世&lt;/span&gt;), at home the night before watching &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha 2&lt;/cite&gt; to do their homework.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As for me, I have never paid close attention to mainland China&#39;s entertainment industry, especially when compared to my teenage years when I followed Hong Kong and Taiwan&#39;s entertainment industry closely to the extent of being described as an expert by my mother. Therefore, I accompanied my parents to see &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha&lt;/cite&gt; merely out of curiosity and a desire to see what the hype was, and what made the film such a hit and the highest-grossing animated film in the world.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As a result, after sitting in the cinema for more than two hours and watching &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha&lt;/cite&gt; for myself, my first impression was that the animation and visual effects of the film are truly stunning and full of action as well as tense and dramatic moments. However, I am not a fan of the film&#39;s portrayal and treatment of its female characters.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A &lt;a href=&quot;https://movie.douban.com/review/16499182/&quot;&gt;Ne Zha 2 review by circularuins on Douban (in Chinese)&lt;/a&gt; explains my issues with the portrayal and treatment of women in the film well. If you do not mind spoilers, I highly recommend reading the entire article. Even if you are unable to read Chinese, I would still suggest trying to read it with a machine translation.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I deeply relate to the author when they talked about how beginning to strongly identify as an Asian woman, and realise what that identity means in society, and thus starting to look at films&#39; portrayal of women in a critical eye. This is a big part of why my taste in entertainment media has changed drastically as an adult compared to when I was a teenager. As an adult, I began to learn about the concept of media representation, and how the portrayal of different groups of people—including women—in the media reflects and influences the audience impression of those demographics.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As for the portrayal of women in entertainment media such as film and television, I am particularly tired of and disgusted by the trope of women characters existing mainly or only as sacrifices for the development of male characters. There is even a name for this trope, &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_refrigerators&quot;&gt;women in refrigerators&lt;/a&gt;. This is one of the reasons why I despise the 2023 Hong Kong film &lt;cite&gt;One More Chance&lt;/cite&gt; (&lt;span lang=&quot;zh&quot;&gt;别叫我“赌神”&lt;/span&gt;), which I also saw in the cinema with my parents, and regard it as a major stinker of a film. Unfortunately, the woman in refrigerator trope happens in &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha 2&lt;/cite&gt; as well. Honestly, it is embarrassing and insulting to see these tired old sexist tropes in a hit film in the 2020s.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;All in all, while I can understand, to a certain degree, how the animation and visual effects of &lt;cite&gt;Ne Zha 2&lt;/cite&gt; are a reason for the film&#39;s success, I cannot recommend it wholeheartedly, especially if you have high standards for the portrayal and treatment of women in film.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 6 March 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-06"/>
<updated>2025-03-06T14:36:09Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-03-06</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;New blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;/blog/posts/2025-03-06-attended-42-discovery-piscine&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Attended 42 the School&#39;s 5-Day Coding Bootcamp&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Attended 42 the School's 5-Day Coding Bootcamp | Blog</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-03-06-attended-42-discovery-piscine/"/>
<updated>2025-03-06T14:34:13Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-03-06-attended-42-discovery-piscine/</id>
<content type="html">&lt;p&gt;From 24 to 28 February 2025, I attended &lt;a href=&quot;https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-01-19-attending-42-school/&quot;&gt;42 the computer science school&lt;/a&gt;&#39;s bite-sized coding bootcamp that lasted for 5 days, called the Discovery Piscine.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Originally, when I applied for 42 and passed their online assessment in December 2024, I registered to join their trial bootcamp, named Piscine, on 24 February 2025. However, on 17 February 2025, a week before my Piscine was supposed to start, I received an email from 42 announcing that due to unforeseen circumstances, the Piscine scheduled late February 2025 will no longer take place as planned. Therefore, I registered for the Piscine beginning on 7 April 2025.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the next day, I received another email from 42 that instead of a full Piscine, a five-day bite-sized coding bootcamp named Discovery Piscine would take place from February 24 to 28 instead. I decided to register to join Discovery Piscine, so I could have a taste of what the Piscine is like, and allowing myself to be better prepared for the full Piscine in April.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Discovery Piscine cadets, or Discovery Pisciners, will learn Python and shell, since the computers in their workstations use Linux, specifically the Ubuntu distribution with GNOME as its desktop environment.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I had experience with Linux desktop environments before 42 founded its first Malaysian campus, as I used to dual boot Windows and Linux in my computer, but that happened years ago. Currently, my main method of using Linux is through Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) without setting up any desktop environment. Therefore, Discovery Piscine provided a great opportunity to practice using Linux and shell commands.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I had learned Python before during my journey of teaching myself to code, and I even &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ExcaliburZero/cbpickaxe/pull/3&quot;&gt;contributed&lt;/a&gt; to &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/ExcaliburZero/cbpickaxe&quot;&gt;cbpickaxe&lt;/a&gt;, a Python library for datamining my favourite video game &lt;cite&gt;Cassette Beasts&lt;/cite&gt;. However, Discovery Piscine allowed me to refresh my Python knowledge and practice writing Python scripts, while also learning Python&#39;s built-in functions that I was unfamiliar with. There was an exercise where I was stuck in for a longer time than expect, but then I solved the exercise after discovering the Python function I needed by searching the web with the right keyword.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Speaking of the computers in 42&#39;s workstations, during my last visit to my local campus of 42 on their open day in January, I requested a way to change the computer screen brightness to the campus staff, because my eyes are sensitive to bright light due to me having &lt;a href=&quot;https://leilukin.com/articles/living-with-retinitis-pigmentosa&quot;&gt;retinitis pigmentosa&lt;/a&gt;, and to my surprise the computers lacked the option to adjust screen brightness. The school staff promised to accommodate my request. On my first day attending the Discovery Piscine, I reminded the staff of my request, and a staff member soon installed a screen brightness setting in all the workstation computers, so I could adjust the computer screen brightness to the level I felt comfortable with.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Seeing the school staff fulfilling their promise to meet my request that accommodated my visual impairment has certainly raised my opinion on the school even higher.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;42&#39;s education model is peer-to-peer learning without teachers or lectures, so cadets obtain curriculum materials through 42&#39;s intranet. After we completed a curriculum module, we still book someone else&#39;s time slot to let another cadet evaluate our work. Even if we failed a module, we could retry the module immediately. Cadets also need to set available time slots, so others can book our time slots for evaluation. When I evaluated other Discovery Pisciners&#39; work, I often provided tips for improving code and alternate ways to solve the exercises.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The fact that 42&#39;s curriculum has no teacher encouraged us to learn through searching the web, and it certainly helped that there have been a lot of resources, including free ones, to learn to code. 42&#39;s curriculum reminded me of how I started to teach myself to code for this reason, with the added bonus of learning in a physical coding school and meeting other people who were also interested in learning to code.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There were 10 modules of Python exercises in Discovery Piscine&#39;s curriculum, and I managed to do all the exercises, though not all of them got evaluated because of time constraints, and 42 only considers you having completed a module after you pass peer evaluations, so I ended up completing 5 out of 10 modules. However, this also earned me a certificate of completion after I graduated from the Discovery Piscine.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Despite already having programming experience — including &lt;a href=&quot;https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-08-18-from-hobbyist-to-professional-web-developer/&quot;&gt;professional experience&lt;/a&gt; albeit &lt;a href=&quot;https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-12-16-leaving-my-first-developer-job/&quot;&gt;a short one&lt;/a&gt; — I find 42 a good school for me. I am looking forward to the full Piscine in April.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 23 February 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-23"/>
<updated>2025-02-23T09:14:37Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-23</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Create page for my &lt;a href=&quot;/links/mass-effect-le-mod-list/&quot;&gt;&lt;cite&gt;Mass Effect Legendary Edition&lt;/cite&gt; mod list&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 21 February 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-21"/>
<updated>2025-02-21T12:54:36Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-21</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Create pages for my mod lists for the &lt;cite&gt;Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic&lt;/cite&gt; series for my &lt;cite&gt;Star Wars: KotOR&lt;/cite&gt; shrine:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/shrines/starwarskotor/resources/kotor1-mod-list&quot;&gt;Leilukin&#39;s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Mod Build&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/shrines/starwarskotor/resources/kotor2-mod-list&quot;&gt;Leilukin&#39;s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Mod Build&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 17 February 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-17"/>
<updated>2025-02-17T10:10:52Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-17</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Add buttons to copy code snippets to pages with code blocks. Credit to ttntm&#39;s article &lt;a href=&quot;https://ttntm.me/blog/adding-a-copy-button-to-code-blocks/&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Adding a Copy Button to Code Blocks&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt; for the JavaScript code to implement the buttons.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 12 February 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-12"/>
<updated>2025-02-12T01:41:35Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-12</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Launched my new &lt;a href=&quot;https://fan.leilukin.com/programming/&quot;&gt;fanlisting for computer programming&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 10 February 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-10"/>
<updated>2025-02-10T12:31:30Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-10</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;New article: &lt;a href=&quot;/articles/love-letter-to-myself&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;A Love Letter to Myself&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>A Love Letter to Myself | Articles</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/articles/love-letter-to-myself/"/>
<updated>2025-02-10T12:31:26Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/articles/love-letter-to-myself/</id>
<content type="html">&lt;p class=&quot;center-text&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://32bit.cafe/vday25/&quot; class=&quot;inline-img&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://leilukin.com/assets/images/articles/love-letter-to-myself/32bitcafe-partyforone.png&quot; alt=&quot;I am my own Valentine! - 32-Bit Cafe &amp;quot;Party for One&amp;quot; Code Jam button&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://32bit.cafe/&quot;&gt;32-Bit Cafe&lt;/a&gt; is hosting a code jam for Valentine&#39;s Day 2025, titled &lt;a href=&quot;https://32bit.cafe/vday25/&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;Party for One&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;, as the theme is making a digital Valentine&#39;s Day gift dedicated to yourself. After much consideration, I decided to take this opportunity to write a love letter to myself, as a Valentine&#39;s Day gift to myself and a reminder of my self-worth.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Dear Leilukin,&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You and I go way back to the beginning of your life, and we have stuck with each other through thick and thin. There is so much I want to tell you, and I hope by writing this letter, you will appreciate how much I cherish, admire and respect you.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You have come a long way since your childhood and adolescence. You have grown from an insecure child with low self-esteem after enduring years of bullying at school, desperate for external validation and other people&#39;s approval, to an adult who takes pride in who they are and does not care about what others think of them. Therefore, it is unsurprising that you said that while adulthood certainly has its challenges, you do not miss being a child or teenager, and you actually enjoy being an adult.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I know very well that your self-confidence did not come easy, and it did not happen overnight either. After being traumatised by years-long abuse from a secondary school bully and later a personal betrayal from someone who sided with said bully, whom you thought was your friend, you went on to struggled with trust issues and lack of faith in yourself throughout your early adulthood, even though you never met those people who hurt you the most again, until you attended therapy when you were approaching your late 20s. With your therapist&#39;s help, you learned that life is like a train, with the people you have met in your life as your passengers, and after the people who hurt you and vandalised your train left, you can choose to redecorate your train and welcome new people in your life who would treat you better. Learning this metaphor was what finally made you learn that it is not worth letting the people who hurt you to continue to define your life.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I am proud of you for figuring out you are a queer, autistic, non-binary lesbian on the asexual and aromantic spectrum as an adult, despite the lack of queer and autistic resources and media representation when you grew up. It is fortunate that you encountered online queer and autistic communities and resources that helped you figure yourself out, but at the end of the day, it was you who decided to take active steps in understanding yourself better, so you know how to live your life better, and to not be afraid to be different. When you were a kid, fellow students in school had bullied you for being a socially awkward and friendless &amp;quot;weird&amp;quot; kid, but normality is a social construct, so your worth as a person is not determined by how &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; you are perceived by others. You are unique, and your uniqueness is worth celebrating. You do not need to rely on someone else for your happiness, either.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The self-worth you spent years in building up has also given you the strength to accept your &lt;a href=&quot;https://leilukin.com/articles/living-with-retinitis-pigmentosa/&quot;&gt;retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis&lt;/a&gt;, as you understand that the possibility of losing sight is not the end of the world. Queer and disability pride in the face of a cisheternormative and ableist society is an act of rebellion. Being a non-binary lesbian who refuses to conform to traditional gender roles is also a defiance to a patriarchy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Learning to look after your well-being and to set boundaries are crucial for a happy and fulfilling life, so I applaud you for making decisions out of consideration for your well-being, including:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Going to therapy to improve your mental health;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Leaving an openly anti-gay church to join a queer-affirming one;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Switching your career path to web development, a field you actually feel confident and interested in doing, after being burned out from graphic design as a profession;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Seeing an eye doctor to get diagnosed with your eye problems;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-12-16-leaving-my-first-developer-job&quot;&gt;Quitting your first web developer job&lt;/a&gt; when it is clear that your web developer skills were not valued by your employers enough, and the job will likely make you more miserable in the long run if you stayed.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, I admire your spirit of treating learning as a lifelong process, and understanding the importance of thinking for yourself, by keeping yourself curious and not being afraid of learning new things, while remaining true to yourself, by standing firm with your convictions to be kind and striving to be authentic.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Together we will live the best life we can possibly have. No matter what happens, I will always love you.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Love,&lt;br&gt;
Me&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>Changelog: 9 February 2025</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-09"/>
<updated>2025-02-09T14:58:38Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/changelogs/2025/#2025-02-09</id>
<content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;New blog post: &lt;a href=&quot;/blog/posts/2025-02-09-my-first-smartwatch&quot;&gt;&amp;quot;My First Smartwatch&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
</content>
</entry><entry>
<title>My First Smartwatch | Blog</title>
<link href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-02-09-my-first-smartwatch/"/>
<updated>2025-02-09T14:58:32Z</updated>
<id>https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2025-02-09-my-first-smartwatch/</id>
<content type="html">&lt;p&gt;I just received my first smartwatch: Xiaomi Smart Band 9.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://leilukin.com/assets/images/posts/my-first-smartwatch/my-xiaomi-smart-band-9.avif&quot; alt=&quot;Close-up photo of my left wrist wearing a black Xiaomi Smart Band 9 smartwatch, with the screen on and displaying information about time, date and health.&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This Xiaomi Smart Band 9 was a free gift from my father&#39;s purchase of Redmi Note 14 Pro 5G. My mother had bought the same Xiaomi smartwatch for herself a while ago, so my parents gave this new one to me. Since the &amp;quot;mi&amp;quot; (&lt;span lang=&quot;zh&quot;&gt;&lt;/span&gt;) in Xiaomi&#39;s Chinese name &lt;span lang=&quot;zh&quot;&gt;小米&lt;/span&gt; also means rice in Chinese, my parents jokingly referred to my father buying a new Redmi Note smartphone as &amp;quot;buying rice&amp;quot; (&lt;span lang=&quot;zh&quot;&gt;买米&lt;/span&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My parents and I have been Xiaomi customers for years since we purchased our first Redmi Note budget smartphones. My current smartphone is Redmi Note 13 Pro 5G, so I used my Redmi smartphone to set up my Xiaomi smartwatch as well. Yes, the photo above of me wearing Xiaomi Smart Band 9 was taken with the camera in my Redmi Note 13 Pro 5G.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As I have entered my 30s, my parents have encouraged me to do my best to take good care of my health before it is too late. Recently during Lunar New Year, my eldest paternal aunt commented that I had gained weight since the last time she saw me nearly a year ago. I never considered getting a smartwatch before, but now that I have one, I may as well make good use of it by keeping track of my health information, so hopefully it will help me to stay healthy.&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
</entry>
</feed>