Winter 2025 Journal¶

Began 2025-01-09

At the end of the last three semesters at UMich, I wrote course reviews for each one that I took. The problem is they pile up and by the time I write them I don't really remember the experience of misinterpreting the course, which can be really helpful for people about to take it. So, since I plan to make myself a chill schedule this semester (famous last words), I'm gonna take another approach: I will keep updating a journal for non-trivial courses, aiming at a weekly/once every two weeks-ish frequency.

In addition to courses, I will keep track of my grass-touching endeavors as well.

Courses I enrolled in¶

Unfortunately, all the courses I'm taking are EECS.

Those I enrolled in initially:

• EECS 461: Embedded Control Systems
• EECS 330: Antennas and Wireless
• EECS 201: Enrolled because I needed exactly one credit
• EECS 491: Distributed Systems. Not sure to drop or not. Eventually did not drop.
• EECS 493: UI Development. Dropped because (1) I'm not doing web dev for a living and (2) it involves "AI prototyping".

Get In Loser, We're Spamming North Campus With Furry Club Posters¶

(and a select few Central locations as well)

On 2025-01-05, Rix and I spammed the following places with ~100 furry club posters:

• BBB 1F-4F
• Dow 1F-3F
• GGBL 1F-2F
• EECS 1F-2F
• Duderstadt 1F
• Chrysler 2F
• Art & Architecture 1F
• Walgreen Drama Center 1F
• Bus stations @ Pierpont (N553, N551)
• A cylinder outside Weiser
• CCTC (C250, C251)

By the end my legs were sore.

We were thinking of internationalizing the "I want YOU for the furry club" posters (which got me into this club in the first place). Here's my efforts:

For German, I originally translated word-for-word, but a couple native speakers said it sounded unnatural, so I took their advice and used "wir suchen dich", which sounds funny to English speakers. The Dutch was courtesy of Dante and Purple.

Rix did Korean, and we've got contributions in Japanese and French.

Live Caption Badge 2: Electric Boogaloo¶

On 2025-01-07, I attended the first 370 staff meeting of the semester with the live caption badge under my jacket. Present on the meeting are Mark Brehob (473 professor) and Abhi (473 GSI). Unbeknownst to them, I had repurposed the LCB to something way cooler: a badge you can control with your phone over BLE. You can also show slides, and that's what I did. I made a presentation on my achievements this winter. They were impressed.

Turkey ambush incident and Wing Snob night¶

On 2025-01-10, I was surrounded by a pack of turkeys when exiting CSRB. Fortunately, I have my bicycle. The certainty of steel sent a chill of intimidation down their bird spines, and they dared not attack. Or they just didn't wanna, idk. Point is I made it away without casualty.

In the evening I went to the UMix event at Mich Union with my furry friends Fox and CJ, and we got ourselves some free chicken wings and fries. We fucked around the Union, going places I never heard of.

Later, Fox took me to his office in East Hall. His research area is psychology of sex. We hung around in the building, playing Foosball and table tennis until like 11:30, then we walked around, joking about the ridiculously posh Ross buildings, had an intermittent snow ball fight, and I hitched a ride home. It was the first time I "partied" past 00:00. Yes I do consider this a party.

I Recorded These Songs 11 Days Before My Next Therapy¶

Listen on Faircamp

Tracklist: "The Daily Mail" and "Idioteque", both Radiohead covers.

Alex hit me up, "hey you wanna come record songs again?" I said sure and booked 3 hours, and he booked 2.5 more. Given the amount of time, we're chill and under no pressure.

Both songs were politically charged, partly in response to John Moolenaar's letter to Santa Ono convincing him to end UM's partnership with SJTU, and Ono pulling the plug. I will now omit the reasons why this is stupid.

Anyway, the news did not go easy on me. It was the first time in the US that I felt genuinely threatened. It took me more than a year to finally find a sense of belonging, as far as declaring Ann Arbor my "Heimat 2", and some dipshit goes "no you don't" and forklifts it away.

How many fucking credits do I even need¶

Had a panic attack calculating the number of credits I need to graduate SJTU… If this was low enough I could apply for reduced course load in my last semester at UM and pay less tuition. But it's a bit on the nose right now. Juggling emails between JI and UM is not easy.

Maybe I'll just not drop 491? It's gotta be the most expensive course I'm about to take, but Brian Noble is one of my favorite professors… At the same time, the workload… I've never wanted to clone myself so much.

Get In Loser, We're Spamming Central Campus With Furry Club Posters¶

Fox and I headed to the northwest area of Central Campus on 2025-01-16 and vandalized the following buildings:

• MLB
• North Quad
• Thayer
• League

LCB. Agent of Chaos.¶

On 2025-01-19, I brought the LCB to the furry meeting. In the first hour, I managed to implement the animation feature. It worked on the first try, which never happens. Anyway, in the second hour, I demonstrated the image-over-BLE feature, which resulted in various chaotic images. Two of such images were shared with Rix, who responded with "What the fuck". I consider this an approval.

“I am a furry now. Cope.”¶

On 2025-01-23, I finally came out as a furry to folks in the creative writing group. I've been planning to do that since the day I showed them the GERMAN 231 Zine, but it would have been unoriginal if I just told them. Cue the LCB.

I made the slides below (six preamble slides not shown), converted them to LCB format, and flashed them in.

Transcript

Slide 7

Recap: Zine from 231

• 5 anthropomorphic animals depicted
• 2 depictions of myself as an animal

Fig 1. Illustrations from my Zine.

Slide 8

• “[Pelz und Pfoten] sind […] toller als die Haut und Hände”: should raise eyebrows

Slide 9

[Intentionally sloppy Word Art] IIMPORTTANT personality update

Slide 10

I am a furry now

• cope

Slide 11

• Actually since last September
• >160 members in student org
• Self-describe as “spiritual furry” with so-called “financial responsibility”
• $ 51.66 spent to date

Slide 12

• Fursona: Mosfet
• Black cat
• Sounds familiar?
• [partner] is also furry, causality unknown

Fig 2. Depiction of my fursona.

Slide 13

50% of my total creative energy will be diverted to This Stupid Cat

[Intentionally bad chart] Fig 3. Pie chart that shows 50% of my total creative energy being diverted to This Stupid Cat

Slide 14

Flyer Spammers Task Force

• Spammed 8 buildings on North
• 4 on Central

Fig 4. Poster design for furry club. Credit: Rix.

Slide 15

[Intentionally sloppy Word Art] thakn you for listebibng

Fragen
DAZU?

Everyone loved that. Favorite segment of conversation:

Me: [on slide 11] Any questions?

Laura: Let me guess. Cat.

Me: [flips to slide 12]

Thicc Racc¶

On 2025-01-24, I was doing a prelab when I randomly decided to check if they got UMix that night, just like the Wing Snob night, and they did. What's better, it was on North Campus, so I don't even need to take the bus.

The event promised free food and make-your-own-plush. Hmm.

I got there ~10 minutes early, and half a hundred people were already queuing up. When the time comes, I followed them into the plushie room. Everyone loves plushies.

Four designs were available: Owl, llama, blue dragon, and raccoon. All of them are hella cute. But I just couldn't resist the fluffy tail of the raccoon.

I was given a bag of polyfill to stuff the raccoon with. I was so inefficient that any factory would fire me. I also messed up the zipper thing. Anyway, say hello to Crispy:

I'm not saying having one more plushie magically solves all problems, but hear me out,,,

Chinese New Year AI Slop Incident¶

On 2025-01-29, I walked into Bursley dining hall for dinner. I spent 20 seconds deciphering this image:

I showed it to my English-speaking friends, and none of them spotted the problem. Later I showed it to my parents, and my mother, who speaks native Chinese, failed to detect it either at first glance.

The problem? The AI did such a good job coming up with plausible chinese characters that it forgot to check if they're real. Like c'mon, you had one job…

Snow¶

We had heavy snowfall around 2025-02-13. That morning I walked to North Campus, greeted by a mountain of snow.

That night on my way home, I made a snowcreechur and wrote "fuck nazis" in a patch of snow.

Cat Ears & Mosfet Figurine¶

2025-02-16 was my most efficient furry club meeting: I finished my pair of cat ears from last week and painted a figurine.

Free Books¶

On 2025-02-17, I just finished my 461 lab and was heading home. I walked past the ECE office and saw piles of free books. This attracted me instantly.

I flipped through like half of them. Most of them were older than me. One of them was older than my parents. (It's about Fortran.)

I felt something rigid inside the back cover of a book. "Oh cool, a CD," I thought. It was a floppy.

After a long struggle and hesitation, I yoinked Tanenbaum's Computer Networks (3rd edition), with the goofy jargon puns on the cover.

4 Minute Warning¶

Most other Radiohead songs are about someone dying. This one is about everyone dying. From a nuclear fallout, missile strike, or any manmade disaster of your choice. And in the current state of the world, almost all disasters are manmade.

This song gave me an existential crisis. It made me realize that dying of old age may be a fantasy. I'm sure a hopeless death is worse than an abrupt one.

The radio goes, I imagine:

This is your warning
Your four minute warning

This is equivalent to saying, "Get ready to say goodbye. Though I really want to help you, I can't. I can't live much longer." A warning — not a hostile one from the enemy, but a helpless one from your own side. That's what makes it unsettling.

The song is sonically comforting, like a lullaby — that's the precise reason it's scary. No panic, no tempo change, no crescendo, just peace. Resolve back to I. It's like comforting a child in the blasting sirens, assuring them everything will be alright, while counting your death.

For some reason, this image floats to my mind whenever Thom sings "laying flat on the ground":

Side comment: when a conservative "thinks of the children" while supporting fossil fuel, they have, not a single moment, thought of the children. Fuck you.

Spring break trip to Lake Huron¶

I met Fox in South Quad on the Thursday before spring break and he invited me to CJ's lake house. Saturday around noon, Max drove me there. It took around three hours. I brought some beer (which I drank), some capri sun, and all three of my plushies. It was the first time I had a sleepover at anyone else's.

On Sunday, CJ and I took a 6km-long walk on the frozen beach. Enjoy a photo:

Spring break trip to Detroit¶

Alex and I met up on 2025-03-06 (my birthday), and we made up a plan to visit Detroit the next day because he's never been there. So we hastily bought tickets and found some places to visit.

Via the QLine, we headed to the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), and the Historical Museum. The latter was sort of a bummer because a lot of the exhibits were under maintenance.

After the museums, we found we had a whopping four hours left before our bus home. Alex suggested we go to the island on the east side of the map. Belle Isle, it read. It's so far away. Surely we couldn't make it there and back in time?

Long story short, we went there and checked out a botanical garden with a lovely lady and a cat named Pavo.

Detroit actually has a competent bus system and we were able to ride 4 hours for just 50 cents each. OK nvm I love Detroit now

Anyway, after the Belle Isle tour we still had like two hours. So that's when we decided to go to the Ambassador Bridge — on the west side. More buses.

There was nothing to see there, other than trucks hurtling down. We found some benches by the Detroit River. It was chilly but nice.

When we were finally back downtown, we took the People Mover, almost a full loop. I love public transit.

Bicycle flat tire (twice)¶

I rolled my bike into Common Cycle for general over-the-winter maintenance. We lubed the chain, fixed the brakes, great. The next day the tire was flat.

I checked out a pump from the Dude. It inflates. The next day it was flat again. I rolled it in Common Cycle. We couldn't find the leak, so we just replaced the tube.

The next day it was flat. AGAIN. I pull out the tube; there was a 2cm long hole. I buy patch kit, I patch it. Didn't dare to pump too much. Enough I can roll it to Common Cycle for the third time.

Hit by a car¶

On 2025-03-14, as I was crossing Hayward at Murfin, I was hit by a black BMW taking a left. No serious injuries, just scraped some skin on my palms and knees. My right palm was bleeding, so the driver drove me to CVS and paid for whatever was needed to disinfect it. My glasses were destroyed and my umbrella was gone. Good thing I had spares.

This probably traumatized the driver more than it did me. I just accepted it as a consequence of Murphy's law and did not feel excessive paranoia when crossing streets.

I ended up skipping a 491 discussion session, but I did manage to have lunch and deliver my lab section. I walked in with a bandaged hand and explained to my students how this happened with one simple diagram:

It took a week to heal.

Boil water advisory¶

On 2025-03-17, the city issued a boil water advisory to part of North Campus. Pfft. I'm on that Chinese grindset and been boiling water since day 1.

The beverage machines stopped service, but I don't understand why the coffee machine as well. I mean, its job is literally to boil water.

MCFC¶

MCFC is a furry convention in Ypsilanti from 2025-03-28 to 2025-03-30. See main article: MCFC 2025.

April 1¶

This April 1 I did not prank anyone. What I did was I carried my laptop in a pizza box I got in January. Yes, even at CAPS when I was waiting for my therapist.

The problem was, 491 p3 was due the next day, and I really did not have the mentality to do it anymore. I discarded it at Pierpont (the pizza box, not the laptop).

Bicycle flat tire (two more times)¶

I don't fucking know at this point. How can life be so cruel?

On 2025-04-09, I attempted to patch the fourth flat at Fabrication Underground, Duderstadt. First patch was not properly adhered at the edges, so I undid it. Second patch was better, but after I pumped it up, it began to leak. I had to pull the tube out and do a third patch, which worked until I held up the wheel up to the chains, at which point it just burst. The fourth patch burst without manual intervention. I ended up hastily applying a fifth patch, held it with duct tape, pumped it up to 20 psi, and parked it close to a bus stop.

Common Cycle got me a brand new tube to substitute in, which has held up strong as of the time of writing (2025-04-15). We thoroughly wiped the rim and the tire, so if there were a piece of debris, it better be gone now…

Update: It's been a week and more than 10 km and the tire is still going. I'm assuming this means it's all fixed now.

Accidentally Becoming Recruitment Chair¶

Uhh, I accidentally became recruitment chair of the AAA.

There has been drama boiling in the incumbent board. The officers are stepping down and looking for replacements, so they basically asked, "hey we're gonna hold an election anyone wanna run for officer?"

Five positions are open: President, Vice President, (Communications|Finance|Recruitment) Chair. I was not super enthusiastic about another commitment, but given encouragement from friends, I caved in days before MCFC and decided to run for recruitment chair.

The supply side was not as strong as the incumbent board thought, and it turned out every position had exactly one applicant except communications, which means (1) we only needed one election, and (2) I am automatically hired. Great?

As a Nerd™, I also inherited the website, which is, regrettably, a React app.

We gotta start pillaging some stuff¶

As a graduate, I am entitled to the pillaging of various divisions in the University. Here is a growing list:

• EECS Alumni shirt
• CSE mug
• Free T-shirt at the AA&PI closing gala