Author: caelyn

It’s some random thoughts from yesterday. I want to extend them a bit more today. And it turns out it’s becomes a philosophical thing 🙂 Scroll down for interesting questions yay!

A random question pops up: do you want to feel time?

Well I think this is a tricky question.

When time goes fast, it’s hard to notice it. I might feel stress at some point, but I’ll say I’m happy, because life somehow feels meaningful. When time goes slow, there are two possibilities. At first you think about how to fill your schedule, how to spend the time. From my experience, I enjoy my lazy forest life, things are simple, with the simplest joy. But yeah I have to think about what I’m going to do every day, to keep it from feeling boring. Time feels slow without responsibility. So obviously, the second thing is that slow time might bring boredom. And that makes me think of laziness. Why do humans want to be lazy? Or why not? Is laziness one of the ways to make time feel slow? But yeah it depends on what kind of laziness it is.

Maybe the perception of time is different for everyone. For the things we like, time goes fast. There’s a Chinese saying: 「快樂嘅時間總係過得快」happy hours pass by so fast. You enjoyed it in a short feeling of time. Usually pain and grief last long, you feel torture under the time, time is just so slow that you think you’re stuck in space.

So this makes me think of another Chinese saying: 「短暫嘅痛苦不如長久嘅幸福」it’s okay to suffer a bit in exchange for long-lasting happiness.

Think about another question: do you prefer something short-term that makes you happy, but you feel sad about losing it? Would you choose it? For me, I will. because everything is temporary, you never know what’s going on next. So yeah just enjoy the moment, let things happen. It happens, it just happens. I would say I’m someone who can let go easily. (well if things have a relatively okay ending, I don’t like something blurry without a clear sense. Ghosting is one of these.)

But time is not something like money. Why do I want to spend it? So what is time? Is it something created by human beings, for convenience? So at the core of time, maybe there is no meaning — it is humans who create the meaning for it. Is anything similar to time?

And one important question: is fast time or slow time more memorable?

I can’t think about the answer right now.

Anyway, time flies here. Busy life, lectures and tutorials, college and uni activities, hanging out with friends, connecting with cyber friends, emails and messages popping up every moment. I can feel the tight connection between me and other humans, like walking in college, easy to meet some friends and have a small talk.

So, do I feel time?

I don’t know. Maybe I cannot feel it deliberately. But something not in excess will result in peace. Too much, hard to fulfill and boring. Too little, cannot feel the weight of life, like 空心人 (Empty person)

I feel time pass by easily. For Chinese, we say something like 光陰似箭 to describe it, usually with the feeling of “what a pity! I should catch the time! Do something meaningful!”

Back to myself: it’s better to just feel a bit of the time. 我在不斷失去時間，但我沒有感到可惜。

只感到些許追憶逝水年華，有種會心微笑，釋然之感。Something like: thank you for letting me experience this.

我會帶著這微笑一直前進的。

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Questions raised :

1. Do you want to feel the time?
2. Do you feel time right now?
3. Why does time feel fast when we’re happy, and slow when we suffer?
4. Is fast time or slow time more memorable?
5. Why do humans want to be lazy? Or why not?
6. Is laziness one of the actions that make time feel slow?
7. Time is not something like money, so why do we want to spend it?
8. So what is time? Is anything similar to time?

Found an approach for writing regularly.

I would mark down some interesting random thoughts during the day, then I would extend and write a bit more before I sleep. Because literally, more and more items are added to my to-do list during the day, and usually I cannot finish them all, so yeah just the priorities first, and I know which item is urgent, I can finish it first.

I like writing here. cuz writing is like a spontaneous, focusing thinking process, I can organise my mind and keep myself calm during the process, no overthinking, just casual yapping (well maybe in English, I have a serious perfectionist mind in Chinese, due to the training in high school)

Modern people are anxious, numerous messages and emails popping up every second, distracting attention.

We have a belief that humans keep improving, for a better quality of life. We have the belief that we have to improve ourselves. Nothing wrong with that, why not? Artificial intelligence is one of the ways to assist us in becoming a better self. But I found that people might overuse AI for perfectionism. So today I’m in a French course tutorial (A2 to the edge of B1 level only). My teacher asked us to form a group to describe a picture. I tend to use my own words, if I don’t know a word, I just translate it. I type my things on the document. My classmates keep putting “our things” into AI, polishing them a few times, changing my things, without asking my permission. And it’s like the whole class types something, not like they are writing by themselves, probably by AI. It’s so obvious when you compare their speaking and their writing.

I am just thinking like, what’s the point of using an AI, using a machine to perform? Well it can lower your anxiety, you will not become worse than you think. It’s good, definitely, because you choose to believe the machine is better than you. But I would like to point out that, it’s good but they do not belong to you anymore if you just “overuse” it. Popping ideas, good, polishing things, good. But you have to use your mind to direct the machine to send you some ideas, you need to have the consciousness to select them. You are the director. I support using AI to learn things, it’s efficient and I like it. While I don’t support overusing it. It just increases the competition between humans.

Back to my class, I feel like, it’s just an intermediate language course!! Language is meant to use, not for performance and perfection. I was just annoyed in class because of that. Humans are becoming so fake, no real human kindness, it’s not the real self anymore. Yes it looks better, but they are just NOT YOUR WORDS!!!

Well idk why i have these thoughts right now, maybe I got off from the cage of society, no expectations, just being myself. Before, I like using AI to assist me a lot, very few times did AI annoyed me. I think this might be the first time.

I found that I truly appreciate humanity.

Bad day.

kept thinking about something I don’t wanna think about before I slept at night. overslept in the morning and afternoon, social withdraw and escape, overthinking, procrastination, unproductive, everything in a mess, uncomfortable, unsafe, not willing to eat, bad stomach, intermittent apathy.

很想回到遙遠的那片靜土，但是否當我遠離的時候，自動為它加上了濾鏡。人總是矛盾的，在這裡就嚮往遠方，在遠方卻思念故土。缺乏勇氣。

Expectations, been hurt by “expectations”, fuck not my fault actually but why does it affects me, I am afraid of feeling even a bit of expectation toward something or someone. staying alone and adventures might help, cuz I won’t have any expectations about any variables, just walk and live in my own way. it’s better to trust only yourself. might need lots of consistent affirmations. these are not good

Music brings me back to the old times, nostalgia..

well I have to admit that life here is not bad. when I function normally, I think it’s better. when I function bad like now, bad as hell, unsafe and uncomfortable without a place to escape to. I just want to hide myself without any anticipated disturbances from humans and responsibility.

Should start doing something productive to escape from bad mood. cannot be lazy here.

今天感受到一種遠離舊地的愁緒與自由。

室友說：在地鐵上，我想像自己會生活在這裡，不會回到故國。 (I think that I would live here and never go back.)

我說：是啊，我也有同樣的感受。在滿地可的時候，我也感覺到一種遙遠的感覺，好像自己不會再回來了。

(Yes, I feel the same. I felt like I moved to Montreal and never come back here.)

我又說：交換的日子裡，你會感受到很多。很難說得清。一切就像夢一樣。本來我只打算待五個月，沒想過會延長到八個月，而我竟然在一週前才回來。

(You will feel so much during the exchange. It is hard to tell. Everything feels like dreams. I only plan for staying there for 5 months only but never thought that I extend to 8 months and just came back just one week ago.)

可惜當時沒有好好記下那些感受，只是很想回到那個白茫茫的雪地，空寂卻自由。

什麼是自由？我會說，自由伴隨代價。代價是什麼？是你躺在草地眺望天空，所感受到的寂靜與不安。The feeling would push you forward, to experience all the uncertainty.

Connected with a friend today. Found that we have almost forgotten how we met, what we did together. It raises a question: how should we spend memory? 

Why is human memory built for forgetting? Because life is too painful? Too boring? Too happy? Maybe excessive things are not good, or maybe the higher one just doesn’t have enough ability to build a never-forgetting brain. Interesting.

English has the phrase “spend time with.” I would rather say “connect.” Maybe because of my native language. “Spend time” makes time the thing, like currency, like something you use up. But “connect” makes it feel like I want to build a connection, not focus on time. That’s linguistics, different languages focus on different tiny aspects of the same act.

In Chinese, we don’t have the phrase “spend time with.” We don’t think you need to be intentional in using time; we focus on doing something. The frame shifts from time to care, from duration to action. Like the greeting in Chinese, we won’t say “how are you” (it sounds serious to say “how are you” in Chinese; we would explain in a bit more detail like what we are doing right now, not like Westerners who answer with only one word: good). Instead, we will say “have you eaten?” Sounds relaxed, right?

I cared so much about whether the person wanted to do something with me. From my perspective now, “spend time with” might not be the most important thing, what matters most is “connect with.”

Will think about and talk about it soon.

(I am writing my random thoughts but found that this part is kinda interesting, so I amended it a bit and am posting it separately yay 😛 )

Busy day as usual. Got many things to think about and do. So many administrative things to do for courses, hard to arrange the schedule. But I found that when I am busier, I have a higher tendency to doom-scroll, with little conscious awareness, like I am working but actually not being productive. I try to open a file for my to-do list daily and set a deadline, I think it works, hope it lasts for long. If you think that you have no time to do something? Think about doing it. Then you can do this. Cuz before that you are just thinking about how do you feel about the thing, but not how to make the thing work. I want to go to the HKU gym room with a friend, think about doing it, let’s check the schedule.

Meeting and chatting with different people every day, interesting people? Exchanging Instagram! I will take some time to message them. HKU is a good place to get to know people from different backgrounds easily, lots of events, lots of opportunities, people are willing to talk and share their stories and thoughts. I always can gain some insights. It’s easy for local and non-local students to mingle together, which I think was so hard at McGill and in Montreal, like people just don’t move. My academic and social life is busy, but I feel fulfilled, feel good anyway.

I like collecting moments, and my roommate said she has an idea to do a photo wall for us. I really appreciate the effort of cherishing time together. Like how I write my thoughts every day, I also hope to cherish each day. As I said before, memories are not reliable, but they are meaningful to collect and integrate them, to know yourself better? and to your life maybe.

I thought of one good question from someone: What is your favourite thing today?

I would think about it every day. Thank you.

Open the laptop, check the emails, many things pop up, deal with the new information. Adding new things to my schedule and to-do list day by day, multi tasking as always. my schedule still in a chaotic messy. Everything feels like back to normal.

Busy and sleepy all day, not productive, having boring lectures. Not sure what is my interest, so I have to try out every potential courses. It’s gambling lol. Not fun at all. im really stressed, I want to do something practical and interesting that I would be willing to study very hard for it.

Thinking about where to go during reading week, highly interested in middle Asia but maybe next time, cuz we want the red fall colours. 

Meet my cyber friends finally 🙂 We weren’t surprised to see others, cuz we like to chat every day. So yeah it’s just like im leaving the Canada Server and back to the Hong Kong Server lol (like a ghost that kept living here and suddenly appeared in the real world). Always coming up with some interesting metaphor in my language (no it creates by my interesting self) I asked them if I look different. They said they could feel im more alive, my skin looks better, and I have little bit of muscles 🙂 lol my interesting friends. and through my chat, I really compare Hong Kong and Canada in so many aspects and so many times! It still feeling kinda weird to finish the exchange and come back to hong kong. That’s life experience haha.

Trying to keep connecting with many friends. Send many messages every day. Yes it’s so busy right now. It’s hard to make sure that I have time to meet all the people. It has been a long time since my social life has been busy. I have met so many people accidentally and it turns out we become good friends, not connecting so often but it’s fun to see each other again and share the news about us. it’s just that if you truly want to see someone, you will pay the effort and do it. I would say it’s easy in some ways. but that raises a question, is being spontaneous a good way to keep some connections? well I think connections do take efforts, but I think they are like happy efforts that you are willing to spend time on.

I want to sleep but I still have something to do. I used to finish things within the day.

Let’t do it 🙂

( Unfortunately I slept at 3 am and got up at 8 am ;P, now im on the metro proofreading words, like squeezed salmon fish, upgraded seat version 😛 )

Classes started to be a bit interesting today. I am busy in a certain way, headache, not very productive at all. But I feel fulfilled and feel good. The feeling is familiar, it didn’t exist when I was in Canada. I like being kinda productive, but why didn’t I have this feeling in Canada. A good question worth thinking about it. Maybe cuz I feel like thousand of things I need to do every day (not really I think).

Moved in to the dorm today, hope to meet some kind and nice people. I need to clean the wardrobes and think about what extra things I need to bring from my home. Got a new French textbook, need to study the things from previous semester which I went on exchange and missed them.

My to-do list is still long, there are more things to add day by day. I’m lazy to tidy up my room tho.

Keep connecting with friends for lunch or dinner, not gonna lie Hong Kong people are super efficient, fast reply speed, talk about schedule, clear and firm , plan ahead, fix the exact time and venue, immediately, added it to the schedule, not something “we will see”. This feels good. I feel like I have became more improvising because of Canada hahaha, can’t believe I would think that : let’s confirm it one day before! but cuz my class schedule is ugly so I am really not sure the time lol. 

A question pops up, what has Canada changed about me? In so many ways, how I perceive the world, how I act in daily life right now. Everything is still same here but feels a little bit different. I feel like I am more “disciplined” (in a good way, not being lazy and doom scrolling when I have free time) and I initiate to do some tasks more often, like I would think about what exact thing I need to work on soon. Mmm… it’s worth writing a post about..

Writing blog for daily updates? Hello it’s fun.

You’re living under control. You try to say no, but they insist, “Yes, you should.” They express their emotions to you, so from a young age, I’m afraid of dealing with people’s emotions, including my own.

When I talk about everything, like “I’m feeling sick”, or ask about something, like “Where is that?” They always try to say something like, “It’s your problem, you made yourself bad,” or “You made this disappear, you made this become bad.” In their words, it’s always my fault, never theirs. I feel bad about that, even though I know it’s not my problem. I don’t want to replay it, so my brain filters out their words so quickly.

In my case, it’s so hard for me to become transparent (I would say I am quite true to real friends, yes humans are multifaceted). To prevent hearing bad things they say towards me, from a young age I tried to speak as little as possible, and I lied almost every time. So of course, I can’t tell them any of my “not normal” experiences during these months as an exchange student. I would fake it sometimes, but most of the time I prefer to say nothing.

I feel bad when writing this. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but I don’t know why it triggers me at some point. Maybe I’m just too sensitive.

Don’t try to compare happiness between different places you’ve stayed, you’ll always feel misfortune. I’m more emotionally unstable in Hong Kong.