Last week there was no update on the weekly report. Looking back on the week, there was nothing worth recording, and I don't want to write just for the sake of writing. It must be something meaningful to me. This actually involves a topic: are we writing blogs to record what we want to record, or are we writing for the content that we hope readers will read? In the past, I may have been the latter, insisting on updating under the banner of "daily blog", hoping to get views, comments, and feedback. Now, I am the former, hoping to record meaningful content. If it happens to be liked by readers, I would be honored.
Last week, there were some incidents with the newly adopted silver gradient cat by my girlfriend. It is currently three months old and very beautiful, cute, and small. I stayed at her place for a few days recently and spent some time with this little guy. I thought it would be very shy, so I bought some cat toys before coming, hoping to play with it and make it less afraid. Unexpectedly, the next day, it crawled into my bed and slept next to me.
At first, everything was normal. It received its first vaccination, and my girlfriend took good care of it. She not only prepared all the necessary supplies such as cat litter, scratching board, and cat food, but also learned how to cook for it on Little Red Book, steaming a mixture of chicken breast, carrots, shrimp, and pumpkin for it to eat.
But last week, there were some problems. Its eyes started tearing up and there was discharge, and there was hair loss around its nose... Later, we found out it was conjunctivitis, but there was no nearby pet hospital, so we bought eye drops online and used them for two days. The symptoms improved. On December 7th, my girlfriend and I took it to a nearby pet hospital in the city by bus to get its second vaccination. We also asked the doctor about the hair loss on its face, which turned out to be ringworm caused by fungal infection.
Since the ringworm was on its face, close to its eyes and mouth, we couldn't use topical medication. The doctor prescribed some oral medication and instructed us on how to use it. In addition, because its conjunctivitis had not recovered, we bought a Elizabethan collar for it to wear around its neck to prevent it from scratching its eyes with its paws, otherwise it would get worse. So there was an awkward situation where it wanted to scratch an itch but couldn't reach it. Every time it scratched, it scratched the collar. When it wanted to lick itself after using the litter box, it couldn't reach either. It looked cute and pitiful.
I read an article by Jack before, and he and his partner were very sad and upset about the death of their cat. I have never had a cat, so I can't empathize. But now, just because of ringworm, it has to wear an Elizabethan collar, constantly tearing up due to conjunctivitis, and occasionally meowing at you. Even though I have only been with it for a few days, I feel very sorry for it. People who abuse animals deserve to die.
Because it has ringworm, it cannot sleep on the bed, but it still can't be stopped. One night, it climbed onto the bed without me noticing and lay on my pillow, its belly against my face. It was very comfortable and warm, but because it was too close, it was very hot. I moved it to the side, but unexpectedly, it circled around and fell asleep on top of me.
The trust between humans and animals is really wonderful. I told my girlfriend that this feeling is different from the emotions between people. I can't find a more appropriate word to describe it, I can only say it is very wonderful.
I hope it recovers soon.
By the way, its name is Shadow, thanks to Dayu for the name, I really like it.
Last Monday, I recorded an idea in Flomo:
"Sharing a viewpoint that may be wrong. I haven't done in-depth research, but from the blogs I have browsed so far, it seems to be the case. Blogs that have been around for a long time generally don't focus on fancy designs. In the first two years of building a blog, they have already spent a lot of time on how to make their blogs more beautiful and attractive, how to add more interesting features. This seems to be a stage that most bloggers will go through. After tinkering with themes, plugins, and features, some people will focus on polishing the content, while others will continue to indulge in changing the appearance of their blogs, pursuing freshness and beauty. Obviously, blogs that focus on content will last longer."
I shared this on Twitter and Telegram channels, and many people agreed.
For example, Lao Zhang's blog, which started in 2008, has recently been busy "simplifying the blog". Not only did he downgrade the VPS and reduce the number of domain names, but the blog theme is also the same as mine, reducing categories and pages.
As I mentioned in previous articles, both tinkering and writing are part of a blogger's enjoyment. Some people are good at writing, some are good at tinkering. There is no distinction between superiority and inferiority. Everyone has their own way of playing and interest. Today, I want to add one more thing: both content and appearance are important. Bloggers will spend a lot of time on the appearance in the early stages, adding beautiful styles and novel features, to please themselves and attract visitors. But this should not be the focus, it should not be the aspect that needs to be cared about every day.
Compared to appearance, content better reflects the value of a blog. Whether the content is one's own thoughts or experiences and insights on various tools and software, only by polishing them well can readers be retained.
Recently, I finished watching a Hong Kong drama called "News Queen" by TVB.
On Douban, this drama ranked first on the weekly Chinese-language drama list. Before watching it, I roughly browsed the internet and the most common comment about it was: it surpasses mainland Chinese workplace dramas. After watching it, I had a similar feeling.
I'm not good at summarizing the plot of a drama, so I suggest referring to the introduction on Douban. Looking back at mainland workplace dramas, the reasons why female characters succeed in the workplace often involve male participation, both positive and negative. For example, family failures due to husbands' infidelity or being calculated and kicked out by husbands. But "News Queen" is different. They focus on their careers, want to achieve something, want to be directors, deputy directors, want to do news well, and achieve a successful career simply because "I want to". When Zhang Jiayan, one of the characters, was asked by her fiancé whether her work or he was more important, she asked him back, "What do you think?" and then hurried to her workplace without hesitation.
By the end, I and other viewers had the same feeling of not understanding Zhang Jiayan's transformation. In the drama, she is a very positive and moral character. She is neither a member of the Wen family nor the George Party. She does not participate in office politics, but focuses on reporting news and telling objective facts. But in the end, in order to advance her position, she showed extreme bias in the reporting of a certain news. I saw the trading of power in it.
In addition to workplace women being the theme, news is also one of the themes. At the beginning of each episode, there is a quote, such as:
- The English word "Anchor" originally means the fixed body of a ship, which metaphorically refers to the soul of stabilizing a news team.
- News programs should prioritize the needs of the audience, not the suppliers. - Ding Zheyun's "Sun Shixi's Pulsed News Study"
- "Truth" has many different versions, and news does not have the ability to record them all. It can only focus on one aspect and shape a selective "truth". - Alain de Botton's "The News: A User's Manual"
- The responsibility of a journalist is to firmly hold onto a core principle and examine the corners of society that are not noticed by others. - Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel's "The Elements of Journalism"
- Mishearing the truth is worse than lying. - William James's "Varieties of Religious Experience"
There are a total of 26 episodes. The quotes in the first 25 episodes are real, but the quote in the last episode - "Interpret good meanings, cleverly convey the truth" - although attributed to Lu Xun, is actually an advertising slogan from McKinsey & Company.
The content about news in the entire drama is sublimated here. Every image and every word we see is selected through design. Even the most appealing content needs to be verified, and news content is the same. In recent years, with the rise of short videos and self-media, we face various information every day, alternating between falsehood and truth. In this fast-paced life, it is easy to lose oneself. In such a situation, it is even more important to stick to one's original intention, know clearly what one wants, and learn to distinguish external things.
Interesting things and objects:
- Blogger Ya Yu created Bearblog themes for WordPress and Typecho, which is the one I have been longing for. It has a minimalist style. Maybe one day in the future, I will use this theme.
- There is a user on GitHub who created a cover maker, which has a similar layout to my cover image, but with a slightly different layout. I use Pseudoyu's template, which may not be as convenient as the mentioned tool, but for the sake of style consistency, I will continue to use it.
- Test is serious: "Small dining table, construction site grabbing food! Why can't the working class afford a fast food meal?" After watching this video, I secretly envy companies with employee cafeterias. The company where I interned during the summer, although the employee cafeteria is not big, has a variety of dishes. Regular employees receive meal subsidies every month, so they hardly spend much money on meals.
- Lao Jiang is reliable: "October's popular topics identification | Little-known knowledge: New Year's Eve has never been a statutory holiday." This video initially attracted me because of his discussion on the Wang Ziru incident, but I also found his viewpoints more interesting. He mentioned the Chinese people celebrating foreign holidays and said that the meaning of holidays and customs can change over time. Nowadays, young people who celebrate Halloween in Shanghai, there are not many who celebrate the original Halloween. They seem to be participating in a cosplay event.
- MyLens: This website is great! Input an event and it will present it in a timeline format. It supports multiple languages, and the language of the output seems to be determined by the event. For example, if I input "Brexit", the result will be presented in English; if I input "Emperor Wu of Han", the result will be presented in Chinese.
- Ecosia: This search engine is great! It is a search engine based in Berlin, Germany, and they donate 100% of their profits to non-profit organizations for tree planting. As of July 2020, Ecosia has planted over 100 million trees and absorbs over 50,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere every month.
- December 3rd: "Is it possible for blogs to make a comeback?" If it weren't for the emergence of apps like Douyin and TikTok, a blog comeback would still be possible, but currently, it seems to be limited to a group of people quietly writing blogs, becoming a niche hobby.
- December 9th: I bought chestnuts at Lishanghuang and queued to pay. The woman in front of me was paying with her phone, and I noticed that her phone was obviously bent. At first, I thought it was a foldable screen, but when I looked at the phone case, I realized that the entire body of the phone was bent... I took a glance, and it seemed that the phone was still functioning smoothly.
- December 9th: Inspired by a blogger, I created a new tag #中文独立博客分享 (Chinese Independent Blog Sharing) on Twitter, calling on everyone to actively share their independent blogs. You can quote, comment directly, and it would be better to include the tag. You can also write a few sentences to introduce your own blog. The most important thing is to remember to fill in the website URL.
That's all for this week's content. I hope to review my week in a relaxed and calm manner, and I hope that subscribers of my blog can calmly read my shares and continue to love their lives. Life is not just about nonsense.
The background image is from my self-portrait, taken with my classmate's Canon EOS M50m2.