Last Post: Gap Year Wrapped - Timeline

Timeline

I’m so excited to continue recording my gap year life the second part. Let’s start it.

February 2023

My major in the university is Digital Media TechKnowledge, so a lot of my university classmates works in Gaming Area like NetEase, Tencent, BiliBili and miHoYo. And actually I am also a hard-core gamer for most kind of games and I still have a dream to build my own game.

And finally, I have a chance to build a game, which is a VR game during the Global Game Jam (GGJ). It’s a global activity that calls for lots of game designer, developers to join the activity in person or online. In two days, 48 hours, to create an amazing game and at last we would show games to the partners.

Me, trying the VR Game

Video:

I also we also have a trip in Beijing, actually I have oNOgood experiment experience in Beijing. I prefer to Tianjin, it’s more than a modern city then Beijing.

Take a rest in Tianjin Street Cafe

BTW, I also met 象牙山刘能 in Beijing, and that’s the most exciting thing in Beijing.

We went the Universal Beijing Resort, expect for street pop-up event and float parade, the rest are all duplicated roller coasters.

In one work, not good as the Disneyland in Shanghai.

And I’m starting to prepare for the master degree and we find an advisory services for some references to pick school, and the paperwork.

At the last, we traveled to Qiandaohu, and it is very great trip.

Beautiful Qiandao Lake

March 2023

After I buy the Volkswagen car, I have a dream which is making an Itasa Car, which means I will paint some anime characters on the surface of the car.

I picked Hatsune Miku and which is virtual idol for 16 years. We started to design the itasa car with a designer in this month.

Design Work

I started to do something new, like streaming on YouTube and learning some principle of the design from Google UX and online courses from Facebook design. I also started to have a learning about English the TOEFL exam recently.

It’s also a great time enjoying Sakura flower. 🌸 I am very luck because there are several Sakura trees in my community.

April 2023

And then this month I took the first TOEFL exams and I got 89 which is not very good but it’s kind of enough for some normal school. I still need need to make more effort to get a higher score about 95 or a 100 but yeah it’s basic score for some applications.

We also travel to Yueyang again, took some beautiful memories.

We also attended the the Itasa Car Exhibition at ChangSha, 痛一会@长沙. Meet many nice and awesome guys, who love ACG deeply, and keep sharing the happiness to others.

After we back to Hangzhou, there was also a great news: BIRLAND(玉鸟集) started trail opening! In the next several months, we will have a great time in BIRLAND, meet many new friends and old friends. 🥰

May 2023

After travel to Yueyang, I also travel to Shandon, my hometown.

And in this month I also made new friends like daddy like 面包, 智子, LAKR, 炸鸡, Houge.

June 2023

We drove to Nanjing for 鸭血粉丝汤. Nanjing is the last city we traveled before the Covid 19 pandemic. Nanjing really impressive me with its delicious food 鸭血粉丝汤.

During this month, Apple announced the new device: Vision Pro. I think it worse me spending money to buy it.

This DIABLO IV was released. We spent a lot of time on it.

I also spent lots of time on making new friends and keeping connections with old friends. I met 图拉鼎 in this month, met the OriginCode from HZLUG, and I also met friend 深海带鱼, and we have a great time in the piano room.

July 2023

I registered as a Apple developer. Why I choose Apple Developer, well, you know, as an engineer, is not the final step to making living hood to making project or product, is selling your product to the end users. I think App Store is one of the best way for developers to sell their product.

I ams also a big fans of Apple product, I believe it will give me more chances.

Also away meet new friends like Xiaowen and Xinyi. Both of them are very professional in their domain area, and both of them have their different opinion to the differences things, that’s really impressive me.

And my left foot got really injured, (it does still not recover until I write this article). 😰

August 2023

I have a chance to travel to Shenzhen and Hong Kong.I travel to Hong Kong because I want to apply my credit card and banking account from the overseer oversee bank, and Hong Kong is one of the best choice. We applied for HSBC bank and ZA bank.

We also went for a special restaurant is called a magpie, the restaurant owned by one of my favorite Youtuber Cadence Gao.

We also travel to Longyou to met one of my friends who is also my ex-colleague. Longyou is a beautiful city which also have great food and awesome rally racing track.

Comparison with the Career working in Company

I will try to make a comparison Career in company and gap year life.

For the conclusion of career in company, I think the keyword is SIMPLE.

While I was working in company, we have clear goals(or maybe not so clear), we always have a direction in the professional domain. It might be making money or build projects or products and it’s very simple and intuitive.

For the conclusion of gap year life, I think the keyword is UNLIMITED.

I start to consider making my value in some form like building products, trying to make some investments, and making myself and my family happy. I started to think it, but I still have no clear answer to these questions. But at least, I started to think about it, rather than spend all my time on working.

I am very very thanks for all of the friends, who helps me to making living hood during the gap year. I really really appreciate it. Thank you very much. 🥰

Pros for The Gap Experience

I have more free time and then I have more free thoughts, and I start to explore the possibility of our life.

Cons for The Gap Experience

Cons are also obvious, I used to be an employee of a company, so my mindset was very simple as an engineer. So in the short term, I could not make a good living hood as before. Without the stable income, the mental pressure is very high.

Takeaway

That’s the last 6 months for the gap year. I tried to use Siri Dictation to speed up the post writing, and it’s really helpful.

Gap experience is really a great experience. But it makes me not submerge in the endless career life and company work, and it give me a really great chance to think about the life and the future.

At last, I would reference a tweet from 花果山大圣, which introduces his opinion about the hard-working and the gap experience:

It’s a long tweet thread, this is only the opening one

Thanks for reading this non-structured post, I hope you enjoy it.