path: root/docs/umich/w25_journal.md

# 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](w25_461_journal.md)
- EECS 330: Antennas and Wireless
- EECS 201: Enrolled because I needed exactly one credit
- [EECS 491: Distributed Systems](w25_491_journal.md). <s>Not sure to drop
  or not.</s> 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)

![Hundreds of furry posters on a lab
workbench.](img/w25_journal/aaa-posters-mesh.jpg)

![Poster on the glass wall of a bus stop. The poster is a bus full of
furries called "Northowod"](img/w25_journal/northowod.jpg)

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:

![Four versions of a poster. In each one my fursona Mosfet points at you
with a menacing grin. The tagline is written in German, English, Dutch,
and Chinese.](img/w25_journal/mosfet-you.png)

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](https://woof.tech/@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](./f24_473.md) 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](https://fkfd.me/jam/i-recorded-these-songs-11-days-before-my-next-therapy/)

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](./f24_deutsch.md#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.

![Slide deck (see transcript below)](img/w25_journal/cwg-furry-slides.png)

<details markdown="1">
<summary>Transcript</summary>

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?

</details>

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:

![Raccoon plush ~15 cm wide](img/w25_journal/crispy.jpg)

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:

![Cartoon snake in front of lanterns and gold coins, with the English text
"happy 2025" and gibberish Chinese text](img/w25_journal/cny-ai-slop.jpg)

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.

![Mountain of snow, probably 3 meters tall, in a parking
lot](img/w25_journal/snow-mountain.jpg)

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

![Bust of creature with pointy snout and ears made of snow on
a tabletop](img/w25_journal/snowcreechur.jpg)

## 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.

![Figurine of a black cat next to an epaper screen displaying a goofy
image of him, captioned "me when i"](img/w25_journal/mosfet-figurine.jpg)

## 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.

![Piles of free books on a table](img/w25_journal/eecs-free-books.jpg)

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":

![Boykisser lying on the ground](img/w25_journal/boykisser-on-ground.png)

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.