Xiluluke's Weekend Letter Vol. 08

When there's something to do every day, time flies.

In a blink it's the weekend again, in a blink it's May, and in a blink a third of 2026 is gone.

This weekly letter has reached its eighth issue, and those eight issues cover the past two months.

Over these two months my writing has changed quite a bit, and this weekly has kept changing too.

At first I copied what others did and had a main section and a secondary one, writing up what I saw and learned that week by order of importance.

Then I redefined it as a minimalist lifestyle weekly. That idea lasted one week before I dropped it.

For the last few weeks I've treated it as something like a weekly journal, writing down the main things I did and went through that week that I think are worth recording.

I think this is the best way to keep the weekly going.

On one hand, writing lets me record my week. On the other, thinking it through lets me judge what those things meant and whether they were good or bad.

I haven't been to work since Monday. In other words, my holiday started four days early. But I didn't go traveling.

A lot of people might think I don't like travel, but that's not true. I've settled down in Chengdu these last two years and haven't gone far. But a few years ago I was constantly on the move all over the country.

Most of that was for work, but along the way I got to see a lot of China's mountains and rivers.

So the main reason I'm not interested in traveling now is that I've already been to most places in the country. The other reason is that while I'm still in Chengdu, I want to spend more time with my parents over the holidays.

Who knows, someday I might leave Chengdu for another city. Then we'd be far apart, and naturally we'd see each other less.

So what did I mainly get up to this week?

• Tinkering with AI
• Recording a video
• Going to my brother's parent-teacher meeting
• Being irritable

Tinkering with AI

Since I started vibe coding, it's like I've unlocked the most fun game in the world. Every day I open my eyes and sit down at the computer to explore all kinds of possibilities.

It feels like AI Everything. AI seems like it can combine with anything to make new products.

Last week I kept rebuilding and polishing my blog with AI, and by this Monday that was almost wrapped up. So this week I spent more of my time thinking about AI.

On one hand, I felt uneasy, because apart from typing requests into a chat box, I know very little about how AI actually works. So I wrote: [[Losing the Sword of Criticism: My AI Anxiety]]

That feeling has mostly faded now. I've started on a new project, which I'm still working on.

Recording a Video

This week I recorded a tutorial video, "Learn to Use DeepSeek V4 Pro in Claude Code in Ten Minutes."

I don't actually mind making videos. If there's a good topic, I'll go learn it and record it on my own. I'm just not interested in talking-head videos where I speak to the camera.

I think recording a video is fundamentally different from writing a post. A video feels more real. Even if nobody ends up watching it on the platform, while I'm recording I feel like people will see it. I'm talking to an audience I haven't met yet.

I'd recorded one video before, about setting up free cloud sync in Obsidian. I posted it on Bilibili and it did pretty well. It must have helped a lot of people.

That's the other thing I like about making videos: a video can help other people and help me too.

There's a theory that the best way to learn is to teach. I completely agree. In high school I competed in a skills competition the school organized, and the teacher who coached me loved doing exactly this. Every time we hit a hard part, he'd say he didn't know. But the next day he'd always call me into his office and teach me, step by step, the thing he hadn't understood the day before.

When he finished, he'd say: "I'm only explaining this once. Don't come ask me tomorrow. I'll have forgotten it by then."

I know now he definitely still remembered, but back then I honestly thought he was some kind of genius, haha.

He rubbed off on me, and now I have the same mindset. When I run into a new technical problem, I go learn it right away, and as soon as I've learned it I explain it to someone. Doing that makes it stick even better.

I'd also been planning a video on building a blog with AI, but I only just remembered I forgot about it. Who knows when I'll pick it back up.

I'm someone who acts fast, but I also forget things a lot. And once I've forgotten something, there's obviously no acting on it.

Going to My Brother's Parent-Teacher Meeting

My brother is in ninth grade and takes the high school entrance exam this year.

Before the exam, the school held two big meetings and called all the parents into the main auditorium.

My mom doesn't want to go to this kind of thing, so it's down to me.

I don't mind going, so I went to both meetings.

The first one was so long ago I've forgotten when, but it was mostly about how to register your kid for the exam. I sat there speechless. What year is it? Do they really need to call parents into school to teach them how to register online for an exam? Just send out a how-to document.

Later, when I thought it over, it actually kind of made sense. From where I sit, it does seem a bit dumb. But for parents born in the '80s, the online registration really is a hassle. You have to go to the website, log in, link the student, link a phone number, set a password.

For young people it's second nature, but for people a bit older it's not that easy.

And my brother goes to an ordinary middle school. Most of the students' parents are working class, and many didn't get much schooling, which makes it even harder.

The entrance exam is a big deal too, so calling people in to show them how is understandable.

This time, with a little over a month to go before the exam, they called us in again.

What was this meeting about? Two parts: an explanation of how to fill in school choices, and a speech from the principal.

The part on school choices had some substance. They used slides to show how choices work in Chengdu these days.

While listening, I learned something I didn't know: Chengdu's entrance exam now has three cutoff lines.

• The regular high school line
• The vocational-academic integration line
• The vocational high school line

The confusing one is the vocational-academic integration line. That didn't exist when I was in school, so I looked up what it means.

The official definition: vocational and general education share resources, recognize each other's results and connect their pathways, giving students more varied routes to grow and training versatile technical talent.

That's a bit abstract, but the cutoffs make it clearer.

Take last year's numbers. In Chengdu's Pidu District, the regular high school line was 469, and the integration line was 430.

So it looks like vocational-academic integration is the obvious choice for students who just miss the regular high school cutoff.

If their grades come up while they're studying, they can transfer to a regular high school. If their grades stay so-so, they carry on toward the vocational college entrance exam.

Okay, it really is a decent policy. It just doesn't fit my brother, because his scores aren't that high.

Other than that, there was nothing else to the meeting. The principal's speech in the second half was absolutely ridiculous. He actually talked about the school's achievements. I have no idea what the point was.

Telling parents whose kids are about to take the entrance exam about the school's achievements? Interesting.

Being Irritable

I was irritable and on edge all week, and I don't know why.

In a word, I was having my "time of the month," guy edition.

To put it in more detail, I think it might have to do with sitting at the computer tinkering with AI every day. Sitting for hours and staring at a screen left my brain tired all the time.

On top of that, for some reason this week I started drinking coffee. After that I couldn't sleep well at all at night. My sleep was terrible.

Mental fatigue, bad sleep at night, no exercise.

That's how it went.

Today feels the same. Before writing this post, I was worried I wouldn't be able to get it written. Luckily, once I sorted out my thoughts, it came together fine.

I've found that when I'm tired, a bit of exercise is a great way to get my energy back.

After writing the part above, I went out for a ride. I got home right at eight. A quick edit and it's ready to post. Not bad at all.