Dallas

After tragically missing the very last chance to post a June update, I have decided to give up on monthly updates (jk The summer semester is finally over. As an international student, I’ve hit the six-credit summer limit, which means I am, at long last, truly free. Naturally, this activated my run-around-everywhere mode. (Funny how I moved to America and then never researched a single trip. Am I actually just lazy?) So far, July has consisted of one day in the cowboy town, one day around downtown Fort Worth, and one day around downtown Dallas. Total loot: museum maps +3, traditional caches +2, EarthCaches +2, virtual caches +4, the final coordinates for one mystery cache solved, and two multicaches abandoned at the very last stage (next time for sure). Driving skill ++, travel experience ++, cultural literacy ++ (citation needed). ...

Congratulations to the Sojourner’s Diary website on passing 520 visits on May 20! Zhuge Tianyao began the vacation promising an explosion of creative output, only to complete his evolution into a lazy dog. Recently, certain mysterious forces finally whipped him into practicing some reluctant self-discipline. So he dug out the long-neglected website and began tinkering again… I quietly added a comment section. Come share my embarrassing secrets!

How do you want to live your life? Whenever our generation talks about the future, sighing seems unavoidable. Over the shorter and longer conversations I had yesterday and today, I have lost count of how many times I sighed. I actually dislike this sort of behavior—complaining that solves no practical problem—but I cannot help myself. While talking with an old friend, I described it as “the feeling of wanting to hold on to everything.” ...

125 is a cube, so naturally I wrote three articles today and published one on each of the three platforms where I regularly appear. Feel free to hunt for the Easter egg! Bilibili Ah, yes. Today is my birthday. I am celebrating in American time, so this post may appear a little late. But wait: China Standard Time and Central Standard Time are fourteen hours apart. If I count both time zones, I get a glorious thirty-eight-hour birthday! Brilliant as always. ...

By digging through my old like-favorite-coin records, I finally confirmed the first Weekly Chinese Vocal Synth Chart I had watched and left a mark on. Maybe it does not count as my actual “first,” strictly speaking. From what I remember of myself a year ago, I was some freeloading gremlin who had only just begun hoarding coins to reach “Sixfold Jealousy”. Watching the “one year ago” retrospective from two weeks back also gave me the vague feeling that I must have started with Issue 625. But does that really matter? ...

Step outside the frame: the America Arc does not necessarily have to be about America, does it? I have wanted to summarize this stage of my geocaching journey for ages, but life stayed busy. Now I have a workspace of my own—or procrastination space, depending on your definition. I cataloged the hunts I had joined, looking proudly at title after title in my bookmarks. Somehow I have played this many hunts in less than a year. I also prepared for CCBC 16, creating a dedicated workspace both to keep personal information out of recordings and to help myself focus. A little setup somehow produced forty-four pages. Absurd. At last, I can begin writing. ...

Since arriving in America, I have been recovering from jet lag, sorting everything out, buying a car, opening accounts, and running everywhere. The internet was finally connected yesterday; only today did I remember to write. Preparations before school are more or less complete, so perhaps the next few days will be easier. Mom will probably mention on her Moments that the other three were taken into the little black room at immigration because of SEVIS or something—some system malfunction, anyway—while I passed through without a single question. I did not know any of that at the time. After collecting my luggage, I sat on a bench forever before finding the airport Wi-Fi. The brother meeting us outside waited with me just as long. Thankfully, everyone emerged safely in the end. ...