Better than 2022, that's for sure.
#The end of the pandemic
To not forget.
A late ending and a topic that might not be appropriate to talk about in public.
We all knew things are gonna be fine in the end, yet the way it ended still surprised me. I'm in no place to judge whether the past three years of fighting against the pandemic was a success. Judgments are for historians to make. Being someone regular people who lived through the dark days, all I can do is to memorize the absurd things happened along, and to mourn for the ones who did not make it out.
There're particular things that means nothing but to let you know that people are NOT supposed to forget sufferings.
#A new start to the career
To be honest, I thought I'm gonna work full-time on finite element analysis. However, the post means a lot more than that, which I still can't say for sure whether it is a good thing. I don't intend to say much about the work, whether it is a dream job, or wether I would recommend people doing it. People of various occupation are faced with various troubles.
Working as an automobile safety engineer, I mean simply working and studying, is fun, and important to a car as well. However, working in this particular region means that you gotta do a lot other than that. Each division has got their own target for all kinds, for example, paper work, innovation, etc. People tend to lose focus on the things that really matter.
Being a safety engineer means a lot of responsibility. As long as cars have to actually travel instead of teleporting, crashes are very likely to happen no matter how advanced the autopilot is. And this makes restraint systems important during car crashes. Seats, seatbelts, airbags all contribute to the overall performance of restraint system. There're assessment protocols, as well as obliged standards, of different kind from different regions. In Europe, Euro NCAP assessment results would represent whether a car make is safe. In China, C-NCAP and C-IASI are playing the very same role. In the States, there's IIHS, NHTSA, etc. A fun part of studying the developing these systems is that you get to understand different considerations on safety from people of different regions, which, to some extent, reflects the diversity of culture.
#Life
It is not all about working.
Again, due to some un-speakable reasons, people from this region have no choice, in a sense. I met someone from Germany the other day, who expressed very explicitly that the amount of work we are doing nowadays compares to exactly what they do in at least two years. Both of us find it funny, and yet there's just no chance that things could be different.
During the school years, teachers always say that real friends are rear after joining work. They are RIGHT. There's just too much to consider, to balance when you actually think about developing a relationship. I mean it, for both friendship and intimacy. I've come to realize that I'm gradually adapting to the solo life. Books, movies, musics took most of the spare time. Got no problem with communicating with people, yet being alone just gives me peace and fun, which is a great relief after the noisy and busy work.
#A new language
Found it fun to learn languages during a project I participated during collage. We did some simple research on the distinction of languages and the cultural factors that contributes to it. Part of the conclusion is that if you mastered English, Spanish and German, it's very likely that you get to travel through most of west Europe and America with no problem. And for east Europe, Russian would be the number one choice. Africa on the other hand, is very complex.
Worked on a subject that has a lot to do with Europe this year. It came into mind that I gotta know another language which works there. With the researches ahead, One's aware that the basic theory of pronunciation of Spanish is similar to the PINYIN of Mandarin. Why not give it a shot?
Let's see how things work out next year. ^_^
#An old habit
This work, I have to say, is pretty exhausting. With it draining all the energy, one does not get to think much about what he truly likes. Again, life is not all about working and surviving. It is, as the word life implies, about living, and enjoying.
During the years when we were in college do those researching, we would go to bars to relax. Either cocktail bars or cafes will do. As gradually losing contracts with those old friends from college, this habit gradually cleared away as well. Then one day, when finally a bottle of black rum turned up and caught my sight when I was wandering in a supermarket, all the joys we shared hit my back. Chatting with bartender or coffee maker is always a good entertainment. People like me tend to talk to unfamiliar ones so that there's nothing to worry even if something wrong was spitted out. After stepping out of the door, all the talking is just in the past. Nothing is left there to memorize.
That's exactly the key to set loose of all the burden, and maintaining in a good mood.
It's a new year, keep smiling.