Author: 金妮
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GPS Dots & Status Updates
As a native(-level†) English speaker (re-†)learning Chinese, one of the hardest things to wrap my brain around is how time is conveyed with the latter, since it’s quite conceptually different from the language of the former. I still don’t have a super firm grasp on all the nuances, but I want to share a mental… Read more
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Banal Magic: Why Now? (Part III of III)
Spoiler: It’s Not About Security (This is the third and last part of a three-part series. Here are the first and second parts.) As I mentioned in Part II, I have two reasons for currently chasing becoming a successful author. (Part I explained my zeroeth reason: why I’m not currently chasing the alternative — the… Read more
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餛飩 (Part II of II)
Cognomina Chaos In Part I, I spent some time telling you how 餛飩 húndùn “wonton” is really just a mispronunciation of “yummy chaos clouds”. ^.~ In this post, I really want to get into the meat of it (haha XD) and show you why there’s a meta connection between the words 餛飩 and “chaos”. Not… Read more
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Banal Magic: WisCon 2025
I have just “come back” from attending (and volunteering at) WisCon, an annual (or mostly annual) feminist science fiction & fantasy convention. In truth, I never left my house. ‘^^ WisCon 2025 was online only — done mostly through a combination of Sched for registration & scheduling, Zoom for panels & roundtables, and Discord for… Read more
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餛飩 (Part I of II)
Chaos Clouds One of my favourite foods is 餛飩 húndùn “wonton”, a kind of Chinese dumplings found in soup, either alone as 餛飩湯 húndùn tāng (湯 tāng “soup”) or with noodles as 餛飩麵 húndùn miàn (麵 miàn “noodles”). Aside from the tastiness (and the nostalgia, since it’s a dish from my childhood), a major reason… Read more
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Banal Magic: Why Now? (Part II of III)
The True Security of Transferable Skills In Part I (about snake oil), I argue that the conventional idea of (stereotypical) 9-5 jobs as “secure” is, in my humble (or perhaps not-so-humble XD) opinion, just plain wrong. That is to say, I think the idea is inaccurate. (To be clear, I’m not trying to claim there’s… Read more
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Found a Feathered Friend
I have tried multiple times to come up with a thoughtful, chewy topic for today’s post, and I have had to scrap every attempt because nothing was coming together. >_< So never mind thoughtful and chewy! How ’bout brainless and fluffy instead? XD Look at whom I met, just chillin’ on the sidewalk, earlier this… Read more
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Banal Magic: Why Now? (Part I of III)
The Snake Oil of “Secure” Jobs There’s been a lot going on in the sociopolitical realm lately — at least in the United States of America (which happens to be the country I am most familiar with). Moreover, what with the U.S. being a global superpower and all, it’s hard to just outright ignore it,… Read more
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Undefined: A Definitive Definition
If you know anything about math, you’ll almost certainly have heard that division by zero is undefined. Now, to the math savant, this probably makes perfect sense. To the math simpleton (*raises hand*), this is a record scratch in the brain. Math is a(n annoyingly abstract but somehow ridiculously accurate) tool for describing real world… Read more
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Banal Magic: Engineering Engines
I have mentioned that I was turning my creativity car into a creativity train, thereby giving myself way too much leeway to mix metaphors. XD So, of course, why stop there? =P I’m upgrading said car-cum-train into a jet. With two engines. I’ve already introduced the concept of one of these engines for boosting my… Read more