About Me

ProfileVanillaA vanilla trying hard to give her soul some color.

I'm 香草 (Vanilla), a magician living in a forest of mushrooms and steel.

By day I'm a backend engineer, mostly working with C++ and Go, plus some Python. In my spare time I like to write down what I've learned, the side projects I've built, and small but interesting ideas.

I like e-books, tarot, and the occult, and anything that sits between reason and fantasy. A latte every day.

Finding your way around

Most of this site is written in Traditional Chinese. Good places to start:

• Featured (in Chinese): my hand-picked entry points.
• Travel index (in Chinese): travel, walks, and photography.
• Blog (in Chinese): every post, in chronological order.
• Notes (in Chinese): tech notes, knowledge, and fragments of ideas.

Posts translated into English are listed in Posts.

What I care about

1. 01
   Engineering

   Mainly backend work with C++, Go, and Python. Notes on system design, databases, DevOps, Linux, and books live in Notes; the early blog keeps the path I took through competitive programming, OpenGL, and side projects.

2. 02
   Travel and photography

   Recent posts are mostly travel, walks, photography, and yearly reviews: the scenery, the events, and how I felt, kept as city blocks I can stroll back through.

3. 03
   Building a world slowly

   The occult, tarot, e-books, personal knowledge bases, and games where you tidy up a space at your own pace. I prefer to tend a place that keeps growing over time.

Games I play

I prefer sandbox, management, and building games, and sometimes puzzle games.

I enjoy games where I can arrange a space, plan paths, and build a world at my own pace. Genres that demand enduring long stretches of high-pressure frustration don't suit me as well.

For a while I seriously tried soulslike games, but the pain clearly outweighed the fun, so I stopped.

Horror puzzle games I used to love

Around 2012, a high school friend got me into a lot of these small games: The Witch's House, Ib, Mad Father, The Forest of Drizzling Rain, Mermaid Swamp, The Town of Keys, and more.

Minecraft

I started playing Minecraft in high school and still love it. Rather than progressing through the game, I prefer slowly building houses and organizing spaces.

Some of the buildings I've made are in my notes (in Chinese).

Gogh

My background music while working.

I took a photo of my little room in Gogh, asked ChatGPT to make it prettier, and had it replace the character with me.

Where to find me

I put side projects on GitHub.

Subscribe

• English RSS: posts translated into English
• Posts RSS (in Chinese): travel, yearly reviews, tech posts
• Notes RSS (in Chinese): new tech notes