This summer, I joined a rebellion.
Not with weapons.
With a paperclip.
Clippy, to be specific — the annoying little Microsoft assistant from the ‘90s who popped up uninvited to offer tips on formatting your resume. The punchline of a generation. And now, somehow, a symbol of everything that still matters.
Louis Rossmann — a man who fixes things most people throw away — changed his profile picture to Clippy. Not as a joke, but as a statement. A glitch in the Matrix. A reminder that help doesn’t have to be beautiful. That honesty is annoying. That sometimes the thing we need most is what we were taught to discard.
So I followed. This is not the end – just the beginning. To show we are here, and that we’re willing to be a wrench in the machines that suck joy out of our life.
Because Clippy tries too hard. And that’s human.
Because Clippy interrupts. And so should we.
Because in a world curated by AI avatars and beige influencer branding, I’d rather be unpolished and useful than flawless and hollow.
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The Sound of Engines Dying
I spent most of the summer on the beach, where time folds in on itself. Naomi kicked in the sand like a little dragon learning to fly. I unplugged, mostly. Watched clouds. Ate fruit. Slept.
Then we took a break from the break and went to Hong Kong.
And everything got loud again.
Ten years in mainland China didn’t prepare me for how old Hong Kong would feel. Not old like wise. Old like… forgotten. The skyline still claws at the sky like it’s owed something. But the streets? They smelled like fuel and rot and last night’s regret.
Something felt off.
And then I realized: no electric vehicles. Not one.
No Teslas. No silent BYD taxis. No whispering buses.
Just the wheeze of combustion engines and the haze of exhaust.
Back in Chongqing, everything hums — electric, hydrogen, quiet as the future.
In Hong Kong, every machine sounds like a death rattle.
This was the city that once lit the fuse for modern China.
Now it coughs up smog and memories.
It’s still beautiful. Still full of fight.
But mainland China?
China’s already passed it, and isn’t looking back.
Three Years Late, Right on Time
Somewhere between dumplings and diesel, a package arrived:
the Chinese version of Amos the Amazing.
It’s real. It’s gorgeous. The team transformed my original three-act structure into a proper trilogy. Hand-drawn illustrations- covers and chapters – by Nie Bei wrap every page in color and magic. It feels alive.
Three years of waiting.
Not because the story was broken — but because the publisher was rebuilding. Mergers. Expansion. Chaos.
And now, Amos has a bigger platform.
Sometimes the delay is the path.
Maple, Monsters, and the Moral Center
I’m back in Chongqing now. Rebuilding my campus apartment, one overstuffed box at a time. But the writing’s moving.
Maple is almost done — a poetic love letter to Canada, identity, ESL, hockey, and snow. A storybook with teeth and syrup in equal measure. A book to read in classrooms, on buses, at kitchen tables.
Next comes The Hunger Below — a horror novel I’ve been digging out of my subconscious one bloody knuckle at a time. A slow excavation of dread. I taught the novella to 1000 students last year, but now I’ll finish it as a proper novel.
It’s time.
Also, Garrett sent me a hardcover of Don’t Look Away, my book on Gaza.
It’s not an easy read.
It’s not supposed to be.
It’s a warning.
A reckoning.
A record.
“An apartheid state built on the cruelty and subjugation of another people is never OK.”
— Ta-Nehisi Coates
That line rang in my head all year.
That’s where the conversation should begin — and where excuses go to die.
Fall Is for Fighters
September is coming like a puck drop.
The campus is chaos. Lesson plans. Edits. Toddler toys. Old coffee.
But under it all, something quiet and sacred: momentum.
Maple is nearly ready. Hockey season is close. NHL 26 might be terrible, but I’ll play it anyway.
Because there’s peace in a faceoff.
Mindfulness in a breakaway.
Stillness in strategy.
In a world tearing itself apart — finding stillness is the real game.
Half a million Canadians can’t take their last summer trip – or come home. Air Canada demands their workers work half their day for free, and that isn’t going to cut it. Lots of Canadians are in favor of the Union, and that makes me proud.
Reboot Yourself
This isn’t just a seasonal update. It’s a reset.
A reminder that the noise will keep coming —
but there’s a signal under it, if you listen long enough.
Clippy’s back.
Amos is here.
The stories still matter.
So change your profile picture.
Rage against the bland.
Reclaim the glitch.
And when the system tells you to scroll —
write something instead.
— Kai
