I Had Written 25 Posts For This Blog!

After weeks of stressful hard work and very little sleep, I need an excuse to celebrate.  What better reason than the fact that I had actually written 25 blog posts for this blog during my few nightly hours away from my stressful day job.  Writing on this blog had helped me tolerate my job a little better. So, if you don't like your job, or your boss, start a blog to distract yourself from the misery! It totally worked for me.

Since my short few weeks' absence from this blog, I had gotten my translation service going and I had obtained 2 clients. Yes, 2 clients.  No, I didn't get my clients from this blog or social media or from the new professional website that I built myself.  Yes, I built my business website myself.  I don't know when and how I learnt to do it. But somehow, since I began blogging here, I manage enough to build a professional looking website for my translation service. Yet I got my clients not because of the effort I spent blogging or socializing on Twitter. My clients came to me through the old fashion way, during one of my restaurant visits and during one of my shopping errands.  I started chatting with some strangers there, and then the strangers became clients.  

I also started my own online store recently.  Another website I built myself.  I haven't quite figured out how that will work out for me.  But hopefully it will start generating some sales.  But yes, I still keep my grueling day job because my part-time businesses haven't yet generated enough income for me to quit just yet.  No, I didn't tell anybody at work or even my family about my side businesses.  I just want to succeed and fail on my own terms without the pressure from others' opinions.

Yes, I had done a lot during the last few weeks, both for my day job, and my part-time businesses.  The drawback is I haven't been getting enough sleep.  Naturally, all these hard work of mine deserves the celebration.

What's Always In My Briefcase

Besides my usual laptop, I am now carrying a coloring book and some color pencils in my briefcase.  Sometimes my suffocating work environment can make me feel very irritable.  But to pay my bills and support my current life style, I can't quit.  I'm working on breaking free but as of now, I'm still at the same old job.  I had just realized that starting a business while holding down a job is a lot more difficult than the idea itself.  So I sometimes feel bogged down. Of course the clutter in my small apartment doesn't help to relax me either.  I did try a few days ago to review all the books that are piled up to the ceiling, I was only able to let go of one book that I bought years ago.  I spent my entire weekends reading it, then I wrote a Chinese book review on it and I sold it, surprisingly, for a very nice profit since I bought it for $1 at a closing sale.  I was going to give it away to the library or someone, but I was presented with a good offer in the end.

Now after my success of selling one book, I find it even harder to get rid of the rest of my books.  So the stress from the clutter remains.  Then with another random shuffle of the book piles, I found this coloring book that I bought from my old university bookstore.  I never even flipped it open.  Now that I have it with me all the time, I will pull it out to color whenever I feel upset, angry or negative.  It helps because for the couple minutes when I redirects my focus on coloring the flowers, it gets my mind off whatever unpleasant feeling I experienced seconds ago.  It actually takes a couple minutes and then I feel all right again. To me, it's a quick therapy particularly after being inefficiently bossed around by my supervisor.  After coloring, I can once again face my supervisor with smile and enthusiasm...

Try it if you ever feel like you are going to snap.  It only takes  a couple minutes of color to regain your cool and sanity.  It works for me.

Dressing Up For Valentine's Day

My Dream Valentine's Day Look: Dress: $12.99 + Bracelet $27.33 + Shoes $58.99

If only I can get out of work at 6:00pm sharp on Valentine's day, I will wear the above and go have a fun evening out.  Happy Valentine's Day!

This Is Why I Want To Start My Own Business

At the moment, I'm not feeling what I want to feel at my job.  I want to quit but I need my paycheck too much to be able to quit.  I'm not going to blame myself for not thriving at my job because I don't think it's healthy for me.  Besides, I really don't think it's me....Almost everyone at my company feels the same way. Yes, I asked them and yes, they told me.  Even if they didn't tell me, their face showed it.  I'm not alone.  I'm one of many production line professionals who are under the mercy of an impersonal and out-of-touch management system that fails to inspire or cultivate talents.  

This is why I want to be a freelance translator, I love reading books but I have no time to read because of my job. I love just to be able to work anywhere in the world without being tied down to a particular metropolis that is over-crowed, and over priced.   I think it will be good if one day I get to translate a book, or publish one of my own. In the meantime, I just want to have my own translation service that provides high quality services to English speaking businesses that want to reach out to the Chinese audience, and vice versa.   

If you need professional Chinese to English or English to Chinese translation, please contact me, to help my business get started.  I know one day I will have a thriving translation business and I will be free from my day job.  I'm told I needed to keep faith in getting what I want, because without it, I have nothing but a job that kills my passion and creativity. But thanks to this suffocating job of mine, I'm now exploring other options, which may lead to a better career.

In the meantime, I need help building a professional website for my translation business, separate from this personal blog of mine.  If you are a professional website designer, please contact me.

I Need To Stop Buying More Clothes

My Fashion Wish List: Multi-Color Floral Embroidered Tunic $39.99 + Cutout Flower Bohemian Earrings $7.99

My closet is literally overflowing. Decluttering my closet is one of my resolutions for 2017.  But it's not an easy resolution to keep because  I find it very difficult to part with my clothes, particularly when they are almost like new. I had spent way too much money on clothes and accessories shopping until the absolute end of 2016. This bad habit of mine had not only hurt my savings, it had been creating unnecessary stress on both my living quality and financial situation.  Looking at my overflowing closet, I recognize that I need to stop buying more clothes, if I can't bear to give away some clothes to make room.

I've been on my no-clothes-shopping track and I haven't made my first purchase yet for 2017.  I pray that I can stay strong for the rest of 2017.  To help refrain myself from clicking the "buy" button while surfing the internet, I decide to register the fashion items that I have an urge to buy on my wish list here.  The process of posting the items that tempt me so much takes away my time and focus, and therefore distracts me from clicking on the "buy" button.  Meanwhile, I love that I have my beloved clothes hanging in just right here, ready for me to buy with a click on each item in the photo; if I decide I can't really live without them after reading this post over and over again for the next week.....

Making this post was initially a challenge to me because I was no graphic designer and I was never trained to do graphic or web design.  I had to learn as I went.  I'm pleased that I can now play fashion editor with my new web skill....So am I now one step closer to quitting my nerdy day job in corporate finance?

Appreciate The Beauty Of Nature

I'm not a gardener, I had never done any gardening, unless you consider my 3rd grade science project on sprouting green beans as gardening. Born and raised in the expansive forest of skyscrapers, I never paid attention to any plants.  I just never cared.  My dad had some ugly flowerless plants and bonsai trees in our tiny balcony that he cared for every morning before he left for work.  But my siblings and I never took one glance at my father's solitary hobby. Our flat also had the annual Chinese New Year plants that came and went with the holidays.  My mom just tossed the plants into trash after they wilted and died in the total absence of care or watering. I still remember those pots of wilted yellow Chrysanthemums that my mom trashed every year.  I was never impressed by them when they were alive in our tiny living room.  I don't know why I had no appreciation for them back then.  Now that I no longer live with my parents, I suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia when I spotted the Chrysanthemums last week at a home improvement and supplies store.  Their beauty just struck me at that particular moment and I couldn't resist bringing a 6-inch pot home.  I don't even have the space to put flowers, so I just put the pot on a chair on top of my books.  The Chrysanthemums in the above photo is the first pot of Chrysanthemums I bought on my own.  I had never seen this variety before and I am totally mesmerized by their glorious flowers in bi-colors.  I can stare at them and feel really relaxed and pleased with my discovery.  It cost me $9.79 (including sales tax) , which is 4 times my spending on plants in 2016, and it's not even the end of February.  But this lovely plant is worth my every penny because I really enjoy staring at them when I feel stressed or when I start to lean towards negative thinking.

Reminder to myself: Learn more about the care for Chrysanthemums when feeling down or anxious, because it's better to direct energy and time on things that can give me joy and satisfaction.

Playing With Garden Design

I was just going through a lot of the junks that cluttered my home, and I found a box of software that I bought back in 2008.  I never opened it because I just didn't have time.  I was going to just throw it away because who needs a piece of out-dated software?  But before I threw it out, I installed it on my computer and surprisingly it worked with Windows 10...

I used it to render my rental apartment's tiny patio after going out to take measurement of it.  I suddenly had this idea to offer my landlord an improvement of his horribly empty patio with some plants,  in exchange for rent reduction.  I'm not sure if he is going to play along  just by looking at the above picture.. But I'm going to plant 4 Mexican Sunflowers and 5 African Marigolds.... May be when he sees the real thing, he will agree to reward my effort to beautify his patio... If not, I will add gardening on my resume.  Either way, the flowers will make me really happy.

Reminder to myself: Feeling bored and unhappy? Plant some flowers.