It's Never Too Late To Show Christmas Appreciation

My dentist has always been high on my Christmas gift list because he has been taking such good care of my teeth. He is the only non-family member on my gift list as of now. No, neither my boss nor my colleagues are on my gift list. My boss gives my colleagues and I a gift every Christmas, but we don't give him gifts.  I never felt the need to give my boss a Christmas gift.  But for my dentist, I just feel so grateful to have found such a good dentist like him that, I always give him a gift and a Christmas card every year.  This year however, my gift giving came a few days late because when I attempted to deliver the gift on the 23rd, his office was already closed for the holidays.  

But who dictates that I shouldn't express my gratitude and appreciation when Christmas is over? To me, it's the joy from Christmas gifting that matters, not the date.  

I'm So Blessed In This Christmas

I've been kept away from the internet at home because my 6-year old Asus laptop is finally not coping after numerous updates launched by Windows 10.  I have been hating that laptop since day one.  I have been whining about it for years but this time it's my last draw because I'm going to buy a new laptop.  I have no idea why I put up with that lousy laptop for so long.  The Asus was never my computer of choice.  But I have stayed faithful with it because I am both too passive aggressive and too cheap to bother to ditch it. Like a bad relationship, no matter how one party puts up with another, it will eventually end if the relationship isn't working.  My Asus computer has recently been taking too long to connect to the internet, due to its limitation in processing power and the many Asus' root-deep game-wares that can't be erased but that keep launching updates and working the CPU like a horse in the background.  Finally the computer just has not enough processing power to even load Google Blogger.  

I've been so frustrated by my inability to update my blogs that I have been in bad mood.  But then when one of my friends sent me the above video to my beloved Apple i-phone, I realized that I shouldn't let my shitty old laptop work me up. I should be happy that I have so many blessings in my life, one of which being the fact that I can afford to buy myself another laptop.

So, if  anyone of you, for whatever reason, are feeling a little bummed this Christmas,  I hope the above video cheers up your spirit as it cheers up mine. 

I Learn Something New Everyday

It's amazing that once I decided to do something different from watching TV at the end of my workday, I've been learning something new everyday.  For example, I learnt how to create the above graphics for my Chinese blog.  I  never had time to read blogs and this explains why even though I've been aware of  "Blogging" being one of the earliest and most popular social medium, I never actively blogged until recently.  I'd been having the desire to start a blog, since 2005, but I was so tied up and fixated on my "mainstream" career path that I somehow never took action on my blogging desire.  

George Eliot once said, "It's never too late to be what you might have been."  So here I am, giving up my TV time after work to start something that I had desired many years ago.  I'm glad I finally got to try this "blogging" thing, because I'm learning things that I will never get to learn from my uptight day job.

P.S. If you need help to create a graphic like the above, please let me know. I can help.

Thank You Mr. Gates For Sharing

I don't think my grandparents ever imagined having a PC when they were young.  To many people, my grandparents' generation were living in a better world than today.  May be in many aspects it was a greater world then.  But to me, I don't want to live in their world.  I can't image living in a world without my laptop, without my iphone, without my ipad... I really appreciate that Mr. Gates populated personal computing, which brought on such an information revolution in my life time that, instead of reading from the New York Times about what books the richest man in the world had been reading, I can actually hear him tell me in his own voice.

Whatever perks my grandparents enjoyed in their good old days, I appreciate the easy access of information at present. While none of the books on Mr. Gates' list sounds  particularly interesting to me, I'm going to make it my goal for 2017 to read at least one book on his recommendation list. After all, I recently learnt that new experiences can  boost happiness.  

Cheer Up With A Little Holiday Spirit

Since I started blogging, I've enjoyed celebrating Christmas even more.  It's because blogging provides me with a platform where I can play decorator without accumulating a lot of Christmas ornaments in my tiny apartment.  I  never thought I was an artistic person because I just never did anything artistic in my entire life.  All my life, I have been living in a tiny space where I never cared to put up any Christmas decorations.  Christmas has always been a holiday when I always go out to enjoy, instead of staying home to celebrate.  But having a blog inspires me to put a little Christmas something to make my blog more fitting for the holiday season.  So I played around and gave my Chinese blog a Christmas look.  This is one of the reasons why I love Blogger as a blogging platform.  It allows me to easily add a little holiday touch to my blog design.  I haven't tried other blog platforms so I don't know how Blogger compares.  But as of now, I'm pretty happy with Blogger's user-friendliness and its flexibility to allow me to explore my creativity. Giving my blog a Christmas design is by far the first artistic thing I'd ever done in my life. I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. 

P.S. If you need help to dress up your blog for Christmas, please let me know. I can help.

Does Whatever Little I Do Make A Difference?

I think it does because for one little photo I took, I can use it in both my Chinese blog and my English blog here to make my blog posts look more interesting.  The little red glitters I added to my photo also make the photo a lot more alive.  So I guess whatever little thing we do everyday, no matter how oblivious it is to us, it does make a difference.  In my case, the act of starting this blog helped me learn how to add glitters to my photo.  It's amazing that by blogging, I am actually seeing myself growing and learning new things everyday.  It's so easy for me to have moments of feeling as if I've been living an under-achieved life by looking at the great careers and the happy families my friends had seemingly built (based on their news feeds and photos I see on Facebook).   This is  my whole point of starting this English blog; to constantly remind myself of every tiny little accomplishment that I had made, from now on.

P.S. Do you want to add glitters to your photo? I can help you, please contact me if you need help.

I Had Already Written 30 Blog Posts!!!

Today is the "Big 30" for my Chinese blog, which has 30 Chinese blog posts all written by me.  I still am not very good at typing the traditional Chinese characters. I can type much faster in English than Chinese still, but from not knowing the Chinese input system ( Cangjie input method) to producing 30 Chinese blog posts, I have to congratulate myself.  There is a learning curve in learning this input system, but I find it a more convenient and a more precise method to type Chinese than others which always produce a long list of characters for me to pick as multiple choice. 

I've read somewhere that learning a new skill can boost confidence and therefore happiness.  I can't agree more.  Such feeling may not be permanent to me, but as of now, I feel pretty good about what I had accomplished as a very new blogger.  My Chinese blog may not have the number of readers I would like to have, but there are still someone reading it.  For this, I have an extra reason to be appreciative today.  

My First Diary In My Entire Freaking Life....

For a while, I've been feeling not satisfied with my current day job.  I'm experiencing a bottleneck with both my life and my career right now.  I've been secretly plotting a rebellion against my employer by writing a novel at night.  But now I'm stuck with a writer's block and I find myself unable to proceed with my story.  My heroine's therapist was dead and now, like my heroine, I'm lost without an emotional anchor.  I'm having a hard time finding my focus as of now.  I've been hoping that if I get my novel published, then I can say good-bye to my employer; I will be free.  But now I'm feeling somewhat discouraged because such task appears to be greater than what I initially saw.  As you can tell, I'm thinking negative here.  How did it happen?  Oh well... If only I could control my train of thought...

I hear that writing a diary helps, so this is why I am ranting here. Who still writes on a paper diary these days?  But obviously there are lots who do because the bookstores and stationery shops are selling lots of beautifully designed paper diaries.  I have extremely terrible handwriting, so I guess I will write a blog instead.

This is not my first time blogging. As shown on the above photo, I recently started a blog in my native Chinese language.  I started this Chinese blog hoping to connect with my fellow Chinese.   But I am beginning to feel bored and uninspired by it; I just feel so much lonelier talking to the air in Chinese. So I wonder if switching to English will help distract me from my negative frame of mind.... I think it's working.  I don't know why, it's just so much faster to write in English...  I also feel less lonely because for reasons unknown to me, speaking English to the air feels less absurd. 

Yes, I am starting to blog here because I'm not quite satisfied with my Chinese blog. For some reason, blogging Chinese makes me feel that  the blogoshere is colder and lonelier than the real world.  I never blogged until I created my Chinese blog.  It's a whole new experience for me. I'm learning the technology along the way. As much as I'm not quite satisfied with the lack of interactivity that I was expecting from my Chinese blog, I do appreciate the fact that I'm smart enough to put up the blog all by myself without any help.  It makes me feel a little smart... I know I am smart but due to the world of  highly competitive and smart people whom I work with on a daily basis, I can sometimes feel I am stupid.  This is why I want to break free from that world.  I'll be happy if only I can publish my novel one day. Meanwhile, I would like to build my translation service because I feel that it's a quicker way to break free from my current employer.  So if you have any need to translate any type of books, letters, legal document, business memorandum or anything in Chinese or vice versa, please contact me.

If you are a web designer or blog designer, please connect with me because I do need a serious makeover of my Chinese blog to make it look less boring....