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.

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.

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.