Okay. It’s been a long hiatus.

I remember not too long ago I was nagging friends to continue blogging even after they started working and didn’t buy into the excuse of “no time”, “too tired”, “don’t wanna face another computer after a day’s work”. Little did I know I would mutter these excuses to concerned online friends (all one of you) myself.

Hey come on, I spend 8 hours every weekday doing web stuff so at the end of the day, I’d really like some time away from the bad glares of computer screens.

But now I just might be needing the time at home to work on my own project which I’ve been procrastinating for far too long.

Haven’t chronicled my life in such a long while, I’ve forgotten how to. These days I’m writing stuff for the web primarily for robots, so.

Okay, here’s trying to provide updates on my life. Since I’ve become geekier, let the tech speak begin.

If I was a search engine, the search result for “love” has had a new top entry for the past 2 months, and is staying strong at the top of the index. Searching for key phrases, “amazing woman”, “most challenging lover” and “love of my life” would indisputably display the same first result. Pardon the tacky tech speak, call it an occupation hazard if you wish. She’ll be remaining anonymous though, and I haven’t yet thought of a good alias for her, but something should come up soon.

On what I do on weekdays, I’m training to be an SEO with an increasing focus on landing page optimization. Let’s hope it’s going to be as promising as it sounds.

I did say the woman in my life now will remain a Jane Doe, but her lovely Schnauzer, Pepper, is here to tug at your heart. *Cue awwwww*

There are so many people to thank for helping me keep my sanity intact through these trying college years. Don’t know if you all think this is too sappy of me though. Haha. Bear with me, for this is probably the first and the last.

First and foremost, I would like to extend my eternal gratitude to my parents. This goes without being said: without them, I wouldn’t be here.

To the teachers who have inspired me and pushed me to achieve my potential these four years, I thank thee, all two of you. To the rest of the teachers, thank you for giving me a pass grade. To some of them, you might want to consider a career change, teaching is not just a job.

As an emotionally dependent idiot, I owe the woman I spent 4 unforgettable years with for being there through my foul tempers and for being a lasting punching bag. She saw me through my transition from a feisty youth to a resigned chinese university student, and stayed. When my temper called for it, she flew to Hong Kong at my whim, and even to Shanghai just to help me with my unpacking when I moved to a one-bedroom apartment. She has been relentless in giving all she can to me, even when I long stopped deserving it. You know who you are — thank you.

To MissY who’s somewhat grudgingly still by my side, I know your patience with me reaches your limit many a time, and I thank you for bearing with my bitchiness, nagging, and laziness with household chores. Let’s hope this year of pseudo married life will bring much laughter to our new home. Thank you also for being my pillar of support, and more importantly, school administration informant these four years in college. Haha. Thank you for staying by me when I was at my lowest, and for forgiving me when I couldn’t even forgive myself. 

To CG who is currently in lovely London finishing up his Master’s, thank you so much for all your encouragement and advice through the trials and tribulations these 4 years. Also grateful for your help when I had to move one too many times, and for our many reasons to celebrate with treats! Your wisdom and academic talent have also been of great help to my little academic pursuits. Thanks mostly for keeping it real when the rest of the world seemed to sway the other side. Much credit has to be given to you for the sanity I have today. 

To other FUSSA-ians, although your recollection of times with me is probably of yesteryears, I do sincerely appreciate the help and support available from FUSSA these years. I wish all of you success in your endeavors.

To Vanessa, my closest Chinese friend, thanks for daring to be different from the herd, and looking out for me when most didn’t. I appreciate your honesty and cherish our years of friendship in Shanghai.

To my other Chinese classmates, thanks for being patient with my Chinese and Mandarin, and listening to my presentations with accented English even when the teacher was not in the classroom. As we embark on our different paths after this, I hope we remember the good times when we acted out “Cupid and Psyche” and other fun skits in English class.

To my one and only Italian friend Marta, your independence and courage have been of great motivation to me, and I thank you for our heart-to-heart talks, and all your encouragement that would not have been possible without your open mind.

To Birte, hailing from Hamburg, thank you for imparting some of your mature wisdom on to me. Meeting you at that fateful Irish talk was a lucky day. =)

To Yuka, thanks for sharing your interesting china experiences recently, and I do hope you achieve your goals in the near future.

Connie, thanks firstly for feeding me with great food and letting me introduce you to unhealthy snacking and life-saving instant noodles. My stomach is grateful for your occasional treats of banana bread, Reese’s and your bag of half-eaten chips. Thanks for being so cozy with me so quick at Gage, and helping me make my stint in UBC a very memorable one. 

Thanks also to my other roommates at Gage, who made 6 pax living extremely comfortable, even though we only had one toilet cubicle! Thanks loads for sharing your utensils, but mostly for giving me intimate insights into Canadian culture.

To Grace, Elena, and Madeline, thanks for the great times in UBC! The meals, the drinks, the skipping class to climb Grouse Mountain (not once but twice!), and the talking cock before and after MLT class.

To my beloved supportive friends back home: Winni, Reina, Celine, Joanne, Lay Shan, Shufen, Shuh Tien, Shaina, Dino, Yiling, Yunling, Wz, Js, etc. Thanks for all the support and encouragement! I’m also grateful to some of you for calling/webcaming/skyping/msning once in a while to share intimate details of our lives. It’s absolutely gratifying to know that friends back home still care despite the distance, and it’s life’s great luxury to be able to chat over roti prata etc with pals whenever I’m back in Singapore.

Thanks dot for always showing concern and offering medical advice at critical moments! 

Nicole, we seem to only meet long after the sun sets, but, good times.

Joice, thanks for the inspiration to take the road less taken.

To anyone else I may have missed mentioning here, you are missed and thanked too!

Starting full-time work tomorrow (1 July), and I guess it’s farewell to academia. 

Although I’ve had many misgivings in the past with Fudan University, I sang the school song on the day of commencement. Not so much because I felt proud or whatever, but ‘coz it’s quite a good piece:

Fudan School Song:

Goodbye bouts of nostalgia, hello full-blown adulthood.

I said yes!

Will most probably start full-time employment in July. 

So I’m now a junior editor at an internet firm. My first job sounds great!

I do wonder if I took it on too early though. Hovering on the line between school and work hasn’t been all nerve-calming. The worst sacrifice has been my freedom to travel, taken away from me, through my own accord of chaining myself to employment. I haven’t stepped out of Shanghai since I came back for this semester in February. Boo.

To be politically correct, I look forward to an exciting and fulfilling time at the workplace!

To be honest, my advice to myself is quit thinking about the money and focus on the skills you’ll acquire, experience and exposure you’ll gain, and everything else money can never provide! Bah.

I believe content in this blog has been dwindling. That’s another trade off.

Starting to miss home actually. I would have demanded friends to give me first job gifts like wrist rests, a usb keyboard cleaner, and any miscellaneous desk and computer related gadgets.Or throw a celebratory party. Maybe receive red packets from parents. Ah well. My parents aren’t coming for my graduation, by the way. So there’s no red packet to receive, but plenty of my money to be taken away. There’s chinese taxes, rent, utility bills, grocery bills, parents’ allowance. MissY and I have started looking around for suitable apartments to live in come July, but they have either been too expensive, or just too…sad to live in.

Suddenly I feel the weight of what everyone terms as adulthood. Very bitter taste indeed.

Not a good day at work today. 

Disclosed things I wasn’t supposed to, which put the boss in an awkward position, which of course didn’t forbade well for my prepared negotiation speech.

Oh well. Will sleep over it.

Just wanted to share how MissY cooled us down from a stressful day at work with her sliced cucumbers. Probably not an uncommon method but I’d like to think of it as her knack for exhibiting her Koreanness at the right time.

I’ve been offered a full-time position with the company I’ve been working for in the past 2 months. It’s been on my mind the entire weekend, including my sleeping hours. 

Spent 2 hours on the phone on a long distance call with my mom, who went on in circles about my work, the salary, house rental, negotiation, and so on (with my dad in the background adding his 2 cents worth too). I asked her for advice on whether I should negotiate my salary, and she went on and on about money and the sums for rental, food, and other necessities. It’s no surprise where I got my calculative genes from.

I think she was pleased that I asked her for advice on this, as we haven’t moved our conversation beyond how cold or hot it is in Shanghai, and what food I ate for lunch/dinner (depending on the time of the day she called). Despite my obliging tone, I’m glad I spoke to her (and dad) about this whole issue, as they never fail to force harsh reality down my throat and bring me down from my complacence and arrogance. My brother, too, in a separate conversation, has surprisingly brought my attention to the importance of work ethics and good manners. 

I’ll be negotiating my remuneration package, despite the number of naysayers, because I know I will never let up if I don’t try now. I’m confident of what I can offer to the company, and I’ve prepared a mini speech for a talk with the boss tomorrow, so just hope for the best. I’ll consider again if he doesn’t change his offer. 

I’m looking forward to being a half-pat in Shanghai! A half-pat is a locally-hired foreigner, kinda like in between a local and an expat. You know, I’m usually a misfit in categories but this may be one where I fit perfectly! 

Read more about half-pats in China, and the salary expectation of expats.

More to come with that. But for now, here’s a really cool CV done by a Chinese graduate, aspiring to work in video production:

Probably a useless thought, but I’m wondering if my job position is “Junior Content Specialist Editor”, am I supposed to be a “content specialist” or a “specialist editor”. Do they mean the same thing?

Anyways. So it’s been a week at the office. What’s my take on the job? I got to do some semi-creative writing in the middle of the week which required composing introductions and conclusions to ESL teaching articles, some editing/proofreading in the last few days that involved re-writing dating blurbs, and moderating and copying job ads everyday in a jobs/classifieds site that I think I’m now in charge of. In the coming week, I will be collating a hundred-ish Asian celebrity profiles and pictures after daily sourcing. It’s supposed to be fun, looking at idols’ bio and photos, but I have to work so fast I don’t have the time to read any of it. Appealing to fans of Taiwanese and Singaporean celebrities, if you have any good English sources for celebrity profiles and images, please contact me asap!

I feel like I’m somewhat on a (paid) “how to make money on the internet” course. Which is very useful, yes, but I think I would like my writing to be read mostly by people instead of search engines.

Nevertheless, I quite like what I’m doing/learning for now, and have some ideas of my own to either work on this current site or make another. For fun, not just for monetization.

On other news, MissY has started preparing curriculum for the kids in the kindergarten she’s teaching at. The kids keep her very happy there, which keeps me very happy too. Even though now I have to vie for her attention with 4-7 year-olds, and they’re hard to beat with their “sooooo cuuuuuttee” tugs at her shirt, and their puppy eyes looking (blink-blink-blink) earnestly at her begging for a spinning ride in the air, which is something I cannot get from her ever, obviously (but I will try asking for it one day when I weigh a bit lesser). It’s good to see her being so contented teaching these kids, and makes me wonder whether I should try it, despite my loathe towards most of them little monkeys, which probably stem from my wanting to be like them, haha.

ESL teaching is good money, but I’m not sure if my wanting to try it is for the right reason.

MissY sometimes comes home and expects me to be a kid too, though. She makes me sing along to her songs like “hello hello hello hello, hello teacher, hello friends, hello hello hello hello, hello!”, with the necessary hand waves and face turns. We do two versions, in English and in Korean, since my Korean is somewhere at the kids’ level of English. And her tone towards me is changing towards a more authoritative one, speaking to me as if I were her student, which I’m not sure if I dislike or allowing it to take on new dimensions in the relationship.

Then there are interesting things like this video she has incorporated into her teaching the other day:

I’m thinking she and I can become composers of kids’ songs too!

Ah, all these exciting project ideas.