I'm just a boy trying to find my place in life. This is my personal blog where I blog about my personal life. If you are so inclined to get to know me, you can also findstalk me on tumblr or twitter. ;)
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. — Albert Einstein
Learning to say no is quite an essential skill, and certainly one I haven’t quite mastered yet. Otherwise I wouldn’t have landed myself in this situation of having 4 freelance projects on hand on top of my full-time day job. When I was young I always dreamed to be a freelance designer. But dreaming to be one and actually being one are two different stories, especially when you’re doing it part-time in addition to a full-time position. I certainly wouldn’t have imagined it to be this hectic with little time to sleep, let alone time for myself.
Talking about work, we have been working on some rather big improvements on a few sections. I can’t really discuss many of them since they are still in progress, but we have recently launched the new Translate aNobii section, which I’m quite proud of. I don’t think anyone has done localization/translation quite as engaging as we have.
A lot have happened since my last entry — getting a new iMac (also my first desktop Mac ever), a 4-day family trip to Shantou, which was a lot more fun than I expected. Maybe I will put up some pictures once I get over this couple weeks of hectic works.
Radiohead has always been known for their environmental and political activism. Recently they have teamed up with MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) to produce a music video to raise awareness of human trafficking. The video for the song “All I Need” was filmed in Australia by Oscar-winning cinematographer John Seale and director Steve Rogers.
I guess no one can describe it better than Radiohead‘s lead singer, Thom Yorke:
They’ve produced a video of two parallel stories running, one of a little boy in the West and one of a little boy in a sweatshop in the East, and the boy [in the West] ends up buying the shoes from the sweatshop. It’s actually quite powerful.
I think it’s important for everyone in the West or on High Street to understand the consequences of our economic activity. You must be aware of the level of exploitation that’s going on. It’s part of our Western life, and one we should accept responsibility for. There’s no such thing as a free lunch or a free ticket to another country.
Tonight a couple of coworkers and I went out to grab some dinner after work, and we decided to take the tramways. This was my first time taking the renowned Hong Kong tramways since I came back. I don’t even remember when was the last time I took it since I grew up in the New Territories but the tramways only runs on the island side. Anyway, I always thought it was such a shame that thousands of tourists come to Hong Kong every year to take the tramways, and I had yet to taken it once when there is particularly a stop a block from my work. So tonight I have finally redeemed myself and tried our best to make the most out of our HK$2 tramway trip.
Yesterday a friend of mine from UCSD was asking me for advice on how to deal with goodbyes, since he has been accepted into Berkeley and will be transferring over and leaving his friends this summer. Well, you would have thought that after so many experience of leaving and goodbyes, I would be a pro at it. But the truth is I’m not even the least qualified for the job. I’m a mess myself when it comes to goodbyes. Well, he’s a smart person and I think he has figured out all the answers all along. He just needed a friend to tell him what he needed to hear, and I knew that’s the part I could do.
I have been playing with this revolutionary news/RSS reader application called Times since I came home. It’s amazing with a spiffy interface. It has just launched today, so go check it out if you haven’t done so already.
