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Starting on the journey of becoming twenty-something. A psychology student who is interested in photography, design, and advertising. Find pleasure in art, food, music, and good books. I like to play badminton and I support Arsenal Football Club. I wish for a world where everyone is free to love.

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Blog Archive

Sunday 25 February 2024

Prove the world wrong

Be direct, be straightforward
Take no prisoners
Don't leave my own story to chance

Ask, demand
Any answer will point the way forward
No use in getting entangled
In this space where I'd need to doubt my senses
And interpret the whispers of my heart

But you're not any other person
Sounds cliche but you're one in a million
Or maybe even a billion

Worth confusing myself for
Worth an unproductive, melancholic night
Or maybe even a couple of those
Worth the heartbreak that may come after
Although dare I say, I see a light at the end of the tunnel

And I'm not any other person
For better or worse my heart is not in confinement
These days it beats to the rhythm of you
That much, I know is true

Uh yes this takes some time
Hm no I'm not sure what the future holds
But as you pull your weight
I'll lift it off
And we'll prove the world wrong

Saturday 6 January 2024

My heart is wayyyy ahead of my brain sometimes

It's that tiny little glance

That you need not spare


It's those couple strings of words

Make me think you care


When you paused when you could walk by

For once i didn't want to be shy


----------
Commentary:

I wrote the last two lines on Thursday, 4 January 2024. It's about something that took place recently.

The first four lines were in my notes for quite some time, although I didn't record when exactly.

Some moments in life, I look at someone and I can almost feel with absolute certainty that this person is gonna play a big part in my life. Or maybe we have met in the past ones? Idk, you can call it intuition, or maybe just wishful thinking.

I can't tell if this is going anywhere, but anyway this is the first time I'm putting my feelings out there. Why? Just a wish that by some miracle, one day you'll have a reason to be here and read this.

Some moments in life, you know you have little control over some things. Friends call you silly and be like ๐Ÿ˜ฎ‍๐Ÿ’จ๐Ÿ™„ but yo they choose to befriend a hopeless romantic. I could be in for a long wait, but that, I can take. Say it's nothing worthwhile, to me it's worthwhile even if it's nothing.

Friday 11 November 2022

Part one of my "dream"

Like any other kid growing up to be a teen, of course, I have many dreams. And a huge part of them is always tied to jobs. Don't ask me why I dream of labor.. maybe I actually love doing things and knowing that my work helps others somehow. And also to enjoy nice things in life.

Scientist (oh man lil Cindy didn't have a clue), detective, badminton coach, fashion designer, marine biologist, Chinese medicine practitioner, and finally, psychologist. If you've been here before, you might already know that I did study psychology, but never ended up being a proper psychologist.

But apart from those very concrete, very specific jobs that I had come to know and imagined myself doing, there's one moment from my teenage years that I clearly remember.

I can't remember which year it was, but I was just starting to discover and fall in love with this thing called the internet. What it does to me then and now, is open doors. And it's also my window to the world.

Imagine sitting down in your house and yet being able to be in touch with what people in Denmark care about, the emerging fashion trends from Paris, and what the west side of the world thinks about equality. I thought about how great it would be if one day, I can get a job where I can be on the internet, browsing and finding and learning new stuff all day every day. It sounded kinda incredible at that time because obviously, that kind of job didn't exist. Well, some lucky people get to be a blogger, but for 99% others it probably wasn't a feasible money-making thing.

But man.. fast forward 10 years later and here I am. Writing, being on the internet all the time, making life easier for people, and getting paid for it. In many ways, it's really a dream come true. My official title, content designer (or UX writer, depending on where you work), didn't even exist back then. When I was in uni realising that I gave too much practical advice to be a psychologist, I wanted to be a copywriter. Ok, tbh copywriter isn't that far away from a content designer.. but they're different.

I was having dinner with some friends and we were talking about the tech field being in shambles these days when the fact that I'm living my dream crossed my mind again. And that's why I started writing this with my phone just before going to bed that night. Luck plays a part, for sure.

My first company took chance on someone who has a very minimal portfolio but hmmm demonstrated a good thought process.
>>
I somehow gained enough confidence to apply for a role at Facebook, got through up till the last stage, and took back precious learnings of what I was not doing enough.
>>
As the more senior people left my company at that time, I got to work on and get involved deeper with big projects.
>>
And because I was feeling good and productive, I took on the chance to volunteer as a content strategist with a non-profit that tried to build low-cost ventilators.
>>
Thanks to that slight familiarity with the health industry (and probably other things too), I got a job at a fast-growing health-tech company.
>>
Learned so so much in a year, but in the end, I felt like I gave too much and didn't have the capacity, emotional bandwidth, and support to "hone my craft".
>>
I probably would have bear with it longer, if not for my breakup. Was feeling decisive and was like "oh yup maybe something else would suit me better"
>>
Got a job at a company with probably one of the most established content design teams



So yeah, that's where I am. In the past almost one year, I have been learning a lot. Getting to know some very nice, super-smart people. Working on complicated projects that could sometimes take way longer than I imagined to launch (for a good reason, I always hope). Seeing right in front of me how a good content design team operates, the standard being held, the crits, the forums to show your work. It's amazing.

At this moment, I am what I wanted to be.

I feel like I have been riding a wave, it brought me to this good place that.. is good. But now, I can't help to feel like it's time to swim to catch a new wave.

A big part of this comes from simply being inspired by people that I interact with day to day. I used to think that to be a great content designer, then well you need to be great at designing content. No shit. But just during the first few weeks of being in my current company, I realised that it's only one piece out of the whole puzzle. Of course, you need to meet a certain standard there, but I noticed that people have their own strengths and are good at different things.

It's the things like approaching and documenting projects very systematically so that every discussion point is recorded and can be referred to anytime. Facilitating a good brainstorming session where people feel included. Following up and leaning into action to keep the momentum going. Sharing about your work confidently, and yet being open to constructive feedback, not just affirmation. Being curious and experimental in trying to make the process better. Showing up even when you're not feeling particularly motivated. And a few more.

Out of those points, I am better at some and worse at others. I don't think it's realistic to be great at everything, but what I want to do is double down on my strengths and identify a couple of areas that I care more about and actively improve on those.

A second angle that I'm thinking about is the impact I'm making. Naturally, I have a very soft way of approaching things and also a zen understanding of life. Don't get me wrong, I feel that it's a good thing and will not have it any other way. It also brings me to good places. But the concept that recently came to me is that: I don't have to see "strong" as the opposite of "soft". I can anticipate without worrying. I can request without demanding. I can teach without prescribing. I can invest and not feel like I'm wasting anything. I can demand more of myself without being hard on myself. I can have high hopes and still be content.

At the end of the day, I feel like I can be more. So that's where I'm swimming towards ๐Ÿ️


Saturday 1 January 2022

Who knew

In my life, as far as I can remember, there are a few moments where I know something has fundamentally changed me. 2021 is definitely one of them.


Who knew

It's not business as usual

Sometimes life isn't bright enough

For me to put on my rose tinted glasses

And the days I called nothing special

Are the days I might have taken for granted

So full in blessings

That I didn't realise one day some parts could be missing

-

But that's what makes it worth it

This time I'm counting my learnings

Walking on with both eyes opened

Wide enough? I'm not sure

But I start to ask the hard questions

To know myself better

To tie up the loose ends, to get to that clear first page

-

Seasons change

Not because anyone wants it to

But because it's time to

And with each things gone

New things come

And me, or human in general

Are here to live through them

We're made for the world, world ain't made for us

Btw who are to say journey has to have an end?

-

So here I am

Feeling like I have grown up for a bit

With a new, hopefully better perspective

Ready for the year ahead

Once more with my heart on my sleeve




Saturday 18 December 2021

2020 Q2: Making due changes, Q3: Fresh new start, Q4: Good good times

Happy new year! It's the 2nd of January today as I'm writing this. Although I'm not taking any leave in between Christmas and new year, these past two weeks have felt like a long, relaxing, well deserved holiday. I have been feeling quite grateful for many things that happened this year. I am in a good shape, I have a job that I like, have new found interest on topics like personal finance, world economics, and start to enjoy more active lifestyle involving long distance walking and swimming.

Just this afternoon, I have thought a little bit about my new year resolutions. It has been a ritual that I'll do every year (started since junior high school, I think) and tomorrow I'm going to define the resolutions to be more specific. But apart from that, my partner suggested something that I haven't considered before: doing reflection of the past year. Well, I might have thought about it unconsciously before, but writing it down is going to be different yeah?

And oh.. now I remember that recently I did something similar. You know how when you're starting on a new job, you'll be placed on probation for 3 months before you become confirmed staff? So 2 months into my probation, I took a day off to think about stuffs like what I'm doing well, what I want to do more of, how can I contribute more, etc. I'm quite happy doing that because it sorts of gives me a sense of "what's next".

(definitely trailing off from the post's intended purpose...)

(... let's jump back)

p.s. it's now afternoon, 3 January 2021.

Ok so last April, things started to get serious with covid. Singapore was entering something called Circuit Breaker and initially almost everything deemed non-essential were closed and basically the only places we could go was to buy take away food, groceries, and clinics. I was going to be stuck at home even more haha.

I remember the days before CB, I went to shopping malls to do the usual things I like to do, before parting with them for at least a few months. Carls junior, library, pepper lunch. And I was quite lucky because a few days before CB officially started, I met my partner quite a lot because we're preparing the Facebook interview thing.

One of thing that I started to do immediately after CB was trying to prepare my own food. I have been trying to eat healthier since the past month, so that was quite the natural progression. As someone who don't usually cook, most of the things I made initially were just variations of bread and eggs. I also tried to make my own grape jam once lol. It tasted good tbh, but nowhere near what a jam is supposed to be ๐Ÿ˜‚

And around this time, I decided to make the most out of the situation. I started to be seriously on diet. My daily routine was quite consistent because every day was almost the same.. I woke up quite late because work started at 11 AM, then I would go to buy some food from the nearest kopitiam, which kept me full almost till evening. And then I stocked up yoghurt, cheese, chocolate, oats, and fruits. Came dinner time, I would pick two items out of those.

The key to my diet was to make it sustainable. Meaning, I still eat what I like. For example, my lunch menu is very flexible as there's no restriction on the type of food. It can be mala, laksa, burger, prate, rice and fish bento, prawn curry, etc. Some days I would order delivery for healthy rice bowl. And of course, I try to limit fast food, soda, snacks, and sugary drink.


I also developed a new habit that's quite brilliant (using past tense because I don't do this anymore..). So around 6 PM after I was done with work, I would take a walk to this shop located a few blocks away from my place. Normally it will take around ten minutes to reach there, but to be more healthy, I picked a longer path which is like double the usual distance. And this shop actually sells fruits and juices, so I would buy one and enjoy it on my way back. It's making me healthy + getting some physical activity at the same time.

Talking about physical activity.. I don't think I've done a lot of it haha. Apart from the walking to buy juice regularly, I only did some lifting to strengthen my arm and some core exercise. Meanwhile, almost all of my housemates were being fitspo, exercising every day by following YouTube videos. 

๐Ÿ‘‡The portion below is written on 18 October 2021. Yes, that's right... 2021

Ok this is definitely not in the plan haha. Recently there are a few memorable milestones that I would like to record down, which reminds me of this year review that I'm supposed to do. So really, I'm trying very hard right now to do a 2020 recap without spoiling anything from 2021. Stay tuned for that one.

Now it kinda feels weird.. cause I'm realising how my perspective might have been altered, given what I have experienced this year and knowing how things would unfold. But ok, I'll just play dumb and talk about 2020 as if I don't know what will happen in 2021.

So about the diet, basically it is a very successful one! Most of the good things I started during circuit breaker time has become a habit. I'm so proud of myself for being able to pull it off and again it reminds me how important my physical condition is to me. Feeling lean is like one of the most amazing feelings ever. And it's such a joy to just rediscover my old clothes or those that previously didn't fit very nicely, try them out, look at the mirror and be like wowwww. Hahaha. One thing bothers me tho, so you know I occasionally send my pics to my family chat group.. and they have been commenting that I look different, in a good way. But then, I have not been able to go back to my hometown for the longest time. So I really hope I can maintain this level of fitness in the long run. Otherwise they're gonna be so convinced that all these time I'm just using app to catfish them lol.

I guess another lesson here is to take things one step at a time. Cause when I first started the diet, I was quite far from my normal (not even ideal) weight. So on some days you'll look at the numbers and find that cool cool I lost 1kg, rightly so cause I had very light dinner the day before And then you hope that the same pattern is gonna happen the next day, but nope. Longer timeline is to be expected for crucial things in life. Well, it is not as disheartening at it sounds.. there are some milestones that will make you excited, but yup looking back it was quite a journey. Just for the record, the whole thing started around April and it was by September that I reached my ideal weight (losing 10kg in total). In between there were moments where I felt stuck, but introduced different things such as new recipes to try out to keep the motivation up. I have never been a good cook, but I gotta give myself a pat on the back for the dishes I came up with lol (pics will be included). 

Apart from this, the whole May and June I was simply obsessed with my newly bought watch. A vintage one. Long story short, I got into this whole vintage watch thing cause work was quite chill at that time. So I did a lot of research into the general topic, narrow it down to one brand, and ultimately further down to one model of the brand. Omega Geneve. It is so special to me because I come to appreciate the history of the brand and model, put a lot of effort into learning how to tell a good vintage watch from bad ones, but most importantly I'm simply amazed by the level of design details that goes into this watch. It is really not the best, but it is perfect to me.


 ๐ŸคฏBelieve it or not, today is already 18 Dec 2021. Honestly at this rate I'm not even sure I can finish this before the upcoming new year.. but let's try. Maybe I'll switch to bullet points style.

- July. Thanks to the lockdown and gathering restrictions, I picked up another hobby, leather crafting. I've always loved the feeling of learning something new, like it makes me realise there are just so many things to try out in the world. And also the sense of achievement when you progressively get better at something. My partner at that time had just started their first job, so the first ever thing I made was an access card holder. It's nowhere near good looking but served it's purpose for almost a year!


- Most of my August was pretty chill. I think I'd already given my resignation letter so work didn't occupy me as much.. as I look through my gallery, it seems like I experimented a lot with the leather craft stuffs (made some for my mom and sis too!), went to some cafe and new food places, and of course, read some books.

- Someday around early September 2021 was my last at Titansoft. As you know from my previous post, I've been looking for a change since maybe around March. Tbh I'm so thankful of the WFH arrangement because interviews are now much more convenient. Also on my last day, my team mates all came to the office and it's nice that we can have a little gathering. At that time we had a newcomer who joined in the middle of pandemic, so it's good that she's got to meet some people too.

- So I was quite productive during my break. Met up with friends, did some mini spring cleaning for my room and wardrobe, bought clothes to wear to my new office (covid was getting better at that time), and went outdoor several times. Also important to note that I finally purchased a small legit table for me to do work on. I'm not sure if I mentioned it somewhere, but since the beginning of WFH till then, I had been using folding table and work from my bed. Not the most ergonomic arrangement, but oh wells.



- And woohoo! New job season's here. My company at that time is an AI powered health tech startup and I joined in such an exciting time cause people are warming up quickly to the idea of remote healthcare and how to make the whole process more effective. I was so pumped up partly because of that, and also because I felt good knowing that what I do might help people. --Spoiler alert: I've resigned from this job quite recently, but let me just recap whatever was my feeling then--  But yeah, I really learnt a lot of new things there. The challenge is because it's a B2B product, the whole thing is quite technical and I needed to know how to work with people from data and medical fields, and somehow translate all these into an experience that's easy to use for the end user.


- Maybe something else to note here, since I think it's quite an important learning. During my first few month at that company, I felt quite lonely. Here's the thing.. in my day to day I work very closely with my colleagues from the UX team. But since we had flexible arrangement, they chose to work from home. Meanwhile for me, I prefer to come to office like maybe 3 days a week. So sometimes there were events like birthday or milestone celebration, and I remember very clearly how out of place I felt at that time. Like imagine knowing no one, people having fun and chatting with each other, and there you are. But in moments like these, there are a few magical people who reach out (through different means) and basically try to include me into the conversation. And I'll always be thankful of them and hopefully in other situations, I could be like them for other people :)

- I think around November, I was quite obsessed about going to the library and borrowing books (I still am!). Like honestly, libraries are national treasures. Sometimes I go there and it warms my heart how people from all walks of life can just be there and enjoy their time. It's almost like a sanctuary. Very hard pivot here haha, but at the end of Nov we had a company outing. I had a good time throughout, but the most meaningful part was that they made the arrangement to have 2-3 people as roommates for the one night staycation and I ended up chatting quite a lot and got to know my roommate better.



- Mannn December was just sweet. And perfect. And sweet hahaha. Yes it's traditionally time for a celebration but last year, it turned out I really had a lot to celebrate. First of all I passed my probation with flying colours and got a pay raise as a result hehe. The job was not easy and I was the only content strategist there, so to be frank I had my moments of doubts and you know, impostor syndrome. So yeah that felt good in the end. I also had pre-Christmas gathering with some of my ex colleagues and it's nice to catch up with everyone. So actually, now it's the moment where I'm supposed to talk about my staycay haha. But I'm just here pondering how much details should I write down.. on one hand I want to remember stuffs and it makes sense to recall as much as possible. But knowing that I have now broken up with my then partner, it feels kinda weird too..

- Ok since actually I have lots of pictures of the staycay and our holiday in general, I decided not to talk much about it here. It was my first staycay and things were amazing. I loved every minute of it. Looking back, I know I have some minor regrets tho. I remember my ex wanted to buy Christmas decorations and I was just being the stingy one lol. Maybe I shouldn't be too strict about spendings and know when to splurge a bit more on celebrating stuffs in general too. But anyway, I was really happy last Christmas.



And yup, that's all! Sorry if the last few parts feel rushed. It's because.. well, I was rushing hahaha. I first started this habit a few years ago so that I can just look back anytime and have a good ol' nostalgic moment. But I realise as my life gets busier and my mind more occupied, it is not so easy to find the time and determination to write all these down. It might be a good thing tho, cause it may mean that my life gets more interesting and there are more stuffs to say too haha.

Soon it will be a good time to start reflecting on the year 2021. It's another roller coaster year I should say. With lots of learning. But as a conclusion, if I could go back in time and tell my younger self a thing, this would be it: "Cherish the good time, the people around you, have a good sense of balance."

See ya soon ✌️


Wednesday 23 December 2020

2020 Q1: Realizing things, especially when they're changing

Yes, that's right. We're getting multiple recap posts for 2020. I'm really not sure how it's gonna go, but the whole time this year I've been feeling that lots of things are happening. So here I am, trying to group them into quarters (a side note: this is the first time I'm writing a post using my phone).

I kinda touched on what happened in January 2020 in my last post.. so let's pick it up from there. February was when things started changing because of covid. My previous company (I have joined a new company since September, more on that later) implemented work-from-home arrangement very early, since the management were seeing this might be a long term thing to deal with. Which is accurate.

As a person who has kinda labelled myself as someone who doesn't like to stay at home, I was worried at first. Am I gonna get bored? How much motivation will I have? Is it fun? Those are the concerns early on. I tried many things to get a lil bit of excitement from the wfh arrangement. Preparing healthy food, going to a colleague's house for dinner, doing some workout using the HDB's fitness facility, and even donating blood for the first time (I've tried donating when I was in university, but didn't have enough iron). In retrospect, those are some quite effective coping mechanisms. At least they gave me stuffs to be looking forward to.

You might wonder.. but how about work? Am I not preoccupied with it? Well yes, in normal time work will have those effects. But as we already know.. 2020 is not business as usual. My previous company is a software agency, and the business model involves providing services like development, design, and content (me) to our clients. Not sure how it works exactly, but there might be profit sharing for projects. And during covid, our big clients were impacted heavily. Long story short there were some adjustments made such as benefit freeze, management pay cut, and even shortened work week scheme for employees. For us employees it's not that bad because the plan basically means we're getting paid half day for a full day off.. from a certain angle, it even sounds good.

Ok but that's not the point actually. So, because of the changes that our clients needed to make in their business model, we needed to implement things fast. Product developers worked all day and night to create and integrate products. However for the UX team, these urgent changes meant that UX processes were skipped most of the times. I get it, to be honest. And might even make the same decision if I were the one in charge. But yeah, for me it meant that most of my work was for long term projects that no one knows when they were gonna be implemented since everything else was so urgent at that time. You can see it this way: who will consider renovating a house while the house is on fire?

This situation went on till around March or April I think. The good part of it was that I suddenly had more free time to utilize. So then I started to prepare my portfolio, updated my resume, and even applied to some open positions that I'm interested in. One of them was at Facebook. It's quite a big thing for me because that Content Strategist role actually required 5 years of experience.. while I hadn't even worked for 2 years at that time. But anyway, I gave it a shot. I still remember how passing every interview stages felt super unbelievable. In total there were four stages, I reached the final one, and didn't get the job in the end. A bit disappointed, yes.. but I'm happy that I tried. They were also nice enough to brief me about what were the considerations, and to be honest I see their point. It's regarding something that I believe with more experience and time, I'll be able to improve on.

Ok so now that I've covered the most memorable part of this quarter, let me list down other stuffs that happened:
  • Started to read books consistently, mostly about design and writing. While I've always loved reading, I somehow can forget about it during some period. I remember while not reading, I was binge watching some series earlier this year (b99, the good place, kim's convenience, black mirror)
  • Had proper Valentine dinner with my partner - the one that you make reservation and get served special set menu. I was very pleased with how nice the staffs were treating us!
  • Sent LinkedIn connection request to some content strategists that I admired, instead of just following
  • Went back to Medan in March to join my grandpa's 100-days prayer. Was tired most of the days, but had some good time with family too. This has since been my most recent trip to Medan, as covid became widespread soon after.
  • Got a new glasses. Not a huge milestone haha, but I'm including this here because I really really like it. It's a different style compared to my previous ones, with semi transparent frame instead of my usual brownish frame picks. I think it looks cool and also "light" haha
  • Early January before CNY, I went to Indonesia for a user interview with some colleagues. I was sick for the whole trip.. it's like flu but much worse and I felt terrible tbh. Even after taking medicine, there's this "I can't feel my face" sensation. But amazingly I didn't take any day off, took part in the whole thing, and somehow survived (was it covid? who knows..).
  • During this same trip, I was sharing room with 2 of my closest colleagues in that company. To my ultimate absolute surprise, both of them resigned not long after that ๐Ÿ˜ž In my last year's recap post I mentioned about a colleague who resigned right? Well this time's got me feeling the same haha. I'm happy for them really, but also it felt different without them around. Not only about the vibe, but also what they brought to work, how they care about the product, their expertise, and all that. This might or might not have influenced my consideration to move (serious answer: yes, but it's not like oh they resigned so I wanna resign too. In the end, it sort of gave me room to explore new things at my previous company, to take more responsibility, to consider long term stuffs).
Alright that's all for the first quarter of 2020! It feels more liberating doing this actually, because I don't have to write a whole long recap for the whole year before I can post. This post currently has no pictures because I'm here typing away with my phone, but promise they will come later ✌️