Yesterday, I took my dear old car out on a drive. Yes, dear and old. It’s a ’95 Ford Escort that I do NOT ever want to sell. Continue reading “Took my dear old car for a drive…”
Tag: Lookback
Back to Work
It’s Monday and that means it’s back to work! Continue reading “Back to Work”
Last Day of May
It’s hard to believe May just flew by and it’s June already. May has been an over-productive month for me Continue reading “Last Day of May”
My Journey to Blogging
This picture is so right, blogging is a journey. After more than a year and 50 posts later, I think I should dedicate this single post to tell about my journey to blogging.
It all started with an idea…
One day, I was in the university’s coffee shop having lunch. I noticed the guy sitting next to me was eating a bagel. Of course, at the time, I thought about food and eating more frequently than usual. Then a completely unrelated thought hit me. My mom always said that bagels are the most traditional American food she’d known.
At once, I opened my laptop and googled “bagels” and clicked on the wikipedia link. As I read the article, I was surprised that bagels came from Poland and not what my mom said at all. I immediately opened Microsoft Word and began typing. I didn’t know what I wrote at first but after a short while, it was starting to come together like a jigsaw puzzle.
After researching two more different foods (Fish and Chips and Pizza), I became convinced that this was my 7th speech for my Toastmasters Competent Communicator. The different varieties of foods influenced by different cultures. (Need reference? Look back at my very first article from last February!)
I was beyond excited and believe me, in those days, I don’t get excited about writing. So I finished my speech about two weeks ahead and all of the sudden, I wanted to write MORE!!! But what should I write about? Also, I wanted to not only write everyday to improve my writing and communication but I also need some feedback from someone other than myself, from total strangers perhaps? 😀
A few days later, while I was doing my homework, my mom came in and asked me about microblogging, you know, what it is, how to set it up, and whatnot. The term blogging collided into my brain like a meteor. This was it! This was how I was going to get my feedback. I’m going to share my writing with the world!
As I waved my mom away, promising her I would research it later, I quickly googled “blogging websites.” A bunch of links came up but the one that caught my attention was wordpress. It sounded familiar like I used it before and I was right. I had to turn in a blogging assignment more than two years ago for my American Economic History course.
I signed a blog and posted the essay I wrote about food. Within a couple days, I noticed people were liking it and some even became my followers. Not a lot, I might add but it was progress because I never had anyone like anything I did before. I’ve been told I’m flawed at many things but maybe I’ve finally managed to find something I’m good at.
The bumps along the road…
However, with my busy full-time schoolwork and two-hour exhausting commute trips between home, school, and work, I didn’t have the time to keep writing. So I went into a long blogging hiatus until last September when I suddenly thought of blogging again while sitting in my empty classroom. I began writing again.
Since then, although I’ve been spotty with posts, I managed to keep up, writing about my observations, my daily life, and most importantly, about what I know. As I posted my own articles, I was reading other people’s posts to get a sense of how can I improve in my blogging and writing.
It was a good journey for me to be able to reach 50 posts and more than 100 followers in a little more than a year. For the past three weeks, I have been persistent with my blogs and writing almost daily even though I’ve hit many bumps along the way. Like work and slight writer’s block now and then but I have fun though and I’m looking forward to reaching my next goal.
Next goal: 100 posts and 500 followers!
Most Memorable Nights of a Lifetime
Graduation is one of the most memorable days or nights in anybody’s life whether you are graduating from high school or college, the ceremony itself just somehow makes you feel like for just this one day, you are the most important person and nothing else matters. Continue reading “Most Memorable Nights of a Lifetime”
January’s gone, February’s creeping by, can’t wait for March
As I sit here at my desk thinking and thinking and I realized, it’s almost the last week of February and I still haven’t written a single post for this blog this whole month. It’s strange to think I’ve done so much this past week let alone this past month. Hmm, what to write about? Ding, a light bulb lit up in my head, let’s summarize how 2014 has been for me so far; sort of like a timeline I can look back at the end of the year.
January:
First of all, 2014 started on a light note. On New Year’s Day, I had the house all to myself as I sat on the couch in my pajamas watching the Rose Parade which I enjoy watching every year. Then on the second week of January, school started and I was incredibly excited to see my friend Laura, who I haven’t seen since we took the FE back in October. Speaking of school, it started that same week at Layton Christian but I wasn’t back at work until the last week of January.
Of course, there’s happiness in life but it has to also have some anger and sadness to even it out. So there wasn’t much sadness during the month of January but there was plenty of anger that went with it. You probably know this from my post at the end of January, on the eve of Chinese New Year, I called home to China and well, got into a bit of an argument with my grandparents. Now, I’m betting that they’ll never want to speak to me again.
On to February:
February was and is still a bit of an annoying month for me. The Winter Olympics seemed to taken all the joy of watching television
from me. Everything’s on rerun and there are hardly anything to watch. Guess that just leaves me more time to do my homework and work on my writing. The most annoying thing of all is my mother, she got into a little mess at work and she felt she has to tell me not once, not twice, not three times but repeatedly every single night for the past week.
I’m like, I know already. Just stop talking about it, please. But still, I find her muttering the same thing to herself every night while cooking dinner or just surfing the internet. Otherwise, February’s been an interesting month for me, a bit slow but good.
On another note…
Earlier this month, I’ve finally decided to just hell with it (pardon me) and posted the entire fantasy novel I’ve written last summer onto booksie and hopefully receive some comments. You can view it by clicking here.
Also late last month, I’ve posted a supernatural romantic novella I’ve written at the end of last year. It’s basically the prelude to the fiction series I’ve been doing on this blog working titled “Fiction time.” You can read it by clicking here.
Best news of all, at least for me, I quit my tutoring job and found a so much better substitute, translation/quality control. I don’t know how long this one will last but it’s so much more stable than my job with the Li’s family. Hopefully, I can rack up enough hours these few months to buy myself a newer used car. My current car is almost 20 years old and it’s dying.
As for school, well let’s just say I don’t want to jinx it. I’m doing so well right now and hopefully I can keep it up and get a good grade. Let’s just say I want to graduate from my program on a high note.
As for this blog, I will try to post more than one post next month or maybe I’ll even start perhaps next week. Who knows? I’ve been itching to write a post about money or maybe a snippets of a new fiction I’m working on. We’ll see.
2014, What am I going to do with you?
2014 is upon us, well, 13.5 hour-ish. So let’s give 2013 a look-back to see what I’ve accomplished.
Let’s see…
February
This blog was started. I had an idea that I just couldn’t resist writing it down and that’s when I decided to start a blog about random things. But then something happened and made me quit. I’ve got some interesting entries on it before I quit though.
The Influence of Culture on Food – Learn about what I’ve found out about bagels and other interesting foods
A Wild Wild January – It has been a wild January, freezing rain and the ridiculous number of snow depths, my neighbor even managed to make a car size dog!
The Difference between Stubborn and Polite – Some people tend to confuse between two.
Traditional Chinese New Year Delicacy – The most “Liked” blog post to date.
August
I completed my summer semester with two “A-” and I even got on TV.
September
I started this blog again because I was bored at work and I happened to have some stuff I wanted to get off my chest. Since then I’ve managed to keep going which I would consider to be a miracle because I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to writing and work. Here are some of my memorable blog posts from September:
The Incidence with Public Manner – My boss did gross things everyday at work and I just want to get it off my chest before I threw up on anyone.
What is the Difference between 21 and 22 – A post where I dissect the different privileges that a 21-year-0ld has that an 18-year-old don’t have. Also should I feel any different now that I’m 22 maybe older and wiser?
Fiction Time: Gretchen’s Run – This post helped me gain quite a bit of followers since it’s a serial fiction and all. So far, #6 is in the works and it should be posted at the end of this week or next week. Be patient.
October
Government shutdown. My mom got furloughed and she spent the time in the backyard putting up patio bricks while I chauffeured my boss’s wife everywhere. Also it was the month that I had to take my engineering licensing exam again for the third time which by the way, I failed again. Anyway, here are some of that month’s posts:
Day #3: No work Govt shutdown stinks – How did my mom take the news that she didn’t have work the day.
Do these people ever care about price tag? – I took my boss’s wife shopping and she just grab grab grab without ever looking at the price tags.
Am I Anti-social or Do I just like to be Alone? – A lot of people call me anti-social, well this post will show them why I’m not.
November
I remembered all my students were already thinking about the holidays. I don’t blame them, I was losing it as it is with tutoring, school, and work. That was when all began, Thanksgiving week. Bad luck just came out of nowhere. Fortunately, it seem to be gone now, I haven’t tripped or fall for no reason and I haven’t misplace any of the important things. That month’s memorable posts includes:
Sunshine Award – Thank you again Jennifer Windram for nominating me.
Fiction Time #4: Tatianna’s story – Well that post got a lot of “Likes,” I guess people wanted to know what it’s like to be stuck in a house for 50+ years.
December
Well I completed a four-part arc and posted on different places. That got mixed reactions but most of them were positive. Also, my mom’s high school friend came to town and we went skiing with my boss’s family except only my mom’s friend’s son skied. My boss’s family prep for everything and even before we helped them sign up for classes, they got chickened and so we traveled back down as soon as the next bus got here. How shame and all because of a comment made by my student’s sister about someone fall and broke their leg during a beginner’s lesson. I guess my most memorable post for the month is the “Last Memories”.
Goals and Resolutions
I know I made some goals at the beginning of 2013 that I can hardly recall. Sad news is those goals never got accomplished.
Now what are those goals again? Oh yeah, to get back to 110 lb, not to fail any classes, and to complete the two beautiful Chinese painting jigsaw puzzles downstairs. Well, I never got to that and as for the pounds, my body seemed to have stopped at 113.5. So I’m stuck at that no matter how hard I exercise and how less I eat. As for the third goal, I did fail one class during the spring semester of 2013 but that’s because the instructor was cruel. 40 people took that class and he failed half of them. Good thing he’s not teach the class this semester.
For 2014, my goals remains the same except instead of setting a weight limit, I will try to exercise more consistently. As for my goals for this blog, I will try to write at least entry on this blog each month. No matter how many words, just a minimum of one post each month. Also right now I have 65 followers. For 2014, I want my followers to reach 100 and I will try to get more likes, I guess because right now, I keep on getting only a maximum of 7 likes. Odd!
