(old writing)

As famously stated in the bible verse, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” (I’m not religious but words and ideas in religious teachings are forms of wisdom we can all learn from.)

Love is a pure feeling. Love is not possessive, it does not expect reciprocity. Love is wanting the best for the other person, on their terms, not yours. Love does not have to be defined as friendly or romantic — it can just be. You can love from a distance; you can love without letting the person know. …

Another day another f**king rude encounter. Can I swear on Medium? I don’t know, but there’s going to be quite a lot in this post because I’m annoyed. Exasperated, to be exact.

I have in the past, wrote bits and pieces of these in moments of anger and frustration but never really wrote a whole post on it because I worry that people are going to think I’m aggressive to my-already-assertive image. (Ha, ok I’m only half kidding.) But there’s always a tipping point.

So… this post was ignited by the (latest) curious question of “are you a virgin?” …

Lynda.com (via NLB)

A lot of Singaporeans probably don’t know this, but NLB has set up an organisation/ government account for Singaporeans (and probably PRs, but don’t quote me on that) for free access to the site. You can sign in via this site.

If you can’t open the link, just go to lynda.com and sign in under “Sign in with your organization portal” and key in “nlb.gov.sg” and you’ll be brought to the “Login using myLibrary ID” page.

This was a pile of random notes I collated for myself so I could pick out a method to use when I feel unproductive (which has been a lot lately) and…it became an article. These might sound obvious but there might be some tidbits in there for you, who knows. If you’re procrastinating, might as well read on. 😁

Start Right — Pen to Paper

Pen to paper instead of thoughts to chaos.

“In everything you do, refine your skills and knowledge about fundamental concepts and simple cases. Once is never enough. As you revisit fundamentals, you will find new insights. It may appear that returning to basics is a step backward and requires additional time and effort; however, by building on firm foundations you will soon see your true abilities soar higher and faster.”
― Edward B. Burger, The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking

There, that’s my pretentious intro-quote. 😂 Let’s jump into it.

1. Don’t use 100% saturated black.

Sharing positive vs negative information online.

I find topics on negative experiences or feelings a thing that people shun talking about because a) most people feel like it’ll seem as if they’re seeking attention, and b) people don’t have the patience to hear about your negative feelings because it doesn’t add value to their life. (Ironically we are drawn to negative news as if it adds anything to our great pool of general knowledge.)

I wrote this on an Instagram story the other day:

You think it’s attention seeking to share sad or negative feelings (online). But do you realise that talking about your happiness is the same thing. …

I have this thing with a friend where we use a template for ranting. And I feel like people could adopt this, funny and ridiculous as it sounds.

PSA: I want to state that ranting (to someone) shouldn’t be a fall-back habit. And it shouldn’t come with expectation that the person have to be there to hear you rant whenever.

I know this post sounds really stupid. But I think we often take other people’s presence for granted and we feed negative emotions to others as and when we like and we keep no boundaries, especially with close friends.

Why rant?

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” ― Sigmund…

Consider what you want to learn or gain.

As a self-taught designer I had no idea what specific design career path I wanted to go on, especially at the start, so I took the first offer from a boss that trusted me enough to hire me. Eventually I got comfortable and I went to work every day doing really monotonous work. Day after day, and later more than a year, passed by and I began asking myself, “What is the point of this? It’s not leading me anywhere (because I didn’t know where I wanted to go in the first place!)”.

It was forgivable since it was my first job having no design experience– the mundane recurring client works and photoshop usage was good practice. I built a little more confidence in my design abilities, whereas before I had none and always felt like a fraud for going to interviews with my barely touched Adobe softwares. …