Had a pretty stressful past couple of days, was given a pretty big project on revamping the company profile of Tunas Manja (Joash's heritage!). Struggled a lot with it because the info they gave me was contradictory (one page said 24 retail outlets, another page said 26, even the company name wasn't consistent throughout the 30 pages of their original company profile). Struggled with the format - from what I know, company profiles are supposed to be short, sweet, and attractive. But their was looong, maybe for investors? Although if it was for investors, the facts and figures would be woefully inadequate.
Worked on it till 7.30am this morning (yeah, through the night). Felt extremely unsatisfied with it, but I couldn't quite put a finger on it. When I woke up at 12+, my editor/boss/money-giver got gotten back to me, and the style and tone were off.
Feel like it was the biggest disaster I've ever done during my (short) writing career. Sigh. I was grappling so much with the format and compiling the information professionally that I had forgot to look at the most important: language.
Nevertheless, the boss gave me good feedback (good as in I know why I felt the whole article was off in the first place) and I worked on revamping it with newfound confidence. :)
How I feel about writing now... I feel like a badminton player who possesses the required level of skill and stamina to play well, but needs guidance from a coach to implement the correct strategies needed to win.
It's a game of words, and it's so very exciting. I never knew writing would become such an integral part of my life, that I would find so much joy in constructing sentences and manipulating language.
So yeah, the company profile made me feel like a lost badminton match - big time - but I've learnt from it.
As my badminton coach once told me during an intense, rubber game match with a KL player... "Spirit is important. You just have to keep on fighting, and never give up. You're as good a player as her, so it'll boil down to your mental strength." I went on to win that match, possibly my biggest victory in my short and pathetic badminton career, but above all, I always cherished his advice.
One of my childhood badminton friends, "Soo Teck Zhi" was been making headlines lately, and is currently ranked World No. 1 at the junior level.
When I partnered his brother for a tournament, his father told me, "Aim for gold. If you join a tournament without aiming for the gold, you're aiming to lose. And if you're aiming to lose, why did you even join??"
His son and I went on to win the U14 Mixed Doubles gold medal, beating several 'bigger' names in the process.
But again, not so much the win, but his words have stayed in my mind.
Really, with that kind of mentality, I'm not surprised that Teck Zhi has made it so far. When I first met him, he could barely hold a racquet properly, and he was a bit behind his peers in the badminton world. Now? Haha.
Why all the rambling, you'll ask. I don't know why, just felt like writing freely without anyone giving me a structure and focus to concentrate on. Been doing so much writing these days, I just need some space to think aloud.
Ok, now I've got to go back to the real world and complete my uni stuff :-O Feels like uni is the real world and being a paid writer is my escape zone these days... just want to get done with undergrad!
If I were to advise new uni students... I would tell them to work hard in your first few semesters. If you're like me and many others, you lose the 'oomph' to work hard later on, and you need your CGPA to be solid enough for you to explore the real world as you transition between uni and work in your final few semesters of studies. If I hadn't done well in my early semesters, no way would I have been able to do all that I've done during the past year - work, tuition, writing, competitions, holidaying... all during on-going semesters.
OH!
And my dearest Joash got me a Samsung S4! :D Extremely generous of him, and shows how far he has come since we first met. The phone is real awesome, I'm still learning how to work an Android properly though (iPhone 4S for the past 2 years, bought thanks to JPA, but somehow having the S4 come from Joash just feels so much more precious), so my typing and all with the S4 is pretty slow.
I even frustrated my uni mates with weird messages like,
Me: Can add me to the (whatsapp) group?
Me: New phone.
Me: Lost!!!
and my friend Aaron tries to do some investigating to see who could have stolen my phone. Poor guy. Haha!
I think I'm slightly eccentric la sometimes. -__- Looking back at those messages, I realised that I had typed them without filling in the context of my situation. In my mind, I read those messages like this:
Me: Can add me to the group?
Me: Got a new phone.
Me: Lost all my Whatsapp groups!!!
Haha. Eccentricity :(
Ok, I'm mumbling and going on again.
I'll be back another time! With a more coherent post (I hope)!
Cyaaa
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