So let's talk about what happened in the intervening years

So let's talk about what happened in the intervening years between 2007 and now. As many young unambitious men, I was clueless as to what I wanted to do when I completed national service. 

After much introspection, I applied to study psychology in NTU and was not accepted (well, I am not sure if my application went through at all, since I received no rejection from them). In any case, my diploma grades was abysmal, and it is likely an IT diploma was viewed as irrelevant in pursuing a psychology degree.  

On hindsight, unacceptance was a blessing. In my own readings of psychology, I was overwhelmed by the breadth of the subject. Yes, I was smitten by Sigmund Freud and his student Carl Jung. But overall, I doubt I would have penetrated the subject at a very deep level (I do, however, scratch the surface).

Eventually I applied for accountancy in SIM-RMIT. For the simple reason that it offered a 1 year full time (1st year) and 2 years (2nd and 3rd years) part time programme. The idea was to enjoy my first year of university life and work in the later 2 years. Enjoy I did, the best thing that happened was I met my future wife and made some great friends. Graduated with, again, abysmal grades. 

Did I enjoy accounting? well, to a very small extent. I found a job as a finance executive in healthcare (lasted about a year) and crossed over to financial audit where I spent about 6 years. Finally into my current role as an accountant in a professional service firm.

Right, so career wise my excitement is as good as Singapore's hope of qualifying for the world cup. Which are - big dream, poor planning and half-baked executions. 

Jokes aside, there are many more things (not career related) to share. We shall catch up again.

-SMN

Some thoughts on blogging

I see that user interface for blogspot has changed a lot. Well, that's expected, given the 16 years gap in my blogging. Yes, I like it. I was not aware Google owns Blogger since 2003. It may explain why blogspot is still around. If a relatively small tech company held it, it may have closed shop sooner. I used to blog under the site pitas. I see it is no longer around (and so are my older blog posts). Ahh well, less embarrassment then in reading my older posts. 

Some history of blogging - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_blogging. Oh yes, in the past Wikipedia was not widely used. The go to search portal was yahoo and google. Blogging sites soon started dying with the advent of social media platforms. With the birth of Facebook (now Meta), things changed pretty quickly. People started posting more frequently in FB than on their blogs (at least for those few blogging friends I had). Largely because the posting of photos were easier and the outreach was wider. People (family and friends in your 'friends' network) are more likely to come across your posts and share their comments. 

With the old blogs, you need to individually check out the bloggers by navigating to their blogspot sites. If you see my old posts, there are some comments left there. These are by individuals (friends) who will regularly drop by to see if there are any updates. In this respect, FB sure made things easier, through their algorithm, by making your posts appear as 'feeds' in the user's FB page.

So, it is clearly more convenient in using FB to create posts. There are also other sites, such as substack, medium, ghost, wordpress. I understand it allows the users to monetize their content. I have not tried them myself.

Then there is LinkedIn. For the career professionals who share posts on their career (and sometimes personal) lives.

One aspect I enjoyed about blogging is, after a day out, you come home and share how it was like. Sometimes with exaggeration, done solely for the purpose of keeping the readers entertained. 

No fancy posts to impress, no strong opinions, little criticisms. Writing for a few but mostly for yourself.

-SMN

Right, it is nice to be back after 16 years.

 Right, it is nice to be back after 16 years. 

Conventional thinking dictates it is wise to bury my past to save myself a huge embarrassment. 

However, the decision to continue using this blog, I hope, will serve as a reminder that one often holds opinions that now sounds silly, nauseating and wrong. Even scarier is how a random reader may chance upon some of the old posts and cancel me (not that I am someone worth cancelling). The world has changed in the past 16 years. So have I (I think).

A brief update.

Current age 37. Job - accountant (half-baked - as I do not hold any practicing certificate). Married to a beautiful lady with a son aged 16 months. Another baby due to arrive in July.

No longer a fireman (ord-ed in Sep'08). No longer skateboarding, but bought a skateboard a year ago to relive the young days. Skated a few times and then stopped when my son came. Playing football occasionally. 

Hope to blog regularly.

- SMN (SarariMaN)