Hi all,
I have a sparkling new website now! It’s where I post my pictures. It’s kinda beta but I wanna write my travel log there, so..there you go. Please visit and bookmark it. I have a feeling it will be interesting in times to come.
:)
dpx, signing off.
This shall be my penultimate post for 6aside. I’m starting anew, not surprising if anyone has been following me neatly throughout, but this time, I feel I need to do something to my online presence – I have a pathetic number of readers. The online community is huge – it crosses all borders – and if anyone hopes to make it BIG offline, making it BIG online helps a lot. At the moment of typing, I’m channeling my energy onto a photoblog, some sort of a niche which I had been quietly building for quite some time. I have now a domain name, and it will see my newly-found identity spending his time on photo writing. Yea, photography and writing. I hope I’m up to it.
Ever since the end of exams [something which I quite dread], I have been thinking a lot about my future, and at the same time, escaping reality a lil’. My education has been preparing me for a future in a BIG 4 Accounting firm, but I knew it was not for me – especially after the internship which I went through. A colleague mentioned to me that if I ever want to picture where I will be after 5 years, I only have to look at my senior/manager.
A lot of my friends have been telling me a lot of things. Like not going to BIG 4 is a waste of my degree, or dump my idealistic frame of mind and get to earning money ASAP. If I’m ever in a position to advice, I will say this to anyone: An education is not only about equipping oneself with a skill/trade; it’s about learning about yourself, knowing what you like/disdain, where you belong, etc. My education has allowed me to realize that I do not enjoy the life that I’m headed towards, and I’m actually glad to find out now. The problem with the system is that we choose too early in life. Everyone is a banker/doctor/scientist/lawyer/accountant/salesman at an early age. People seldom choose otherwise until they grow sick of what they are told to do with their life. I’m quite sure I don’t want to reach that stage.
I can’t help but regard doing something you enjoy as the most meaningful thing in life. I certainly don’t wish to spend my entire life at jobs which pay me money and nothing else. I’m sure at any deathbeds, the person with the most satisfaction from what he has done with his life, will be the one to go the most peacefully. But make no mistake. I’m not saying money is not important. I’m just suggesting that money is best earned doing the things we enjoy doing.
As I’m writing this post, a street performer is probably preparing for his nightly bag of tricks along the San Francisco Bay. He loves his job, swallowing swords and anything that entertains. He is remarkably comical and gets paid by the local authorities to perform on their streets. He still collects whatever tips that his audience throws into his bag. He drives a fancy car and travels around the States to perform on the streets. Sure, he can pick up a suit and find a white-collar job anywhere else. But that is not what happened anyway.
If anyone is telling you that money and dreams don’t come together, don’t believe them. They speak without ever putting themselves in your shoes and they are probably saying so because they are afraid you might prove their words wrong and do better than them. With passion and hard work, we can all earn money while enjoying ourselves. What stands the achievers apart from the rest of the herd, is that these people grit their teeth and work their arse off to make their dreams possible. They believe in themselves and stand up whenever they fall. At the moment, I’m still trying to convince myself that I can hold my faith close and have the same level of persistence. I’m still adding credibility to my current passion, an excruciating decision to make, for I don’t want to make a mistake of committing to a false passion. Which explains why I seem nonchalant when it comes to applying for jobs – I don’t just apply to whatever there is available. It’s hard to explain to a lot of people what’s on my mind, but I thought I’m doing a neat job here, at least.
A lot of my friends mentioned to me about opening a cafe of their own some time in their life. I hope they are working towards it. By working, I mean researching and knowing how much it’s gonna cost, what it takes for it to survive, etc. Because everyone can have a dream, but dreams don’t just happen. Even David Beckham hits thousands of balls each day to get to where he is now.
xoxo,
dpx
Update: “You keep saying to yourself, ’someday my dream will come true.’ Then one night you’ll wake up and you’ll discover it never happened. It’s all turned around on you and it never will. Suddenly you are old, didn’t happened and it never will, ’cause you were never going to do it anyway.” – Vincent
Placing the slides on the light table, I felt an indescribable feeling up my spinal cord. It’s like checking exams results and they come out good. Only better. Now I can’t wait to digitalize them and show off to the whole damn world. (:
If there ever will be a spitting world tournament at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, China will win all the medals available.
Oh, hey, I’m back from the supposed grad trip! I was half-wishing this will come sooner, but anyhoo..For the people who are looking forward to the pictures as well as me do, I took 8 rolls of Provia 100, 3 rolls of FP4+ and a roll of Delta 3200. I’ve just sent them for developing, and if nothing serious occurs, we could be seeing a Nikon Coolscan in my house for a week while I digitialize every strip of film I can find in the house.
Grad trip wise, we visited Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and of course, Hong Kong. We met lots of people along the way, but the most interesting of them all turn out to be a photographer for Emigrate Shanghai, a magazine cater to the increasing population of Taiwanese in Shanghai. Shall fill in the details next time round.
Time to look for a job…
Off to the land of forbidden cities, red pagodas, huge buddhas and manicured gardens. Will be back in 10 days with awesome new pictures!
No digital this time. No laptops. In their place is a film SLR, 24 rolls of film and a huge mammoth tripod. It’s going to be interesting!
See yah!
Pictures courtesy of Dav aka mintymentos.
My description is self-explanatory.
I owe this long-overdue post to someone..
It’s helpful to know about a few basic things about camera and taking pictures. It’s not about the camera, it’s about the person behind the cam, blablabla. And yah, the manual is a best friend. I’m listing down a few things and if the jargon’s too technical, skip to the part where it isn’t. Cheers, brother. Read More »
Images capturing the pain and grief suffered at the Virginia Tech tragedy.
..because you cannot feel a shit even though you just got buang-ed and rolled over by a double decker bus in your final exam paper.
Then again, the elation of academic freedom is that much only. Chelsea not winning feels much better!
 | limin on starting anew |
 | dpx on starting anew |
| val on starting anew |
 | dav on starting anew |
| theworldthroughhisey… on starting anew |
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