Surviving Empty Nest

Blame it on the age - with more time at hand, a nest that has become empty and fear of inability to earn as age advances, I started looking for writing projects online. Not a newbie to this, as I have successfully done online, off line and part time projects before. The money is good if you know how to target the right websites. Or the right projects. I know as I had made more than USD500 with Appen Global, before the project ended. In fact, this round it started with an ad by a resume writing company in Singapore. Did my pitch, passed their tests at couple of levels and flunked the third level - badly! Ego was bruised as I have been a recruiter myself last 30 years and I failed resume writing test! Then, it occurred to me that perhaps, I should look at doing online projects. Sometime last year, almost at year end I had used the services of a graphic designer through Workana.com. It was a good experience, as it opened me up to the world that I did not know existed - freelancing or ...

Yesterday was the photo shoot day for our small online fashion business, co-owned by my daughter, Abby and I. I am just the custodian for now, as the business is her platform for greater things in life, in the future.  The photo shoot was not easy, to begin with. Our photographer, who is also the graphic designer, did not want to work with those models from the earlier collection. And when a new model approached and asked for an opportunity, I asked him to interview her and see her fit. He was not convinced that she would fit but as she had about 1.6K followers on Instagram, he agreed to use her as the female model. We chose one of the students from the university where my daughter studies, a very good looking Pakistani boy as male model, friend of our photographer.  The next challenge was getting the samples ready. In the past, we had done only samples for photo shoot and when there were orders, we would make fresh pieces and send to customers. But now, I am in full...

Never had I thought I would blog someday but I suppose at past 50, one should start penning down thoughts to leave behind some learning and experiences for those who seek wisdom on the Net. There was a professor who once had said that anything posted on the Net stays on the Net and should technology become very sophisticated someday where people can just seek assistance by redirecting their eye balls towards the issues that popped up in their brain and a hologram appears before their eyes with possible solutions - well, I hope my blog also appears as a possible solution provider to life issues.  To be fair, I do not expect to provide all solutions to everyone's problems, my love is for writing (among others) and at different stages in life, we focus on different things. Right after graduation, I was hunting for jobs and that was during the great recession of 1988. Funnily, I did land a temporary job at the very university where I studied (they still owe me RM650-my final sala...