O HAI

Very long time no update, and yes my excuse is, as always, the popular 'i've been busy' and 'working hard', but isn't it always. I realise its rather hypocritical especially since I believe in the idea that, "where there is a will, there is a way". So i'll amend my excuse to "I haven't been arsed to make the time to blog".

There, a more accurate and honest assessment.

So, with that aside, a little blogging about my freelancing life. I've grown quite fond of doing work such as this, as I feel it gives me the best of 'both' worlds: income, with a high degree of flexibility.

I've found that people by and large tend to have a dim perspective of freelancing, there's that subtle thing that often shows on their faces when I say I do freelancing, like a bulb shut off, or a slight shifting of their body like they just heard something uncomfortable.
Some gave me the impression that they think freelancing means lazing around, not seriously working and being 'free'. Others project their feelings that its a very unpredictable, unstable choice of career, and not a 'real' job.

I understand why they feel that way; I had my own doubts about it not so very long ago; it seemed to me the anathema of everything a person craved: stable job, stable income, stable life. Or put simply, a predictable, relatively uneventful, familiar job which provides a strong sense of security.

So why have I been doing it? What turned me to the "Dark Side"? Necessity, first and foremost.
Studying in university was rather costly, which meant I had to get additional income so I wouldn't have to live on a diet of instant noodles for 3 years, (like some students I knew in KTAR did, I kid you not).
And as any other university-going youth, other interests and activities usually needed "monetary reconcilliation" as well, so to speak, and I sure as hell wasn't going to dig into my education loan to fund those.

So, I took on part-time work alongside full-time study. I admit that sometimes it affected my studies especially in my second year of university, but I learnt some very valuable lessons from it, got my prioritising straight the following year and I still did reasonably well, IMO, considering how distracting and stressful it was to juggle work and studies.

But you ask, "you've graduated now, isn't it time to find a *real* job? Why continue in this unpredictable, unstable activity?"
For many reasons. Having done freelancing for more than a year now, and doing some basic expenses/income calculations, my net income is actually higher than if I were to get a permanent job. Reduction in travelling expenses alone is enormous as I mostly work from home, especially since petrol prices shot up recently.

Freelancing also gives me a constantly challenging job, usually something different each time, and getting paid, while being able to structure my time to set aside enough for friends and family, with the added bonus of minimising living/travel expenses, and practicing my skills while doing it.
To my mind, a reasonable tradeoff for highly irregular working hours, the constant need to take initiative and find more work when my email's relatively quiet, and a lack of socialising in a professional/office environment.

Still, necessity is ever the mother of invention, and its nearing time for the necessity to 'invent' a permanent job/ Thanks to having a loan to repay, and i'm not keen on explaining how i'm servicing it to the IRB or whatever body of the government tasked with regulations of such matters if i'm technically and officially "grape-ing".

So, i'm preparing to take a long hiatus from freelancing, taking a detour from the road less taken and down the commonly trodded path. Because society is a marvel to behold. It self-regulates, ties strings to your arms and legs and, for good or ill, makes you dance to its tune. And its strings are reinforced in every level of itself, from the highest corridors of power in the society's governance, to the most individual of a society's components.