Life – Page 36 – Tiana Feng

Finding the Time to Blog When You Have a Full-Time Job

March 22, 2014Inspiration, Life, Thinking1 Comment

For a while, I was just living the freelance life and underemployed. That meant hours were flexible and I had a lot of free time to do whatever I wanted when I was between projects. My blogs and sites were active and fruitful.

Recently, I have obtained work that is more time consuming and has unpredictable office hours. This made it more difficult to schedule time in advance to blog, because time seemed like a scarce luxury. Obviously since there are still posts churning out on all my content streams, I have found ways to adjust to this new transition. Here are some tips:

Find out what your internet policy is at work. This is an important first step if you want to blog at work (during downtimes/breaks of course). Some companies don’t allow you to use internet services outside of work purposes and you must abide by those rules. Personally, I don’t blog at work because I have way too many other things to be doing so the next few steps are more useful.

Schedule Content in Advance. To keep my music blog alive and active, I schedule a lot of content in advance. There’s always a period of time where I’m like OKAY LET’S SIT DOWN AND BLOG on weekends or evenings and I churn out a bunch of content and schedule them over the next few days. This works better for posts that aren’t particularly time sensitive.

Carry a notebook. I always have a notebook in the vicinity to brainstorm things I want to write about the moment they come up.

Find inspiration everywhere. This applies most when it’s a personal blog and therefore you can post whatever you want – food, photos, projects, inspiration, thoughts. The blog is about YOU after all. Life changes constantly, and there are tons of exciting and thought-provoking things to write about at every corner.

Take advantage of your Smartphone. By now, most people have a smartphone. Whether, it’s an Android or an iPhone, there is a wealth of apps that sync to the cloud. There’s even a WordPress app on both platforms. These can be great for long commutes. Personally, I use OneNote on my iPhone because it syncs with the version on my laptop. I draft a lot of posts while on the train. In fact, this one was partially written on a commute.

Don’t stop. The moment you stop actively blogging for a while, it becomes tough to start again as each day passes. It’s all about finding new ways to fit writing into a new schedule. Sometimes when you have a free half hour, you just have to make yourself sit down and write. It’s totally possible, you just have to stop giving yourself excuses and do it.

I originally published this post on Medium.

Ride the Tempo on CBC Music!

March 7, 2014Inspiration, Life, Music, Social MediaLeave a Comment

Today my music blog Ride the Tempo was featured in CBC’s list of “Canadian Music Blogs You Need to be Reading”. Normally I don’t care for lists but CBC was one of the early outlets that got me caring about Canadian music and influenced me to change the blog’s format to focus entirely on it. It was actually a difficult decision to make. Canadian music is not as popular or hit-generating as some of the bigger indie artists out there. Blogs that write about everything get a lot more hits, and return generate more ad-revenue.

I don’t blog because I think I’ll one day get rich off of it. I love exploring the Canadian music landscape. I care about it and will continue to do so.

Canadian International Autoshow

February 19, 2014Entertainment, LifeLeave a Comment

Thanks to Klout and Chevy Canada, I attended the Canadian International Autoshow.

I made Nash go with me, and our reaction was a unanimous “OMG SO MANY CARS”. We’re not really “car” people and it’ll be a while until we both decide to purchase cars.

There were cars from every make and model including this convertible which Nash called the girliest car ever because of its tiny size.

This concept car of the future is motion controlled, which seems cool but in reality seems like it would be less efficient than a steering wheel.

I saw a 3D printer (a Makerbot) for the first time printing some mini car models!

View this post on Instagram

Random free stuff #chevyperks. Really needed one of those power banks

A post shared by Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) on Feb 15, 2014 at 9:51am PST

Since the Klout perk was sponsored by Chevy, I received some sweet swag which including a power bank for my iPhone and a Klout pin which allowed me to skip the line for the Camero challenge. You can watch me completely fail at the challenge in my vlog. I love the power bank, it’s the most useful thing a brand could give out because everybody has a phone that occasionally needs emergency charging!

I’m glad we went to experience the autoshow. I think it’s a great place if you’re looking to buy a car and want to try all the brands out. We saw many people getting in cars and testing the feel out. Entire families went in the mini-vans. When I happened to pass by Union Station on Family Day, I saw dad’s headed to the show with their little sons. That’s such an adorable idea for young car lovers!

Anyways here’s some more random photos of cars:

Reflecting on Freewriting 1000 Words A Day

February 5, 2014Inspiration, LifeLeave a Comment

Back in November of 2013, I stumbled on an article on Medium that talked about making a habit of writing 1000 words a day. Around the same time, I also started to freewrite 1000 words a day and did so for the past few months. Most of it was total freewrite, so any words that came to my fingers or the dreams and thoughts that went through my head.

Some became album reviews, blog posts, tweets and Facebook statuses. The majority were rubbish. I started each morning with the exercise, not ceasing until I had indeed reached at least 1000 words. In the end, it became exhausting. I ran out of things to write and it became repetitive. I also often found myself ruminating in negative thoughts over and over. Sometimes it would take up the entire morning and would leave me with little energy to do anything else (though I think that partially has to do with winter SADS). The quality and my enthusiasm for the exercise had plummeted. I didn’t want to write to fill a quota any longer.

That doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing, hell I’m writing this blog post right now. However, like I said in my New Years Resolutions vlog, I don’t want to set strict guidelines for myself that will make me hate things that I normally enjoy. I’ll remain living in the moment and writing the second inspiration hits, like 11pm right now. I’m sure the 1000 word writing challenge can be helpful and useful to some, but it isn’t for me!

#BellLetsTalk

January 28, 2014Health, Life, Vlogs2 Comments

Today in Canada, it is Mental Health Awareness Day. Every call, text, and tweet with the hashtag #BellLetsTalk will contribute 5 cents towards mental health initiatives in Canada. Let’s end the negative stigma surrounding mental health, it’s not something that just happens to outcasts or weird people. Friends and family can go through the same thing and being open to the conversation can be a life-changer.

I filmed a Vlog to be a part of the conversation and to let people know that they are not alone.

My Resolution This Year is to Have None

January 5, 2014Inspiration, LifeLeave a Comment

In the past I’ve written so many post about resolutions and things like that but this year I am going to have none. I made the Vlog below to talk about why.

The Mystery of the Random Lighter

December 3, 2013Life, UncategorizedLeave a Comment

Yesterday, I opened the cubicle in which all our mail usually lay. Inside the dark hole perched a tiny grey package. It was addressed to me, and even included my phone number. There was no exact return address. It only mentioned Shen Zhen China and there were some Chinese words I couldn’t read. I was elated, thinking that one of the packages I had ordered off Ebay had finally arrived.

I ripped open the envelope to find a mysterious object wrapped in white foam. It was steel tubular object attached to a keychain. A knob could screw off and revealed a metal rod with what looked like a screw and a tiny bit of cloth at the end. I took a whiff of the inside of the tube and it smelt of gasoline. I was very confused. This was not the camera accessory, film or dog costume I had ordered. I had no idea what it was, so I took a photo of it and turned to Twitter.

Received this in the mail. Wtf is it? pic.twitter.com/Lv3lEzznIv
— Tiana Feng (@tianafeng) December 2, 2013

A bunch of people assumed it was a tiny flask, but within minutes my question was answered. It was a flint fire starter, something people took camping and used to start fires in case of emergency. The question still remained, “Why was it sent to me?”.

Initially, I thought it may have been my 12 Days of Holiday bullshit so I took to Twitter to ask. Cards Against Humanity replied and said it would be very obvious it was from them. I guess they wouldn’t forget to include their own branding on their items. A confusing tube that could start fires was quite a quirky object so CAH was a good guess, but not the right one. Now I must wait until I get all my other orders and see which eBay seller sent me the wrong thing.

However, I could get all the right parcels and still be left with a flint lighter from a mysterious place. We’ll have to wait and find out.

The Hypocrisy Behind Goldie Blox

November 28, 2013February 21, 2016Inspiration, Lego/Building, LifeLeave a Comment

This post has nothing to do with the copyright case regarding Goldie Blox’s parody of Beastie Boys’ “Girls” in their most recent ad campaign. This new toy line called Goldie Blox has become increasingly popular due to its marketing as a smart toy for girls. However, it fails to see that they are the very problem that they are seemingly trying to fix.

The company’s aim is to “disrupt the pink isle and inspire the future generation of female engineers”. However, if you look at their product line, everything remains in the stereotypical girlish colours of pink and purple, continuing the notion that these are the only toys for our little girls. I am by no means a self-identified feminist (or even a parent) but I do believe in the fact that little girls (and boys) should be exposed to different toys as a child.

I never was the one to play with dolls, I thought they were boring. As a child, I loved to play with what was considered boys toys: Lego, K’nex, video games. I was made fun of in school at an early age for having the “wrong” toys (like a Thomas the Tank Engine train set) . The girls didn’t want to be my friends because I owned few Barbies and didn’t want to play Mystery Date. I hung out with the boys and discovered things like NES and Pokemon cards. For Christmas one year I asked for that machine where you could make your own edible gummy creatures, except I received the one that made dolls.

Though everyone may have their own style of parenting and beliefs, I will show my future child that they don’t have to follow the conventions of society. They don’t have to choose the pink or the blue toys. I believe that if we want our children to grow up to be engineers, scientists and creative people than it starts from the parents, not the toys we buy them.

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I originally published this post on Medium

Here Teddy Teddy

November 25, 2013Art, Pets, Photography, TeddyLeave a Comment

I feel like I haven’t posted photos of Teddy in a while, though I could totally be wrong. Despite what it looks like, it’s actually impossible to get him to look at the camera. A lot of shouting and waving things around is involved. Here are some shots of him basically blending into the basement carpet.

My New GoPro and the Beginning of Vlogtober!

October 10, 2013Life, Social Media, TechnologyLeave a Comment

I’ve been wanting to Vlog for a while. If you’ve been a frequent reader of the blog, I tried to at the end of summer but I ended up finding it cumbersome to be doing it on a DSLR. I enjoyed using the GoPro during the Canadian Club campaign and had wanted to buy one since. GoPro announced their new Hero 3+’s last week and on a whim, I ordered the new Hero Black!

I’m still testing the ropes on vlogging and according to frequent Youtubers it’s “Vlogtober” this month. It’s month-long challenge to vlog at least once a day. I’ll be doing so in a sort of daily snapshot-of-my-life-and-thoughts way. So far I’ve learnt a lot, including my own mannerisms in nervous situations (ie in front of camera) and the logistics of vlogging in general.