My hobbies, passion and career, all rolled into one

Like Eric Sim, I also love photography. In the past my photos have appeared in employers' websites and my reports in Word or PowerPoint. My camera is also like my pen as I take a shot at the screen to allow me to concentrate on the speaker's speech, more specifically thoughts, figures, and between-the-lines innuendos and messages. 

Photography is art, is an art of what can be cut out and what should be in focus and upfront, and shares many similarities with the art of writings and research.

I also love English literature. I have got myself so familiar with Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, that the minute details came to me like what little treasures I keep at home. With this level of familarity with the two novesl I feel that I am getting to know more and more of the author's inner world and his art of writing. 

To read a novel for the first or second time is merely struggling to keep track of the characters' movements (up and down, and never smooth and flat), and their own inner world dynamics. Reading for the third, the fourth, and more times, I begin to feel that I am listening to a monologue of the author, his pains, his happiness, his conflicts and his sorrows.

Now, back to the career world, I've been trimming and brushing my English skills, first as a journalist, then as an industry analyst and in the most recent few years, as an independent researcher and writer focusing on bakery and alternative protein. I feel that to focus allows me to be most productive in my research and writing.

In the recent one or two years, some bakery companies have sought me out discussing with me their brand strategies and their need for some independent assessment and literary introductions about themselves. One company of nearly 40 years was asking whether I could write their biographies and a pitchdeck about one of the eight subsidiaries.

My pronounced image as a researcher and writer on bakery and to a lesser extent on alternative protein has enabled to me wait for customers to seek me out rather than I cast a wide and aimless net here and there.

Truly, to combine hobbies and jobs cannot be nicer and more productive!