My Summary of This Year,etc
My Summary of This Year,etc
Today while waiting for my French friend to tidy up her files, I flicked through
my memo notebook this year and realized that how many turns that I had taken in
terms of my life in UK.
I started to keep a memo soon after I arrived in UK in January. So the first few
pages of were mostly issues concerning my friend and my import business, some
referring to possible marketing methods for our products, some relating to ways
to generate more leads for the business.
But soon after that, I started to pick up tutoring and translating assignments from an agency, as the prospect of business was dragged down by aspects we overlooked while we were in China. In my memo I had schedules of meeting my agency, my
student, my translation clients, and records of my attempts to build up new relationship with other local agencies.
Then I think it was June that I started to write and send out my CV and actually
wanted to develop my career in the import &export and purchasing fields. For my
efforts I actually got two or three possible offers from London. I heisted a while and discussed with my friend about the possibility of settling in London, since neither of us really fancied a metropolitan life if we were given a choice.
But June turned out a disappointing month. My Tibetan & Bohemian jewelry importing idea, after checking freight rates and import duty and other potential tariffs, turned out not feasible. So at the end of June, my friend and I headed off London.
In my memo I had my plans about what needed to be done in London, except for sightseeing. But soon after arriving I found that it was impossible for me to settle down up there. First the salary of my possible employer were too low for me to
make ends meet; secondly London, the daily working traffic dreaded me to such an extent that I couldn’t even consider the possibility. But gladly travelling around in London area one week opened my mind a lot. I started to plan what I needed to work on after the trip.
So after returning from London, I started to update my freelance homepage, which
I used before to obtain my clients while I was in Shanghai, in order to fit in
the fact that I was actually in England. Instead of focusing on transition services, I changed it to import and purchasing, given the fact that most of products
in UK now come from Far East. The updated homepage actually generated a few leads shortly. But the problem was often my clients would turn silent after I gave
them my quotation. I couldn’t figure out why, though now I can easily summarize
the reason.
Because the updated homepage didn’t bring me influx of income and I was tired of hearing my friend’s mother’s innuendo, I went onto Jobcenter Plus to find my
first job in UK. I worked as a waitress in a roadside franchise restaurant around one month. During that period I got to know the food culture a little bit better than before and met a few new people which I enjoyed working with. I didn’t
take on the job after one month, even though it made my friend’s mother unhappy. But I couldn’t care less. I knew she would be happy as long as I could pay her bill regularly.
With the money I earned from the job I started to import clothes from China, after going to Plymouth City Center and finding out the possible margin I could gain from the import. I used two suppliers in all, so there were records of the companies and relevant freight company information in my memo. But as what some of
you may already know, the margins of my clothes were not huge after all. The location of my shop was in a market, in which actually only people with tight wallets and tattoos and piercing all over their bodies or people who cared about organic food (there was a farmer market in the market as well.) and hence
didn’t care for a bargain were visitors. There were exceptions of course, but they were too few to make my time worthwhile there.
It was during that time I met the Chinese girl I mentioned in my article not long time ago. Her attitude of accepting any random jobs here in UK as long as it is full-time based turned me to despair. Would I end up a situation similar to hers soon? The prospect of what I could achieve here seemed so slim that I actually started to consider going back to China after taking some odd jobs to save up
enough for the possible expenses caused by the relocation. So in this period in
my memo there were long lists of job possibilities, none of which was what I really cared though. I think it was also during this period that I was turned down
by the local college, who claimed that I was not entitled to joining the courses
there. So you could imagine how I felt and what situation I was at that time.
But despite all the above mentioned, I still regularly updated my ads on local forums in terms of French-Mandarin or French-English language exchange, because while the reality was so ruthless I need something to cheer myself up. It was at
this crucial stage I heard from a French girl. She said that she wanted to learn
Mandarin; in return she could help me with my spoken French. So as scheduled, we met one evening.
It was after this meeting that my memo finally got more encouraging and interesting. This French girl asked me if I was interested in working in her company, its far-east department to be exact. Of course I said yes because I had been looking for positions like this all along. So in my memo I started to make plans with
regard to the possible interview. I sorted out all shipping, import & export, and custom clearance documents in my computer to get an idea of how much I already knew and how much more I needed to know at least to pass the interview.
After around ten days’ waiting, which was really gruelling, I got a phone call
from the company. Before the phone call I had made the effort to peruse the company’s website and go to find the company’s exact location on a fifty-minute bus and another fifty-minute distance on foot, as I didn’t want to turn up for the interview late and unprepared.
I think I should remember my first trip to the company for a long time. That day
I walked at least 2 hours on the busy roads, and got wet through five or six times because the rainy weather. Strange enough, I wasn’t very upset when I was waiting for the bus, wet through and freezing to death. I just thought that I had
done my best for this opportunity.
Gladly the interview turned out far better than I thought. I got a confirmation
phone call in the same day as I went for the interview and the salary was far better than I could believe. So at the moment possibly you can imagine what’s in
my memo: some about my adjustment appointment with my translation agency, some about my schedule and conversation with my student, and some about what I want to
achieve after my working time.
I should say at the moment I failed to deal with my off-work time smartly, which
is what I need to sort out over this weekend. At the moment my problem is I got
very tired after I finished the work, since there was just so much information
to take in every day, with the result I was very inefficient in the evening. For
that I really need to make a schedule for myself over this weekend for next week, so that I can actually get something done in the evenings.
For me working in this company is definitely not an end, although everything is
still quite exciting for me, I want to improve myself despite the current favorable situation. To achieve that it is definitely important and helpful if I can make a better use of my free time. Also, I don’t see why I should give up my habit of reading. It can always bring in front of me more than one world, and hence
keeps my curiosity unchanged for the unknown. But of course, at the moment all
this was only on my “hope” list, I hope (another hope) I can make the effort to achieve them starting from this weekend.
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