November 2022: Writing, bunny houseguests & a new job

November tends to be a month of Big Changes. November 2017: I started dating Jon. November 2018: we bought a house. November 2020: we paid off the mortgage. November 2021: I quit my job.

The trend continued this year. But this time, it wasn't one big change. Instead, there were a few changes; different parts of my life shifting and settling.

1. Writing

We spent a huge chunk of November at The Arts House for the Singapore Writers Festival. I wrote a recap here. I kept asking myself why I chose to spend so much time listening to writers talk about whatever, and the honest answer is that... I want to be a writer, too.

When I told my friend Van that I want to be a writer, she laughed: "What are you talking about? You're already a writer!"

Okay, it's true that I've been a paid writer most of my working life. But my writing has always been, in the words of Nell Boeschenstein in the book Scratch, "in service of another voice", not my own.

After I quit my full-time writing job last year, I thought I would blog about my adventures in unemployment. But I had major writers' block. It turns out that I hadn't the slightest idea how to write for myself. Without any KPIs to meet, house style to follow, SEO keywords to target... I was lost.

I started to find my voice again in November. After a lot of agonising, I finally decided to start this site, killing my old website, which only had my freelance writing on it. (The freelance work now lives on the portfolio page of this blog.) 

I no longer want to separate my real self from my professional self. In fact, I want my paid writing to only be a subsection of my body of work.

2. Bunny boarding

In November we started a new side hustle: bunny boarding. This was just a completely random idea that came out of an Imaginary Lives exercise from The Artist's Way. We're good at caring for bunnies, we have an under-utilised room, and the holiday season was coming up... so I figured I'd just do a quick Carousell listing and see what happens.

Our first guests were 3 bunnies (1 not bonded). That was a real handful. Things are a lot calmer now. We're hosting 2 bonded buns (above) while their family goes on holiday for a month. 

Of course my biggest worry was that Panda and Burrito would get angry. And for a few weeks with foreign buns around, they were upset. They peed everywhere and constantly camped outside the spare room. After a month, though, they're now used to it.

3. Part-time job

I applied for some part-time jobs in November and learnt so much from that experience. For one thing, the definition of "part-time" varies. For some companies it's 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. I mean that's practically a full-time job, right?

I lucked out and got a job at the bookstore where I used to work (in my first job out of uni). Among the retail jobs I applied for, this was the only one to offer 4-hour shifts. Plus they're very accommodating to my preferred work timings. I can't say the same about the other places I interviewed at. The rest were pretty adamant about 6- or 8-hour shifts, and I couldn't specify my hours. 

Admittedly, my sample size of potential employers is very small. I also didn't interview for any office jobs. Given the government's obsession with flexible work arrangements, though, I'm super curious about what the on-ground experience is like for someone looking for just that.

So I now work 4 nights a week, mostly shrink-wrapping, taping, shelving books, and fielding enquiries. So far, I like it. But it's been a long time since I made $10/hour (even food delivery pays more than that)... which took some getting used to. By which I mean I had several panic attacks about money, but things are okay now.

It does make me feel good to have a part-time job. I feel like less of an overeducated, privileged shithead. 

Some other things...

At the start of November, I told Jon that I'm taking a break from cooking. This... did not happen. If anything I cooked way more than I had planned. I missed home-cooked food so much, I'd take my own lunch with me to SWF events.

I started ordering veggies from The Village again. Oh god, I had forgotten how exciting it is to receive a parcel of fresh produce.

I also visited my friend in the hospice a couple of times. The doctor had given her 2 weeks to live, but she is well past that. And although the cancer is still ravaging her body — she is so thin now — she actually seems to be doing okay, emotionally.

I started reading for pleasure again. During The Artist's Way Week 4 I realised that reading non-fiction self-improvement was making me feel lousy about myself. So I stopped for a little while. Recently I started reading chick lit, YA, and fantasy, i.e. strictly feel-good books.

Also, Jon and I completed our final Action Item for November: booking flights to the UK! We got them at just over $1K/person, not a bad deal at all.