doing a stand-in gig on @hellofrmSG, Singapore's rotation curation twitter account

Photo by Kevin @inrsoul from Cake Images LLP



Here is my bio for the official Hello From SG blog:

This is @avalon, full name Chiam Elaine, born in 1979 in Kandang Kerbau Hospital, Singapore. If this were a real paragraphical curriculum vitae I would say I have a B.Sc in Management with Law (Hons.), which means to say I am a generalist, good at everything, excellent at nothing sort of person. I live in the estate of Ubi, which is located in the southeast of Singapore, near Paya Lebar airbase, in between Eunos and Macpherson MRT train stations. My home is a 2 bedroom flat, and I share it with my boyfriend Andy of four years (referenced to as J in my own Twitter account). I also share this home with four children of the furry, feline kind. Yes, I am a crazy cat lady.

Which brings me to what I do. I am financially unemployed, but occupied with running a cat rescue group together with Andy out of our own home, called Love Kuching Project, kuching being the romanised spelling of the Malay word kucing for cat. Since graduating from school I have been in various jobs and industries: sales, human resource management, marketing, banking, training, teaching, education, design, the arts, NGO work (see what I mean when I say I am a generalist). I stopped working full-time about five, six years ago, originally taking a sabbatical, then finally having to stop altogether, because I suffer from severe clinical depression, and I had entered a second major episode. Doctors feel I should lead a normal life so I am not institutionalised but I have been hospitalised before. I switched to freelance work, teaching, both here and in Batam, Indonesia, as well as doing copywriting. This year I stopped doing freelance work altogether, because it turned out my health suffered even from whatever little amount of freelance work I did - I ended up in hospital once after increasing the number of days I taught in a week. So now it is just volunteer work I do.

When I am not doing catty stuff, I am usually... being really mad on Twitter. No kidding, I really, really love Twitter. Mainly because I feel like I am talking to myself. I am an only child and that is pretty much we do. I am irreverent, I oscillate between trying to be cleverer than I am and being silly and inane. Even though I am mentally ill, I am intellectually functional, and I shall attempt to show that we who need psychologists and psychiatrists too, are human beings worthy of dignity and respect. And don't worry about hurting my depressed feelings when I am on this rotation curation account yeah, because I am rather resilient against shitty things people say about me lah. Depressed people probably are their own harshest critics anyway!
Other hobbies besides cats and cat work! I love watching TV shows online. I love reading, though I do that less now. I love music - to listen to, mainly, I occasionally strum a guitar and sing, sometimes to troll my neighbours. I like art, but many rotation curators have covered that so I won't be talking about it! I most of all love writing, evidenced by my very long bio here.

I am a fill-in curator for this account, but I shall try to do a good job. Nonetheless, as I always say on Twitter: if you don't wanna read it, just unfollow. A new curator will come in next week, no love lost!

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:50 PM    [ 1 comment | ]