Gratitude to my Friends

"Not bad what! You even have your own blog!" exclaimed Peggy, my client, in typical Singlish. Frankly my knowledge of computer is limited to what I need to do there and then. A friend had started an email address for me some years back, and because it was inactive, I even forgot what the address was!

I have 12 nieces and nephews who live all over the world. Due to their coercion, I was encouraged to start another email address so that I could send them letters without having to paste stamps on the envelope! Frankly, my motivation came about because I was ashamed of myself. Some brilliant minds have created the computer, and all I have to do on my part is to learn to send correspondence via email. That I cannot even do meh?

Win Nie, my friend, helped me to start a blog. During her vacation, she spent one day with me, teaching me how to post articles and photos. I can post articles but not the photos.... hence this is why you find so few pictures in my blog! Win Nie has promised to come and teach me again during her next vacation. Dr. Kumaran Raju, my client, helped me to set up the site meter, so that I would know the profile of my readers. It is exciting to know that readers come from all over the world from as far as Canada in the north to New Zealand in the south. There is even someone from "unknown country". "Gosh! How come the country is unknown? Could it be someone from outer space?" my imagination goes wild.

Chris Graham, knowing that I am such a dog lover, asked if he could post his blog, Jaffeprt.blogspot.com - he helped me to put it as a link to my blog.
I enjoyed reading his blog which is written from his pet's, Jaffe's point of view.
I also received help from my nephew-in-law,James when I asked him to help me post some interesting articles in the blog. One of my ex-students, Sharon, had sent me an email and I asked her if she would mind helping me to post her lovely photo on my blog. I came across an interesting blog by Daniel San and asked him to help me put his blog as a link.

Recently I realised that my archives had disappeared, and all the 120 articles appeared in one whole lot. As only 50 articles could be seen at one time, it meant readers could not read the previous 70 articles. I asked my university buddies, Mo Shin, Richard and James for help. Richard immediately helped me to put them in archives. My three buddies are brilliant professionals and sometimes I sent my articles to them for editing or to ask for opinions on my writing before I published in my blog.


My niece from Kuala Lumpur, Woei, Tyng, was concerned if I had saved the articles in a diskette. She then graciously wrote me a series of steps on how to save the articles. I could never follow instructions like this... I needed someone to sit down and show me step by step. My client, Alfred Chong, helped me to copy on a disc.

My students, Zhi Yi and Zhi Wei are starting a family blog soon. "I think I'll be able to set up the blog. It's pretty easy," said Zhi Yi with an air of confidence.

I can safely conclude that when it comes to mechanical and electronical matters, men are generally more superior than women. Of course, there are a few exceptional ladies who are very clever in figuring out machines but I think the majority are like me..... slower in figuring out. But at least I am glad I tried. Indeed I am very grateful to all my friends who have patiently helped me to overcome my phobia for the computer. Now it is my turn to encourage others to take that first step to turn on the switch of the computer and then go!

Gan Chau