When a friend approached me to shelter a scrawny, tuxedo cat, I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want him to end back on the street. I named him “Uncle” after a conversation with another friend who kept calling him an “uncle”.

I quickly realised I bit off more than I could chew. Uncle was a senior cat with many health problems. He was very malnourished, too thin, and had a very sensitive tummy. He had diarrhea almost every day.

But he had a sweet, sweet personality. When he first arrived, he would not sleep inside. He’d sleep outside on the balcony, enjoying the sun, making cookies on the wooden floor. Although he had little energy at first, he quickly became fascinated with the Cat TV I put on for him, watching with rapt attention the giant sparrows and robins bouncing on the TV screen, once even hopping onto the TV cabinet to catch a few of them. He quickly became disappointed, however, after checking behind the TV to see if the birds were there. What a smart boy — he quickly figured out that they weren’t real and lost interest. Aww.

He loved sleeping in that small tiny basket I made for him. Never mind that I bought an expensive box filled with scratch pad walls and a snug interior. He liked that cheap RM2 Daiso basket above all else. And sleeping on top of his cat carrier bag!

Although he wasn’t a snuggle bear (he hated being carried with a passion), he liked scritches and demanded for them. Meowing demandingly while I watch TV that I scratch his ears.

It’s memories like these that make me really sad to say that Uncle didn’t make it. This was especially sad because he was only a week away from moving to his forever home. His new mum was so eager to have him over and already prepared his bed and toys. But Uncle’s health problems caught up with him and he left us in the end.

I made a video of him to remember his sweet personality, and I’m really sure that he is over the rainbow bridge waiting for us.

Career transition part … four?

Actually, don’t take my word for it, but I’ve lost count how many career changes I’ve made.

Let me see, I first started in advertising as a copywriter, then I became a journalist for nearly 15 years — the longest career I’ve had.

Then came my journey out of journalism, which was a tad “transformative”. I explored almost every content career from 2018 to 2022, not terribly hard when I had “swiss army knife” roles where I dabbled in everything, from public relations, digital marketing, content marketing to content management.

It was a valuable opportunity to really understand what I liked. And what I liked, besides writing, was creating systems and being almost obsessive about documentation.

I didn’t know that there was a career where people actually did what I did on the side — creating knowledge bases, documenting SOPs and creating user guides. It’s called Technical Writing, and that’s where I’m going next.

This is a far more technical role than my previous roles, and I’m pretty excited to finally use my years of dabbling in code and software and translating it into a new career. Wish me luck!

My reading list

Here’s to hoping I read them! I have waaaaay too many unread books and my previous attempts at trimming down my TBR stockpile has been futile. But, I still have hope lol.