Why I'm Here Today...
When I joined high school, there was the school magazine, and my friend wrote a short little poem about the form one class I was in, and there I had my name in it. I thought it looked cute, along with the remaining 47 of the classmates who got mentioned, but I thought the design of that book sorely lacked 'oomph'.
Two years later I got sucked into the school's editorial board along with a bunch of my friends and yeah, we wrecked havoc on the system. It was hellish trying to combine Chinese-styled concepts with Westernized ideas, and trying to impose some system into the layouts.
My biggest inspiration was the US
Seventeen magazine, which cost about 17 ringgit per issue then. They had this back matter column which did exclusive of schools around the US, and I thought the designs were smashing.
When I became the Chief Editor, along with my team of editors, we stole ideas wholesale from
Seventeen magazine, and at least, well, the school magazine's graduation pages finally had some kind of system to them. I still take out copies of my very first self-edited magazine and glow at the pages.
Anyway, in the same time that I was in the school's editorial board, that little gang of mine decided to try our luck with
The Star BRATs and wrote in silly articles about teenage angst. We got in, we got into the same workshop even!!! We went on that very same flight to Kota Bharu (where most of the seniors went because of some Lapalala competition), and the rest, as they say, is history. Many camps and several articles later I'm still in that Bright Roving Annoying Teenagers gang, plus I've gathered hordes of friends from that ever growing community of eternally young writers-to-be.
After form 5, I did my form 6 and guess what? We had our very own newsletter/bulletin. Because of the 'experience' I seem to have what with three school magazines and the newspaper, I was pulled in to lead the bulletin's editorial team. It was a very text heavy publication, but it was also the very first sixth form bulletin that got printed in a printing press, the previous ones were all photocopied in bulk.
Anyway, I've since done my bachelor's degree in English and Literature, and headed on to postgraduate studies in Linguistics (which, btw, isn't about chunks of different languages, I'm still doing English just that I'm studying the language patterns and the societal aspects of the language). I remember 5-6 months back when I first started my classes I told myself that it was going to be a full time course. I thought I was going to have the time of my life, having 12 hours of lectures a week and keeping the rest of the time to myself. Well, maybe allocating about 8 hours a week to giving language classes to needy students, and earning some pocket money in the process.
And then, my friends were all going for interviews and ... well, sitting at home had become tiring. I decided to head on out and send out my resume just for the sake of it. I never thought of getting a job, see... I didn't think anyone would take me in. I asked for flexihours, I could only work three full days a week and take two half days because I had to attend classes from 3 pm onwards on lecture days.
Anyway, I got the job and ... it was just too good to miss!! I've thought of becoming a writer or a journalist for real when I finished my studies (being a freelance had worn out on me), I've even blogged about this in my earlier posts (when I was still struggling to finish my final semester) .... and this job offer was just too good to be true. I would have my very own iMac, my very own cubicle in the office and I would be looking at books and books and books for the rest of the week. They allowed me my irregular work hours.... and they would give me my very first official name card that said 'Editor' on it.
Do I like my job?
Yeah, I love the job. Like I said, I've always wanted to work with books, and always hoped to be an editor someday. Just that, I never knew it was possible to skip the ladder and get to here first.
Now I hope I'll be able to write my own book some day.
I'll probably be stuck in the publishing line for a very, very long time.
