I’M TRANSFERRING!

Hi guys,

This is a short update on my blogging situation. As you may have known, I have a second blog, specialised in articles on the lifestyle of international students abroad. However, if you’ve been following this blog here for a while, you may know that I am barely able to write on a regular basis ever since I started my first full-time job.

It’s been a hard decision to make but I’ve chosen to merge An Evil Nymph’s Blog and my student blog so that I can focus on only one blog. And the blog I’ve chosen to keep updating is my second blog, dkwaye.com. I’ve chosen my latest blog for obvious reasons: I’m paying for the domain and web hosting services.

Thus, as from now on, my future blog posts will be published on the other blog. If you do want to keep up with my writing, do not hesitate to subscribe to it using this link.

You can also follow its Facebook page to stay updated about new blog posts!

It’s not easy to part with this blog. After all, it’s been 6 years! Nevertheless, I am not shutting it down, so who knows, I may come back for a blog post or two. 🙂 An Evil Nymph’s Blog is yet to die.

I’m simply shifting my focus.

I hope you’ll join me on my next blogging adventure!

An Evil Nymph.

Dear WordPress, It’s Our 6th Anniversary Together.

These past 6 years have been a crazy ride. It’s been complicated.

I’ve not always been the blogger you’ve wanted me to be. Especially for the past three years or so. First, I’d always forget about our anniversary. You’d constantly had to remind me about it. But I logged in so rarely that I’d see your reminder way too late.

I’m actually surprised I remembered this year. Well, I did see your reminder. But I was on time. And I shouted it out to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And I was proud to have been blogging for that long.

I didn’t always feel that way.

A WordPress.com Blog VS Self-Hosting Website: My Experience

A few posts back, I was writing about how I was going to create my official writer’s website as I’m starting my after-undergrad life as a freelance writer, sort of.

Since then (although it was only a few weeks/days ago), things have changed.

Well, I did launch a website.

But it’s not exactly a freelance writing website. After getting insightful feedback from the surveys I had posted, I realised that people were currently more interested in a Students’ Survival Guide than a freelance writing blog. And looking at my experience, I had way more valuable stories to share in the ‘student’ category. After all, I had only just started freelancing, while I had been a University student for 3 years!

After days of thinking and brainstorming, I finally made the leap and bought my very first domain: dkwaye.com

Interested In Freelance Writing? Me Too!

A few days ago, I decided it was time to invest in myself, i.e. my professional skills. I am graduating soon and the future seems… confusing and unfair. So I spent US$10 on the Complete Digital Marketing Course – 12 Courses in 1 on Udemy (original price at $200 but when you sign up you get to buy your first course at a flat rate of $10), in the thought of re-branding myself as a serious, professional freelance writer.

Basically, I’m applying everything I’m learning to my freelance writing career and how I’m going to market it. Every lesson is a step towards accomplishing a specific project or business idea, and my current project… is a new niche blog on freelance writing, which is going to be my first writer’s official website.

A massive update from this blog (in which I’ll nevertheless still post).

So I’m currently at the market research step, in which I get to ask around how my business idea can help you guys. What would you like to see in a freelance writing blog? Whether it’s to improve your writing skills or get started in freelancing, I’d love to get everyone’s input! Especially as readers of my blog, old and new; you guys know my writing best 🙂

Click the button below to fill the survey! It was purposefully built to be completed within 2 minutes!

Launch me

On another note, before starting the course, I had actually asked on Facebook what new niche blog they would like me to build and apart from writing and freelancing advice, the majority also wanted me to create a Survival Guide for University Students blog.
Therefore, I also created a 2-minute survey to ask about everyone’s input on that one; click the button below if you are interested in that particular idea and would like to see it come to life!

Launch me
 
Your responses and ideas matter; without them, I wouldn’t even have considered going forward with any of the two projects. Depending on the responses, I’ll see what I can do and determine whether I should definitely put them into practice.

Thank you for keeping up with me!
An Evil Nymph.

5th Blog Anniversary | Reflecting On Where I Stand, My Future Career, My Vision

Actually An Evil Nymph’s Blog blog anniversary was on the 1st August and it wasn’t until WordPress congratulated me on that milestone that I realised it. I knew 1st August was something special! Dang it!

Anyways, at that time, I had just published a post a few hours earlier and so I decided to wait a little more before putting up a proper ‘Happy Blog Anniversary’ post. However, yes, since I’m back to school and new into my third year, my responsibilities got in the way. In fact, I would have completely forgotten about blogging it if it was not for my Google Calendar, in which I have set a goal to blog once a week.

That’s how crazy life gets when the semester starts and you are involved in many things, including being a (High, sometimes) Distinction student. I literally need my phone to remind me of everything, haha!

Anyway, it’s been five years, guys. Five years since I started blogging. I can’t describe how much it has opened my eyes to the world… and my own. My blogging style has changed a lot throughout the years, but I believe that the main reason I got so immersed in blogging was not only my passion for writing, but my search for who I am, an identity, to find myself. 

Keep Calm and Slay Rudeness—With These 4 Simple Steps [Guest Post]

“Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting some battle.”
—Philo.

Life throws us numerous curveballs all the time. These can be anything, starting with excruciatingly difficult decisions, to traversing the murky, complicated matters of the mind. For a child in a social situation, I think one of the biggest curveballs is how to react when someone is rude to them. And when I say rude, I mean all-out rudeness, not simple sarcastic comments.

If you observe carefully, when a child is being verbally bullied, you’ll notice that they really don’t know how to react for a moment. If they are more extroverted, they might become defensive and learn how to be rude in return. Or if they are shy (like yours truly), they might just hold onto the hurt of having had to face such a situation and wonder why the other person is being so mean.

Either way, rudeness is something that throws us for a toss, even as adults.

6 Valuable Lessons I’ve Learnt from My Freelance Writing Job [Guest Post]

A freelancer denotatively means someone who is “self-employed and hired to work for different companies on particular assignments”. Although freelancing seems to be a new trade, it’s now been quite prevalent in the market. It has widened the job sphere and provided jobs and opportunities for people around the world.

There is no one solution, there is no one path and hence one has to strive to survive! This is the primary concept that I have learned and grasped through my  freelancing career and, consequently, here are the 6 lessons I picked up along the way:

1. Freelancing is mythically easy but it practically equals to a full time job.

Whenever one takes up freelancing, they assume things would be easy and that money would follow like a stalker. But, in truth, freelancing is not an easy a cup of tea. The company that hires you is also in ardent need of work and hence they make sure that the work is heavy and done on time. The projects we handle require the same amount of time as they do for a full time job. What is even harder is finding the “right time” to pursue the project throughout the day, as time literally flies doing other tasks.

So, first lesson learned, never take freelancing for granted!

Here’s An Opportunity For You To Get Your Writing Out There

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

I have decided to re-open my blog to guest posts.

A few years ago, (oh my, this blog is almost 5 years old! I feel so old!) I am not sure if it was a WordPress trend or simply a general blogging trend, but other bloggers or writers would email me about a request to guest post here, on An Evil Nymph’s Blog. Moreover, if I remember correctly, other bloggers on WordPress were also allowing guest posts on their blog and maybe they are still doing it.

Anyway, I cannot exactly recall how I decided to dive in, but I ended up accepting the guest blogging requests and further adding in my contact page that I welcomed guest posts.

But, what is a guest post exactly? 

In brief, anyone who wants to guest post on your blog is someone who wants to write an article for your blog, so as to get more exposure as a writer and reach a new audience. They usually request to have links to their website, which I usually include in their bio at the end of the post. And that is all… at least, here on WordPress.com, our free blogosphere.

A Writer’s World; A Writer’s Block

I always believed that writers had an imaginary world of their own, where every story, every place, every character they had ever created resided, because I do have one. J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis had one each, and now of course we would also think of George R. R. Martin’s. Mine also has a name, but not as fancy as ‘Narnia’, so I’ll skip that part. This phenomenon, I call it a writer’s world. All the characters and all the buildings or places I’ve ever invented since I was 8 still exist for me and are just waiting for my cue to jump out to the real world and onto paper.

The thing is, I’m currently having the longest writer’s block ever. I’ve written a few short stories at the start of the year but since then I didn’t open my word processor at all (except for assignments, no choice, obviously). So it’s been around 6 months (OMG half a year!) since I last put a story on paper. I rarely think about my writer’s world anymore but when I do, it looks chaotic and neglected, instead of being the little paradise I used to go to when I was in secondary school (my writing peak years) to pick and choose characters and what not.

Common Misconception about my Writing Major | Medium | Happy Birthday Evil Nymph’s Blog!

My second year of university started this Monday. Second year is when it is time for us to choose our major, to specialise in a particular field of study…

Read more…

I started writing this post in the middle of today’s psychology lecture (guilty! But only for a few seconds, the time it took me to write two sentences) and I was planning to finish it on WordPress back home tonight, but then, something happened.

Medium happened.

I might have been on WordPress only for around 3 years, but I have actually been blogging a little longer than that, since I also had a Blogger before…

Wait, I JUST REALISED SOMETHING. Okay I am not going to edit this post, this is my trail of thoughts written down live… 

An Evil Nymph’s Blog is now officially 4 years old!!! (1st August) OMG. Happy birthday, little blog. And I’m sorry for neglecting you since I came in Malaysia, and I’m sorry in advance for what I am going to write in the next few paragraphs…

One Year in Malaysia

It was this Friday July 17th that marked my one-year anniversary with Malaysia. Yes, I have been living in Malaysia, as an undergraduate student, for more than a year now. Not once did I go back to my home country, Mauritius.

How does it feel?

Someone told me that I would change after having stayed abroad for so long. Someone else added that while I would change, the people back in my country, my family, would not, which will give off a weird feeling if I go back one day. Today, I can say I completely agree. I’ve changed, no, I’ve grown.

Not literally obviously.

Discovering Japanese Snacks! (Part 2)

I’m on my last week of exams and I’m able to squeeze in some time to finally announce that I ended up eating all of my Japanese snacks! Therefore, here’s PART 2 of ‘Discovering Japanese snacks!’, which involved buying lots of Japanese sweets and try them out, because eating has become one of my dominant hobbies here in Malaysia. 😉

If you haven’t read Part 1 and want to go through it before scrolling through this post, click HERE to have a look!

Here we go for my mini reviews of the last 4 Japanese snacks:

1. Lotte Koalas March Cookies

Classic Japanese’s definition of cookies, filled with mouth-melting chocolate. This definitely reminded me of my childhood favourite: Hello Panda! I love how the cookie part was crunchy and actually quite easy to break due to its surprising thinness, but without being too soft. It was cooked just right. The chocolate was as enjoyable as one would on biting on any Hello Panda cookie.

Discovering Japanese Snacks! (Part 1)

It might be because the NBC series Hannibal has started, that makes me want to indulge in exclusive fancy/expensive foods (last year was berries). (Because Japanese foods are pricey in Malaysia T.T except the Daiso quality ones haha).

It might also be because I want to explore another dominant aspect of Japanese culture, knowing that I’m still especially completely in love with Japanese food, and the fact that the more I dived into the semester, the less time and thought I put into cooking, so I only ended up repeating the same easy recipes I had learnt (busy and heavy university life, guys).

Anyway, on one evening, about one hour before the shops would close, I had a crazy Japanese snacks shopping spree!

(If you are on a budget, like me actually oops, don’t do this at home, unless you’re in Japan, I guess? Or unless you don’t mind spending your savings on food.)

Oh I bought all of this just in time for the exams period 🙂

The stores I went to were the famously Japanese shop, Shojikiya, and the typical AEON supermarket.

By the time this post is going to be published, I would have tried all of them and therefore, now, I am going to review every one of them down below!

Instagram As My Micro-blogging Platform?!

As expected, I did not keep blogging regularly.Unless you considered at least one post per month to be regular and consistent, I guess. Oh well, life. School is making me crazy at the moment.

Then, today, something peculiar crossed my mind as I uploaded my latest Instagram post, which is this one by the way:

#Volunteering at Bangsa Ria, an organization for people with special needs, has been one of the most challenging experiences I’ve had. It wasn’t easy; it wasn’t all roses.
But it was worth it.
As one of the #MUVP groups, we hope we’ve made a difference as little as it might have been.
This is a #handcrafted#rose made by the BR members, which I bought today as an additional contribution and just because. It’s so #beautiful 🙂
#charity #foragoodcause #art #nature #monashmalaysia

Okay, I might sound stupid, but this was the first time that I realised that all this time I was actually micro-blogging on Instagram.