I have a dream that one day I would be freed of nine-to-six routine, and I could arrange my work schedule freely on my own. I have a dream that one day I would make home office possible and no longer waste any minute in commute. I have a dream that one day I would become the boss of my own, answer to myself and myself only, and I would work while I were in mood, travel when any whims striked.

        I am a doer as much as I am a dreamer. To make this very dream come true, I made, make and probably will still make ruthless efforts, even though I already offically announce the death of this dream.

        You might already know that I have nothing to recommend myself except that I can read and write a few English. So my very first try is to become a part-time translator. Like many things in the world, it’s not easy even just to make a try.  I graduated from some low rank college and even I passed every trial translation the company had required, I still needed to start from the lowest of the lowest. I got paid for my first translation assignment at 40 yuan per 1000 words. Rewarding, yes, but definitely it was not from the money ankle. Later the company raised my pay to 60 yuan per 1000 words. I could translate about 3000 words per day---that makes 3600 yuan per month. That is, if things went extremely well, I might make a living with that amount of money----a barely living, far from comfortable and I could basically forget travelling forever.

       The company always expected the quickest delivery, the best quality but at the lowest price, so usually it would leave the most urgent and bored job for part-time translators. What can I remember about my first try? Brain-wracking, back-bending, eyes-straining; I can go on and on. I remember clearly about an assignment I took on May 13th, 2008---the day right after Wenchuan earthquake. That day, one aftershock after another kept occurring. When all my colleagues rushed out of the office, I was the only one left behind, glued to my chair and my laptop, fighting every word that had nothing to do with the outside disturbing world. I was not brave. Thanks to that job, I could block all my fears out.

         Perhaps I should stop here. Not every translator is like that---I guess I am just bad luck and not good enough. And fairly speaking, I do learn a lot form my brief part-time translation career.

         My second try is still about English: Ghost Writer. I always prefer writing than translation, so I thought perhaps this time I could hold on to it. The pay was better than translation, not good, and far from making me finance -worries free. But the reason I quit was I could not stand the sting of my conscience any more. Most of my assignments were to write paper for oversea students. Cheat is still cheat, no matter how to sweeten it up. For me, helping someone to cheat is as guilty as cheat itself. 

      My third try has strongly proven how far I’d like to go to achieve my dream. I, of all the people, opened an online at taobao! Can you believe it? Like so many other people, my broken places in heart originated in my untidy childhood. My father was a business man who unfortunately hadn't have a good sense of money.  In glory days when everything went well, we had been the first family who owned a TV and I even once had a nanny---that’s pretty something back to 70’s to the early of 80’s. Rumors went so wild that once even said that we had golds buried in our backyard!

        However at the time when things went pretty bad, we could not afford my milk and my mum had to beg everywhere for a loan to pay my tuition. Here is the sickest and cruelest thing I remembered about it, now even many years later, I still went chill for every word mentioning it, so prepare well for this: Once- my-dear-daddy-killed -my –pet- dog- for- a- meal- to- entertain- his- guests!

        Life has taught me in a hard way that Business is something I should run from it as far away as I could. Part of my maturity process has never been able to get past that view. Ironically years later I had married a man who had a small business going to rocks and then I had a small business of my own. What can I say? Life is nothing but a joke.

        Owning a online is pretty time-demanding, and the paid might be good as pocket money but nothing more serious out of that. Now the competition in Taobao goes ridiculous high. Don’t ask me why now to reopen my online—the major reason, I guess, is to put a check to my oversea spending fever. I have been burned from it. Ever since I got a clue about oversea buy, I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t even stop thinking about it. The shipping fee  goes higher and higher after spring festival, so I think if I reopened this shop, even if I could not make a profit, at least I could reduce some shipping cost for my own purchase. Therefore, my friend and I upload items we regularly buy from oversea and reopened my taobao shop. This time, I know better to lower my expectation. It’s all about sharing, sharing the joys of shopping. So far, it’s really enough.