James Huang - london / spreadsheets / bibles / guitars / chow mein » website

Website Overhaul

James — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:13:00 +0000

The blog has been overhauled and the changes are not merely aesthetic. I’m going in a new direction, because I’m no longer “far far away from Scouseland”. I’ve been in London for over a year. I no longer feel the culture shock that I wrote about while I was in China, because I do feel at home here. And Liverpool is actually just a two hour train journey away.

Gone are the greens and pinks of the old site. They were from a different era. The new colour scheme of grey-on-grey reflects the recessionary days that we live in. A lot of the content has been updated:

Articles – The longer writings
Photos – I have a new camera, so expect some better photos in the future
Activities – What I do with my time
About – Who I am and where my background

What will I write about? I want to tap the under-represented market of London accountants.

Wild Weekends

James — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:22:00 +0000

I ate in London’s Chinatown twice in two days, having resisted for over a year. The food was quite average, but chicken’s feet does taste the same wherever you go. So I was still happy.

I’ve had two weekends without needing to study. It’s been great to spend the time reading, playing computer games and cooking proper meals. I spend time in some very esteemed company – five junior doctors shooting zombies at the arcade. This is why no-one makes shows about auditors.

I’m already looking towards the next milestone. I’m relearning the website building skills that I never actually had. Once again, I feel like I have to squeeze every productive second out of the day.

I’ve displayed a photo of the Sequoia tree at the Natural History Museum because it is 1500+ yeas old. Our lives are horribly slight in comparison. All that we aim for will not last and probably won’t deserve a place in the Natural History Museum.

However, please forget the trees because each day is important. With every second that passes we loose the chance to practice our audit skills by counting the tree rings.

March – Let 100 Blog Posts Bloom

James — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:18:08 +0000

Footnote 1: The title is a reference to the “Hundred Flowers” movement. The aim of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership was to start an open critique of the CCP by China’s intellectuals. In a speech that was delivered on 2 May 1956, Mao elaborated on the idea of “letting a hundred flowers bloom” in the field of culture. If you want to read more then look at pages 536 to 543 of Jonathan D. Spence’s book: The Search for Modern China.

Footnote 2: English teachers in China should never discuss history, politics or their preference of Coke or Pepsi.

March was a It was a mundane but busy month. Every line in my diary gets filled. I focused on online activity and writing.

My blog really got up an running. I had the blog re-designed in a fetching combination of green, blue and pink. I wrote an article about whether Chinese students should study abroad. I got a decent response to the article because I demanded that all my friends read it and comment on it. I was satisfied when some strangers read the article.

I also tapped into the Tianjin expats online community. I still have membership of tianjinexpats.com. The site works well because there is a small and motivated audience. A perfect niche. I used it to chat with other expats and publicise the school.

I started setting up the school’s new website for attracting new students. Like all IT projects, it was over budget and very very late. I hosted this month’s Coffee House, which was about Easter. There is photographic evidence below:

Economic forecast

Inflation lurches higher in Britain and JP Morgan offers to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share. Could it get any worse? Yes – the price of bananas rise in my local street market.