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I’m not sure what to say about the next year. Grant it’s just 30 mins in… But unlike 2021, I don’t get the sense of still living in 2020, but I also don’t feel any excitement for the new year either.

I guess because 2022 will probably be more of the same, with Omicron lingering over our heads, and quite frankly, that won’t be the last of Covid-19. More new variants will come for sure… The only thing we can hope for is that new variants have more desirable traits – for us and the virus. Spreads better, but cause weaker illness. So that slowly but surely, the virus will be attenuated and become no worse than the common flu.

It’s been so long… I can’t even imagine how and when the world will return to ‘normalcy’. The norm as we know it has been so greatly changed… I feel naked if I change to going out clothes at home, and don’t wear a mask. Like when I’m still preparing to get out of the house before work. It’s like if I don’t wear a watch when I’m out. I feel naked.

Yes. Mask wearing is still mandatory here in Singapore, and I don’t expect that rule to go away anytime soon. Not even by the end of this year.

I’ve already gotten used to wearing a mask everywhere… Only thing is that weather here is really hot and I definitely need a change of mask after say, reaching the office. Because my mask would be drenched in sweat. I already have a cluster of pimples on my left cheek, ever since the mask wearing begin last year, never to clear. It’s right at the edge of the mask, where all the sweat dripping down my forehead accumulates…. I just got some tea tree oil products to hopefully help with the mask pimple situation. Let’s hope it helps. And that I can keep up the skin care routine…

Well anyway. A little late perhaps, but let’s look back on the year 2021.

It’s been a year of many changes. For me at work, I started working on new projects, started working with new colleagues… And also have to deal with manpower changes as my bestie did a job change. Lol. Job change sounds like some RPG game but yeah… You get what I mean. (I hope?)

Outside of work. I started my TheMessyDesk.xyz instagram account last year… I mean, in late 2020. But tried to continue working on it throughout the year. Well, it did kinda stop with the starting up of my YouTube channel. I also started this blog, well, paid for the domain name and stuff, sometime last year. But finally decided to actually start using it like yesterday.

I’ve only properly been on YouTube for too short a time to say much, other than a big thank you to everyone who has subscribed to my channel thus far. There hasn’t been all that many of you, but I still want to thank you from the bottom of my heart nonetheless. Starting up is always the most difficult thing, and I’m far from settling into a routine with filming and editing the videos. Everything is still too new and I also have a lot of issues to overcome. I’d love to be able to film myself and not just my table someday. But that would require me to have a complete revamp of my room, which is rather impossible at the moment. Partially owing to how full of *stuff* my room is. And considering that I am *still* buying yet more stuff… I don’t know what to do lol. More new fountain pens, art supplies, twisty puzzles…

So yeah, don’t expect to see a change any soon.

As for New Year resolutions…

Well, I’ll just call them goals for the new year.

My goals are simple.

1. I hope that my YouTube channel will continue to grow. Gain more subscribers and more views and watch hours. And to that end, I will continue trying my best to put out one video a week.

I keep wanting to do 2 videos a week but at the same time, I don’t have the mental energy to do that much editing… Trying to put out content that people actually want to see is really important too. Like the latest How to Use the Pineider Pen Filler that was such a big flop. Oh wells. We can only live and learn.

2. I want to keep this blog, as well as TwistyRoads active. I’ll probably do a post a week at least, but most likely more, especially if I’m on a roll. I take to writing so much more than editing videos, I’m afraid. I’d love to have an editor but… Right now my video qualities aren’t even that good, it’s kinda embarrassing to have someone else edit them. Not to mention that I obviously don’t have the money to pay anyone. I’m still so far from being even able to monetise my videos.

3. I’d like to use my fountain pens more, and do more art. And that means that I would need to have a better work life balance, as well as a lot more discipline. Not sure how well this would work out. But hey, at least I gotta try.

4. Read more. I didn’t met my meagre target for 1 book a month in 2021… But I did read A LOT of web novels so… Well I’m giving myself a pass. But yeah, if I could read 1 book a month that would be good. And I JUST bought myself a new kindle to read on too. A fancy Kindle Oasis at that too.

5. Get better at cubing, but still continue to enjoy myself.

Well… That’s mainly it I guess. I definitely want to improve on my video making skills and editing skills. It’s going to be slow and tough road for sure. I can tell you I’m the typical artist who is an introvert and not very eloquent. I write way better than I can speak. I pause a ton, stumble over my words, can’t pronounce things right…

But still. I love working with my own hands, doing some sort of crafty stuff… And I would love to turn my hobbies into something that I can make a living from. For now, I’ll have to get those 500 subscribers, before I aim for 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours – the bare minimum before you can monetise your videos. It’s going to be a long time yet before I can make living wages but still, I really hope that someday I’ll be able to make it.

Alright. It’s getting late so that’s all there is for now. No, I don’t have any new year special for my channel or my blog. As much as I have recovered mentally, also, not quite so. I don’t have anything special lined up at all, unfortunately. Maybe, hopefully, things will be very different when I’m posting about 2023 in a year’s time. We shall see…

So I made my first post on this site in over a year… And for some unknown reason, I was having trouble getting the post actually posted all afternoon yesterday. It just would not post and it says there was some Jetpack error, and eventually I just couldn’t even log in….

I went all over, trying to remember where I had hosted this site on, digging out my passwords and all. But it turns out that there wasn’t much I could try on the site besides re-installing wordpress? Not much of a loss if I did end up losing all previous content since all I had was two miserable posts. But still. Either case, I KO-ed on the bed before I got to trying it, and work up this morning to find that…

Hey. Everything is working, perfectly fine. O.o

I guess all that’s left for me to do is to perhaps, pick another theme. Write up some basic about me pages and the like. Slowly I guess. So lazy right now (what’s new?) and I do need to edit a video for this week. I always tell myself that I need to edit videos in advance but, that hasn’t been happening for sometime now.

Ok. I guess I’ll go turn some cubes and actually get to the editing… And I’ve got a ton of new arrivals and filming to be done too. Catch ya later!

Hi everyone!

I have arrived. Yes. I will be updating this blog much more frequently from now on. I will post about my rant musings, thoughts, behind the scenes and the struggles as I try to make videos, learn about making videos, grow my channel etc. Sometimes I’ll have more polished posts, about my pens, arts, unboxing, inks… Whatever. But I anticipate more of my posts to be very casual and unpolished. It takes time and effort and energy to make beautiful, polished posts, and energy in particular is rather lacking. And instead of leaving the blog empty as it has been sitting for the past year, I decided to do away with all pretenses of even wanting to make this a pretty, perfect site. No. I shall return to my long winded, rumbly roots and take to blogging like I once did in my youth. You can expect to read my thoughts, raw and unfiltered, and share in my joy and struggles…

I’ve always liked to write, and in the past, I’ve kept a dozen blogs. Well, some of them are still around, others like the moblog has died – the service closed down as users moved elsewhere, and only a shell remains on the Wayback Machine. When I discovered fountain pens, I started writing in my diary, in physical, offline journals. And eventually that took up all my spare time and I stopped blogging altogether. But there’s something that I really like about blogging that writing could not give me. Or even writing to pen pals – a hobby I took up near the start of the pandemic, and unfortunately has barely been keeping up with since. It’s different. I certainly enjoy my pens and ink and paper… Which is why I decided to dedicate my YouTube channel, and this blog, and an instagram account, so the pursuit of such physical things. But blogging is enjoyable on it’s own. I like putting my thoughts out there, shouting it out to the void, and perhaps gaining an audience somewhere along the way. And interacting with said audience through comments. Plus. I don’t need to clear around the truckload of stuff on my desk, dig out my diaries, and refill my pens. I just need my iPad. Or my phone. Or laptop. It’s mostly my iPad these days. And I can write anywhere where there is internet. Like now. At work. Or other times, at home, on my bed, away from my disaster of a desk. And I get to share my thoughts with the world. Whoever who cares to listen anyway.

So there it is. I’ve come one full circle to come back to my home territory of blogging. I don’t know how many people will be reading this… And frankly, I don’t care anyway. Sure I’d love to have tons of views, as I’d love to have tons of subscribers. But as with all things, you just gotta start doing and keep at it. And that’s what I’m doing.

Yes. My YouTube channel. There it is. Please subscribe, it’ll really help a lot! https://www.youtube.com/c/TheMessyDeskxyz That’s the link. ANd the reason why I’m posting it seperately is because, I finally have 100 subscribers. And that allows me to get my own personalised link. Awesome right? No more string of unknown letters and numbers… I have a custom link! Hurrah!

I thought that I’d also be able to do community posts once I reach a 100 subs, but nope, I was sorely mistaken. I need 500 subscribers for that… Sigh. That’s another long and slow fight, and I guess that’s my next goal. Keep making videos, try to improve on my video content and quality. Speak more fluently and be more articulate. Clear my desk so I have a bit more filming space, and stuff won’t avalanche down while filming. All that stuff.

I hope to be able to get somewhere someday. (Make this my job perhaps?) dAnd I’d love it if you would join my on my journey.

Hi, welcome to my messy desk!

I started this blog because I LOVE stationery. I love pens, fountain pens especially, but I also love brush pens, gel pens, washi tapes, stickers, wax stamps and seals, paper, notebook, inks, watercolors, art supplies… The list goes on and on. You can put me in a stationery and art supplies shop and I’d be happy there the entire day. I’m rather nerdy and I love cool and shiny tech stuff too. Like 3D pens, handheld printers… And I love writing/blogging, sharing my knowledge and love for all these stuff. I struggled for a while with what to call this blog. I wanted something that I could share my love of all these stationery, journaling and art stuff in one place, and soon found the answer staring right back at me.

My messy desk.

It has been said that a messy desk encourages a creative mind, and I have found it to be true for me. A biologist by training, I keep my lab bench neat and tidy, and I detest it when things are out of place. My office desk is messier however. Pens strewn all over, a stack of papers in the corner, but still of decent tidiness and loads of empty space to write, or use my laptop with. My desk at home however? Oh gawd. I am too embarrassed to post any sort of photo. It is so messy… I have two tables in fact. One with my mac that I haven’t been using. And even if I wanted to, the keyboard and mouse are literally buried 6 feet under piles of *stuff* that I had to disconnect them both because I gave up on piling stuff *around* the keyboard so that my screen isn’t constantly lit up. And the other table? Let’s just say that I have barely enough space to put a piece of A4 paper to do any sort of writing on. I do wish I have more space, but every time I clear my (home) desk, it gets messy again in less than a week. I like everything to be close to me, right within reach. And there are too many things that I want to keep on my desk… You can say I’ve given up.

And it’s different too. In the lab, I have a clear idea what I want done. Which experiment, the steps to take, the reagents to use. In the office things are not so clear. I need to brainstorm, think about new experiments. But at home? That’s when I can let myself run free. I do whatever. I don’t plan out what to write in my letters. I just start writing and write whatever. I have a rough idea what I want to draw. But I just pick up my pen to draw and experiment. Having all the stuff within reach is helpful too. Maybe I feel like finishing a piece with my fountain pen inks. Or maybe I decide that water colors would be more suitable. Or perhaps I’d rather use the brush rather than water brush. Or maybe I need to refill my fountain pen in the middle of writing….

So here it is. My messy desk. A collection of whatever random musings that come to mind, whenever I feel like it. It’s gonna be an exciting ride, and I’m thrilled to get started. So hop on and I’ll show you my messy desk!