I was so happy when the interviewer told me that I passed his oral English test (to test my ability of comprehensive language application), even if I didn’t do a perfect job answering his last question “to describe what kind of a person I am”… I thought and thought for an answer for quite a long time, failed and almost lost my mind.

What kind of person I am? What characteristics I own? How to introduce myself briefly? I really have no answer about these questions. “Let others evaluate you”, an idea came to my mind. “Uploading all your photos on the net, and collect other people’s impressions about you”. A photo sharing website is needed, and I finally bought this PRO account for myself.

Upload all my photos to the internet, and record my life by photos, and give myself a beautiful memory, this is the value of the 38.8 RMB (which used to pay the PRO account). I have a plan, to keep a diary in a certain period of time by writing a post in my English blog, including text and images which hosted in the paid account, to finally converge a life journal of my career in the new job position in the new company.

And some years later, when I read these journals again, I will have a chance to tell myself that all my efforts and hard work in the whole job career as a foreign trading salesman wasn’t a waste of life.

Some fans of my blog took to the streets in San Francisco, and spelt out “I ♡ CHARLES” with Google Latitude. Thanks them, please click here for their video: http://services.google.com/latitudevideo/view.html#n0BGZQKDR5m0H-GDZQS5z0BGZQKDR5s0BgZqkdr-Odmf5s0BgZqkdr-Odmf

Frankly speaking, my blog is writen in English, so most of my blog visitors come from the United States, and Europe (especially United Kingdom), and some other English-speaking countries (Except China).

According to another of blog statistics, it also says most of my blog fans come from the North America. That’s why they gathered together in San Francisco, and spelt out their feeling with their mobiles.

Oh, this video is only for fun, you can make your own here http://services.google.com/latitudevideo/ , thanks Google Latitute.

I got two orders this morning, about 1k usd each, these are small orders,  just trial orders for my customers. Anyway, I think I’ve done a good job

I’m already bored with this job working here for one year and half, things are harder and harder as what I didn’t meet before, goods can hardly be sent through Chinese customs, and there’s always a risk that the goods might be held at customs in any other countries. That’s a headache for me all the time.

I don’t want to deal with people from South America, Turkey, and lots and lots of other non-English speaking countries any longer, I can hardly understand them, and they can hardly understand me, although both of us speak English, but their English is so difficult to get a generally idea what they’re talking about. For a lot of times when we were talking about a little thing for a very long time, I had to repeatedly ask them over and over again. I think I am driven crazy.

I like this job, I am lovn’ this job, I am doing things that I like, I like being online all day, to surf on the net or do whatever I like. And honestly speaking, I work on the internet and spend most of my time on the net doing lot of things other than working, but I can get my orders, even if I read others’ blogs for the whole day and the whole week, I reply an email, there will be an order.

It seems that this job is quite easy for me, yes, I think so, that’s truth. And compared those people who are struggling for a job opportunity all day, I’m satisfied. Working while doing things of my own, that’s what I always want.

How time flies, A new week is coming, but in my mind, we just celebrated our Chinese new year, celebated Lantern Festival, spent my awful date of birth, but it’s already been March 1st today, that means we have passed 1/6 of the entire year. I’m alraedy 24 years old now, I don’t know how fast my rest of life will be spent.

Last week, I finnally sent all my orders out, but every order with some items left, which can’t be able to go through Chinese customs, that’s a great headache to me. I hate this job, it’s hard to get an order, and the goods I’m selling has a great problem at customs in any country too. A large order of mine was still held at the US customs without any solutions, I’m still worried about that.

Life is boring, doing so many things repeatly again and again, and almost all things I’m doing here is not smoothly. I hate my job, I hate my life, but anyway, I’m here this morning still in the office at my desk.

Life is hard, but, I will do my best and enjoy everyday as a holiday.

I remembered Fedora 10 was released in the nighth of Nov. 25th, 2008 at 22:00 pm Beijing Time, as soon as it’s available for download, my-guides.net published it’s great tutorial Fedora 10 Installation Guide, which I learned a lot from its Fedora 9 Installation Guide when I tried Fedora (Fedora 9, this is the first Linux distro I tried and installed in my entire hard disk) for the 1st time, it’s really helpful for a Linux and Fedora newbie. I didn’t sleep all the night but translated it into Chinese, to do my best to help others who wants to try the latest Fedora distro. Although I keeped translating this great guide for a whole night, but only finished its first 8 chapters, with 2 Fedora fans’ help the second day, we finally submited to my-guides.net a Chinese version.

Although Alex named his work “Fedora 10 Installation Guide”, but he taught us almost all things about Fedora 10 system configration (these are all things needed to do after Fedora 10 installed) and Fedora frequently-used software installation and configration, it’s not good enough as someone didn’t know how to install Fedora 10 in his hard disk at all, and, what’s the most important, was, he knows nothing about Chinese, and Chinese-language opensource software, so he didn’t write any howtos about that.

In the next few days after Fedora 10 released, I compiled another free PDF guide. I read the Fedora 10 realse note, and collected lots of other information about their fed back or guides after they tried Fedora 10 from BBS or forums together, and published my own PDF to the public, and updated it for 2 times.

Those days after this PDF was published to the public, my Chinese blog attracted hundreds of visitors a day for the download address, and many Fedora users helped me to spread in other forums. I didn’t ever know this kind of document is in a so large demand, but I think it’s useful for them.

Today when I visit Google Code fedora-zh project again, I found my PDF was download over 35,000 times in all after I moved it here, and this number is still counting that is to say, tens of thousands of people downloaded my PDF,  I think I did a good job.

I got to know these days Fedora 10 Nears 1 Million Users Mark (here’s the official statistics), I am really happy to hear this news, as I tried to promote it in China and Chinese-speaking countries. Fedora is the distro I’d always trust, as so many people worldwide chose it, spread it, and get involved in.

BTW: I have moved my Feedburner account to a Google Account, so please re-subsribe my blog RSS feed: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/charlespeng , thanks.

Feb 19th is my birthday this year, as all of you know in China, we have two calendars, one is Chinese Lunar Calendar, and another one is the Gregorian Calendar, we uses Gregorian calendar in newspapers, TVs, computers, and even paying us salary in a Gregorian Calendar one month time cycle. But most rural people uses Lunar Calendar to arrange farming. I’m from a rural area in Hanzhong, China’s northwest Shaanxi Province, I always spent my birthday on Chinease Lunar Calendar customarily.

I added a GTD event in Google Calendar in Advance so as not to forget celebrating my birthday, but on Feb. 18 th, I received an SMS from Google telling me it’s my birthday, oh, it was so late for me to get to know that day is my birthday, it’s been nearly 17:00, and one hour later, I would be able to get off work. But I didn’t know that day is my birthday and prepared nothing, I am a stranger here in Taizhou, and I have little friends, only a few people knows my birthday, and of course  it’s so late to call some of them and held a party together.

After super as usual, I didn’t know what to do to have a celebration for my birthday. Walking on the street, I felt so lonely, “Why not go to a Leisure center?” , I went to one nearby, but I didn’t go in as  I was a little bit afraid, because I was alone. After that, went to another one by taxi, but I didn’t enter too, I didn’t know why I didn’t enter, only wandered outside for a lont time and left to home.

Three days after that, when I opened Google Calendar again, I found that day was not my birthday, I still didn’t know why I received an SMS ahead of time, I marked in the correct date and time, It’s very strange, but my real birthday date has been expired. What a awful birthday this year!

The 100th photos on my Flickr Pro account

I bought my self a Flickr Pro account as my birthday present in the night of Feb. 14th on Feb. 15th at 1:00 o’clock, I thought  although it’s been  1:00 am of Feb 15th, but it was Beijing time, it was still Valentine’s Day in USA (Flickr is an USA company owned by Yahoo), Valentine’s day is a special day for me to buy myself a present and it’s also a good day for me to refund my account as it’s so easy to be remembered. But, when I made payment, Flickr showed me a date I made payment on Feb. 15 th, I was so stupid, Yahoo knew my local time, it’s terrible.

With this Flickr Pro account, I can be able to upload all my favorite photos and share with friends on the net, and I have a good camera too, I bought a Sony DSC-T500 during the Chinese new year holiday, with it, I can take some good pictures and share it on Flickr.

Well, this is my 24 year old birthday, I am one year older again.

We moved to a new office in the center of the city at the end of October last year. It’s a regret that I was so lazy and I didn’t write anything about it in the last months, I’m really sorry for that. Now I’m back and celebrated our Chinese new year (ox year), it’s time to write something about my last year, to summarize the past year 2008 and exceptions of 2009.

Charles Peng in the new Office

Looking back over the past year, I can say it has truly been an eventful one. I can not find the pleasure of work, the working conditions is too bad, I don’t want to say anything about it, just see those pictures. I tried and planed to look for another job for times, but I surrendered, because I think there are no job opportunities that I’m completely satisfied, I’d rather continue working here than look for another one.

About in May through the beginning of July, I got a salary about 10,000 RMB plus commission. It’s for me for the 1st time I made so much money, just in 2 months. I became more confident in overcoming difficulties. And went back home to Xi’an and saw my parents in Hanzhong…

All things are difficult before they are easy, I agree with this. After working here for about 5 months, I became more and more familiar with the products I’m selling, and  knew more and more how to communicating with our products, learned a lot of my business processes. I made nearly 10,000 RMB during the last 2 months last year, it’s a great amount of money for me, I bought a Sony DSC-T500 camera, and spent the rest in the Chinese new year holidays. Although I didn’t go back home for the Spring festival, but I spent the holiday happily.

The new year is ox year, my year of birth considered in relation to the 12 Terrestrial Branches, It’s a lucky year for me, I got a big order at the beginning of the first week after the holiday. I hope I can do my best and earn much more…

It has been nearly 5 months I worked here, when I came here in the End of Oct. 2007, I just got out of a multi-level marketing, which is illegal by laws in China. I found my self so bad luck that I entered such organization once upon a time, after geting out of there, I had nothing, no money, forgot almost all my English, missed a lot of chances.

When I came back to Taizhou, which I worked after my graduation from college,  from the multi-level  marketing organization in Luoyang, Henan Province, I went to a friend working in Wenling, Taizhou. He greatly helped me, and after staying there with him for almost one month, I began to look for a job, I got to know an Alibaba sales representative on a job-hunting website, and he finally introduced me to this shop, Taizhou Luqiao Tongda Lock Service Shop, yes, this not a company, only a shop. I remembered that when I first came here to be interviewed, the woman, who is our boss’ wife, said they are a company, and has a factory of their own, and had begun to do foreign trade for a long time, and their products are the best all of the world, and has lots of exportation worldwide, I fould myself so foolish to believe what she said to me so easilly.
But when I begun working, they treated me well at first, but after working here for month, everything changed, she is very bad-tempered,  and often called my names, she thought foreign business is a very easy thing. But it wasn’t, she knew nothing about it. I want to leave at that time, but I couldn’t do it, because I had no money, really no money, I need more money so that I could find another job.

They don’t have a factory, most of their products were bought from other companies in Shenzhen or other places. So prices are much more higher than any other supplier doing the same business, so I was so difficult for me to sell. Another problem is that, it is very difficult to pass customs because  third parties logo the keys.

Sometime, when a buyer placed an order to me, and paid by Western Union, I could not send goods to them because they have no products. But I couldn’t help to do it.

What’s more, here the rooms are limited, my working conditions are very bad, I watch the computer screen all day long, and my eyes became shortsighted because of the dark environment.

I fell so much pressure and I finally can’t bear any more,  there are so many job opputinities here, I am sure that I can easilly find another one.  Surely, I will.

Today’s Sunday, I am now in office, but didn’t work in the morning, I will go outside to the street or supermarkets later, and wish myself a happy birthday.

I am one year older,  that means more responsibility than the past. I will try to work hard for myself and all my family. I hope I can be successfully in the Chinese new year and my 23th year in my life.

I just want to look for a good hostinig provider to blog, why it is so difficult, another Chinese blog of mine used up all the bandwidth, and service stopped for two times recently. That blog is hosted in Hostgator, one of the reseller plans, bought from a reseller called Jiang, the Hostgator reseller plan offers 500M storage and 5G bandwidth, but that blog has 1500-2000 visitors a day on an everage, it used up the bandwidth yesterday, I told Jiang, and he added 1G extra and today morning I found my site stopped again, he added 1G again.

Hostgator has a good speed, but  the bandwidth so limited for me, not enough, I have to ask Jiang for a final solution.

Very late tonight, stop now, and go on this topic tomorrow, say goodbye to all of you. Thanks.