My rant to no one

As of 4 hours and 13 minutes ago, I'm no longer a privileged member of the media.

I left with a tinge of irony. It's the same day that GoMD is off to Germany, and I end up serving my last hour of media privilege at Oktoberfest in 1 Utama. I don't think the impact of me leaving the media has really sunk in yet, so let me tell you why being a journalist is quite awesome.

1. Writing
Of course, I love writing, as I demonstrat  sporadically on this blog. Writing gives me all the time in the world to think of smart things to say. Most people are smart if given enough time, of which I am living proof.

2.  Living beyond your means
I've told a few people about this one before. It's what keeps being in the media fresh. You see, we get to do things and go places that we could never have afforded on our meagre salaries. And in a big way, that's actually better than being able to pay for it yourself - in the sense that you're constantly living beyond your means. It's an awesome feeling.

3. Glamour
Even if you did have the money to go to Spain, like I did recently for the Mini Cooper test drive, chances are slim that you would've rented a Cooper S as your transport of choice. Even if you did, you probably wouldn't have driven it the way I did around the country roads on the outskirts of Barcelona. And you probably wouldn't have had a convoy of 4 of them just to attract even more attention.

4. Entertaining people
I'm a born entertainer. I love making people laugh and smile, and the media gives me the opportunity to do that for a living. It's even nicer to entertain people that you've never even met. Dont believe me? Well even some non-believers have eventually found similar joys.


So, after all that, you're probably asking - "Then why the bloody hell did you leave?"

Well, to be honest, it's really a combination of things. At some point this year, I felt like I wasn't giving 100% to NewMan. I was arriving at work late, and leaving my deadlines for later. I think it was a consequence of working in a place where passion was largely dead. I didn't feel that any of my colleagues (barring perhaps my fashion editor) were really passionate about what they did. Surprisingly, instead of instilling them with my obvious passion for the mag, I sorta fell through as well.

Anyways, I've always said that NewMan would be my last publishing stop in Malaysia (if any of you know ANYONE from WIRED or F1 Racing, I will make you happy in your pants!), so when this opportunity came by to sell something that I actually believed in, I thought - what the heck.

To be honest, I never saw journalism as a career anyway. 5 years ago, I was on course to be a DJ at Red 104.9 when someone offered me a job at CHIP magazine while I was waiting. Obviously the DJ job fell through, and I decided that I kinda liked what I was doing. Like I told someone recently, give yourself a chance to try new things because at the age we're at, we're still allowed to make a coupla mistakes. Guess you just gotta be a bit brave sometimes.

Oh well, here goes.