I’ve had this dilemma between wanting to share what’s going on in my life (especially as it’s current) and needing to protect myself to some degree. I remember reading awhile back about a guy whose home was burglarized after he announced a vacation over Twitter. That was a wake-up call for me and a reminder of the dangers of transparency. Katana had mentioned this very issue at some point, talking about how she would only speak of plans to vacation after the fact and make very vague references to places that she likes to frequent. It was all in an effort to prevent certain people from finding her too easily or know too much.
A vacation long past. Can you guess where I am?
I may not be too concerned about my privacy yet, but maybe one day I will, if I become more high-profile through the work that I do and (hopefully) get to be known by. I don’t want to get into habits of sharing everything about my life and finding it working against me in the future. So far it’s been fine for me – I tend to talk about things I’m thinking of and things that I did on a particular day. Nothing there that would pinpoint where to find me, since I would have been long gone by the time I wrote about it. Of course, there was the huge move to Singapore that narrows things down quite a bit, but I’ve never mentioned where I’ve stayed or worked while here. Also, I haven’t talked about exactly where I live in LA and it’s not like the house is empty and easy to be broken into anyway.
However, this is the first time that I’m vacationing (there, I said it) since I started my blog more seriously. This time I’m not worried because people don’t know where I’m staying (except for colleagues, who I trust) and it’s not like I’m leaving the place empty – there will still be plenty of people occupying that space, going on with their lives. The problem is I don’t know what I’d do when I do go on vacation and leave a home empty. I absolutely love to share my life with others, friends or strangers. I just don’t want that to come kick me in the butt in the future for being too transparent about my life’s details. But will I really be able to resist sharing?
If you're sick of seeing my face, too bad. I try not to put pictures of others unless they are hard to recognize or I am out of touch with them.
It’s a battle between who knows the most intimate details about me (and who can find out if they wanted) and of those people, who would actually do something to harm me. Does my announcement of some time away put me at risk for being robbed? Can people who I don’t know that well find my personal details? That stuff doesn’t seem too hard to find – I’m constantly filling out forms with it, so what if it all goes to the wrong hands one day? There are so many questions and not enough answers – this has to end up being a judgment call with not much basis beyond a feeling. I feel safe enough sharing it now, so I will. I’ll try to only write about the cities I visit after I’ve left them, just for practice.
I remember thinking similar thoughts when I posted earlier this week about looking for a job. I wanted to share a screenshot of my résumé, but I didn’t want everyone to see my contact details. So, I spent quite a bit of time editing it so that people would know that the contact details would have gone in that space, but not be able to read it. The first few times I tired a variety of blurring effects, but none worked well enough, so I finally settled with a pixelating. I trust that people are generally good, but it doesn’t hurt to take some cautionary steps at times. I just hope I don’t ever get too paranoid.
It’s nearing the time when I need to start looking for a job again. As I prepare for my final weeks in this part of the world, I am reminded of the next stage to come. Then, rather out of the blue, I received an e-mail yesterday, with a job opportunity that I was extremely interested in. The benefit of having a business fraternity network is that I hear of a lot of openings that I otherwise would not have known about. Plus, I could get a direct referral from my fellow brother who was about to leave the post for her next venture (it’s a co-ed organization, but since it’s a fraternity we refer to everyone as brothers).
It was a lovely day today and I had an equally lovely time going on an outing with Skim for the afternoon. We met up at Bugis MRT and got on a bus that took us out to East Coast Park, where we were able to rent two bikes and take a nice ride. A mere two minutes into our journey we nearly crashed into each other, as I tried to unsteadily pass my camera to her. I never knew my right hand was so weak at maneuvering! The opposite was for her, as she had trouble with her left hand, so there we were, a complete screaming disaster as we saved ourselves from near destruction. I then switched to be on the left side and we managed to make the pass so she could take some pictures for me. Why we couldn’t just stop our bikes like normal people I don’t know. It’s far less exciting that way!
The one thing that wasn’t so enjoyable about the ride was when our butts started to get sore about two hours in. I kept shifting around in an attempt to put weight on different areas, but once we stopped for a quick snack, we both felt the soreness creeping us. At first walking was a little strange and I wondered if this is how it feels to get off a horse after a long journey. I’ve only ever been on horses for brief times, about an hour or so, so I never got the bow legs that others have. We were right by the ocean at that point, so we went down to the water so I could at least say I touched the ocean water here. It’s a lesson from my trip to Australia that I’ve never forgotten – going in the water is something so simple, yet it’s something I didn’t do in the Gold Coast, so I’ll never repeat that mistake again.
