“Pig, where do you come from?” Robert asked.
“I went to the market to buy this box,” I said and showed him.
“What is it?”
“It’s a foam container box.”
“What is it for?”
“Well,” I put it on the table, “I am thinking of building a mini-studio to take photos or film of our product to promote on an online platform. And I decided to use this box to be the studio.”
“Take a photo!” Robert said with a smile. “Interesting.”
“Good morning,” Robert said.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Last night, you went to bed late. You should sleep more.”
“No need,” I said, then I went to get a shovel and went next to him. “It is enough sleep for me. I can't let you garden alone.”
“I think I am useless. I can't help you,” Robert said in a sad tone.
“Don't say that. You help me a lot.”
“I don't think so. I think I am stupid and dumb. I can't even learn how to write on a blog. I can't be like you.” He dropped his face.
“It's true you can't be like me,” I stated, “and you don't have to be like me. You have to be you.”
Robert raised his face.
“Though you change your face, your body shape or your behavior to be like me, you can't be me. It's impossible and it's not necessary to do that. What you have to do is you must be you. Trust me.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Find yourself and be yourself. And I believe you can do it.”
“Um.” Robert nodded his head. His smile came back.
It was a cool night.
I and Robert were in the yard. He laid on the ground and I sat on a chair. Once in a while, he sighed.
“What's the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“If there is nothing, why did you sigh?”
“Pitiful.”
“You?”
“No, you!”
I opened my eyes, “Why am I pitiful?”
“You work very hard. During the day you work in the garden. At night you work online. See? It is late at night and you're still working.”
I looked at the laptop that was laying on my laps, then I turned to Robert and spoke with a smile, “It is called a life. It has up and down like waves in the sea. When we are at a low level, we must work hard. When we are at a high level, we can take a rest. It's not pitiful, it's natural.”
“I see.” Robert wagged his head. “What are you doing?”
“I am creating videos to upload on my video account.”
“How many videos do you create?”
“The more videos the better.”
“Why do you make many videos?”
“Before, I uploaded three videos a day but now I have to upload five or more because the economy is not good, everyone needs to survive so they become content creators. Nowadays the online industry is so competitive.”
Robert sighed again, “So pitiful.”
“What are you doing, Pig?” Robert asked.
“I am submitting a new tax form to adsense,” I said.
“I remember that you said you stopped earning from youtube.”
“Yes, I did,” I said while my fingers were typing, “I closed my adsense but adsense didn’t allow me to remove it because of the threshold. I thought it would not be a bother, but they sent me recently to fill out a new form of tax. I thought of going back to adsense to find a way to remove it, but it turned out to re-open. I don’t have a clue what’s going on and why it is like this. Since I don’t want my head to spin around, I decided to re-partner with adsense. And now I must fill the tax form and submit it.”
“Doing a job with humans is complicated.” Robert sighed.
I wagged my head, “It’s my karma. It’s me myself who wants to be like a human while I am a pig.”
“Pig,” Robert called me. “There are many ding sounds from your phone.”
“I think they are notifications that there are comments on my videos,” I said.
“Videos?”
“Yes.” I walked out of the bathroom. “I am learning marketing. To remember the lesson, I have to take note but writing in a book makes me feel sleepy and bored, so I created my own way of taking note by making a video of each lesson that I learn, like a slideshow presentation, then uploading it onto a video platform. And there are a lot of comments.”
“They praise your videos, don't they?”
“Well, there were but a few. Most of them said I am showing off that I am skillful in marketing.”
“Hate comments!”
“It’s freedom of speech.” I smiled. “I don't mind.”
"You look not well, pig?” Robert asked.
“I didn't sleep for a few nights,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don't know. I just knew that I wanted to sleep but I didn't sleep.”
After saying that, I dropped on the chair. “I really want to sleep,” I stated.
“Well,” Robert touched his chin, “I think you should work out. My former boss had this issue and I heard his son told him to work out then his sleep returned.”
“Okay, I'll do it.”
Hurriedly, I jogged around the house.
"Is this world perfect?” Robert asked.
“No, this world is not perfect,” I said.
“Will it be perfect?”
I shook my head, “No, it won't.”
“It really can't be, can it?”
“Never and ever. Stop hoping for it.”
Robert sighed after hearing it.
"Where are you from, Pig?” Robert asked when he saw me close the gate.
“I went to buy a camera,” I said.
“Why?”
“To take photos of our vegetables.”
Robert shrank his eyes.
“The merchants sent a message that they stop buying our vegetables temporarily. I'm thinking of selling the vegetables online, that's why I bought the camera - to take photos of them to post online,” I explained.
“I see.” Robert nodded his head.
"What are you doing, pig?” Robert asked.
“I am learning how to use AI to generate a drawing,” I said.
“For what?”
“For posting online.”
“You said you would go to learn drawing.”
“I said it but I changed my mind because learning drawing will take my time and also my money. I am not rich.”
“Is it good to use AI? I mean related to copyright.”
“I just use it to generate drawings for fun only. Not to earn money. So, it is not wrong.”
“I feel good to hear that.”
It was hard to decide if I should close my website or not.
Because I couldn't make a decision yet, I decided to take a break. And I felt it was very relaxing.
“Don’t you write for your website?” Robert asked.
“I prepared the articles already. I’m taking a break to think,” I responded.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I am thinking if I should close the website very happy piglet or not.”
Robert opened eyes, “Why?”
“I don’t know. I just feel that I want to.”
“Oh!!!” Robert wagged his head.
.png)
“Good morning Robert,” I said while my mouth kept yawning non stop.
“You look tired, Pig,” Robert said.
“Last night I slept only two hours.”
“Why didn’t you sleep?”
“I tried to insert pictures to my website.”
“How is it now?”
“It didn’t work. It was bad after the outage. Before I could put pictures on my website by using URLs. Now, they don’t allow it.”
“If so, don’t insert the picture.”
“It will not look attractive.”
“Well, then what are you going to do?”
“I think I might go to learn drawing.”
Robert didn’t say any word when he heard me; he just wagged his head.
“Hello Robert,” I said when I arrived in the garden.
“How are you, Pig?” Robert said.
“I’m good, but my work is not good at all.”
“What’s happened?”
“I can post articles on my website, but I can’t insert an image even though it is the URL or images in my site album.”
“It’s not really good. Do you know why?”
“I’m not sure if it is because of the outage a few days ago.”
“Now, what will you do?”
“I pause posting articles and come to do gardening with you.”
After saying it, I took a basket and went to pull grasses from the land to put in it.
“Pig, are you still working?” Robert said.
“Yes Robert,” I said. “My accounts on video platforms are getting recognized.”
“Accounts? Do you have more than one?”
“Yes, I have more than one. At first, it was my TikTok account. Then I worked on Instagram account and it is getting traffic.”
“It is good. They are moving forwards, so you can take a break.”
“I can’t.” I shook my head. “While it is getting recognition, I have to catch this chance tightly. If I take a break, it will turn to like when I started it.”
“It’s complicated. I don’t understand. But don’t you worry. Take your time. I go to work in the garden now.”
I smiled, “Thanks so much, Robert.”
“Pig.” Robert knocked on my room’s door.
“Yes,” I said and I opened the door.
“What’s happened to you?” He said with big eyes when he saw my eyes looked like a panda’s.
“Last night, I didn’t sleep,” I told.
“Till now?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“My tiktok’s video went viral, and now a new idea pops up in my head. I am studying about it.”
“Really? Congratulations.” Robert grabbed my hands and shook them with a smile on his lips.
“Thanks. I am busy, I won’t be able to help you with gardening today. Also, I can’t help you with other work. I need to work on it.”
“Don’t worry.” Robert patted his chest. “Leave everything to me. Take your time.”
.png)
“Pig,” Robert called, “please help me.”
“What’s the matter?” I said.
“I created a blog on Blogspot. I wrote it already and I clicked Justify but my text isn’t justified.”
“Did you write on it directly?”
“No, I wrote it on Ms Word, then I copied and pasted it here.”
“It is not a big deal, we can fix it. Open Google, then copy your text from Ms Word to paste it in the search box of search, after that, copy it and paste it on Blogspot.”
.png)
“Ah, my text can be justified. How did you know that?”
“Experience.” I smiled. “I met this problem, too, when I wrote on Blogspot. There was no document telling how to fix this, so I tried to do it by myself, then I found this method.”
“Very good. Thanks pig.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Pig, what are you writing again?” Robert asked.
“I am writing about the traditional Khmer color ‘black’. Cambodian people didn’t call it black in the past,” I said.
“What is it called?”
“I don’t tell you. If you want to know, you have to read it. However, it will be published next week.”
“What’s about your article about color indigo?”
“Click on the picture above if you want to read it.”
“Pig, can you tell the difficult experiences you have encountered working as a blogger?” Robert asked.
“There are many,” I said.
“Tell me one.”
“Let’s take the example of writing in English. Though I know English, I am poor in grammar. My writing usually had grammatical errors. When I wrote fiction on websites, there were a lot of criticism comments especially over my grammar, but no one told how to fix it. This is what the writers online always meet - especially the non-native English writers. In addition, though I asked them to help me by telling me how I could improve my grammar, no one replied. Seeing that I decided to continue writing. I published stories on eleven websites and I spent about one year. One day, there was a comment from a reader saying that my story had a lot of grammatical errors, they told me to use google doc in gmail to fix it. I followed their advice; after that, I don’t see anyone criticize grammar in my writing anymore.”
“Wow, sad but happy experience.”
“Yes, it is both a sad and happy experience. And because of that, I decided to share what problems I encounter and how I fix them on my website. The experts, the rich, the outstanding people might think it is not important and laugh at. But for the low and poor bloggers, like me, who are thriving to chase dreams to be successful bloggers, it is very important. Especially when we are not native English writers, we meet a lot of difficulties, and what we need is comments or advice on how we can deal with that difficulty or improve our capacity. Nowaday, among thousands of people, there are less than one hundred people who have a helpful heart to share good comments. Most of them love to give look down comments, mock comments etc.”
Robert wagged his head, “I understand.”
It was a good, shiny day. While Robert and I were gardening, cow, duck and twin piggies came.
“Hello pig. Hello Robert,” they said.
“Hello,” I said.
“We are coming to call you to go to the lake. We didn’t go out together for many days.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“Come on, pig. We miss you,” twin piggies said.
“Yes, come with us,” cow said.
“Don’t stay at home like this. You will be stressed,” duck said.
“No.” I shook my head. “Sorry.”
Seeing that they couldn’t persuade me, they gave up.
After they left, Robert asked, “Why don’t you go with them? This will be fun.”
“I don’t have time for having fun, Robert,” I said. “I need to work to get money.”
“I wonder why they can have time to have fun, and you don’t.”
“They don’t need to worry because they have their masters taking care of them. They don’t have to care about food or pay the bill, but I do.”
Robert wagged his head, “I understand.”
“Pig, I have read your website. Most of your articles are short,” Robert said.
“Yes, they are short,” I said.
“Why don’t you write a long article?”
“It’s not the right marketing.”
“What does it mean?”
“Nowaday, people prefer short content. You can see that short videos are gaining more popularity than long videos. So, I decided to inspire this tactic by producing short articles.”
Robert wagged his head, “I see.”
“Pig, where do you come from?” Robert asked. “I went to the market to buy this box,” I said and showed him. “What is it?” “It’s a foam conta...
