About VictoriaC

Hello, my name is Victoria Chan. I'm also known as 曾晓恬 (pronounced Zeng Xiao Tian) to some of you.

I'm a web developer in my 30s. Perhaps the biggest event in my life so far was in 2004 when I moved to work in Oxford, UK from Singapore where I grew up. 

I am currently living in Oxford with my boyfriend, Peter Collingridge, who is a scientist.

I have only one sister. My sister, Glyn, is one year older than me and she's currently pursuing her dream of bringing ukulele to Singapore. I'm proud of her entrepreneuring work.

I am learning Japanese, and hence the badly written Japanese language content on this website. I apologise for the bad writing. I am hoping to improve by practising writing in Japanese here.

As for the Chinese language content, I am trying to brush up on my Chinese. I haven't been using Chinese for years, and so I may have forgotten much of it! Don't laugh at me if you spot a mistake. Just leave a note to correct me, thank you!

I love making lists. So here is a list I have prepared earlier for you. If you want to add a question, please feel free to contact me.

What do you do on the computer/iPhone?

• Working on pet projects which could be websites or applications
• Reading Twitter updates
• Surfing the web, reading articles or trying out new sites and stuff
• Aww-ing at cute animal pictures
• Cyberstalking people
• Watching videos, TV, DVD
• Streaming music and buying music
• Practising Japanese on Smart.fm
• Shopping
• Web projects, eg. Flickr 365Days project, FAWM
• Playing games (only occasionally!)

What do you do without the computer?

• Playing the guitar and ukulele and attempting to write songs
• Attending meetups and conferences such as Oxford Geek Nights, Oxford Flickr group, dConstruct, OpenTech etc.
• Hare-brained projects
• Playing squash
• Cooking, inventing new recipes
• Shopping
• Learning to drive
• Walking by the canal, feeding ducks
• Cycling around on my Brompton
• Sitting in cafes, writing, talking and dreaming up schemes
• Playing iGo
• Learning Japanese
• Learning random stuff
• Reading books and magazines
• Hanging out at Borders (now sadly no more)

What do you watch on Telly / DVD?

• TED Talks (love them!)
• Indie / experimental films eg. Richard Linklater stuff, Charlie Kaufman stuff
• Documentaries on BBC iPlayer, such as Stephen Fry stuff, science stuff, animals stuff
• Panel shows on BBC: QI, Have I got news for you
• TV drama: Survivors, Being Human, No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, Jonathan Creek
• Japanese drama: のだめカンタービレ, 電車男, プロポーズ大作戦 , ラブシャッフル , マンハッタンラブストーリー

What music do you listen to?

• Indie, quirky, experimental music
• Singer-songwriter, usually with guitar or ukulele
• I seem to like a lot of the Scandinavian music recommended by Last.fm
• I seem to also like a lot of the New York tri-state region music recommended by Last.fm

What do you read?

• I love sci-fi/cyber/fantasy/thought-experiment. Eg, Greg Egan, John Wyndham, Philip K. Dick, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson
• Science / math books, eg, Gödel, Escher, Bach , Pi in the Sky
  
• Whimsical (magical-realism) fiction, eg, Haruki Murakami, Jorge Luis Borges
• Books meant for children. Eg, Ursula K. Le Guin
• I love short stories, eg. Dave Eggers, Isabel Allende, Haruki Murakami
• Girly poetry, eg. Kate Clanchy, Carol Ann Duffy
• Computer / programming books!
• ICON magazine

More questions? Ask me.

xxx Victoria