Gracia’s Index — Start Here

There’s a fine line between courting someone and harassment. — Springtime in Berlin “Hey, how are you doing?” I looked up from my phone and saw a man who I did not know. From his stance, I could see he was trying to make an advance. I applaud his bravery, as rejection always lurks around the corner. “What are you doing?” he asked…

Don’t postpone that dream or idea for sometime in the future. — I was twenty. The median age was seventeen. Many of the dancers were even younger. I had wanted to explore this sport much earlier, but I was afraid of sucking through the initial stage of picking up a new hobby. At twenty, a classmate from one of my project groups…

Writer, spreadsheet & tooling nerd, amateur filmmaker, personal development junkie (aren’t we all), language lover, introvert. — My name is Gracia Kleijnen, and I came here to write *aggressively chugs down a cup of coffee and slams it on the table while placing fingers back on the home row*. Professionally, I work in copywriting. That implies I write a lot. And the production of streams of words…

Come at meee — LinkedIn saw a fiery debate about copywriters using… spreadsheets? “Asking a copywriter to supply the words to you in a spreadsheet is a bit like asking a chef to serve soup to you in a slipper. Sure, it’ll go in there. It’s just not really meant to. Plus we’ll probably…

And dissected the sender information, subject line, and preview text copy — so you don’t have to — When you keep your high school email address for more than 2 decades, you sign up for and collect a lot of junk. This was long before Gmail existed, when us 90s babies used Internet Explorer as our main browser. You exchange emails with weirdos in public chat rooms. You…

Let the rant begin — Life in a metropole = exciting. Citizens flock from crammed subway carts during the week into parks and forests on the weekends, following the rhythm of the traditional work week. Roaring police sirens, honking cars, or a helicopter hovering in one place indicate yet another demonstration. Skip the cinema, just…

Back on the streets without a single sprinkle of resent — This February, I announced that I ditched freelancing for a full-time job. Freelancing can be fun once your income exceeds “breadline profitability,” as Rose Butcher would call it. And I wasn’t exactly prospering. When I reached the point of “I’m-SO-done-so-screw-this,” the hunt for a fixed, non-freelancing job began. Here’s how…

Any of these would have been better than no advice — Graduating high school feels like it happened yesterday. The immense relief upon hearing I passed my exams, partying at the graduation ceremony, and leaving the school premises for a final time, knowing I’d probably never set foot in that building again. What was next? A 2-month vacation. After that, university…

Why say no to an extra $10, $100 or more? — I enjoy running little experiments that can potentially earn me some pocket money down the road. That faceless cat channel that garners millions of clicks and Google AdSense dollars? The cat channel was a fun testing environment. Shooting content, editing, uploading in bulk, testing regular videos versus Shorts, playing around…