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MICHELLE DANG
curriculum vitae
2019
With the wisdom of retrospect (Dang, 2020), I wanted to revisit my many past lives as wannabe poet to my incredibly crafty adobe premiere pro bootlegging (rest assured I've left that life of crime behind). I know this is suppose to be a high level CV but what is a Michelle piece without some Dang personality to it.
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Take care,
M L V D
An absolute highlight of my time freelancing was working with passionate and go getting female entrepreneurs. Really where I learnt what bootstrapping really meant. ​
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It also opened my eyes to the people behind the scenes of design from concept to execution. The graphics, SEO, the lighting angles and the 80/20 rule when running your own business. Working side by side with the principle can also be daunting and fosters within me a fear of failure that is productive and yet carefully considerate of my own imperfections.
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Something, I've taken to my own small business the power of a one man show but also the unharnessed potential within a team.
Something close to my heart is storytelling.
What it takes to win hearts is something that I'm trying to learn from my Ong Ngoai (Grandfather). A solider in the South Vietnam army, a refugee single father of two sons and my mother - a true survivor in every respect of the word. I see the stories in his callouses, his milky eyes and his rhythm through the guitar.
Art imitates life in my entry into Verge Creative Awards in the Fine Art category. LOL. I was support to enter into photography but I managed people's choice for my three piece slider of him.
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2018
2017
2016
I love second-new clothing. Mostly because as a teenager I never really had the finances to buy new new clothes​. However, I was taken by my mother's vintage pieces. What I enjoyed about a piece of clothing was the story behind it and boy, my mum's Goth phase occupied me for a hot minute.
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Carousell is a mobile marketplace used to sell your clothes among many categories such as books, toys, cameras, kitchen etc. Based in Singapore, I found this internship along my perusal and was excited to see the EOI form ask for my Carousell username BECAUSE I HAVE A TON OF HAPPY CUSTOMER REVIEW ON THERE.
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Had a fun time and really had the change to learn my chops on videography and post-production. As well as ghost writing all the blogs for Australia.
Homecoming.
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Written in a rush of creative genius the 18th century Romantics would envy. This was my first and favourite passion project. In fact, I told myself to make something of my yearly travels and for my 21st Birthday I auctioned them off to donate to my favourite charity at the time.
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This one was to cure my homesickness but also the immeasurable hope and love of strangers kilometres away from home.
A fair bit of my time at uni was spent emailing lecturers outside of my faculty to allow me into their class. Entrepreneurship and Innovation was one of them and was fortified in the iron tower of the Business School out of reach.
Forced to my own devices, I flew kilometres away from the gatekeepers of my education to the University of British Columbia, Canada on exchange. I enrolled into an Entrepreneurship class at the Sauder Business School and developed the UX bones of a ski equipment rent and lease app that I was already running manually from my dorm.
Above is also my PR pitch deck I presented via webcam to Ronni Khan, Founder of Ozharvest a charity close to my heart focused on tackling food insecurity that is often left unnoticed in privileged first world countries.
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Here's me heart and stomach full of canapes
2016 would forever be known as the year I found, married, divorced and shared a mortgage with Twitter.
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I remember sitting in the lecture hall of MECO1003 when the lecturer tells us all to get on Twitter. As a diligent student I did and got addicted and to this day it hangs in the second page of my food delivery folder on my phone. Out of nostalgia, I can't delete it.
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Most importantly, this love affair with Twitter landed me my first internship volunteering at World Wide Foundation (WWF) for Nature in the Earth Hour team. I remember my potential manager asking me my favourite to which I wasted no time to serenade Twitter. I have on good authority (my intuition) that no one she interviewed that week was down to work Twitter. Needless to say, I got the job and a T-Shirt. And a wonderful eco-warrior family featuring marine biologists, campaign managers, life photographers etc.
*I also discovered Canva (a fav Aussie unicorn) that stole my heart and saved my sanity from Adobe Photoshop. Ty Melanie love u ur tru #inspo.
2015
Ah, yes. twenty fifteen was the year I started my detour aka. enrolling into a law degree. Thankfully, I combined bachelors with media and communication which has lead me to meet and work with many amazing journalists, PR practitioners all the while learning my voice (and my hourly freelance pay) on the fly.
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I actually remember taking a CLUB photography gig. Yes, I can't explain and I won't apologise. But went in half knowing how to even use a camera flash on my point and shoot $150 find on Gumtree.
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To my credit, many freelancing opportunities thickened my skin, sharpened my wit and nurtured my love for the unknown.
2014
This winter break was crazy in the most adventurous way. Everyone knows ethnic weddings are elaborate but has anyone told you about the weird fake stand in applauders at Vietnamese weddings? AND criers at funerals I might also add.
Love for the dramatics was plentiful between the two weddings and in-between holiday to Vietnam. Little can be said about my memories of this trip besides the touchstones of relatives fat shaming me and then simultaneously telling me to eat more.
I originally wanted to be a doctor. But then my initials would be MD MD. Wouldn't make any sense so I didn't bother with the UMAT and instead took my medals in Physics, Chemistry and Studies of Religion 1 to law school.
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There are countless blogs I've created between 2014 and 2016 that will never see the light of day. Past-Michelle even used an alias to which when I am occasionally curious to revisit angsty teen Michelle, I have to run the gauntlet of my old Tumblr which is linked to one of the blogs I am semi-proud of the html behind it to eventually find. Alas, my eyes only.
First publication! "The Cosmic Punchline", 2014.
Chair: Michelle Dang
Edited: Sophie Foster
Artist: Isabella Brown
Behind the scenes: SO MANY OTHERS <3
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