I often find myself questioning whether what I am about to write/just wrote, belongs in a public forum, assuming first that there are people who are reading this, but second, and more importantly, there might be important people who are Googling me. The rule of thumb is, if you question it, it probably doesn't belong here.
There was a period when things were simple. When I wrote in LiveJournal on a daily basis, wrote whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted. Yes, I was also 16 when I started, literally (though I've kept a diary since I was 6 that stopped after LJ). Some time down the road, when LiveJournal no longer served its purpose, I began to try out all types of platforms and trying to figure out the right medium for my blogging. Although Blogspot has been the only platform that I actually continued to update regularly over the years, I have never been 100% satisfied with it. For one, it's totally and completely public--searchable, even. I could turn it off, the search function. I could, in fact, make it even private so only people I "invite" can read this, but then what's the point of putting it online?
I realized today that I've searched for the "perfect" platform in the last few years in vain because I've had this rationale that as long as I can perfectly define my "goal" for blogging, then I'll be able to find the perfect platform. My first mistake was to assume that there is a perfect goal and therefore a perfect platform. My goal was to find a space where I can write about my thoughts and feelings that can be read by a public I choose (e.g., not potential employers) as well as a space where I can write about my less personal and (presumably) more intellectual observations that can be read by anyone. Of course, there is no platform where you can keep specific people out without even knowing potentially who they are and what their credential is. So then I tried workarounds. Keep a public blog that has what I deem to be "good" writing and then another blog that I can write garbage, edited thoughts, and then maybe another private space where writing is a therapy. But then the lines blur and no one has the time to maintain multiple blogs. In the end, I always come back here, often struggling with the type of content that I put on here.
My second mistake, was that, as obvious as it might sound, I naively believed that there could be a public/semi-public space for personal thoughts and feelings at my age. The word "personal" alone already indicates something that does not belong in the "public." At the end of the day, if you are going to put unedited thoughts and (*GASP*) feelings online, you're going to be judged, like it or not. But if you are going to edit the thoughts and extract the feeling, then the blog becomes impersonal and no longer a method for self-expression.
I've noticed lately as I click on "random" blogs that there seemed to be two groups of bloggers:
1. impersonal blogs written by anyone of any age about any topic (sometimes about their lives but without personal thoughts or feelings) and
2. personal blogs written by either teenagers (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/fashion/blogging-as-therapy-for-teenagers.html) or stay-at-home moms (most of whom are Christian, which deserves an entire research paper--why are they mostly Christian?)
Note that the second group have less to lose when writing about their personal lives.
In fact, the only people I personally know who place any sort of self-expression online, blog in Chinese--for that extra security barrier--or they start a blog that not many know about, and when the readership grows, they start to delete and censor and find a new space, only to eventually come back to the old one for its readership but write more cryptically or impersonally. Sounds familiar.
The reason why blogs are popular, beyond money-making, is the sheer fact that many people do want to find ways to express the self to other human beings--be it one person or some unknown audience. It feels good. And blogs are the perfect way to do it without impinging on your best friend's free time. On the other hand you run into the issue of being judged by potential people that may affect your future. So the careful balance of finding that audience that you are looking for while keeping out the audience you don't want, is near impossible. So most people just stop trying.
I am neither 16 nor a stay-at-home Mom, so my sometimes ignorant and unaware observations and sometimes less ignorant and hopefully more insightful unedited thoughts and feelings don't belong online. I should be smarter about what I put here (Celine's blog has a perfect balance of picture blogging her life without getting personal). I do realize that putting a "self" online, albeit somewhat censored, exposes all types of weakness. And yet, here we are.
The only theory I have right now on why I continue to do this is that I might not be ready to turn my back on my 16 year-old self yet. Am I missing something that hasn't allowed me to move on? Is my need for "self-expression" that great? I still haven't quite figured it out. So I think this entry serves as a disclaimer, in that despite knowing the dangers of putting a "self" online that gets judged, and despite often cringing when going through my archives, I continue to do it. Maybe I'll regret this one day, maybe I won't. I do, however, like the idea that it's for the sake of finding something young to take with me as I age.
Plus, as long as my exposés are tl;dr, then I'm safe.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The Waiting Game
One of the things that made me miserable in Boston was really no one's fault but mine. I spent a lot of time waiting.
I waited for Adam to get home from work, waited for him to stop working while at home or on the weekend, waited for him to stop thinking about work--waited until he was able to give me his full attention so we can spend time together. And then when he was finally finished with work, it was late and we needed to get ready to sleep (so we can work the next day.) It was a waiting game that often didnt work out.
And while I waited, I did almost nothing--unless you call Facebook games, online shopping, contributing to pointless yelp forums "something".
I've often told people that I felt stunted in Boston--intellectually, socially, professionally. I did nothing after work, not even read. I'd cook, and clean, and then wait. A lot of people probably wouldnt wait. They'd realign their focus elsewhere and sometimes it works out because you're not waiting, and then sometimes the two of you grow a part, eventually. For me, i just obtusely, unthinkingly waited, without any conscious awareness of how bored and lonely I became. And then I'd mourn for another lost day, for the loss of another day of youth and potential. (Perhaps it's my pessimism talking, but I can't help but feel that the older you get, the less possibilities in life..)
I know that I had no one but myself to blame for this; my parents have always warned me that I am too dependent. Yes, it's true. And then the back lash. Now I'm here, alone, doing my own thing, going to places, feeling more fulfilled, with a sacrifice of something I had lost along the way.
But it doesn't need to be like this. It doesn't have to be one way or the other.
I shouldn't need to be mad at myself for waiting. I just have to stop waiting, that's all. Find the balance between over-dependence and over-independence.
Or, something else altogether? I'll figure it out. Life kinda makes you.
For now, I'm ok.
I waited for Adam to get home from work, waited for him to stop working while at home or on the weekend, waited for him to stop thinking about work--waited until he was able to give me his full attention so we can spend time together. And then when he was finally finished with work, it was late and we needed to get ready to sleep (so we can work the next day.) It was a waiting game that often didnt work out.
And while I waited, I did almost nothing--unless you call Facebook games, online shopping, contributing to pointless yelp forums "something".
I've often told people that I felt stunted in Boston--intellectually, socially, professionally. I did nothing after work, not even read. I'd cook, and clean, and then wait. A lot of people probably wouldnt wait. They'd realign their focus elsewhere and sometimes it works out because you're not waiting, and then sometimes the two of you grow a part, eventually. For me, i just obtusely, unthinkingly waited, without any conscious awareness of how bored and lonely I became. And then I'd mourn for another lost day, for the loss of another day of youth and potential. (Perhaps it's my pessimism talking, but I can't help but feel that the older you get, the less possibilities in life..)
I know that I had no one but myself to blame for this; my parents have always warned me that I am too dependent. Yes, it's true. And then the back lash. Now I'm here, alone, doing my own thing, going to places, feeling more fulfilled, with a sacrifice of something I had lost along the way.
But it doesn't need to be like this. It doesn't have to be one way or the other.
I shouldn't need to be mad at myself for waiting. I just have to stop waiting, that's all. Find the balance between over-dependence and over-independence.
Or, something else altogether? I'll figure it out. Life kinda makes you.
For now, I'm ok.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
No Longer
A series of events in the last two days led me to spend the last hour looking for a font that resembled my handwriting.
First, it was that I decided to tweak the layout of my blogger page. I didn't actually change the layout, but just the colour scheme and the banner. Since the last time that I revamped the layout of my page, the templates on this site has changed so much that it has deterred me from even wanting to figure out what's going on. While re-making the banner, I realized that none of the stock fonts available on my applications do anything for me. Nevertheless, I just picked one that didnt offend my palate and got the task over with.
Second, I was rummaging through a super old photobucket account for an old picture I took in 2004, and I came across a jpg that I uploaded for an old online journal. The image had some words "written" in a font Nick had found for me back in the old days that closely resembled my handwriting. Here's a sample of the font:
The slight slant to the left and the connecting "num" with the sharp turns are signatures of my penmanship, which likely no longer exists since I find it hard to recall when the last time I had hand-written. Okay, I lie...I still take notes on pen and paper but the quality of my writing, both from a physical aspect and a content aspect, has significantly declined over the years.
Anyway, after a long and unfruitful search, I still could not find that font. I can't remember the name of the font, nor do I have access to my old computer any more (not something one would think of to back-up when getting rid of an old machine).
What I want to document here though, is not so much my depression on the inability to retrieve an old momentum, but its process that made me realize all the things that are no longer--from the most evident sign of resignation from learning new template features to the more obscure veracity that, due to the availability of fonts, it's actually a lot harder to find a specific font nowadays in comparison to 10 years ago.
Back then, if Nick told me he had found a font that looks like my writing, I could have easily went on the three sites that allowed free font download, looked up three pages available for script fonts and found it easily. Today, there are hundreds of sites dedicated to font downloading, and the category for "script-handwritten" alone has over 90 pages of font with 10 fonts on each page. 900 fonts based on handwriting on a site. 900.
It's been about five years since I graduated from undergrad and almost 3 years since I graduated from my MA; it doesn't seem all that long. But, at our generation, the speed in which life is changing makes these numbers feel like double. To say I am behind on the times and that I don't understand kids today is not that far of a stretch any more--and it's quite scary to hear about kids growing up with a completely difference sense of culture than we had. But what perhaps scares me the most is actually the inability to go back to the way we were. Not so much in the cultural sense, but in the personal sense.
I often tell myself that I need to go back to writing. Although it's quite past the time for me to "cultivate" my "aptitude" to become something, whatever it could have been, it is still in some ways a distinguishment of a self that has been eroded by life.
Just like the ability to sit in front of the computer for hours working solely on the look and feel of a web page, my ability to sit in front of the computer for hours working on a piece of writing is no longer realistic. Too many variables in life has caused me to have abandon the "hobbies" I used to have at a point in my life--and, for the most part, for good reasons. The technology has changed, I have less free time, I have more responsibilities, I have seen more, heard more, know more, and therefore have more clutters in my brain, and maybe I've even developed ADD due to the amount of moving pictures I have interacted with. The reality is that whether those are good or bad reasons, they are nonetheless reasons. To pursue something in the past, especially lifestyle-oriented, is an insurmountable task. That's like going backwards in time and erasing the growth that you've achieved between time. If I were to spend as much time in front of a blog writing my heart out, I would be back to being a 21 year-old who isn't doing that much else with her life and has not learned that sometimes there are things that can't be said out loud.
That is not to say, of course, that what I enjoyed doing is no longer possible to do now, but the question that need to be figured out is whether or not that task needs to be changed to better fit my lifestyle today.
I never have answers any more. Just more questions.
It's a sign of maturity, right?
*Edit: I managed to find a font that's close, but not the original one yet!
**Edit: Here's a sample of my writing:
First, it was that I decided to tweak the layout of my blogger page. I didn't actually change the layout, but just the colour scheme and the banner. Since the last time that I revamped the layout of my page, the templates on this site has changed so much that it has deterred me from even wanting to figure out what's going on. While re-making the banner, I realized that none of the stock fonts available on my applications do anything for me. Nevertheless, I just picked one that didnt offend my palate and got the task over with.
Second, I was rummaging through a super old photobucket account for an old picture I took in 2004, and I came across a jpg that I uploaded for an old online journal. The image had some words "written" in a font Nick had found for me back in the old days that closely resembled my handwriting. Here's a sample of the font:
Anyway, after a long and unfruitful search, I still could not find that font. I can't remember the name of the font, nor do I have access to my old computer any more (not something one would think of to back-up when getting rid of an old machine).
What I want to document here though, is not so much my depression on the inability to retrieve an old momentum, but its process that made me realize all the things that are no longer--from the most evident sign of resignation from learning new template features to the more obscure veracity that, due to the availability of fonts, it's actually a lot harder to find a specific font nowadays in comparison to 10 years ago.
Back then, if Nick told me he had found a font that looks like my writing, I could have easily went on the three sites that allowed free font download, looked up three pages available for script fonts and found it easily. Today, there are hundreds of sites dedicated to font downloading, and the category for "script-handwritten" alone has over 90 pages of font with 10 fonts on each page. 900 fonts based on handwriting on a site. 900.
It's been about five years since I graduated from undergrad and almost 3 years since I graduated from my MA; it doesn't seem all that long. But, at our generation, the speed in which life is changing makes these numbers feel like double. To say I am behind on the times and that I don't understand kids today is not that far of a stretch any more--and it's quite scary to hear about kids growing up with a completely difference sense of culture than we had. But what perhaps scares me the most is actually the inability to go back to the way we were. Not so much in the cultural sense, but in the personal sense.
I often tell myself that I need to go back to writing. Although it's quite past the time for me to "cultivate" my "aptitude" to become something, whatever it could have been, it is still in some ways a distinguishment of a self that has been eroded by life.
Just like the ability to sit in front of the computer for hours working solely on the look and feel of a web page, my ability to sit in front of the computer for hours working on a piece of writing is no longer realistic. Too many variables in life has caused me to have abandon the "hobbies" I used to have at a point in my life--and, for the most part, for good reasons. The technology has changed, I have less free time, I have more responsibilities, I have seen more, heard more, know more, and therefore have more clutters in my brain, and maybe I've even developed ADD due to the amount of moving pictures I have interacted with. The reality is that whether those are good or bad reasons, they are nonetheless reasons. To pursue something in the past, especially lifestyle-oriented, is an insurmountable task. That's like going backwards in time and erasing the growth that you've achieved between time. If I were to spend as much time in front of a blog writing my heart out, I would be back to being a 21 year-old who isn't doing that much else with her life and has not learned that sometimes there are things that can't be said out loud.
That is not to say, of course, that what I enjoyed doing is no longer possible to do now, but the question that need to be figured out is whether or not that task needs to be changed to better fit my lifestyle today.
I never have answers any more. Just more questions.
It's a sign of maturity, right?
*Edit: I managed to find a font that's close, but not the original one yet!
**Edit: Here's a sample of my writing:
Monday, January 23, 2012
Running Bread
lynnie :
so i was looking for some spare container i can put jen's plant in
and i came upon a bag of bread
that was here since 3 weeks ago
and it is fully green
and wet
it was so gross
i should have taken a pic
so nassssty
dripping
[...]
that bread was sooo nasty
i cant stop picturing it
Matt:
lol
it would've been the best if u went to pick it up
and it ran away from u
Sunday, January 1, 2012
2012
So many changes in 2011.
I can't see 2012 being any easier.
But I'm lucky because I have people in my life who love me and care for me.
Not much more one can ask for in life.
Thank you all for everything in 2011.
Here's to 2012.
I love you guys.
I can't see 2012 being any easier.
But I'm lucky because I have people in my life who love me and care for me.
Not much more one can ask for in life.
Thank you all for everything in 2011.
Here's to 2012.
I love you guys.
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