“Whoa–this guy can WRITE!”
It was the second set of words I told myself last December 2011 when I came upon his blog. The first set was rather unintelligible. He expressed his ideas with humor, wrote intelligently, and with an uncanny mix of cynicism and sanguinity. Needless to say, I was hooked. And I was amazed by the number of people engaged in an entertaining and clever dialogue in the comments section.
I had no idea what WordPress is before that, nor did I have any know-how in blogging. I was just surfing the net; bored with Facebook egotism, and yet vowing to eat a plastic fork before I touch a single textbook during that Christmas break. So I continued mutilating the mouse, and through a series of unfortunately forgotten web pages, I clicked a link to his post. When I saw the possibilities blogging could do, I wanted in.
So I signed up right then. I explored how WordPress works, and I found it surprisingly easy; surprising since I always consider myself computer-dumb. But then, anything is relatively easy when you want it enough.
I didn’t write anything until April the next year, though. The reason is simple: I felt insecure about my writing.
It was the last semester in my four years of college, and during those four years I never really wrote anything other than those related to my field of study. I kept a journal but it was a requirement, and by that point I grew to hate any word with the prefix require-. So I burned that journal as soon as I’m done with that certain subject.
SHORT VERSION: College sapped the creative writing worm in me.
LONG VERSION: Back in high school, I was actually part of the school paper. Years before that, in my sixth grade, there was a line saying “I want to be a writer someday,” under my photo in the yearbook (I should have written something more practical but you know how idiotic sixth-graders are). I grew up loving books, and with it grew the love for writing. As what is often the case, they were almost inseparable. I almost forgot that love when I studied Nursing. Maybe because the course took up most of my time and energy, maybe there were lots of distractions (believe it or not, I was a normal person with a social and, uhurm, love life). Maybe I just used up most of the rest of my time hogging my sleeping nook. Whatever the reasons were, I stopped writing–the kind that’s done just for the mere love of it.
I don’t claim to be good at anything other than eating, but being out of practice for something in about four years could make you apprehensive to start again. But during April last year, a new graduate stuck in her mom’s house with a head full of ideas and a pocket full of dust, I can’t even start my exploration of the real world.
Before I knew it, boredom became the anthem of my life (well that and frustration, confusion, ubiquitous angst/what-is-my-place-in-this-world drama, et cetera, et cetera and so forth).
Choosing between mutilating my carotid artery with a nail clipper and humiliating myself by writing my first ever blog post on my actual birthday, I chose the latter.
Thus, in a way, HiNaD became my twin.
It was an idiotic move, I know. Who else but an idiot would pick the same birthday as himself for his blog? I could have celebrated two birthdays in a year and get double the greetings to satisfy my ego. But instead I chose to deny myself the privilege. Oh well, I blame the genes. I didn’t become an idiot by myself, you know.
Anyway, it was real fun from there on.
I have grown not only as a blogger, but as a writer and person indeed. I wrote stuff I would normally not dare write about [my] family, my real life friends, and my country–one quite droll, the other rather serious. I wrote about the difficulty of being good, and made fun of old timers, calling them Satan in disguise. I learned that every Homo Sapiens has hypocrite blood. I encountered rude bloggers a.k.a trolls, and dissected their rudeness while mentioning a four-letter word ten times in a post. Even then, there were times that I couldn’t care less and just posted something stubbornly silly.
I also wrote about how it’s much easier to mock everything than to discuss our true feelings, and how I thought I was mentally disturbed. I discovered that professional doctors really believe happiness IS a disease (I KNOW, RIGHT?!). Then I tried to answer the question “Who am I?” and failed miserably. So instead I wrote about something I don’t know how to categorize…
But before all that, there was this mediocre stick man comic with a rather nice story to tell. Speaking of storytelling, *blushes* I rather wrote lots of them short/very short stories, my babies. For a collection–TotWK–I collaborated with Landix, a wonderful artist, bless him. I didn’t even realize I can write “horror” effortlessly until someone pointed it out here in HiNaD, bwaha!
And oh, yes! I discovered I rather like ‘em Goths. That and a lot of other very amazeballs stuff.
Wow, I did write lots considering I was practically on a hiatus for about four (?) months last year (I was preparing for the licensure exams). Looking back and reading those pieces/attempts-to-make-sense by my mind, I still find myself believing in almost exactly the same truths. Hmm, it’s a wonderful feeling, come to think of it…
(Oh geez, my head’s getting bloated with the awesomeness of Me again. Good thing I only review my blogging achievements once a year, haha!)
All of those things mentioned are wonderful, rewarding stuff–enough to make me continue doing this bloggy thing for as long as I could. But the BESTEST part of it all was/is/would still be meeting you.
Yes, YOU. 
