Curiosity killed the blogger (or, a pointless post about everything and nothing)
Or, even better, a satirical post on what a Xanga post by a 14-year old might look like. But nah, I'm not that clever.
So I thought I better post something, otherwise, the rabid masses that make up my readership might run amok. Oh alright, "masses" might be stretching the truth a little, but hey, surely you don't want my 6 or 7 readers to go psycho on you, do you?
Then again, considering there have been no entreaties for me to resume blogging thus far, maybe I'm overestimating my importance here.
Typically, I would probably have written something along the lines of "reflections on 2005" and/or "looking towards 2006", boring but obligatory, I know, but my mind draws a blank right now. I do like looking back (I'm a sucker for stuff like "The year in review" and especially "Top 10" lists) but for once, I haven't actually gathered my thoughts on 2005, and truth be told, 2005 seemed rather bland, personally speaking.
As for 2006, I'm even more clueless as to what that entails. I guess right now, I just want to develop tunnel vision and try to get through the next 6 months, where I need to primarily focus on my studies. I am starting to feel a little panicky, wondering if I've been a little too laidback over the past 2 years and only just figuring out that I don't know much about anything! Never mind about long-term concerns, I just need to get through this term, revision and the dreaded Finals.
So instead, I thought that I'll write on blogging. *Gasp!* I know, that's even more criminal than writing posts on how the past year was the best/worst ever and publicly declaring your New Year's resolutions. To make matters worse, this isn't a general musing on blogging, but more narcissistically, it's about my own blog! [Add sentence here that goes along the lines that since it's my own blog, I can write anything I want on it blahblahblah. Throw in a pouting smiley and a few high-pitched squeals for effect.]
More seriously, I guess I'm curious as to who reads this blog, how regularly and why. This post therefore, is a survey of sorts. One of the main reasons why this blog has been in a state of neglect since last June, apart from real life, tiredness - wow, humans are so inefficient! They actually need sleep! - and lack of inspiration, is that I'm having trouble knowing where to pitch my blogging voice. I'm suffering from, to borrow a phrase from Prof. Lucy Newlyn, an "anxiety of reception". Basically, that means I don't know which audience I'm writing for. Oh, I suppose there will be those who will say "write for yourself", but I can't do that, since I know blogging is inescapably a public medium.
So who are you?
Possible answers:
- You're my friend.
- You're not my friend. Btw, if you're a lurker, and I think I might actually have one or two here, you're free not to reveal yourselves, since I'm a lurker on many blogs as well.
- I think you're my friend, when you actually aren't, but you pretend to be, so you're actually the non-friend who reads me as a friend. (Cue high-school melodrama here.)
- You're my sibling, and you just realised that your younger brother is way overdue for a good ribbing, so you need to dig up some dirt.
- I just had the scariest thought ever. You're my MUM.
Why are you reading me?
- You just want to see how I'm doing here in the UK. So primarily, you're interested in personal updates and such. (Or you're a virtual stalker. Spooky.)
- You're dazzled by my theological brilliance. Or stupidity. Since both make for compelling reads. More seriously, because I'm an Asian Christian who leans Reformed and there aren't too many of those around, it seems.
- You want my take and commentary on contemporary events or issues.
- You like my writing, maybe when I'm more reflective and inclined to play with words (examples here and here), or when I'm arguing for something (eg. here) or when I'm essentially telling a story (eg. here). Or when I write pointless posts like this one. Or maybe you constantly mine me for examples to show the 12-year-olds you teach "how not to write".
- You need an excuse to procrastinate.
- You're currently enduring a bout of self-criticism and need to punish yourself.
- My browser hijacker is so powerful that you keep returning to this page no matter how hard you try to escape.
Whaat do you want me to write about?
- Sordid tales of my escapades with...whoops, never mind.
- OMIGOSH...like, how Jake Gyllenhaal is like, the hottest star EVER...and Fushigi Yugi is like, the bestest anime ever ever times three, and Harry Potter is an all-time classic and...
- understanding supralapsarianism within the variegated nomism of Judaistic literature, predicated upon a historical-canonical poststructuralist reading of apocryphical manuscripts, focusing in particular on the non-restrictive modifiers in the text.
- Just the wrap. The quicker I get away from this blog, the better.
- Today I woke up. I breathed in, breathed out. I opened my eyes. My head began to lift from the pillow.
- I see dead people.
Other questions:
Do people actually read the Outflow box? I actually update it quite regularly, usually once a week, for short notices that don't really warrant a blog post.
Has anyone ever read the blogging code of ethics link?
Is the wrap actually useful to anyone?
Does this look alright in Firefox?
Does anyone actually care what I watched recently? Not that I care if you don't care. :-p
What is a holloback girl? (Every week I get some people directed to me via Google because they're looking for a definition of a holloback girl, and I posted a parody of Gwen Stefani's video some time back.)
There! That should be long enough to satisfy all you blog-addicts. Plus a chance to calm that itch, you know you want to comment, thus, with my first post of 2006, I offer you a chance to! Instead of the usual rambling monologues where I mumble on about hyper-Calvinism and prattle about why one shouldn't leave Malaysia, leaving no contact points for you to reply, I offer specific questions where you can now respond with similarly long rambling monologues to your heart's contents.
Now you know how my tutor feels when he has that nagging suspicion that I'm just trying to fill up the A4 paper with sentences that make sense but not really just to reach that word limit and give the illusion that I'm writing something substantial. Of course, he has absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in making comments.
I don't really know how to end this post. Maybe to say that I can hope 2006 will be productive in blogging terms, but also a caveat that I might be absent for large swaths of time so that I can get a piece of paper and wear a square hat.
† Expand post
So I thought I better post something, otherwise, the rabid masses that make up my readership might run amok. Oh alright, "masses" might be stretching the truth a little, but hey, surely you don't want my 6 or 7 readers to go psycho on you, do you?
Then again, considering there have been no entreaties for me to resume blogging thus far, maybe I'm overestimating my importance here.
Typically, I would probably have written something along the lines of "reflections on 2005" and/or "looking towards 2006", boring but obligatory, I know, but my mind draws a blank right now. I do like looking back (I'm a sucker for stuff like "The year in review" and especially "Top 10" lists) but for once, I haven't actually gathered my thoughts on 2005, and truth be told, 2005 seemed rather bland, personally speaking.
As for 2006, I'm even more clueless as to what that entails. I guess right now, I just want to develop tunnel vision and try to get through the next 6 months, where I need to primarily focus on my studies. I am starting to feel a little panicky, wondering if I've been a little too laidback over the past 2 years and only just figuring out that I don't know much about anything! Never mind about long-term concerns, I just need to get through this term, revision and the dreaded Finals.
So instead, I thought that I'll write on blogging. *Gasp!* I know, that's even more criminal than writing posts on how the past year was the best/worst ever and publicly declaring your New Year's resolutions. To make matters worse, this isn't a general musing on blogging, but more narcissistically, it's about my own blog! [Add sentence here that goes along the lines that since it's my own blog, I can write anything I want on it blahblahblah. Throw in a pouting smiley and a few high-pitched squeals for effect.]
More seriously, I guess I'm curious as to who reads this blog, how regularly and why. This post therefore, is a survey of sorts. One of the main reasons why this blog has been in a state of neglect since last June, apart from real life, tiredness - wow, humans are so inefficient! They actually need sleep! - and lack of inspiration, is that I'm having trouble knowing where to pitch my blogging voice. I'm suffering from, to borrow a phrase from Prof. Lucy Newlyn, an "anxiety of reception". Basically, that means I don't know which audience I'm writing for. Oh, I suppose there will be those who will say "write for yourself", but I can't do that, since I know blogging is inescapably a public medium.
So who are you?
Possible answers:
- You're my friend.
- You're not my friend. Btw, if you're a lurker, and I think I might actually have one or two here, you're free not to reveal yourselves, since I'm a lurker on many blogs as well.
- I think you're my friend, when you actually aren't, but you pretend to be, so you're actually the non-friend who reads me as a friend. (Cue high-school melodrama here.)
- You're my sibling, and you just realised that your younger brother is way overdue for a good ribbing, so you need to dig up some dirt.
- I just had the scariest thought ever. You're my MUM.
Why are you reading me?
- You just want to see how I'm doing here in the UK. So primarily, you're interested in personal updates and such. (Or you're a virtual stalker. Spooky.)
- You're dazzled by my theological brilliance. Or stupidity. Since both make for compelling reads. More seriously, because I'm an Asian Christian who leans Reformed and there aren't too many of those around, it seems.
- You want my take and commentary on contemporary events or issues.
- You like my writing, maybe when I'm more reflective and inclined to play with words (examples here and here), or when I'm arguing for something (eg. here) or when I'm essentially telling a story (eg. here). Or when I write pointless posts like this one. Or maybe you constantly mine me for examples to show the 12-year-olds you teach "how not to write".
- You need an excuse to procrastinate.
- You're currently enduring a bout of self-criticism and need to punish yourself.
- My browser hijacker is so powerful that you keep returning to this page no matter how hard you try to escape.
Whaat do you want me to write about?
- Sordid tales of my escapades with...whoops, never mind.
- OMIGOSH...like, how Jake Gyllenhaal is like, the hottest star EVER...and Fushigi Yugi is like, the bestest anime ever ever times three, and Harry Potter is an all-time classic and...
- understanding supralapsarianism within the variegated nomism of Judaistic literature, predicated upon a historical-canonical poststructuralist reading of apocryphical manuscripts, focusing in particular on the non-restrictive modifiers in the text.
- Just the wrap. The quicker I get away from this blog, the better.
- Today I woke up. I breathed in, breathed out. I opened my eyes. My head began to lift from the pillow.
- I see dead people.
Other questions:
Do people actually read the Outflow box? I actually update it quite regularly, usually once a week, for short notices that don't really warrant a blog post.
Has anyone ever read the blogging code of ethics link?
Is the wrap actually useful to anyone?
Does this look alright in Firefox?
Does anyone actually care what I watched recently? Not that I care if you don't care. :-p
What is a holloback girl? (Every week I get some people directed to me via Google because they're looking for a definition of a holloback girl, and I posted a parody of Gwen Stefani's video some time back.)
There! That should be long enough to satisfy all you blog-addicts. Plus a chance to calm that itch, you know you want to comment, thus, with my first post of 2006, I offer you a chance to! Instead of the usual rambling monologues where I mumble on about hyper-Calvinism and prattle about why one shouldn't leave Malaysia, leaving no contact points for you to reply, I offer specific questions where you can now respond with similarly long rambling monologues to your heart's contents.
Now you know how my tutor feels when he has that nagging suspicion that I'm just trying to fill up the A4 paper with sentences that make sense but not really just to reach that word limit and give the illusion that I'm writing something substantial. Of course, he has absolutely no hesitation whatsoever in making comments.
I don't really know how to end this post. Maybe to say that I can hope 2006 will be productive in blogging terms, but also a caveat that I might be absent for large swaths of time so that I can get a piece of paper and wear a square hat.
† Expand post
posted by BK at 8:55 pm
As a further example of my shameless self-centeredness, I shall now comment on my own post! I think my 2nd and 3rd last paragraphs will benefit from better editing and to make the prose flow more seamlessly, but never mind! In a self-reflexive move, I shall foreground my own act of refusing to edit as a protestation against the oppressive nature of the metanarrative of good writing skills!
(Yes, I realise that I'm in an overly playful mood today. Blame it on the pressures a modern blogger has to face. Back in the old days...)
finally i can read something fresh in the mornings! you know me. i'm a busy body, so i will actually read anything that you write. my aim in reading is to understand you better, ie. your opinions, your tastes, your habits. but yeah i agree that having some sort of theme will help with your writing. i didn't make much of that outflow box until you pointed it out. i guess it's because it fades in and out. i don't stare at that part of the page long enough to realise you updated it. ok gotta rush to church now. see you around. woohoo!
hi,
You probably won't know me. Actually I am a lurker here on this blog...chasing links until I ended up here. You write well, which why I usually end up returning here, although hehe...you don't really update. But some of your entries are really helpful. Keep it up !
As a Christian, your blog reminds me again and again that I should take my God more seriously. I love the resources and the links you provide, both to other media sources as well as to Christian blogs - it makes me realise that I'm not as well read as I pretend to be. =P
As a Malaysian, it's also heartening to see other Christians readily and wholeheartedly practising their faith at home. While I completely agree about sorely missing the food, I have issues with being Malaysian, so it's always good to be reminded again that my viewpoint is sometimes grossly exaggerated.
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