Writing Prompt - August 2 - Origin Story
Origin story
Why did you start your blog? Is that still why you blog, or has your site gone in a different direction than you'd planned?
I started this blog during my junior year of high school. I was still aimlessly wandering around the internet and spending a fair bit of time in a chat room hosted by Talk City called #orientals! (or some variant). My older cousin had started chatting there with some school friends and I think it was some way for him to manage who I was associating myself with online at the time. The room was a mix of ages and everyone was really friendly. I count myself lucky to have spent time there and believe it or not, I still am in contact with several of those folks more than a decade and a half later. In any case, one of these folks started a LiveJournal and I decided to emulate him since he was a big brother type and I figured, "why not." I started posting bits of stuff and eventually my real life high school group started their own and it become an early form, or rather long form way to communicate. I liked being able to put in song lyrics or remind myself of interesting things that I wanted to remember at the time. I blogged regularly here during the rest of my high school career and some in college, but eventually the habit died off, as it often does with me and writing.
I still make a concerted effort every now and then to post, if only to remind myself that this is a regular muscle that I have to use, otherwise it atrophies. This blog has never been for anyone but myself and I'm glad that even now I still lay claim to this notion.
My favorite part about having all my digital writings in one space? I can look back. LiveJournal is a massive time machine into a part of my life that I remember very fondly yet have no wish to every recreate. My mental constitution is just not able to handle the massive highs and lows I saw in my writing then, and yet, every once in a while I will stumble on a post that is so honest in its simplicity, and so unvarnished by cynicism that I miss my own naivete.
Why did you start your blog? Is that still why you blog, or has your site gone in a different direction than you'd planned?
I started this blog during my junior year of high school. I was still aimlessly wandering around the internet and spending a fair bit of time in a chat room hosted by Talk City called #orientals! (or some variant). My older cousin had started chatting there with some school friends and I think it was some way for him to manage who I was associating myself with online at the time. The room was a mix of ages and everyone was really friendly. I count myself lucky to have spent time there and believe it or not, I still am in contact with several of those folks more than a decade and a half later. In any case, one of these folks started a LiveJournal and I decided to emulate him since he was a big brother type and I figured, "why not." I started posting bits of stuff and eventually my real life high school group started their own and it become an early form, or rather long form way to communicate. I liked being able to put in song lyrics or remind myself of interesting things that I wanted to remember at the time. I blogged regularly here during the rest of my high school career and some in college, but eventually the habit died off, as it often does with me and writing.
I still make a concerted effort every now and then to post, if only to remind myself that this is a regular muscle that I have to use, otherwise it atrophies. This blog has never been for anyone but myself and I'm glad that even now I still lay claim to this notion.
My favorite part about having all my digital writings in one space? I can look back. LiveJournal is a massive time machine into a part of my life that I remember very fondly yet have no wish to every recreate. My mental constitution is just not able to handle the massive highs and lows I saw in my writing then, and yet, every once in a while I will stumble on a post that is so honest in its simplicity, and so unvarnished by cynicism that I miss my own naivete.