song lyrics talk about summer flings and warm weather
but for me
it's the arrival of the brisk air
that reminds me
of you

i'm in love.

you know what?  i will come outright and say something that’s been on my heart and is long overdue.

i love writing.

before we get any further, let's talk about what this means.  am i passionate about writing?  am i a good writer?  do i regularly write in a journal or blog?  no, no, and no.  but does that mean i can't love writing?  i used to think the answer to this question was yes.  i would ask myself, “how can you say you love writing but not be /do any of those things above?  at best, you just like it.  you can’t claim that title for yourself, and you certainly can’t call yourself a writer.”

it makes sense that a lot of people are afraid of declaring their passion for something, because they feel like after they declare it, a certain standard is expected of them, and they’re afraid of not being able to meet that standard, whether in their own eyes or in the eyes of others.  (a topic for another day.)

for me, writing is an activity that is simultaneously freeing and constricting.

freeing because the process of writing is incredibly liberating.  it’s taking intangible thoughts in the mind and solidifying them into concrete words.  it’s the expression and presentation of ideas into a form that is understandable by the reader.  it’s a mental exercise of the utmost satisfaction.

i like to think of the writing process as looking into one’s head, seeing the countless thoughts bouncing around with limited pattern and structure, seizing them and subsequently arranging them into solid, concrete concepts that are immortalized in the language of words.  this “frees” the thoughts from the prison of the mind and releases them into reality.  it takes potential and realizes it.

constricting because writing is the means to producing a product.  it’s creating a product whose value is able to be determined by how well it achieves its purpose.  i’m thinking, if i’m to make a product, i wouldn’t want to showcase something i don’t believe is of the utmost quality and accuracy.

take blogging, for example.  in my eyes, a blog is a stage – a spotlight for one’s writing.  MY blog, MY thoughts, ME.  you read my blog, you read my thoughts, and your idea of who i am is developed through your reading of what i’ve written.  that’s why, for me, blogging is a big ordeal.  when blogging, i feel an unshakeable need to make sure each blog entry i write is accurately portraying my thoughts and getting them across to the reader as pure and authentic as they began in my mind.

i think back to my pineapplebits.blogspot.com days, when i would get an idea for an entry, and i would begin writing about it.  i’d spend hours on an entry, making sure each idea presented and word chosen and sentence formed was exactly as i wanted it to be.  i’d reread it countless times, moving words and phrases and paragraphs around, changing transitions, deciding between using a comma or two separate sentences, wondering exactly how many adjectives to use in sequence to achieve the correct effect.

the whole process of doing this felt natural, like second nature.  at times, it felt irritating, when i couldn’t phrase things the way i wanted.  above all else, though, it felt genuine and satisfying.  the satisfaction coming from searching for and finding that right word that perfectly conveys that elusive idea.  take note that i said the satisfaction comes from the searching and from the finding – an important point.  writing is not just a means to an end, but a journey on the way to a destination.  a rewarding journey, through and through.

(on a side note, this is why i found grade school’s writing process requirements difficult, because i didn’t quite have drafts-  i just constantly revised and edited as i wrote.  it’s rare for me to compose a sentence that didn’t require some touching up nearly immediately.)

i think the way i view the writing process says a lot about myself.  i believe it points to a personal feeling of mine that everything i do is inevitably evaluated and scrutinized.  it may also point to a personal belief that, in a sense, the products i create are a reflection of who i am.  this may be the source of the pressure i feel when writing certain things.

when are the times when i feel the most pressure and feel most constricted in my writing?  when the topic i’m writing about is broad, and when what i’m writing might be referenced later.  combining these two factors results in me trying to create a product that is comprehensive and will stand the test of time.  (more on this later.)

when are the times when i feel the least pressure and write most openly and unrestrictedly?  when i am prompted to answer something or when i have to present an idea.  in these cases, i have a clear direction and objective, which is to clearly and concisely communicate an idea to the reader.

i love writing emails.  when writing emails, i know someone will read it, but i know it's not something that's going to be immortalized, so there's no pressure to get everything perfect and pristine.  emails also tend to come with a clear inquiry or demand which can be satisfied with a clear response.

i love writing in chats.  in the same way, a chat is like talking to someone face to face.  during face to face conversations, one doesn’t often worry about if someone is going to dwell on a sentence fragment that was fumbled, because it passes by in the flow of a conversation.  although online chatting is different from talking in person because it has the component of being logged, the temporary feel of the conversation flow still lends itself to a relaxed and pressure-free environment.

i love answering questions.  this goes for face-to-face, too, but something about answering questions in writing is marvelous for the soul.  there have been many times when a question posed to me has caused me to articulate ideas in a way i never would have otherwise.  something about responding to a person’s inquiry has a whole different flavor than writing in a journal about the same topic.  so ask me questions :)

back to the times when i find it difficult to write, my biggest concern is the worry that something i write will be incomplete or ineffective.  what i mean is incomplete in conveying the entirety of the idea and covering its every facet and perspective.  and here lies the problem: how could i even claim to be able to create something that is finitely comprehensive when ideas themselves are infinite?  when you strip away the fancy terms, my insecurity behind writing is that i am unable to achieve the impossible.  i know it, but even knowing it does not remove the desire.

like jealousy, where the desire to own a person persists despite the fact that owning the entirety of a person’s thoughts/feelings/actions is itself an impossible task.

like perfection, where the desire to meet perfection persists despite the fact that the standard itself is an unattainable goal.

like progress, where the desire to always have more and to constantly be better exists despite the fact that success depends entirely upon circumstance, context, culture, and comparisons, all of which are arbitrary.

perhaps the best thing i can do is say that i do not and will not know everything, for that itself is a statement that will always hold true.

maybe i haven’t yet found my purpose for writing.  maybe i’m trying too hard to find one.

we write to apologize

i REALLY ENJOY blogging!

thinking about what to write about.. putting thoughts into sentences.. cracking myself up witht he sentences i formulate..

but HELP! if i do WANT to blog, and i do think about it A LOT, then why don't i blog more often?

it's because i feel too CONSTRAINED. hopefully my explanation will serve as an adequate apology to katie (my grant-writer sister who is semi-dependent on my blog to get her through her boredom at work), as well as everyone else who looks(/ed) forward to my blog entries, but is(/was) constantly disappointed by the lack of them.

i'm not sure how you would describe me (like in terms of OCD or perfectionist or whatever). you can diagnose me afterwards in the comments. my thought process typically goes like this:

hey, i wanna blog about this idea!

oh, wait, does it "fit" in my blog?

is my blog one of those blogs about everyday events?

is it about my thoughts in the present?

is it about reflections on the past?

do i want my blog to be about completely random stuff?

oh nose! I HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT!

wait, i haven't even blogged in such a long time!

this has to be a good post!

are people expecting a better post cause i haven't blogged in a while?

should i blog more often?

i want to!

wait, but i can't, because i still don't know what my blog is for!

but if i blog too often, won't people automatically assume each post is less thought-out?

but if i blog too rarely, people may forget my blog exists.

how often do people visit blogs anyway?

bah, i'll just save my ideas and post next time.

i am WAY too constrained. i think i get hung up on the littlest details, because i have this need to make things optimal. why am i like this? :| how can i fix this? (that's a legit question.)

good thing, though, that it's not a cycle that goes on forever, since there is a breaking point where i chug out a ginormous post full of ideas that i wanted to blog about multiple instances before but didn't. and that's what you're reading right now.

if you take anything from all i talked about above, just remember that whenever i actually DO get around to writing a post, every post i write is scanned, proofread, revised, arranged, and edited with care before posting.

---

i just moved all my stuff home today. i didn't think all the stuff in my dorm room would take up THAT much space in my car. i wish i took a picture of it, since my trunk and backseats were competely stuffed. i have yet to unpack it all, though. i found out that the only badminton thing available at the PAL is on saturday evenings, because some asian guy rents out one a gym of badminton courts and then people go there and pay him to play. i'm gonna go on saturday to see what it's like and ask him about pricing. but man.. ONLY saturdays... :[

---

being in my bloggy mood, i feel like i need to write something about my reflections on my freshman year of college. lots of things come to mind. (but i actually i don't want to start writing about any of them because i know i won't say EVERY detail about each of them that i want to say, and thus, if it's not complete, it's no good and there's no point to even begin writing. yes, this is actually how my mind works. GAH.) so maybe here's a summarized version:

[college reflections]

-i've definitely grown, and am still growing a lot in a variety of different ways. and it's good.

-friends are great. board games build community like no other.

-schoolwork is harder in college. the act of getting yourself to do schoolwork is harder in college. the combination of those two is killer.

-college really is mostly what you make of it. the friends, the academics, the events. i'm not gonna say stuff never "happens" to you to get things start, or that some circumstances aren't worse than others, but largely, initiative is a huge thing to have in mind day to day.

-having a car on campus is GREAT.

-despite it sounding gross, having had my roommate pee in our room is a funny memory to have, and an even funnier story to share.

---

please comment if you can, because i know you have thoughts. it could be the littlest thing. comments go far in encouraging me to write future posts (and more often) as well as in inspiring me on different topics to write about.

---

also, i thought of an interesting idea for my blog. i really don't know how it occurred to me, but i like random things, and i like telling people about myself, so putting those two together, i came up with this: at the end of every one of my blog posts, i'll simply have three facts about myself. no money-back guarantees here, it's really just a grab-bag from my life. look forward to them! i hope they're worth your time. :]

[3 randoms]

- i love pineapples. i don't like eating them. i like how they look. i like how they smell. i like the design of it and how it's so unique and different from other fruit. i would like it more if it were blue. i have a collection full of random pineapple stuff (candle, cologne, gold-plated fruit cutter..), that's always open for more new additions! :]

- sometime in middle school, for a year or so, i didn't brush my teeth at all. i just didn't feel like it, and i didn't think it was really necessary. i didn't get any cavities either. yuck. going into high school, i changed my ways. i brushed my teeth whenever i showered, which pretty much only meant every morning, since i showered in the morning. a tad better. but going in COLLEGE, oh man, things completely changed. danyo, my discipler, challenged me to brush my teeth twice a day, morning and evening, as a test of discipline. now i brush my teeth twice a day. yum. :]

- i have dandruff. (and of course i use the almighty head & shoulders which conquers all.) except, it seems like times when my hair is too long, i still get mad dandruff. coincidence? i think not, because i think the way it works is that since my hair is so thick, once my hair gets longer, it's harder for the h&s to clean out / weed out / eliminate the dandruff, despite my conscious efforts to shampoo a couple jillion times. however, it's not completely bad, because when i realize i have this dandruff, i like to try to pick/brush all of it out of my hair. it delivers a certain satisfaction akin to picking my nose. (which i definitely don't do anymore. especially not in private. psh.)

now that i think about it, i think this 3randoms-per-post idea could create some potentially interesting situations in the future with anonymous readers of my blog.

ALL THE BETTER!