It's this site's 3rd anniversary of existence! On blogging.

Text analysis from URLai: "subfuse.blogspot.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 18-25 years old. The writing style is personal and upset most of the time." (that's right)

"Most blogs have precisely one reader -- the blogger themself." ~Eric Schmidt
"I write because to form a word with your lips and tongue or think a thing and then write it down so you can never take it back is the most powerful thing I know." ~Natalie Goldberg

Before the stream of quick updates in various social netwerking sites, there were blogs. Blogs were new then, now they are somewhat unused. I started one because I'm reading them, and I like reading about the minute details of other people's lives, what they like, how they see themselves and the world. At first, my brother was in Manila and its one way we can talk and share about the new stuff going on by reading each other's blogs. I started writing in online journals before I ever kept physical journals. This site may be 3 years old, but I've been writing online since 2006 (most of which no one reads but me) but its only now I think I have found my voice. I admit the earlier stuff there and here was me still trying to show off, and until now its all complaining.

I still see this tiny online space as a deserted island occupied by only me, located over the far coasts of dense cyberspace. I think of it as an online scrapbook rather than journal, as in most entries I've been copying and pasting things: videos, music, a lot of quotes, funny or insightful pictures. The content is lazy, I used to have a vision for it I've forgotten. The reasons why I like blogging:

• Lame as it sounds, changing the layout. I like playing around with colors and designs, installing themes. Putting moving .gif images to entries, too. They're fun to look at.
• It helped me write. If I wasn't writing about my lame life, writing will still seem like a daunting task most students are scared of. Actually, I started not having any idea about what writing is, I only learned it by doing automatic writing exercises from a strange zen/writing book. Blogging is a good beginning for all other writing, as there is an assumed audience (no matter how meager the visitors). When writing, you naturally begin to think of arranging and adjusting sentences that would make something more interesting to read about, you start caring about words.
• To speak out. I've written things I can't express when I'm only speaking, the audience is the world, and writing is my way of sharing an accurate picture of my thoughts. What I hate most is the suffocating feeling of other people defining myself for me, telling me what I am, forcing what they think, that who they think I am is who I am and I should change to suit their needs (not about me at all but about them). I don't mean to sound that self-centered, but its been an endless source of frustration as someone with an identity crisis. It's like theft. Does this sound too vague? It's like a way of saying, "These are my thoughts, what I think of myself. You can read or skip or leave as you wish."
• So I have a place to write about books, anime, manga, libraries, or whatever comes to mind that is worth writing about. If I post it on Facebook or Twitter, it doesn't feel right and my thoughts in long-form can't fit.
• Freedom. On the net distribution is free, we are self-published at almost no cost. Each site is personal, no one can say what we should do or write about, there are no rules.

From October 4, 2010, there are about 120 entries and a hundred posted comments. I'm not prolific and this site doesn't get a lot of hits. I thought of doing a list of 'best posts from 2010 to 2013', but scanning all the things I wrote here seems daunting. It feels like who I was at 17, 18, 19, and now at 20 are wholly different people. It might be fun, though, browsing and observing how a mind changes over the years. But I can't do it now... not due to some dramatic reason, but finals is coming next week...

This will still go on for a long time, for another three years or more.