My Tenth Year of Blogging

Time really flies. And time has swifter, WIFI wings ten years since I first started this blog.

I named this blog "Writings on the Wall" partly because of Madonna's "Live to Tell" song which has the lyrics "Too blind to see the writing on the wall," and partly because blogging is essentially writing, albeit on a wall located on the world-wide-web. This was way before Facebook "Walls" existed.

My blog URL is prefixed by "Fairywinkle," partly because I am fond of faeries, and partly because I think "periwinkle" is a magical-sounding color name.

I've had multiple blog existence in such other platforms as Xanga, LiveJournal, Buzznet and Multiply (basically just a mirror-site of my Blogspot blog), but this is the one that really stuck. It's like my favorite pair of shoes. My ballet flats. Worn-out, but comfortable. At some point so soiled that the airport security lady in Japan tossed my shoes in the x-ray bin with disguised disgust. Haha!

Back then, Blogger was a company of its own; now it's absorbed by internet giant Google. Mostly everything is now linked with Google, even Feedburner.

Back then, I was blogging mostly in the Philippines, as that was where I still was physically. Our internet was the dial-up kind, the type that enslaves your phone line everytime you need to go online. It was slow and we couldn't make phone calls. Primitive times! But let me proudly say, though, that while internet was "primitive" during those times, we were already texting pioneers with our then-primitive celfones in the Philippines!

Back then, Blogger didn't have a separate title field for your posts, so if you wanted a blog title, it was part of your post's body. Also, for some reason, I had used a different comment form service called HaloScan, which later shut down. This forced me to switch to Blogger's own comment form and all those precious comments just vanished into thin cyber-air.

Back then, I blogged about what my friends and I were doing, and what was happening in school. In fact, my very first post was about my friends and my attempt to form our own little sisterhood (just shortly before we all joined one of the official sororities in the campus):

my friends & i are forming our own sorority. we used to think of naming ourselves "charlynn's angels". we just found out we can be carebears. i'm frustrated that i can't find a wavefile of the carebears theme that i can download instead of just listening to it online.

That's me, a crazy Care Bears fan...still am despite being in my thirties! I remember owning a Panini Sticker Album of the Care Bears as a child. I simply adored how cuddly they were and yet had special powers emanating from their magical tummies. I actually drew ourselves as Care Bears, it's hanging on my bedroom wall, colors unfinished. I'll scan and share it here one of these days. We have our own nicknames, too.

Back then, when I was trying out all these cute blog templates and graphics, I was obsessed with these bouncing blobs called "kao ani". I collected them virtually, saving them in the "My Documents" folder.

Back then, I didn't have a digital camera yet. I shot pictures with a camera that used Advantix film. My first posts were therefore picture-less.

I consider my blog as a yoga mat for verbal calisthenics. I try to steer clear from saying things in a mundane manner. It's also my virtual scrapbook. One day, I'll blog about a television show or movie I fancy, the next day it'll be about postcards or my latest trip. I could have shared so much more photos, so much more stories, but life has a way of getting in the way; or more accurately, having its way.

One of you pointed out how I don't show my face on my blog. Not true! Here I was with a rare photo op with Filipino sexy star Ara Mina. But honestly, I don't like to show my face a lot because I don't want to estrange visitors with my incessant mug shots. I also like to keep my semi-anonymity online.

As of March 7, 2011, here are my Blog Stats:

This is my 1,394th blog post!
I have 19 Google Followers.
I have 87 feed subscribers. The number fluctuates daily, though.
Most visited page: My Litratong Pinoy post on Pan-ay Church. Probably due to students googling church images for their school projects. I hope they're at least acknowledging my blog as their source!

I am just a speck in this big blog universe, but I'm very much a part of it! So I sincerely thank all of you who care to click on my posts and share your thoughts. They're like flake fuel for my fish tank of fortuitously formulated posts; like hydroponics for my growing blog. I am thankful for the blog friendships formed along the way.

THANK YOU for walking down the Gigabyte-Memory Lane with me!

(Tune in tomorrow for the winner of my 10th Blogoversary Giveaway!)