Happy Birthday Curiosa Felicitas

A year ago today, I gave in to several friends' suggestion that I should start a blog. I had already registered a Blogger account the year before that, just so's I could stalk some people and leave comments. But my friends, they were quite eager for me to start blogging, and I suspect it was because they were sick of me sending them my own brand of junk mail. You'll see the archives dating prior to 2nd April 2004, but the troof is, the stuff in the archives was cut and pasted from emails I had sent to friends (or received from them). On 2nd April 2004, I was up late, and had no idea what to write after spending three hours deliberating over which template to use. So I cut and pasted a quote from my favourite person in a headdress (no, not Celle), hoping it would set some sort of theme for this here glob (my first choice of URL was globstop.blogspot.com, but taken liao):

“You wonder what I am doing? Well, so do I, in truth. Days seem to dawn, suns to shine, evenings to follow, and then I sleep. What I have done, what I am doing, what I am going to do, puzzle and bewilder me. Have you ever been a leaf and fallen from your tree in autumn and been really puzzled about it? That's the feeling.”

So far, so good, and I'm still figuring out what this blog is about, especially when I'm up late. Which is like, everyday. As a novice blogger, I did what all bloggers do - read other people's blogs to see what they wrote about, and to see whether I could add arguments/stories to what they had started. I found mr brown, Xiaxue and Cowboy Caleb with ease, and suspected mr brown to be an ACS old boy, Xiaxue to be a clueless ah lian, and the Cowboy to be a bloody wanker to call his blog a Gonzo Journal. Turned out mr brown is an ACS old boy, and a long-lost classmate to boot; Xiaxue is one of the most clued-in wholesome sluts online; and Cowboy, well... Then there were the people who wrote with such consummate ease it made you want to stop blogging altogether, because, wah lao, nabeh, I thought my England buay pai liao. I am still enjoying their blogs, and I still think, nabeh, got people England so good one meh? (Then there were the chiobus and the people who posted pictures of chiobus. They made me wanna post pictures of chiobus.) I've discovered and read many, many local blogs since, and made good friends of some of their authors. And one thing I did not expect was the 'community' that existed locally. The local blogs I read are written in some version of English, and our language is not quite homogenous or formalised enough to be even considered a form of Creole, but maybe this lends itself to creating a variety of distinct voices that makes it all the more interesting. We are somewhat orphans of empire, and compared to other orphanages like, say, Hong Kong, our 'community' sure seems a lot more colourful, because unlike Hong Kongers (three types: Gweilo, Local and Local-But-Lived-In-Wancouwer-Long-Time), we're still grappling with issues of identity. Like, y'know, I still have no freeking idea what this blog is, no matter how many times Diana Ser leans in close and asks me, 'SO, what is your blog about?' She can blow out my candles anytime

Surf stop: Idle Days

Technorati tag: Singapore

iTunes' party shuffle is playing a copy of: Homeless - Paul Simon - 1964-1993 (Disc 3) [Box Set], of which I have the original CD and therefore didn't steal music.