Thursday, September 24, 2015

Summer 2015 Reflection + Rewind

Okay, it's a little past summer. In fact, yesterday was the first day of fall. But the point is, I've been gone for a while- and for good reason. This newly-begun school year is my senior year, so the stress began weighing on me even before its start.

Ever since I developed a sudden writer's block in February 2014 accompanied by a couple grade drops and a wave of eye-opening self-awareness, I've felt insecure about maintaining this blog. On one hand, I have a passion for blogging, but on the other hand, I constantly feel a nagging sensation that this is all just trivial BS.

I let practicality take over, what with college apps, SATs, and generally all the work I have now that the school year's started- and to be completely honest, I freaking DELETED this blog for a little while. I couldn't deal with the ambivalence I felt towards it and wanted to take decisive action for once. Luckily, Blogger waits for approximately 3 months before it permanently deletes a blog. During this time I was reminded of the original point of this blog. Over the summer, I started watching lots of YouTube. Seeing tons of enthusiastic and successful creators making content centered around their passions made me feel so validated. I used to freak out when I didn't post weekly, and here was Dan Howell (danisnotonfire), who uploads main channel videos just once or twice a month. I used to feel ashamed of liking fashion and beauty, but here was Jenn Im, killing both scenes. I didn't think I could ever truly express myself through a blog, but in much of his content Jus Reign shows YouTube the world from the point of view of the Western desi diaspora. Finally, I didn't understand why running this blog started feeling like a chore but here was Chris Kendall (crabstickz), articulating my confused thoughts word for word.