Introduction

I suppose I should introduce myself a little bit first before launching into the first of what I hope to be a series of interesting musings. I am a female in my late twenties. I grew up in the country of Singapore, a tiny country island south of the border of Malaysia, often mistaken by Westerners to be a part of China, but it is indeed it's own country, and yes, we speak English there. I live in the United States now, and have so for about the past 8-9 years. Wow it is getting to be a decade that I have been in the US. The time has been interesting to say the least, and as the years go by, I figure perhaps I should memorialize my life experiences in a blog.

I have sometimes wondered why people bother writing blogs, and even more peculiar to me, why anyone would want to read them. I suppose people write blogs to share what is going on in their lives, and they have a ready audience (real or imaginary) that cannot shut them up. I always wondered who had the time to write and read such things, but I suppose it is like writing in a journal, although much less private. Do people with blogs also keep private journals in addition to their online musings? That would take up a lot of time no doubt. So then who READS these things? It seems to be quite a lot of time wasted reading about other people's musings and lives - but then again, why do we read novels and newspapers and columns, if it is not to get a sense, a greater understanding, of the lives and thoughts of someone other than oneself.

My purpose in writing a blog, is to get a sense of what it might be like to be a writer. I envy Carrie Bradshaw's character in Sex and the City. Someone who can just write for a living. At your own time, in the comfort and seclusion of your own apartment. Or you could make a trip down to a cozy coffee shop in the Village, with iMac in tow, and type away your thoughts. And then not only have a ready audience who will actually read what you wrote, but to get PAID for being able to talk about yourself or your thoughts everyday (or however frequent her columns were. I don't think that was made very apparent in the show). The other purpose is while talking to my father on the phone earlier today, and I happened to mention that my neighbors (I used the term loosely to mean people who live in the same neighborhood as me, not my direct next door same building neighbors) happened to include Sarah Jessica Parker of the above-mentioned television series fame, and Gwyneth Paltrow. An immediate neighbor who does live in the same building as I do is of "America's Funniest Home Videos" fame - he was a host on that television series, and now continues to work as an actor in the city. Oh, I live in the incomparable city of New York. Right smack in the heart of Manhattan, in the most desirable location in the city (in my slightly but not entirely biased opinion), the West Village. Sometimes when I walk around this charming neighborhood, I can't help but feel like all is well in my world, no matter what else is going on. I think "well, at LEAST I live in the most wonderful neighborhood in the world." So as I was saying, I was mentioning to my dad about my esteemed neighbors, and he casually says that if I were to share my experiences about living the New York life in a blog, there might actually be fellow Singaporeans who might be interested in reading about such a life, especially those who have the interest to live overseas but had never done so, or people who would just be curious about what life for a Singaporean girl in her 20s would be like in the Big Apple.

Given my one-of-many ambitions to be a writer someday, I thought this might be a decent way to start honing some writing skills. Spare me any critique about my writing though, this is a blog afterall, not a novel or column, and I don't have much of a sense of what my audience, if any, would be at this point. Is there a way to find out how many people have actually read your blog? I am sure there must be. And if NOBODY ends up reading my blog, would it have been a complete waste of time? Probably no more so tha writing in one's journal. Hence, I have decided to embark on this journey of blogging, and will see where it takes me. Given my track record of starting things and quitting soon after, I do not have high hopes of sustaining a passion for blogging for long, but one never knows. I haven't quit living yet, so that's one thing that has continued til now at least.