Happy 1st Birthday!

It was my blog’s first birthday somewhere in December. Apparently I was partying so hard in Tokyo that I totally missed it, and now I can’t even find the notification anymore to screencap it. So a banner will have to do.

Also, some stats to celebrate:

These stats were taken today, so they may be a little more than what they were on the actual birthday. But my point is, thank you to all my followers, subscribers, readers, visitors and blog-stalkers! Thanks for contributing to the numbers!

… I kid. Seriously, I probably would have given up on blogging way early if not for the support of all of you guys. So thank you for liking, reading and commenting. Especially for the long, genuine commenters, you guys know who you are! :p You all are the ones that keep me going and motivated, and has enabled my blog to reach one year in existence. Words cannot express my gratitude properly so pictures will have to do.

Every birthday deserves a self-reflection, so I am going to do one now, even if it has been less than a month since the last one. The thing is, throughout the entire year, I have had an exceedingly bad habit about spending too much time on thinking and not actually doing. I read posts, think of ideas for my own posts, feeling good about it, and then not actually going around to doing it. Perhaps it has something to do with priorities, or the fact that once I start on one single idea, I end up expanding on that idea so much I eat up all my free time and can’t get to the other ideas I have. The result? Lengthy posts, but few posts in general.

Perhaps I am also afraid of spending too much time on my blog. Every single minute I spend writing I wonder – to what end? I am not going to be a writer. Or a journalist for that matter. What significance are my thoughts anyway? I yearn to analyse anime, explore their thematic connections or evaluate its effectiveness as a medium. But I don’t have the academic foundation to do it. I am not currently taking a major where its study inevitably broadens or enhances knowledge – like history, political science, government, or psychology. I took History for only two years when I was 13-14, and at that level we all know we don’t learn much. Same for Literature, and the only prose I have ever studied in my life is To Kill a Mockingbird. I have never experienced any creative writing classes, and I don’t know how to write a proper narrative. Call it a not very smart choice, but I chose to take science-heavy subjects, only to realise I was failing Physics once I took it and I had absolute zero interest in Biology. Even as I strive for intellectual quality in my posts and in commenting on others, I will inevitably hit a ceiling when it comes to certain niche areas of knowledge that some blog authors that I personally admire use as bases for analysis. Unlike them, I don’t have my niche area of knowledge to offer, and there’s no time to start building even general knowledge up now. All I have to work with currently are some questionable common sense, presence of some logic & reason and passion for the entertainment mediums I love.

(On a sidenote, you guys can try guessing what my current major / undergraduate degree is. Hmm, I have actually no idea how obvious this is. All I can say is that it’ll probably be more obvious if you’ve been paying attention to what I write, lol. Of course, for the extremely few people who already know – assuming you still read this blog – don’t spoil the fun! xD) 

But as I write this post, I decided that I should stop thinking and start writing. Thinking about quality of content and intellectualism will only stop me from setting my pen to paper (or my fingers to the keyboard, for that matter.) Blogging should be a fun endeavour and personal project, though it’s not very fun when you spend not-so-insignificant amounts of time on it and you can’t put it on your CV (especially since it’s an anime blog). Or even if I am the ultra-practical realist, where I always end up prioritising watching anime or TV in general instead of writing, because I am tired and my brain cells are used up for the day, week, month, whatever.

I remember that my mission, as it has always been, is to leave my thoughts on the Internet like a legacy so that they won’t go to waste. Writing means I am contributing – no matter whether a new perspective or just merely something to give others to think about. And that is really enough, for a person who is just leaving her random musings on the Internet for her future generations to dig up.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to like, take up the guessing challenge, or comment! xD