Hi! I revised some sections that are now archived or irrelevant.

• Rayson from the future (2026)

I realised it’s been a fair bit of time since I started blogging, and I’m feeling nostalgic lately… So I thought I’ll take a sentimental trip down my “1-year” blogging journey (my works and unfinished ones) just to read back and reflect, or laugh at my own work. Here goes!

Let me introduce myself… again

Throughout my experience of on-off blogging since secondary school, I’ve written couple of self-introductions over and over again. Always claiming I’ll start a great journey but never finishing anything. One thing in common - they all sound cringe hahaha.

2016

I started a couple of blogs on Wordpress.com, blogger and tumblr, but those never made it far. Within a few weeks, they went cold turkey. Yep, for every blog, I made some sort of introduction…

One of the blogs I started and then ditched 5 years ago. Very clean!

Fast forward to the end of the following year.

Dec 2017

I made the bold decision to have my very own website. Using a few hundred dollars from my allowance that I’ve saved, I bought a domain and sourced for a web host. With money involved, I thought I would become more responsible.

The first step: introduce myself.

So it went like this, ‘Hello World! I’m Rayson and please say hello to my website.’

Just kidding. I can’t even recall what I wrote because the post got deleted. Thankfully.

Snoozed until 4 months later…

April 2018

At the start of J1, I couldn’t bear leaving my blog idle whilst paying a monthly fee for it. So I had to break the ice… by introducing myself.

Gonna delete this post soon…

I had that philosophical eureka moment after O levels where I became so poetic. I remembered waiting to publish this post on Easter to symbolise the resurrection of my blog hahaha… I was honestly finding reasons to procrastinate.

Ye I was ambitious

I remembered publishing this long, detailed self-intro and then drafting it a year later when the blog became inactive. Just so it doesn’t look like I had abandoned the blog when I wanted to post something new.

On leadership…

June 2018

Back when I was in JC, I wanted to fulfil my EXCO role in CCA well. So for awhile I kept thinking what defines a great leader. After I drafted out the skeleton, I just lost interest, drag and drag and drag and the post never got published. I guess I didn’t see any point working on fluffy “Moral Lessons 101: How to be a Great Leader” that I’ll rarely apply.

Hello World!

June 2019

Wow more than a year has passed with no posts at all?! Why not start anew and intro myself again? No one will notice ;)

ONE LAST !@$%ING TIME!

At this point, I was exasperated how many times I had to write the same cliche thing over and over again. I told myself if I fail to keep the blog alive again, I’ll just shut it permanently and never look back. I kept my intro short and sweet, then to build accountability, I promoted it on Instagram. There was no going back.

This marks the official birth day of the blog :)

Migrant workers

July 2019

In line with the initial aim of the blog, the first social issue that I explored was the lives of migrant workers. At the point of writing, I was particularly interested in their livelihoods after chancing upon an article of a migrant worker detailing his experiences in Singapore. He published a book, Stranger to Myself, containing diary entries and poems about his struggles as a migrant worker. So I was curious and decided to probe further. If you’re interested to know more, do check out the post!

As of this writing, it is disheartening to know that the COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation of migrant workers worse: their livelihoods, well-being and mental health.

Zzzz…

Sept 2019

At one point in JC, I felt overworked. Exhausted. Burnt-out. I was juggling commitments from working out, VIA, blogging and studying for A levels. I noticed this was not just an issue for me but many other students. To cope with the increasing workload and commitments, many would neglect sleep, seeing it as unnecessary.

An extract from this draft

So I had this great idea to raise the importance of resting to everyone whilst hoping I would educate and change myself. I ended up making an irony out of myself - I dozed off whilst lecturing myself and dropped the argument entirely ;) I actually think this had potential - there were statistics, clear organisation and detailed content. What a shame.

JC Shag life

Jan 2020

Mugging for As be like…

Woohoo the A-level cram was over. Before I moved onto NS, I felt I had to give a closure to the whole JC craze before kissing farewell to student life for a few years. I did decent enough. But I don’t think the results matter as much as the friendships, self-awareness and soft skills I cultivated during the two years.

NS

Around the same time when the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding, I also enlisted into SAF…

:(

The brain rot from NS was so legit that I struggled to write consistently during NS because I kept dozing off the moment I started writing things down…

And so, I kind of accepted that life would slow down for these 2 years.

What’s next for 2021

I still remember, couple of months ago, one of my then NS bunkmates told me how I shouldn’t spend time on this blog because no one actually reads it. And that got me reflecting: Ye, he makes sense. What’s the point? This blog is effectively more than a year old already, but has anybody responded to any of my posts, or is this just an effort in vain? That I could better spend my time chilling or doing something more useful?

Many times I’ve convinced myself that I do this out of passion. I enjoy writing my thoughts down. It’s a source of catharsis… But then I think passion is a fickle uncertain feeling. It can come and go. Recently, I haven’t been feeling the spark I felt when I had just started. Now it seems I’m forcing myself rather than being motivated to write something. In other words, writing has become more like a chore than a joy lately. I’ve procrastinated on writing my posts, pushed back deadlines and even dropped a few ideas. Honestly, I haven’t been prioritising blogging over other commitments.

I’ll be frank: I partly blame NS for this burnout. A week’s work in camp is straight up shag, even doing nothing, rotting and waiting can be painful. I often feel so physically and mentally drained after every book-out that I really don’t feel like doing anything at all during the weekends.

For 2021, I have other bigger plans. I’ll like to venture into areas mainly fitness, music and business. Perhaps I might also dabble into other side interests: programming, designing and languages. With the extra time now, I’ll also work on being more active and creative on Instagram, and possibly building a greater presence on other social media platforms too.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t include blogging.

But the blog isn’t going to die! It’s just going to take a nap… I have secondary plans to improve the aesthetics and functionality of this blog! Most importantly, I’ll like to rethink the content I’m putting out as well. I’ve been dragging on and on about NS; it’s time for a switch! I hope to post other interesting material everybody can relate to. When? I really don’t know. Maybe once I got the feels again later in the year :) ?

Bye bye!

All right, this marks the end of Season 1: Rayson’s Blogging Adventures. See you later!