Reserved

I like reading blogs. I began reading them back in 2003. Those early malaysian bloggers like The Reader, Organized Chaos are still continuously contributing their thoughts (or whatever form of entry) till today.

The number of blogs just kept increasing over the years. In September 2004, I started my own blog with the early intention as an online diary. I wasnt keen to let this blog go public in the beginning. Only towards mid-2005 or so did I have the courage to share my thoughts with other fellow bloggers. Through drbubbles and kakteh , I began my public blogging adventure. However, until now i still havent mustered enuf courage to share every single thought, day-to-day story basis, life experience and anything I consider personal within the blogosphere. The only nearest encounter for that matter is via leaving some comments on those blogs i frequent. By doing so, i may let out some bit of me without creating a blog entry.

I am friendly and easygoing by nature, but experience has taught me to become reserved. It is one of the ways i think that i can discipline myself to be careful not to be such an open book that i was before. I was misunderstood before and thus, the "eccentric one" title. I think i have been a complete individual, totally self-relying person since i was very, very young. My mum had me after 4 years of age gap between myself and my eldest sister. And just a year or so after that, I got another sister, and then 3 yrs after that, another sister, and then 3 bros after that, and then 2 more sisters, which total up to 9 siblings altogether.

My parents told me that I could already take care of myself at a young age of 3 or maybe younger. My eldest sister was too old to play with me and she was the eye candy of my parents for quite some time. And then when my 3rd sister came to the world, I started to develop the affinity of doing things on my own somehow. Nevertheless, I forged some sort of a close bond with the 3rd one as a result of wanting to socialize badly. I was easy to look after, least fussy with food and so on. However, my rebellious streaks began early too. Perhaps, I was seeking some attention that was becoming more and more divided as more members of the family were born.

At a tender age of 5, I tagged along my mum to her birth country, Egypt, just the two of us and not feeling afraid at all. I was given my own hand luggage, and even without a proper, formal education, prior to my tadika year, i can read ABCs and numbers. That i self-learnt through television and by figuring out my eldest sisters textbooks both english and malay ones. Sometimes, i just sat down listening to whatever my mum teaching my eldest sister and it might have absorbed into my tiny but hungry for knowledge brain. It was probably curiosity and the thirst for learning that made me a bit "nerdy" even at a young age. During that 1st ever trip overseas, i wasnt scared of grownups and could actually walk around the airport, and take the lift on my own to get to wherever i wanna roam despite those adult glares on me. I didnt care what they think of me. I was happy in my own world. Furthermore, I didnt do stupid, damaging acts just like my peers that time, jumping around, crying nonsensically for attention and too timid or shy.

People like Ruby Ahmad, Gab, Abdun and Pugly are quite eloquent in sharing their daily experience, while those like Lilyliverbird and bisutulibuta are brazen enuf with their more explicit stories under pseudo identity, but these two have always left me in stitches. Since i am still a bit reserved in exposing all in my head, I would comment in their blog on whatever funny (and genuine) entries they wrote instead.

Oh well, I reckon if I am still not daring enuf to do what most bloggers normally do, at least I can act as a "reporter" to share some current scoops in my own words (or quoted whenever possible). Or I could actually attach some online articles (news mostly) for my own reference and perhaps to some other readers, too if they deemed it interesting enough. I personally dont see cut and paste articles from online news and whatnots a big no-no for a blog entry. It's a way of sharing minus all those email forwarding hassles (and consequences esp in terms of adding more "junks" in the inbox unless some people prefer to send those fwded stuff to their bulk/junkmail box as it does not contribute to the inbox quota).

Part of my so-called "selective" reserved mode and practice (SRMP) was nurtured actively during my PhD years. That way I can still make a lot friends but at the same time preserving some mystery bits of me. Actually that is what many people suppose to be like, but i only get to be more "smarter" in my social skills as i get older. Besides that, as a career-person, by applying SRMP, I also learn to be discreet whenever necessary while still attaining good collegiality and integrity in order to be in harmony within the working environment. A lot of things has improved since SRMP and one of them is my ability to keep secret not just my own but also close friends.