The blogger reflects

I started this blog in August 2008. That makes it exactly 5 years to date. During that time, I wrote about my kids growing up, education policies, my thoughts on learning and other miscellaneous stuff. I started out blogging everyday and then slowed down gradually, to once a week (every Monday) for the past 2 years or so. I've always said that I will continue blogging for as long as possible and I think I've finally reached the point where I can no longer do it on a regular basis.

In the blogging hemisphere, 5 years is a pretty long time. Many blogs die a natural death when the blogger runs out of things to say or simply runs out of steam. I've pushed on because I always had rather opinionated thoughts on something to do with education or the other. I was also determined to record all the fun stuff my kids did and said while they were growing up as sort of a memory bank.

It has been great but lately, I've realised that the inevitable has happened. I started struggling to find things to write about and time to write them. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) Both my kids are now in secondary school. Somehow, parents are most stressed out about education in Singapore at the primary and pre-primary school years. Issues tend to crop up then, less so in the later school years. Kids are also less cute (actions that might be adorable at age 9 become awfully annoying at age 12), hence, there are fewer interesting incidents to record.

2) I just got busier. My corporate writing business is growing. After 10 years, I now have four other writers on my team. Managing the projects and business aspects is in itself a full-time job, not to mention the actual writing that I do. As you also know, I recently tried my hand at book writing (out in October this year) and discovered that I really enjoy it. As a result, I'm going to pursue book writing more extensively which will take up even more time.

So I've come to the conclusion that something has to give and that something is blogging. To my fans, I want to assure you that I'm not shutting down this blog. It's not goodbye (which sounds so final).  It's just that I won't be blogging on such a regular basis. I've always believed that writing for its own sake is simply self-indulgent, so I'll only be posting when I have something to share, eg. updates on my upcoming books and views on education when they do come up.

At this juncture, I want to say that blogging has been a fantastic journey. Quite amazingly to me, this blog took on a life of its own. On several occasions, I was even recognised in public which is quite a foreign concept to me since I'm an introvert and generally shy away from the limelight.

The most recent encounter was a funny story. We were at the Marina Bay Sands Toast Box outlet having tea before going to watch Phantom of the Opera. This very nice lady came up to us and told me that she enjoys reading my blog. What she didn't know was that just before that, we had spotted Mr Brown aka Lee Kin Mun, also at Toast Box, and we were sneaking peaks at him. So when she approached us, we were a little taken aback. It's kinda like a voyeur suddenly realising he was being watched.

Anyway, I'm always happy when readers approach me (to the lady who came up to us, if you're reading this, thanks for making yourself known!) It's lovely to meet my readers in person. It's certainly much better than being silently observed, which is kinda stalker-ish and creeps me out a little.  So if you spot me, please do say hi! (unless you hate my writing, in which case, maybe no need lah, haha).    

A little marketing spiel: If you have enjoyed my writing, I hope you will continue to support me in my upcoming book (and maybe books). It's a new phase of my writing career/passion and I'm trying to see if I can make it work. Perhaps it's career suicide as there's definitely more money in corporate writing than book writing, but hey, I'm an optimist!

Meanwhile, I want to say, very sincerely, thanks for reading all my thoughts, opinions and ramblings all these years. At the risk of sounding totally cliche, the encouragement from my readers is truly what has kept this blog going for so long.