In Continuum.

It's a tricky thing, this whole instant messaging thing. I remember how we all started with IRC, the evil perverts lurking around chat rooms and looking for their next target. Behind those friendly looking nicknames, they are usually boys who are ten years older than they claim to be, looking for a female companion for sex and whatnot. That was the case back then, and it was easy to disappear from those rooms - you log off. You were either online or offline, it was as easy as that back when IRC was still the most popular chat client of all. That was the time when everybody would ask everybody if they use IRC, and they'd create rooms to chat together if they wanted to. It was how people socialized on the internet, and I was actively a part of the process back when I was completely fascinated with the idea. You know, to be able to chat with your friends through words! That was a mind-blowing concept that took a while to settle in, but settle in it did. I remember making a friend or two over there, some of them I still keep on my current MSN list. But there is no running away from MSN right now, it has all of us by our throats. You are no longer just online or offline. You could be "Out to Lunch", "Be Right Back" , "On the Phone", or like me - Away.

Yes, I have been away from this blog for quite a bit of time now. I know I promised to return in the previous post, but I guess the last week of school caught up with me. That is what you get with a semester that is more assignment based I guess, you get overwhelmed with deadlines after deadlines. I was surprised that I was not able to manage the school assignments and the blogging habit. I thought I could do it, like every other semesters, but apparently not. But then again, in retrospect, it's not like there was anything to blog about in those times anyway. The only blogging time I had to myself was for the COM 125 blog, a school blog that we were supposed to write every week about the internet. Yeah, you got that right, the internet. We had to write about internet security, social media, e-business, and we had to pretend to be enthusiastic about it by the last entry. It was pretentious, and I had to pretend that I learned a lot from the module - I didn't at all. Sure, I watched a couple of neat videos and learn a couple of things here and there. But every once in a while, a completely useless module falls into your laps, and the problem is that you can't really pick something else over it. But anyway, now that the classes are officially over, I have the time to sit right here to fill up this rectangular blankness once more.

The hiatus was necessary, I suppose, to kind of clear things out of the system. Writing is fun once you hit a momentum, you know, ideas and inspirations just come one after the other. You can't stop them from coming, because they are all around you at times. A couple of ideas bounced around my head within this period of hiatus, ideas which I shall try to formulate into words in the next couple of days. Like, just last night, there was that conversation I had with the lizard in my bathroom which I thought would be interesting to write into a full length entry. Anyway, anything could be something you write about, you know. Life works that way, it doesn't allow you to have absolutely nothing to write about. Writing about nothing to write about is something that you are writing about, and there is always that to turn to when you are at the rock bottom of things. And as for me, I don't think I was there when I decided to take a break from writing. I suppose I just wanted to leave this obligation behind and concentrate on other aspects of my life for a while. It has been about two weeks, and I suppose that is a long enough time for me to clear the system and get back on the road.

I remember the first time I went on a hiatus, and I had perfect reasons for that one. It was because of my army, and I had to put my blogging on hold for a while back then. I was still on my old blog, that old embarrassing blog with that old embarrassing address that you'd probably be able to find if you are determined and curious enough. I was still on that blog back in the later months of 2004, and I was absolutely petrified about the days to come. For some reason, I was deathly afraid that not blogging for five days in a week would erode the habit that I have been cultivating for over a year back then. I thought being in the army, following routines and receiving orders would somehow kill the old passion of mine. I suppose Bill Maher is right when he said: The only thing I hate more than prophecies, are self-fulfilling prophecies. I created a self-fulfilling prophecy for myself, thinking that I'd really turn into this mindless drone of sorts, going from task A to task B, not having my own opinions and my own thoughts. The perfect soldier, I suppose that is what the government would desire. One without questions, one without his own opinions, and always ready to fight and die for the country. But I was far from a perfect soldier, and the love for writing exploded out onto this current blog that you are reading now a full year later.

I remember I broke my one year hiatus on the first day of 2006. The entire 2005 was devoted to writing nothing on my blog - nothing. Seriously, if you were to look for entries in 2005, you'd probably only find a handful that I wrote for the sake of writing at the beginning of things. That was when I was still a bald private who looked like a Thai foreign worker, when I was allowed to come home once every week. I tried to blog for the friends to know that I was still alive, that the army life wasn't bringing me down as I told them that it would. But it died off after that, and my thoughts and ideas were restricted mainly to little notes that I made in the notebook that were issued to us. I remember the very first day of the army when we had t o surrender our ICs. That was a horrible, horrible day, and I still think that it was probably the worst day of my entire army experience. We were seated in neat rows and we were not allowed to talk. Names were called one by one, and the privates received a package with phone cards, ID cards and whatnot inside. In exchange, we had to give up our ICs, and that was the last time we saw it until two years later.

I was at the back of the column, writing notes on my little notebook. I was trying to write a poem or something like that, to distract myself from the impending doom that was upon me back then. Those were the first words I wrote into that little black book, and I used that same book for similar purposes for the days to come. We were supposed to write notes on the type of guns we were using, how to give first-aid to your dying buddy, how to strip your rifle, the parts of a rifle, how to tell how far away the enemy is with your thumb, little things like that in the notebook. But most of the time, I filled the book with random lyrics, poetry, and blogging ideas until it was filled in every page. That was probably when I decided that it'd be neat to start blogging all over again, since I was also slowly becoming a lover of books at that time. So I broke out of my hiatus and got back to my blogging after taking a break for a full year. It was strange, though, to hear that voice in my head all over again. I don't know about you guys, but it happens to me when I am writing something - anything. There is always a voice in my head reading out every word that I am typing, and it doesn't happen on any other occasion. I must say that at that time, I truly missed that voice. It was a warm comeback for me, definitely.

Have you ever wondered what those people are doing while they are supposedly "Away" on their contact lists? I don't know, what does it mean to be "Away" anyway. I imagine these people to be watching the television, reading a book, watching the movie, or just not at their computer. So, if you are going to be away from the computer, then why can't you be away completely? Why do you have to tie a string back to your virtual self while you are away anyway. It is this obsession of people nowadays, to have the need to be contacted at all times. I suppose that is how we feel connected to the world now, the fact that our cellphone screens are lid and that we are constantly connectable, so to speak, to the rest of the world if they so wish. But then, if you think about it, when was the last time you had messages constantly coming in anyway. The idea of being away from a computer and a phone scares people now, we don't ever want to be disconnected anymore. We want to be constantly within range, to receive signal, to send out messages, to do whatever we can to get in touch with the people who are not with you right now - why? I say, turn off your cellphone for a day or two and see what happens. It's really not going to be a big deal, if you just give it a try.

My point is that, that is exactly what I did with my blog. I put it on hold, I went away for a while. I didn't want to tie a string back to this blog and pretend that I really wanted to be here, but haven't got the time. I was comfortable with the idea of not blogging for some time. To break the pattern, to go out of line, to let my hair down for a while. For two weeks in my life, I didn't want to let everybody gain full excess to whatever thoughts that I had. It's not because I had some privacy issues to deal with, that I was uncomfortable with sharing all of a sudden. It's the same concept as turning off your cellphone for a day or two, and just letting yourself calm down for a while. It is a bliss at times, to know that you cannot be contacted by the world if they wanted to. Just, to be on your own and to live in that very moment, for a while. I haven't stopped observing the people around me, I haven't stopped wondering about why and how the world works the way that it does. Nothing has changed, but just the string that I tied to this blog for such a long time. Every once in a while, we all wish to take a break from a routine and just take a deep long breath. Now that I have the time, though, I am coming back online in full force. Hopefully, this time, it'd be for quite some time before the next hiatus comes along.