I have been thinking about this for quite a while. The past years or so, I have been journaling my thoughts into two different blogs- one in a personal blog and one in a more public lifestyle blog. I will usually put my reviews of certain theatre performance or movies or drama series that I watched in my lifestyle blog that is made public, while the darker, more intimate entries that detailed certain sensitive information about myself and my thoughts, in my personal blog, which was meant for only friends to read.
I started entries in the personal blog when I was in polytechnic pursuing my diploma in Mass Communication. So, it is a platform I used to practice my writing. I was not much of a writer back then. I struggled a lot with language, both Malay and English. Needless to say, despite the practice, I only managed to scrape through and get my diploma with a credit of 2.75, which is a basic pass. I also used the blog as a platform to rant, bitch and gossip. At times, when I have the time, I will revisit this personal blog to laugh at those moments of innocence and unabashed honesty.
I think I must have some form of complexities in me, because despite knowing that I am terrible at writing, I went on to pursue writing as a form of career. I am now a drama educator and also an actor and part of both jobs require me to be able to decipher scripts AND, you might have guessed it, write a script. As a drama educator, I will usually have to write scripts that are engaging to my students, while at the same time, catering to their capabilities. Each group of students I teach differ from the other, and as such their needs and capabilities also differ, and therefore, I need to be sensitive to these differences and provide them with the necessary scripts accordingly. There is never a one script fits all.
I’d like to think that, after many years of writing scripts for schools, I am now better at writing. You may disagree, of course, and I will not dispute your opinions. My motto has always been to improve myself so that I can serve my students better. So, as we speak right now, I am already busy trying to sign myself up for the next writing or directing workshop. Hopefully, one day, I will be good, enough.
Anyway, I digress. Here is what I really wanted to say. From here on, I will be combining the two blogs into one. As such, this will now be my lifestyle blog as well as personal blog. I think this will help me in a few areas;
Time Management— writing two blogs can be at times, time consuming. And time is something that I can barely afford these days. By combining the two blogs, I am able to focus better, and hopefully produce better content. That said, I may be shifting some of the previous old entries from the personal blog to this lifestyle blog. This is to breathe some form of personality into it, which brings me to the next point, style of writing.
Style of Writing- I noticed that there are many review blogs out there. If you want a review on local theatre productions, there is already an established blogger who does that - https://bakchormeeboy.com! If you want a review on local food, there are a couple of options: https://halalfoodhunt.com, https://danielfooddiary.com and https://www.misstamchiak.com just to name a few. As such in order to separate myself from these blogs, I have used the moniker “Abang” to make the entries in my lifestyle blog more personal, and to build some form of rapport with you, the readers. ABANG is a Malay word which means Big Brother or Elder Brother. Sometimes the word abang is used in place of the word “I” or “me”. For example, instead of writing down the sentence “I feel that the food could have been spicier”, I may write it as “Abang feels that the food could have been spicier”. The sentence structure here remains almost the same, with the word, ABANG, replacing the noun “I”. The main intention of writing the review in this style is to remind you that I am writing these entries from the perspective of an elder brother, having your best interests at heart. That is to say, I am looking out for you. In Malay sometimes we use the phrase, “Abang payung”, to symbolise to the act of an elder brother protecting someone, or an elder brother using an umbrella to shield you from the metaphorical harsh weathers. However, there is a problem to this. The lifestyle blog is currently devoid of any form of personality. Like I don’t think the readers to this blog know who I am. This may then make the title “Abang” or the act of referring to myself as “Abang”, i.e. your trusted elder brother, a little contrived. As such, with the inclusion of personal entries about myself as well as my literary works in progress, I hope to give you, the reader a little insight of who I am as a person, as a writer, and as an arts practitioner. With this I hope to create some form of rapport with you and hopefully earn your trust with my reviews, be it for food, local theatrical productions or drama series.
I am very excited to start this new journey with you. So sit back, and sip on your cup of warm tea. Relax as you read and get to know abang. Don't worry. Abang got your back!
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