Little did I know that many people feel this way, including the respected Mr. Mann. He said that most successful people –Mr. Coulton and Mr. Hodgman included — go through a period of self doubt. It’s only human. And not only do you have to be prepared to suck, that you have to realize that you WILL suck. For a very long time. This is the sort of thing I’ve yet to come to grips with as I flounder around trying to find a creative outlet I can really sink my teeth into.

Allow me this digression: I write for a living. I’ve always wanted to write for a living. But I never figured out what exactly I should write about, which is why I went into journalism. Wide variety of topics, and you get to pick and choose your field. Perfect. So I went into technology journalism because that’s something that I do feel passionate about. But I’m passionate about technology in the larger sense of things; in the way it brings harmony to people’s lives, in the way it makes the world smaller, in the way it shapes our understanding of human nature and the world. I do like playing around with gadgets and writing about them in product reviews, but it’s not the only thing I want to do.

But technology is only one tiny facet of my life. I have a strong interest in fiction, in humor, in photography, in crafts, in cycling, and more. In the past year, I’ve taken steps to get better at these things — I’ve been reading more books for leisure, I’ve experimented more with taking photos, I’ve enrolled myself in a variety of craft and cycling classes, etc. It’s almost as if I’m dying to get as far away from the computer as possible during my off hours (Which, by the way, is why I’ve stopped playing a lot of computer games).

So, stepping out of the digression, I want to force myself to be creative. In any way at all that I can be creative. Writing a short story, knitting a self-designed poncho, taking interesting photos, improving my drawing skills, etc. A 9-to-5 job is no excuse for not giving some bit of your time to yourself.

One of my first steps in doing this is redesigning this stale and sad website. For I am sick of it. Guess I’ll have to relearn CSS all over again.

When I first arrived in the United States, I only knew one person. That person was my long-distance boyfriend at the time, who lived in New Orleans while I was in Pullman, Washington. All the time I was in Pullman, I would attend classes, go to the cafeteria, the library, and so forth, but I would never really indulge in extracurricular activities. I did go out a few times, but I always felt the social interaction was forced, and I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t get along with people. So I stayed alone in my dorm room most of the time. Which was fine, because I’m used to it, and the Internet has this great way of making you not feel alone.

Then I transferred to San Francisco, because I fell in love with the City. In San Francisco, I only knew two people, who were mutual friends of the boyfriend and I at the time. I think I probably only saw them about ten times the whole time I lived here. We didn’t live near each other, and again, I think we only got along on a rather superficial level. I’m also a pretty quiet person, so that made it difficult for people to really get to know me.

All throughout my years in college, I didn’t really have friends. My only real social interaction was with classmates, and the socializing sort of ended once class was over. I attended a commuter school, so most of the students have very busy lives outside of college, whereas my whole life WAS college. And again, I just enjoyed being alone and being on the Internet, where I didn’t feel so lonely. I would get depressed every once in awhile with the lack of people to talk to, but once the crying stopped, I would just watch some TV and feel better.

I make it sound like I was horribly sad the whole time, but I wasn’t. Sure I was sad occasionally. But being an only child, I’m really used to being by myself. I liked shopping by myself, I liked watching movies by myself, I liked dining by myself, etc. It was just so natural for me to be alone. It felt comfortable. Boring, but comfortable.

Which, ironically, was also my Achilles heel. At the same time, I really wanted some actual real-life friends. But because I was so used to being quiet, to being by myself, to being alone, that I was too scared to step outside my comfort zone. More than that, I was completely socially inept. I didn’t know how to make small talk, I didn’t know what to say to people, I didn’t know how to interrupt a conversation. And if you’ve actually met me in real life, you’d know that I STILL don’t at times.

Honestly, the one thing that made the whole thing turn around, was once again, the Internet. When blogging suddenly became huge, and blogging “meet ups” started to happen, I began to meet like-minded people in person. I was still quiet, shy, and withdrawn, but more people were willing to talk to me, because they knew I was there for the same thing. And the more people talked to me, the more I would talk back. And the more that happened, the more I would open up. And the more that happened, the more I would interact with people. It just grew from there.

(Examples of events where I met many of my now-friends: The SF Bay Blogger Meetup, the SF Metroblogging meetups, the couple of Movable Type Meetups, BloggerCon(s), WordPress meetups)

So, the Web was incredibly instrumental in me opening up my social circle. This is why I embraced social networking opportunities when they first entered the scene — not because they were some way for me to make money or whatever, but because this was one of the only ways I knew how to meet people (I don’t go to bars, I don’t go to clubs, etc. there are very few avenues for me to meet people). It worked great for awhile, especially when only a few people were into the whole blogging scene. The quality of people was high — like-minded geeks who were into the same things I was? What’s not to like?

Then, somehow, it got weird.

Exhibit A: Dodgeball. Dodgeball was this mobile social networking service that lets you text your location to friends, and vice versa. The idea was that folks would meet up spontaneously if you were around the same neighborhood. Which actually worked out great for me for awhile. I would be like “Oh, so-and-so is in Cafe Du Nord. I should stop by.” And then I would, and he would be happy to see me, and we would talk for a bit. Or it would be like “Oh, it looks like 5 of my friends are at House of Shields. I should stop by to see what’s up.” And then I would show up, and it was the same thing. For someone who barely had even ten friends most of her life, this was EXHILARATING. I am not usually a spontaneous person, and Dodgeball pretty much forced me to be spontaneous. It was seriously a high.

But like with all drugs, it turns out it wasn’t always so good for you. At one point, Dodgeball was so widely implemented that it became ridiculous to even use it. My friend Jesse gave an example, of when all your friends would show up at the same place and check in, letting all your friends who are ALREADY AT THE PARTY know that you arrived. At one point pretty much everyone in my Dodgeball friends list was at the party, and I STILL sent a check-in message for no real reason. The signal-to-noise ratio was slowly becoming apparent.

It started getting really bad when people would use Dodgeball in a really meaningless way that had nothing to do with socializing. “I’m at the Safeway!” (You want people to meet you at the grocery store?) or “I’m at an invite-only party!” (Thanks for letting us uninvited people know), etc. Then Twitter came along, where all of that meaningless chatter finally had a place. Around the same time, the social networking scene started to gain real mainstream momentum, with MySpace at its peak and actual panels at SxSW on how to make money with all this Web 2.0 stuff. Dot-com 2.0 was back, in a big way.

It was around then that everything to do with online social networks started to lose its luster, and this was during the pre-Facebook era. What were valuable social enablers to me, suddenly became tarnished with VC dollars and stock market glitz. Every single discussion around blogs had to do with monetizing. “Business blogging” became a big thing. Personal blogs started to fade away into obscurity, and LiveJournal struggled to stay alive in a world that didn’t take them seriously. If you did have a personal blog, it was mostly about self-promotion, with very little personal voice. Nothing wrong with this, of course, but it still makes me sad that when the majority of mainstream America think of a blog today, they think of Perez Hilton. ‘Nuff said.

At the same time, it turns out that some of my “friends” weren’t really that. Some of them turned out to be fair weather friends, and that I was imagining them to be closer than they were. Others, I just never really connected with on any real level. This made me really upset for awhile, but I got over it eventually — I can’t be friends with everyone, after all.

And so, because I saw this turn, I started to wean myself off these constant-on social networks, opting for closer more meaningful connections in everyday life. I’m only on Facebook now because everyone else is on it and they all seem to use it to announce events (Have I mentioned I missed TWO birthday parties because I didn’t pay attention to Facebook? I’m STILL mad about it). I’m on Twitter more for meaningless chatter than anything else. Plurk is slightly more community-oriented, but my friends hardly use it, so it’s more of a fan vehicle.

Problem was, I gained friends by participating in social networks. Now that I’m no longer really fully partaking in them, I almost never meet new people. I email the friends I do have, and I occasionally ask them out for drinks or something, but that’s about it. I don’t really get invited to dinners or movies or games. It’s really not a big deal, because most of the time, I can’t make it anyway due to work or just wanting to stay home.

But it still makes me sad occasionally. Just like all those years ago. I guess things never really do change.

My career sputtered along in leaps and starts, and my finances are slowly but surely getting in shape. Brandon got laid off some time in mid-2008 but then rebounded in a satisfactory fashion by the end of it. I was involved in an emotional turmoil or two (as is my nature), but it was nothing too big to handle. I also started on my path to citizenship, which was kindly supported by many of you. Much love for that, of course.

The biggest changes happened to the people around me. Friends moved away, moved closer, got engaged, broke up, got hired, and fired. Which is pretty normal, of course, but all of it happening within the span of a few months is a little jarring, especially when you have a relatively small pool of pals in the first place. I also learned that I can’t please everybody all the time, and that my happy-go-lucky socializing days are largely behind me (Although I’m still down for the occasional beer at the pub).

I’ll be 30 years old in 2009. And if all goes well, I’ll also be an American citizen. It’ll be a pretty momentous year, in more ways than one, and already I’m feeling the nerves of it all. I’m in the waning months of my Saturn return, and I’m steeling myself for further probes into my delicate psyche. I already know a large part of the karma issue has to do with my family in Malaysia, whom I have been quietly neglecting. It’ll all come to haunt me in 2009; I can feel it (PS. Dad? Will you please let me know your email address?).

As I write this, it is the second day of the new year. It’s raining and gloomy outside, and it’s not even ten in the morning. The soft gentle glow of daylight persists through the gray sky, illuminating the wet pavement. Everything is strangely beautiful.

And so starts my cautious optimism for the year ahead.

But to simply remain a permanent resident is not enough. Many of you know that I’ve become increasingly interested in local and national politics. My political interest was first seeded in college, in Political Science 101, where I learned the ins and outs of the U.S. government. Then it grew when I became a student reporter for the campus newspaper, and learned to cover local politicians and their policies. It dawned on me then that ordinary people can do extraordinary things, that your everyday working person has the power to coalesce communities of great strength. That politics is not merely an intellectual luxury reserved for the rich and powerful, but that it is every citizen’s privilege in which to engage and participate.

It also dawned on me that whatever policies were being decided on, the results were going to impact me, whether or not I was a citizen. And that’s when I began to seriously wish to have my say, for the right to vote. I’ve watched in admiration as my citizen friends threw themselves in the arena, attending rallies, volunteering for campaigns, and most importantly, entering the voting booth. I watched the 2000 and 2004 elections unfold with my hands tied behind my back, with the inability to do anything, anything at all. Even with this upcoming 2008 election, arguably the most important election in modern U.S. history, I will not be able to have my say.

But it is time. Starting July 2008, I will be eligible to apply for naturalization, which is a fancy way to say that I will be able to apply to become a U.S. citizen. And yes, I want it bad. However, there is a rather steep cost. The total application fee for naturalization is $675. This may not seem like a large amount, but I’m currently working on clearing out debt, and it’s just one more big chunk of cash out of my wallet. But, I love this country. So I will suck it up, and I will pay that fee. It’ll mean a couple extra months of tightening up, but I’ll do it.

That said, I wouldn’t mind some help. So for the first time in my ten-plus year blogging career, I am holding out a donation tip jar. As you know, I don’t run ads. I don’t like ads. It’s not my thing. I want to avoid them. So I’m offering this donation alternative instead. Know that every single cent you’re offering me is either going directly back into the site, or funding my bid to be a U.S. citizen.

The Donate button is to the upper right of the main index page. I will also include a link in this blog post. I’m not asking much. Donate however much you like. All you will get from me is my undying appreciation, and perhaps a vote that will change your life.

Thank you.

[Donations are now closed]

Update: Wow, over $200 raised in less than five hours! You guys are amazing! I swear I’ll throw a huge party once I get citizenship, and you’re all invited!

Update 07/01/08: Hey everyone, it’s July 1st, and I’ve reached my goal of $675!!! Thank you so much for your help. I hope to send each donor a special gift in return. Thanks again!!!

This is why it makes me sad that many of my colleagues in the online world dismiss print media as old and dated. I understand there’s more freedom and timeliness with online publishing — heck, I’m still a pretty big advocate of Web 2.0 no matter how much I complain about it. Blogging is a great tool, due to the immediacy and transparency it allows. But I’m telling you, print is something special. There’s something so visceral about the full bleed designs in glorious CMYK with the words — MY words — filling up the page.

Yeah, I’m pretty stuck in the past. I admit that. The future lies in the bits and bytes of the digital screen. Blogs are the here and now. Who cares about dead trees and three-month-old content?

Sadly, I do. I’ll be right there, on the verge of new media taking over the old, fervently holding on to the remnants of the last magazine ever printed. And my heart will break a little bit, the tears will pool in my eyes, and I will eventually let go.

Nevertheless, 2007 was a pretty good year. I rediscovered enthusiasm in a job I wasn’t sure I liked. New friendships were made, existing friendships were reinvigorated. Perhaps more importantly, I also realized that I can’t be friends with everyone, and that it’s actually okay to stay home more often than not. A huge highlight this year was our friends (WoW guildmates) from Hawaii coming to visit us in San Francisco, and us traveling to Hawaii to visit them as well. I think that more than anything has cemented my belief that real relationships can be made anywhere, even within the virtual walls of Ironforge.

So what will 2008 bring? In short, I’m cautiously optimistic. I have a sneaky feeling that I’ll get a lot more responsibility heaped on my shoulders, perhaps more so than I can handle. Not just career-wise, but socially as well. I really need to learn to be a lot more organized with my time, and currently, that’s not going so hot. No matter how much I try, I can’t rein in this whole time management thing. And that starts off the 2008 resolutions list:

1) Finally READ GTD. And perhaps implement some of it via OmniFocus or some such.

2) Read more books. I’m pretty bad with this. Hoping that V’s S&L book club thing will help, though I’m pretty bad about discussing topics. I generally just like to gush about scenes and characters. “OMG, that scene where he discovered the secret of that old man? SO GOOD.” Me, English major? Yeah, sad, huh?

3) Get more active and perhaps lose weight in the process. I think the idea of weight loss being a goal is the thing that’s holding me back, because it seems like such an unachievable goal. I tend to be pretty impatient, so if I don’t see results immediately, I get frustrated. I got into running late last year, but a knee injury kept me from going back. Maybe a combination of pilates and running will help somehow.

4) Save more money. I kinda blew this in 2007, but I really got back on track late in the year, with my credit score finally getting to a comfortable level. I owe this to three things: 1) Signing up for myFico.com, a credit service that alerts you to any changes in your score 2) Signing up for ING Direct, an FDIC insured bank that lets you earn interest with your checking account, and 3) Mint.com. I know, Mint.com makes a lot of people nervous, but I honestly think it’s not as bad as people think. I’ve gained a lot of insight into my entire financial portfolio, in a single interface. Not a lot of programs can do that. Plus, it updates everything in real time. I trust them so far. So much so, I believe I can be debt-free before the end of the year.

5) Relax more. This means I need to not stress out over the little things. Worry less. Let things go. Ohmmm. Maybe I’ll actually use more of my vacation time as well.

And finally, I hope to maintain my existing friendships and perhaps satisfy my readership to some degree as well. I love you guys. Happy new year everyone!

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Web 2.0 trucks along, there are now many ways to flex your passive-aggressive socializing prowess. You can broaden your social network by adding random people as contacts on Facebook, or Upcoming, or Pownce, or MySpace, or some other Web 2.0 social network. While not the same thing as Dodgeball, the broad use of the term “friend” (which has apparently lost all meaning in the Web 2.0 world) does create an illusion of socialization without you having to actually.. you know.. socialize. Of course, there are services like Twitter that does make that distinction clear — the people you’re following aren’t necessarily friends; they’re just people who post things you’re interested in — and not all Web 2.0 social networks fall into this category. But the more popular ones do.

Let’s take Facebook as an example. I make it a point to only “friend” people I actually know — or at least know enough about that I don’t mind reading their posts. I don’t want my Friend Status page to get cluttered by people I don’t care that much about. But, I also understand those who befriend everyone — hey, it can be interesting to take a peek in other people’s lives. That’s fine. What’s weird, however, are the people from my long-ago past adding me as a Facebook friend without me hearing from them for years. When this first started happening, I was very intrigued. Wow, I can’t believe these people remember me! Wow, look at how he/she has changed! Wow, I’m impressed she works there now! And so on and so forth. It was a wave of nostalgia that was not altogether unpleasant. What ended up happening though, was that the socialization ended there. These long-ago friends of yesteryear added me to their Facebook friends list, and left it at that. No further messages. No further interactions. That was it.

Now, maybe they were waiting for me to make the move in sending them a message. The passive-aggressive bit begins. Do I say something? Do I just accept their friend request and leave it at that? That was what I ended up doing, because there didn’t seem to be any indication that they wanted to communicate. But then they started inviting me to install Facebook apps. “You have been bitten by a Zombie!” Or “You have been invited to a game of Scrabulous!” Which, again, is fine and all, but this still feels like a bizarre interaction to have with someone you haven’t met in years. Weirder still is when you participate in these virtual games with someone you used to be friends with — “She.. bit me and now I’m a Vampire? Wait…. should I be taking that the wrong way?” There’s a similar rant I could get on about co-workers trying to do this passive-aggressive networking thing with LinkedIn, but that’s a way hairier issue than I’m willing to get into here.

But that does bring me to the point that it’s not the TOOL that’s the problem, it’s the people who are using the tools. For some reason, there are people who willingly give in to the convenience of not having to talk to people to be friends with them. So this is a partial theory for the phenomenon: Passive-aggressive socializing comes naturally to the socially awkward or to socially awkward situations. It’s hard for people who are rather shy like me to go out there and make friends with a bunch of people, and it’s easier to just send tiny little messages here and there into the ether, hoping for a connection. And maybe that’s how these passive forms of online communications exist — to give a voice to people who don’t know any better, who are too scared to bridge the gap, who are too introverted to speak. Which is understandable, but also a tiny bit sad. And as for the long-lost friend situation, maybe there are simply too many years between us for either of us to even feel comfortable saying something as simple as “Hi, how’ve you been?” But, for some reason, it’s way easier to send each other Facebook app requests. Anything to avoid actual communication, eh?

So… I don’t know. It’s not like I don’t *like* these social networks. Hey, I wouldn’t participate in them if I didn’t get some small enjoyment out of connecting with friends and people I know. But once the social network begins to replace interpersonal communication, that’s when I get weirded out. People seem to forget that these online social networks are primarily built to strengthen relationships, not become a substitute for one. I’ll admit that I fall into these traps too, which is why I’ve been making some small attempt to reconnect with friends and meet them in person (what a concept!). Heck, I’ll even take IMs and emails at this point. Better than just sitting in silence waiting for someone to speak.

That made me think of my sister-in-law. Even though she was born and bred in Indonesia, she was raised in a very traditional Chinese household. She speaks the language, plus when her wedding rolled around, she threw the traditional Chinese wedding with the five-course dinner with shark’s fin soup, and of course had to have the massive photo album with various outfits and settings. She cooks Chinese food all the time, and when it came time for her to have her first child, she took a lot of Chinese medication to supplement the Western stuff. In essence, she reminds me of my relatives when I was growing up back in Malaysia. I was surrounded with people who were very, well, culturally Asian.

Which makes me look at myself in the mirror and wonder what in the world happened to me. I may have some Asian trappings — I have a rice cooker, and I like Asian foods and snacks — but everything else is distinctly “Western” or “generic.” I was raised in an English-speaking household, with a love of English-speaking TV shows and movies, with a love of books written in English. I was reading fluently by the time I was 6 or 7, and my mom was known to leave me all alone in bookstores because she knew I would be happy just sitting by myself for hours. I went to the library all the time (I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn when I was 10 or 11). I was watching Arsenio Hall when I was 14 (I even recorded a few episodes on the VCR. Wow, that’s embarrassing.) So even though I was surrounded everywhere by traditionally Asian things, I just didn’t take the bait.

That’s right — I don’t want an electric water boiler. I don’t really care too much about Chinese New Year and red packets (I actually think it enforces a money-grubbing mentality at an early age). I hate Chinese medicine. I am not loud by any means. I am a very generous tipper. I refuse to eat shark’s fin soup. I generally don’t like large gatherings of people. I don’t like HK pop or J pop. Yeah, okay, I like the food, and I can’t say no to freshly made soy milk, and dim sum rocks the house. But I’m struggling to find anything else I identify with. Sometimes people ask me why I’m not more involved in Asian activist organizations, and it’s simply this: I just don’t feel Asian enough. If being Asian means you have to ascribe to certain cultural mores, then maybe I’m not Asian. Which, of course, I am.

There’s a larger issue here, I think, in regards to being raised Chinese in Malaysia (an Asian country with close ties to the Western world), plus having immigrated to the United States a few years ago. Along the way, race had little to do with my personal identity formation, and more to do with checking off the right boxes on bureaucratic forms. I wonder how American Born Chinese feel. I wonder if they feel the same way — a sort of identity amnesia when it comes to race. With the oddest feeling that they SHOULD conform — that they should know how to use chopsticks, and they should speak the language, and they should know how to cook rice — but also feeling a strange desire NOT to conform.

This reminds me of an incident a few years ago, when I was explaining to someone that I don’t like being told what to do. In fact, the more you tell me to do something, the harder I resist. “You should lose weight,” my relatives would say. And I would hate it, and refuse to do anything about it all the more. By the same token, I don’t like conforming to things if I can help it. Don’t tell me to be “more Asian.” Just let me be ME.

And that ends this evening’s rant.

You know what this is? This is the Universe telling me to not get too big for my britches. I’ve been floating on cloud 9 since the new job, feeling full of hubris and pretty much invincible. This is karma’s brother’s way of saying, “Yo girl. Step it down a notch. Keep it real.” (No, I can’t explain why the Universe speaks in ghetto slang. I think it just loves the hip-hop. Or maybe it’s ’cause I’ve been listening to too much Kanye West. “Ooh hecky naw that boy is raw.” Love it.)

Years ago, in a private IRC channel of ill repute, a Malaysian compadre said to me in an oh-so-patronizing tone, that I had thin skin. Why yes. Yes I do. This is why I’m sensitive, and soft, and I care too much about what people think and feel. Over the years, I’ve built up a tolerance to that. My exterior has grown its own brand of scales, with follow-up calluses and blisters. I’m still soft like Kleenex tissue, but at least I can use the power of words and sheer politeness and diplomacy to ward off the scars. In short, my words are like the Neosporin to my wafer-thin epidermis.

What does all that mean? It just means that despite this rock and roll of messaging missiles, I will heed the Universe’s call to keep it real. My emotions will not be harmed despite this thin skin, and I will use this here keyboard to spit out a shield of stringed-out sentences that will in effect say to the world: I AM OKAY. SERIOUSLY. I AM FINE.

The. End.

PS. Leave a comment if you don’t know what the hell I’m yammering on about and wish to find out.

Anyway, I was at the Web 1.0 Summit Wednesday night, as well as the Colors of Web 2.0 party last night, and at both events, there have been people that I wanted to really talk to, but couldn’t get the nerve to do so. They might not be really big shots or anything, but in my world at least, I see them as being kinda like mini-celebrities. And so I was afraid to go talk to them. See, I get very flustered and nervous and start to blather around people I admire. Plus I didn’t want to seem too weird and stalker-y.

I’ve felt this way before, when I was at SXSW, when I worked at TechTV, etc. There were so many of these people that I just did not have the nerve to even say Hello to. What would I say? What would I talk about? What if I get shunned? And then out of the blue, I would decide to just get over it and go talk to one of them. And, surprise surprise, they’re actually quite accessible, and not quite as scary as I thought them to be. Some of them have become friends, while others have just become that occasional acquaintance I see at parties and such. No longer are they the mini-celebrities that I once thought they were. They were now actually Real People.

But sometimes it’s not so easy. Sometimes you say Hello, and that’s all you say. That may be all you’ll ever say. And sometimes, just sometimes, it’ll totally bum you out. Or worse, sometimes you’ll talk and talk and talk, and IN YOUR HEAD, decide that you’ve found a friend, so the next thing you do is ask him/her out for coffee or whatever, and suddenly he/she’s all “oh, I’m busy.” Oh sure maybe they really are busy. But it’ll still bum you out. And by “you” I mean “me.”

It’s probably clear by now to a lot of you that I’m a psycho with some weird socialization issues. It’s really not that way. I guess I’m kind of an introvert at heart, which is why I overthink a lot of this socialization stuff that probably comes naturally to most people. Socializing does NOT come naturally to people like me; I generally have to work at it, and try to get out of my shell. I’ve been getting better over the years, but there are still hurdles, as you can plainly see.

Man, I’ve been typing a lot more LJ-esque entries lately. I should try sleeping instead of blogging.