I started blogging back in 2013 towards the end of my junior year when I felt like high school was passing by too quickly without me appreciating the little moments that were happening. Blogging then turned into my outlet and passion after I tore my ACL the summer before my senior year in high school and I couldn’t really go anywhere for two weeks. Since then I’ve taken on a variety of content, blogging and journalism roles whether it was writing for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Technically Philly, Huffington Post or Inc. Magazine or telling the story of the nonprofit organization I founded in Youthhack or the various other organizations I’ve been part of like Dorm Room Fund.
I still remember the days when I used to write almost one article/blogpost a week whether it was documenting a startup event I attended or telling the story of an entrepreneur I interviewed. Then I hit a roadblock in 2016—whether to continue writing at that level or to start building my skills in other fields like computer science. I didn’t want to be known just as the “blogger” so I made the decision to write less and focus more on other skills and projects I wanted to explore.
Throughout the last year, I would still receive emails from various PR firms pitching stories of different entrepreneurs and founders, and I would get messages from random friends linking to an article I wrote in the Huffington Post asking me what story I was working on next. Each time, I would reply, “sorry I’m too busy working on other projects right now so I’m not actively blogging anymore”.
However, as I ended my summer in San Francisco and got back to Philadelphia for my final year at Penn, it hit me how fast these last 3 years have flown by and how there are so many lessons, moments and things I wish I could recall, share and document—realizations very similar to my senior year in high school. There’s something weird about these artificial and societal time constraints that make you act differently.
As I enter my senior year at Penn, I realized that blogging is something I miss whether it’s the idea of being able to look back at past memories and thoughts or having a platform to tell stories of inspiring individuals, I truly miss blogging. Hence, while I won’t jump right back into my hardcore blogging/borderline-journalist days where I would churn out one article after the next, I’ve decided to revamp my personal blog and start writing again. While my old content and blogposts can still be found at doitchoco.wordpress.com and my series of startup stories can still be found on the Huffington Post, I hope to start anew with this blog and write about big themes and lessons I’ve learned in the last few years and to document striking moments and thoughts that I have this last year of mine.
I’ve spent the last few days just thinking about how I want to spend my final year at college, and while it’s honestly quite scary that this is my last year in college, I’m excited to make the most out of it. Somehow I feel like a freshman again, ready to explore what Penn has to offer!
Indeed, the days are long but the years are short–can’t wait to see what this year has to offer 🙂
