It was late evening on September 28, 2020, when I launched this site you’re reading now, my little corner of the internet.
It wasn’t the first time I launched one; this site was actually the third personal blog, and perhaps the longest-running. I was in my fourth year of college when I finally had a laptop (thanks, Uncle Jonas!) and regular internet access, which enabled me to create my first website in 2014 under a free WordPress subscription. If only I had known SEO back then, I would have kept the site and let it evolve with me as I went. But instead, I started from scratch when writing poetry no longer resonated with me. I went back to blogging when I was under the most pressure: during my master’s thesis writing in 2019. While others dial in their physically active selves during graduate studies, I have reactivated my creative self and launched my second website, yet again under a free WordPress subscription (that’s what every broke student would probably do). That was the year when I explored writing long posts, which I would later learn requires commitment to keep going. And while I was still learning more about myself, the blog kept changing form, reflecting the growth that’s happening inside of me. Then one day, I stopped. And I couldn’t bring myself back to writing and keep the site going. Again, if only I had let it grow instead of walking away and starting a site from scratch.
Still, something kept pulling me back. Writing had become the way I made sense of things.
Do you still remember what it felt like to live life during the pandemic? Six months into the pandemic, as most people realized that pursuing creative work trumps doing work for the sake of it, I finally decided to launch my website on my own domain. One factor was having a monthly salary, which made me more confident about subscribing to the cheapest plan, ~200 Php per month, equivalent to a cup of coffee, which I found affordable at the time. As Uncle Jonas would say, I’d end up spending the same amount for one coffee/milk tea anyway. And where would we spend our money while cooped up inside our rooms?
Letting my ideas travel and reach other people was the most affordable travel I could get at the time, with government restrictions strictly in place.
So in the late evening on September 28, 2020, while I was in my rented room in Quezon City, isolated from family and friends because the world had shut its doors by then, I let out http://www.jessa.blog into the world.
My first blog post after the site went live was about how I began blogging in 2014 and how I kept iterating as I learned my way through blogging and more about who I want to become. I’ve come a long way since my website in 2014. And this one you’re seeing has evolved with me, too, like a child finally learning what it wants to be.
With more than a decade of blogging experience, I finally learned that when it’s time to revamp the site to reflect who I am now—because life is a constant change and our preferences change as we grow old—I don’t have to burn it down and start over. I can simply let it grow in a new direction, update the homepage, retire categories that no longer align with my vision, create new ones, and bring you, my dear readers, along with me.
For this version, I am finally putting the spotlight on my academic self, one of the hats I wear. I’d like to think that in the coming months, I’d be writing more about my journey as an academic. Who knows—maybe even a motherhood section someday? But that’s a story for another version of this site. For now, this is where I leave you.
Thank you for letting my words find you.