Hello World
First post!
This is going to be my first blog in about 4 years (the previous blog lasted about 4 entries!), so I’ll just spend the first post giving a short introduction of myself, and what this blog is about.
ABOUT ME:
My name is Daniel Ong, I live at the southernmost tip of continental Asia, in a small island called Singapore. I’m a student who will be looking to enroll in a university end ‘07/’08, hopefully Yale, and hopefully with a scholarship as well.
I’m trying to think what else you’d want to know about me- 6″1, 165 lbs. I used to be a high school waterpolo player and swimmer; stopped both sports in my final 2 years to do charity stuff. My interests include developmental studies, technology and regional studies, with special interest given to the role of technology and the private sector in development.
I play a bit of soccer, and I hope that one day either Inter Milan or Celtic will win the champions league (this hasn’t happened in quite a long time, you see). I’m also a major closet NFL fan, and I depend on youtube to follow the exploits of the New England Patriots since people here hardly even know what a quarterback is.
When I was a bit younger (14 yrs old), I dabbled a bit in the internet and earned a bit of money off it (ironically, selling blog space, and developing web sites and forums). It crashed dramatically with the bursting of the second internet bubble in 2005, and I sold it off for $1- and left the experience much wiser, and perhaps slightly cynical.
I didn’t dabble in the internet for the next 3 years, and this blog (and this post!) is my first touch in cyberspace in a long time.
WHY THIS BLOG?
eidus.wordpress.com, on my trusty macbook
If you’d ask me even 3 weeks back whether I’d start a blog, my answer would be an adamant no. But just a couple of weeks ago, an old friend from my internet days emailed me- he’d read an article I had written regarding the Singaporean budget, and encouraged me to write.
Meanwhile I had stumbled across (while packing my room) my old folder of “ideas” that I had brainstormed when I was 14 (my internet forays were borne out of this folder, too). One of the very first ideas I had was to have an “online publication” with writing on various issues.
“Eidus” is ancient Hebraic for the English word “witness” in both noun and verb forms- this blog is a collection of my thoughts and reflections, “witnessing” the changes in my part of the world. There’s a certain power in commentary which is addictive when you write, when you use words, pictures and images to change how people look at life.
This blog is strictly non-personal, I’m not very keen on sharing my private life. Writing the “about me” on this page is already near the limits where I will go; this blog’s subject isn’t me- its what I see around me that I write about.
So thus- eidus.wordpress.com
