This August will mark the fourth year I’ve been blogging seriously. Seriously as in, putting a lot of thought and effort in what I write, rather than rambling nonsense crap on a public space.

When I started it, I didn’t think I’d stuck with it for a long time. I easily get bored with anything, and whenever I try something new, it usually only takes three months before I get bored and, eventually, quit. This very reason had stopped me buying a domain. I’d had that thought for a couple of years, but I was afraid I’d soon lose interest and that domain would be a waste.

Another reason was, I sucked at technical stuff. Still do, actually. WordPress had wonderfully simplified a lot of things for a novice like me, and the thought of going into all the technical things was enough to make me abort the mission. How do I install WordPress? How do I play with the theme? How about CSS? Those were the things I had in mind a few weeks ago. I learned many things during college, one of them is I hate coding. My second year in college was the worst for many reasons, and the programming module was one of them. I coped with the 3-hour class every week just barely, but the lab session, oh God. For one semester, I died slowly on the top floor of Informatics Engineering building every week (in the blue-carpeted room on the left side of the building, to be exact), with the overly bright neon lamps and the whirring sounds of old PCs. How a petroleum engineer needs a module about algorithm and programming is still beyond me.

Anyway. Two weeks ago, I decided to just go for it, and with a lot of help from a computer geek, managed to come up with something I’ve always had in mind (people who do programming for fun, you’re the best). It wasn’t all smooth sailing (still isn’t). Dealing with broken links, failed plugin installations, and other glitches really get me on my nerves, and all those things just remind me of how much I loathe dealing with technical stuff (what can I say, I’m an old soul). I just want to write and post pictures on a blog with a nice layout, not dealing with lines of codes. So I handed all those stuff to the expert, who’s been so patient in accommodating my nitpicking demands and corrections for the blog. Thank you for not killing me (yet), geeky guy.

And so here it is, the new Her Little Journal!

I’ve made some changes for the design and the pages, mainly to make it easier for the user to browse through the old posts.

Travel Journal page displays all the travel stories, except the UK bits. Some of those have only pictures, bot most of those posts tell my experience through words and pictures.

Since I lived in the UK for more than a year, there are lots of posts about this place that I decided to put in its own page, Around the UK. I initially wanted to put only travel posts on this page, but since I have many wonderful memories in that time, I also put some posts that hold a special place in my heart.

And finally, Some things along the way. I’ve always been fond of stories, and I find that mundane things I encounter in my ordinary life can sometimes turn into the best of imaginations. I take pictures of these things, and while I don’t write long stories for these images (there’s other place for that), I sometimes write what I had in mind when I took those pictures, and hope that those few words for a picture can deliver the tales.

This blog has become a huge part of my life, and more than that, it has brought a lot of friends from all over the world. There’s something wonderful about meeting people (virtually) from faraway places, and bonding through shared interests. I’m really grateful for all these things, and I hope I can continue to share stories, pictures, and adventures on this blog.

Thank you for reading, and welcome aboard! 🙂