Happy 2016 and Updates

This is a new year. Not very new in strictest technical terms, but new in terms of my blog. A happy new year to all of you.

I have been absent from this space for quite a long time; so long that sometimes I even thought that my 'phase' of blogging is over and that I am done with it. But thankfully it wasn't and isn't. And while I was still skeptical about this whole thing, I did never think of, and would probably never will, think of or have the courage to close it down. I cannot do that, it has too many good memories associated with it.

Having said that, I will still not make promises to whoever stumbles upon here, that I will keep the updates coming on comparatively regular intervals from now on. I can't make any promises about this; I know better of it.

Instead, in this post, I am going to just thank you all who still remember this blog and sometimes come to see if there is anything new cooking about. To thank you for being part of this journey and I sincerely hope that you will accompany me in time to come as well. I truly value both the silent and visible readers of my blog, and wish them well in all their endevours.

Okay so, a few updates are in the run maybe. I haven't done this sort of thing in a long time, or maybe ever. But whatever, here it goes.

- I have shifted to a new city in a new country, Jeddah(Saudi Arabia) and have been living here for almost a year. One of my earlier posts from last year discusses more about it. Do check it out.

- I tried a bit different sort of work in between, something to do with 'subconscious' advertising(fancy name, innit?), but now I am back to working as a web development professional. My interests have shifted more towards User Experience during this time as I find it to be a very interesting and exciting thing.

- I started learning french around three years ago as a part time course; it seems a thing of yesterday, three years. I did learn until A2 but then had to drop out because of career clashes. These days, I am a beginner Arabic learner; like a real beginner; infant. I hope and plan to keep both going though, both are great language options to learn.

- I am now 28. Yes that is very old for me. :P

- Related to two points mentioned before, I have done a very important thing. Thanks to staying in a city where people from all over the world land in order to do a pilgrimage, I did Umrah, secondary of the two pilgrimages a person can do in Islam. It is a very significant personal milestone and I am very happy to have achieved it. It was one of the most beautiful and serene experiences ever. and I have relived it more than once.
Oh and as you can guess, I am somewhat religious, so yay, that was great!

- I had bought a domain name sometime ago, so early this year, I shifted the link to this blog to blog.usamasulaiman.com, as you can see in  your address bar. You can still open it by putting the old arandomlog.blogspot.com in there though. Small change.

- I started working on a writing project towards the end of 2014, but it went on hold like this blog in between. I am planning to resume work on it and hopefully finish a second draft before I turn 29. Yes, that is the goal.

- I bought a camera. Yes it could seem like a very small thing to many people, but I wanted to have a camera for quite some time now. I loved clicking random pictures with my phone and wanted to take it up a level, so yes, that is indeed a very exciting new thing that happened. I'll post some of the pictures clicked from it below.

- There are people who would scoff at it, but I am living away from my parents the first time in 28 years of my existence, and I've realised how different things are when you are at a distance. I've learned how one has to talk differently when one is hundreds and thousands of kilometres away. How both you and others talk more politely, care more and show both more love and restrain. Because ultimately, words are only words and never do the work of physical presence and a wrong word anywhere would take a thousand more to explain while in physical presence, no such thing is ever needed. So yeah, you could say I've grown more mature.

- Lastly, while speaking of people, something else has also changed in regards to personal relations. Over time, from the days of my being regular here till today, I've forged some really close invaluable friendships with some amazing people. Many new friends of the early days have become lifetime friends and I am ever so thankful for it; some of them did leave or just got out of touch over time, but it has been an excellent period all in all.
Between, those who were friends before this blog came into proper existense, are, as you can guess, very much there and going nowhere. I am very lucky in that respect.


So yes, this was a simple, personal post about me and you, my readers; and though I haven't profusely apologised for my absense, as I sometimes do, I want to convey to anyone who would read this that I truly missed being here. It gives me heaps of joy and a sense of ease writing here and which I am feeling right now as I come to an end of this post. I will love to be here and write more and hopefully engage you in what I write too.

Thanks for being here. Until the next post, au revoir.











P.S: This post is 1023 words long(including this P.S.), if someone wants to know. ;)

Comments

  1. Hi!! It's good to see such a post from you. And after ages, too! I'm a bit surprised seeing you come out so freely. It was lovely to read all the updates. You do know, kind of, more than two-three languages, which is so cool! Anddd good luck with your writing project! Rock it! ;)

    And boy, oh boy. You got a CAMERA :D Such amazing pictures too. I absolutely love the one with the big rock and stones on top. How did you manage to click it? Where was it? How did you put those stones LIKE THAT? :O I love the butterfly one too! Where did you get such practice from, I wonder.

    Living away does make you learn such a lot. Not that I'm experienced, but I kind of want to live alone for some time.

    Blogging, ah. Haven't we seen the golden period of it? I'm so glad to have been a blogger at that time. It used to be such fun! Perhaps it still is for the newbies (haha!) but I get your point. And yes! I've made some really cool and true-blue friends through blogging too. It's just amazing.

    PS- HAHA to the PS :P

    Your readers missed you too! Keep writing! I, for one, hope you write another TT story as well. ;)

    ReplyDelete

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