Why I Blog

I was ironing clothes and I remembered something from a couple years back.

As I've mentioned before, junior year I was on drill team. At one of our competitions, I performed my solo and won the runner-up spot. I remember being completely surprised when they called my name seeing as the soloists that had gone that day were completely amazing and tough competition. Needless to say, I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the night.

I bought a shirt there, the kind with the competition's name written in blocky, neon letters; I wanted to remember that day and my performance forever. Later that weekend, I even went to Hobby Lobby and got some iron-on letters. I stood in the teeny hallway of my house Sunday evening ironing letter by letter, carefully spelling out "runner up Miss Drill Team TX" beneath the competition name.

Monday morning at the crack of dawn I got up, got ready, and put on my new shirt. However, by the time I got to first period, I had hidden my shirt under my sweatshirt, ashamed for ever thinking something like that was cool. No one had said a word to me as I walked into school, but I told myself "Who cares, Cristina? Cover that up. It's lame to be proud of it."

In high school, it's really, really hard not to care what people think.

As I've mentioned before, I ended up transferring my senior year. There was no drill team at my new, tiny school. I ended up rekindling my love for choir and sang as an alto with some of the best people I ever had the chance of knowing. When I graduated high school, I was just me. Cristina. Used-to- dance, used-to-sing, and used-to-be passionate about something.

At the beginning of July my friend Sadie and I were texting back and forth about our favorite blogs. I don't know when the conversation turned to what we would do if we had blogs, but soon enough we were thinking of names and debating which platform was best to use. That night, I created this website. I get kind of offended about seeing those pins on Pinterest on "How to Start A Blog in 10 minutes" because it's much more complicated. You may have a website in 10 minutes, but content? Readers? Affiliates? That'll take time. But if you love it, like I do, it's so worth it.

I wasn't really worried what the people across the street would think of me posing in my front yard as my boyfriend or sister took pictures of my outfit. It doesn't really phase me when people wonder why Cam is snapping several pictures of me sipping coffee with a bulky DLSR. I'm just happy to have something that not only I feel passionate about, but others feel compelled to read and comment on.

Like I've said before, the "wow I love this" comments and the texts saying that my blog is more addicting to them than Gossip Girl mean the world to me. Blogging can be a lonely hobby. It's a lot of talking to a cursor on a blank page, a lot of emails back and forth to someone sitting behind a computer just like you, and a lot of taking pictures in your room of stationary objects that don't offer much company.

I'll type through my bad days and bad moods. I'll type to help me make sense of something or to help me make sense of something for others.

I've always written. When I was little, my dad worked for a company called Compaq (it was acquired by HP in 2003). He would bring home "notebooks" (def: laptops) that his company worked to produce and sell and I would get to play with them.

When I was in first grade, I learned how to use Microsoft Word. I would write about my dog, what I did after school, what games my sister and I played. I learned how to print them and how to change the color of the text.

When my penmanship got better, I wrote in journals. Sometime in middle school I wrote a story on the family laptop. It was a modern-day version of Cinderella and I had big hopes to send it to a publisher (not sure I even knew what that was). Then the laptop crashed and Geek Squad couldn't revive any documents.

In high school, I passed notes with Cameron for about three years. Sometimes they were just about weekend plans and sometimes they were more than that, but I was always writing and always sneakily stuffing them into his backpack or jacket pocket.

I should also point out that I read a lot. I read through the teen section at Barnes and Noble by the time I was 12, so I started reading the classics. Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter (before we were asked to read it in school). I learned a lot of writing skills from my favorite authors: Sarah Dessen, Maggie Stiefvater, and Meg Waite Clayton. (Linked them, so you can read for yourself because they are so, so good.)

So I was just thinking of what I should write about for this Monday and since I've been reading a lot (my favorite books over again, magazine articles, old notes Cameron wrote me) I felt compelled to tell you a bit more about why I'm here.

It's always been the best thing for me to write out my thoughts. Within the next couple of months, I have some really deep stuff coming. Don't get weirded out by the sound of that - it's just that this year has been such a time of growth and I have some significant anniversaries/landmarks coming up that I want to share with you.

In addition to that, I'm planning on working on my new website this winter break. There's no telling whether I'll get a lot of work done on it and will be ready to make it go live soon, but I'm also not saying that's not going to happen. So just be ready for a whole new website just in case, ha ha. And if you're wondering, no...it won't be "Cristina on Campus" anymore. I always will be, but I thought of a more fitting title for a blog that holds the details of my life.

Stick around for all the fun!

X,

Cristina