Indubitabil, Nu Conteaza.

(part 1)

My first contact with the concept of blogging was in 2003-2004, when I began researching for my college application. Because I had a friend who studied Comm & PR with one of the most renown colleges in Bucharest, I followed his lead and discovered the European Association of Communication & PR Students (PRIME). In one of their newsletters, my friend had interviewed Mike Manuel, who at that time appeared to be a famous blogger with Media Guerrilla. I learned about blogger.com and soon set out on a small blogging journey myself.

Needless to say, my blog was soon abandoned as schooling priorities kicked in. Plus, none of my friends really understood what the heck a weblog was, other than a journal I could keep as well in ink & paper. They did not bother to comment on my articles, let alone take up blogging themselves. That was my first online failure, so to speak.

Moving to Bucharest to attend college opened a whole new world of possibilities.

I was spending so much time online because I was eager to learn more. I didn’t have a home connection or PC yet, so for a couple of months after we moved I was kicking on the bandwidth of Bucharest’s Central Library. Quite expensive at that time, but boy it served me well! I soon found an Internet café close to home and started spending my nights in there sometimes until the sun came out.

It’s then I made my first connections which followed in real life, and spent hours & hours exploring websites such as DeviantArt.com (the first and biggest community of digital artists) and PR blogs with fervor and passion. In my head, this web-wide world of pixels all made sense. More sense than the rigid paper courses I was being lectured in college.

Soon enough, college went priority no. 2, and as a result I dropped-out to pursue my dreams.

Don’t know if it was a smart or a bad a move, but surely it gave me the necessary time to start another blog on Yahoo’s 360° platform, which led to my 1st job as a web-content editor/copywriter (and my 3rd job IRL).

Because I didn’t quite have the basics of a full-time job involving high responsibility (my prior jobs were short-term and part-time), I kinda had to face a painfully slow integration and assimilation process. But as time went by, I figured out it takes a very committed person to go along this path. And after some while, I understood my heart wasn’t fully there and I had other plans in mind.

I wanted to succeed as a Project Manager, event organizer (as I had gained some experience while volunteering w students associations) and online author.

Needless to say, stepping off from one job to embrace another in the same field but with a little more perspective, turned out to be an even more challenging task. Not long after starting, I kinda landed on my face, bear hands. Took me some time to recover but…

Now, I’m at a point of starting over, reassessing and hopefully going for the things I love.

Looking at you from this side of the screen, I wonder:

• What’s your general experience with/of www? 
• What are some of the apps, platforms & services you use online?
• What are some of the services that have an offline correspondent (e.g. eBanking) you are more likely to use on- than offline?
• How many of the folks you have met online became your friends in real life?
• What has been your deal-breaker at work so far? Would you consider quitting a full-time job to become a web-entrepreneur?
• What dreams are you willing to pursue no matter what?

Have a look at the current project I’m involved in. Might just give you a little inspiration for the day.