It has been a long time since I last blogged here. As fate would have it, the novelty of blogging didn't even last past my first entry. Besides, I was more interested in crapping with my friends in my class blog rather than write about my life in a personal blog - diaries were never my thing.
However, I've changed my mind.

Recently, I had been preparing for my SAT II: Writing, which required me to be familiar with the nuances of standard grammar (read: American grammar). As a result, I've grown into a stickler for grammatical errors. Every time I watch a pirated DVD with English subtitles, I would inevitably cringe at the consistently gross grammatical mistakes being displayed. It was pure blasphemy! How could they trample over the sanctity of the English language with no remorse? The pirates really need a lesson or two in good grammar - perhaps, I should pass them my Kaplan SAT II exercise book.

Before I digress further, it is this new-found obsession with grammatical perfection that has revitalised my interest in blogging; I needed an outlet to practise writing good English - not just grammatically precise English, but clear and succint prose as well. I had a new mission: it is to raise my standard of writing.

It is not that my English is poor, but I've always felt that I never really did possess the ability to write effective prose - I was incapable of making words dance. Moreover, in the process of preparing for my SAT II: Writing test, I realised that I was severely ignorant of many aspects of English grammar, which I initially thought I'd a pretty good grasp of. This startling realisation made me all the more determined to make things right by re-learning grammar from scratch.

Nevertheless, it is insufficient to just be aware of the various mechanisms of English grammar. I wanted it to become second nature to me, to flow from me seamlessly like a factory production line. The only way to achieve this is to write continuously, and thus my blog is reborn.