I’ve always intended to restart my blog, but couldn’t identify exactly what has been holding me back. I realized recently that it was the very concept of rebuilding that has impeded the effort before it even got going. I’ve always thought that in order to restart this blog, I had to rebuild from where I left off, reconstruct my archive of blog entries and then reconnect so many dots from the last time I published entries regularly almost a decade ago. Such task always felt so overwhelming I never got myself to actually start.

It’s like having to produce and exhibit Avengers: Endgame (2019) when everyone has forgotten about all the other prequel Marvel films. I don’t really have the time to explain everything from Iron Man (2008) or Captain America: The First Avenger (2011).

I started my “online journal” on October 2000, when I was a twelve year-old high school freshman. That online journal, which I maintained until around 2010, bore witness to my formative years in high school and college, and everything in between. Since I stopped blogging, innumerable changes have happened. I’ve gone through law school, became a lawyer, travelled the world, been through several life-changing moments. I grew up. I don’t know where to begin without having to contextualize blog entries from where I left off. It felt like starting my blog necessarily meant having to reconnect all the dots from 2010 up to the present day. And boy, those are a lot of dots!

Thus, the resolution is just to start without having to think of reconnecting dots past. Let’s start from scratch. A clean slate. Imagine we are meeting for the first time, and you know nothing about me. I’ll simply tell you things about myself as we go along.

So, hello there, I am Victor Villanueva. I am a lawyer from Manila, Philippines. Nice to meet you.