The school 🎒
Back in 2015-18, writing blogposts was all about curiosity. I still don’t know how I was so boosted at that time. I was at 10th standard. Didn’t own a computer at that point. Parents didn’t like me doing something on computers. And had have a valid reason to block me from using it.
See me.. I was very good at studies from 3rd grade to 7th grade. After that, I turned out to be an average. It wasn’t intentional at all. All happened unknowingly and I became more aware of it after each test papers. Fast-forward! what would you expect me at 10th grade? I was even slipping down from the average position.
How can I request to have a computer for me at this point? You would try not to ask anything about it to your parents. Obviously, they don’t have a good impression on your performance at this point. Anyways, i knew I’m not going to own a computer very soon, if they are deciding it on the basis of my grades.
It was this time I was participating in School level and district level Technological fest conducted by Govt of Kerala. I was lucky enough to get a good score at school level and district level. Obviously, there were many good fellas at district level competition and they took over me. I never felt disappointed at those time. Because I had some other fellas with me back to home, LOL!. They were into electrical machine, motors and other stuff. So, we didn’t get into State level competition. Although,it was all some good time.
The internet cafe
It’s funny that, at this point my teachers and parents would allow me to use computer lab after school time was over. So it took that time to write my blog posts. I never liked to sit at the school lab. So I used to go to an internet cafe in our town and used to spend 1hour a day. Mostly 3-4 days a week.
Now, I was getting ~3-4 hours a week to use a computer with internet. Now, the good thing about this internet cafe is that, It was the cheapest internet cafe In our town. The charge was 10rupees (~0.125$) per 30 minutes. But, no downloading, uploading is allowed. But browsing is unlimited and YouTube was still okay. It’s no loss for them because, if you stream anything >480p , you’d see the buffering too.
Now, in this cafe, there was nothing to cover your monitor. So everyone could see what you are doing.
Since i was mostly blogging, I’d prepare contents from home after typing in my phone and format everything, publish from there by opening my Gmail draft. Because, it would be weird to type everything at public when everyone is seeing you. I never felt it comfortable. That’s why I used to write stuff in mobile. I still do the same too.
The other nice thing about that cafe is - The owner would allow me to upload videos to my YouTube channel at that time. I didn’t know why. I knew the owner well since I was their all-day customer.
Good business = more customers 👽
Later, My friend used to come with me as well. He used to spend time on Facebook. Oh! I regret that badly. I’m the one impressed him to use/try Facebook. Facebook was good back then and was a respected place to be in. Had a good reputation too. People were curious to find friends and say “hi” each other. But, now it’s a not the same.
We also would spend time playing games from the same cafe. Yes, this place has some good collection of games. GTA San Andreas was our favourite game. So we used to learn the cheat codes while at school so that we don’t have to look into the printed paper placed at each desk. Oh! Another thing about this place is - There’s only 5 computers here. But almost 10 chairs, which wasn’t the story before. There were only 5 chairs at that shop. Knowing more kids would come, owner bought 5 more chairs. This wasn’t good for us. So, more fellas found out this place and later on we were rarely getting seats. Most kids were crazy and played for 2-3 hours and they would only leave when the shop closes. Later, a new Shop came out of nowhere with PlayStation 2 and 3. It redirected some traffic to that side of the city.
Diminishing curiosity 🌚
Time went so far, i got into 11th grade, Computer science. I started making small static websites using blogger on demand for anyone. And built one blog for my school as well. At those times, i wasn’t writing much articles. It was either YouTube or nothing at all. Stupidly, Google Adsense was never in my mind. At 12th grade. Things weren’t that enjoyable. You gotta study a lot. Class ends late and starts early. Who has time at this point to visit internet cafe. So I wrote nothing at all. This led the website unmaintained for couple of years.
A little competition is good
It took me almost 1 year to write a blog post after that. During the ,10th - 11th grade, I had a friend of mine who was also having a tech blog. We always had a competition from within inside of us on the basis of the most number of blog posts. Contents were usually about Android tips,rooting, tweaks, IT Quiz, etc. But we were waiting for our own new contents. It was so good. It was never a really competition. But, I don’t know how to explain it. All we knew is, we were having a good friendship. We met from a WhatsApp group where we had IT quiz on every weekend. I would ask the question and everyone else can answer, winner on basis of points. This inspired me to create a Networking group and used to conduct Network related quizzes. Mostly about subnetting and basics. Remember one thing that , this was all back in 2016,17. The group had may active participants. Even CCNA certified fellas used to attend the quiz LMO! We all taught ourselves many things. One guy followed the same way all upto Cisco architect level. What we ended up with is, the willingness to learn new things. It wasn’t all about the points. People would come at 9PM to attend the quiz. Getting sourrounded with curious people felt so awesome.
Diminished curiosity 🚶
There are times in our life when we think that we’re super busy. After passing through such, I understood one thing. We’ll always have time for something if we really want to do it. We’ll never have a job/time which we cannot complete or have to work till death. We may feel that we don’t have much time when we are not managing everything.
You’re not busy 🏊🧗🏌️
I had to write about this to answer myself when I ask - “why didn’t I write/maintain my blog for years while others did fine”. Remember this thing. Just don’t think that you’re living in mess and noisy world. Try to find a peace on everything. Then you’ll have the time for anything you want to do in your life. If you want to learn swimming, just find time for it rather than saying you don’t have to time for such. But if you’re really living in such a busy life, get out of it. You’re not having a balanced life there. Read my story? I thought I was busy during my college time. But we were waking up at 8AM, to college, cricket, then to bed. 😂
I believe everyone has time to do the things they want in their life. If we really want it. Anyways, I wish you the very best in your life. And wishing a great weekend! Idk why i wrote this btw!