So I’ve been thinking of keeping a journal for some time, of recording my thoughts and posting regular entries to my Web site. A few things have been driving this idea.

The most obvious rationale is this recent sea-change in my life. My relocation to Singapore has been nontrivial – it’s a big deal in fact, at least to me. I’ve been reckoning with an immense docket of changes and challenges. All of which seem like ideal fodder for posterity; an amateur writer in me feels compelled to record what I can.

I’ve also found myself writing the same emails repeatedly, relating anecdotes over and over to different friends back in the States. I’ve no intention of cutting out personal correspondence entirely, but there’s something to be gained (or carpal tunnel to be prevented) from supplementing those communiqués with this publishing approach. I hope.

“This journal will be a grab bag of whatever’s going through my head, delivered as coherently as my hack skills will allow.”

You get the reasoning. For a tentative idea of what I have in mind, click here to see what’s been posted already. You’ll find two essays I’ve been working on while preparing this journal for public debut. The first entry is my somewhat maudlin goodbye to New York. The second reports from a detour I made in Sydney, Australia before settling in Singapore.

However, these two aren’t necessarily indicative of what’s to come. This journal will be a sort of grab bag, culled from whatever’s going through my head at the time. Of course, I’ll try and keep it all as coherent, interesting and entertaining as my hack skills will allow. You should know that I have a history of intense, highly productive writing spurts that are inevitably short-lived. Eventually distractions and procrastination get the better of me. By keeping some pressure on myself to make public progress, I’ll hopefully find the impetus to write regularly. I won’t promise too much at this stage; if I can manage even a sustained level of randomness, it will be an achievement. Enjoy!