Hello all! Today, I stumbled upon a website called Way Back Machine. Basically, it's a web archive that displays screenshots of websites at certain points in time. I decided to check out the screenshots of some of my old websites and boyyyy was it a throwback!!! I started out making websites on webs.com, or "freewebs.com," in 2009. Freewebs was an extremely popular free web-builder for many webmasters and webmistresses of my generation, especially graphics websites.

Anyways, THIS is what my first website, Sunny Chic, looked like in the beginning. I was such a noobie... *cringe*. Look at that unprofessional-looking premade template, and here's the funniest part: in my sidebar, I had to explain what a sidebar is. Wow. Just wow. -_- *facepalm.* I do miss some of the old interactive content I used to put up though, such as Sunny Chic's Got Talent and Dear Sunny... my website was such a feel-good, empowering website for girls and that's exactly what I branded it as :')

Many more tacky website layouts later, my website naturally transformed itself into a graphics website. Why? Simply because I was following the trend. To be quite honest with you all, I did not particularly like making blended images of other people's photographs on Photoshop. Some part of me felt like it was almost stealing, like it wasn't right in some way. I did it just because I wanted to be popular. As a little girl (I was only 8 when I made Sunny Chic), I was very materialistic... well, I think most little girls are because of their naivete. They dream of becoming child stars, of living in castles, and of marrying a handsome, rich, impeccable prince one day. And I was no different. I wanted to be the youngest, most famous web guru in the world; I wanted to live in a big, big house; I wanted to be surrounded by expensive dolls and adorable stuffed kitties; I wanted to be spoiled and I wanted attention. Although I shake my head at the me that existed eight and a half years ago, I do not regret my experience because I did grow to love creating photography and digital art (graphic-making included, eventually, after I discovered royalty-free stock photos) and it led me to become a somewhat-master of Photoshop.

So anyways, continuing on with the story... As mentioned before, I did eventually fall in love with graphics-making. After being hosted shortly by a good online friend at the time Victoria, at her website frostedrain.info (my subdomain was then fable.frostedrain.info), I entered a contest for reecito.info (no longer open) and I won my very own domain, my first one yet!!! I decided to name the domain re-dream.info because to me, true strength is having the bravery to dream again when your dream gets crushed into pieces the first time. It was during that period of time where I believe I made some of my most beautiful digital collages/graphics:

(Don't worry, I believe all of these collages were made with stock photos that are free to use.)

I also ventured into vectoring and typography:

And one last confession... my name is not actually Sunny. I gave myself this alias because my real name is one of those un-pronounce-able Asian names, and also because at first, I thought it would be unsafe to give out my real name on the interwebs. But you best believe that Sunny is a part of me. She's the braver, more outgoing alter ego who is never afraid to follow her dreams!!!

I hope you all enjoyed this rather nostalgic, cheesy (sorry about that guys :P ), and "heavy" post. Let me know if you all would like to read more sentimental posts like this in the future, haha. Thank you everyone, for allowing me to have this amazing journey of almost-a-decade. I've met many amazing people, read many inspiring stories, and practically just grown up with all of you. My beginning intentions may have been shallow, but trust me when I say that I am blogging 100% out of passion now. I know I do not blog as frequently as some of the other bloggers you read, but I am in my 3rd quarter of junior year in high school and sometimes reality just need to be dealt with first before I can escape into my dream realm here. Oh, and I should have many awesome new photos for you all coming up because prom (prom is a school dance, for those of you who don't know) is in less than a month for me!!! So excited... wheee.

Also, one LAST bit of news:

The charity promoting education which I am president of (Teach to Learn Foundation New Jersey) started a new online book club. Hope you all can participate and follow the blog: http://book-cult.tumblr.com. 

(We are the NJ branch of a nonprofit organization. We donated 1,700+ books to school destructed by Hurricane Sandy and we are currently working in partnership with Ronald McDonald House to provide meals for the families there. In addition, we are also partnering with  Kits for Kidz to send school supplies to underprivileged children in Nigeria.)

Alright guys, that's all. Byebye...

Dream and re-dream again!