Introducing Gabrielle!

Written by: Gabrielle Borromeo

I think it's fair to begin by introducing who I am and why I'm here. First of all, my name is Gabrielle Angelica Rullan Borromeo but that's obviously a mouthful so everyone I know calls me Gabe. Second, I've always been fond of writing. As far as I can remember I started keeping a journal at the young age of 6.

Oh there I am, the little girl sitting down on the lap of my Tito John-John (dad's brother)

I'm not really sure what made me collect journals and go all "Dear Diary" everyday, maybe it was the notion of being organized since I am a freak when it comes to that. I always wanted to be that prim-and-proper kind of girl who seemed to have it all under control.

During my early high school years, I remember finding my old journals and reading them all over again. I was mortified at what I read, as if I wasn't the one who wrote them. I  couldn't believe how I could immortalize into paper such embarrassing moments in my life. How could I keep a memory so humiliating like that alive? What if someone read it? So I took it down. Yes, I tore the journal to pieces for no one to read, for no one to ever have a copy of.

And now looking back, I actually regret destroying it. Huhuhuhu. Everyone's been through the hall of shame anyway, no one's excused from it. So it would have been nice to relive such kill-me-now situations straight from my very own thoughts. But it's not like there's anything I can do now. Haha!

Anyway moving forward, when I was in 2nd year high school, I was Hilary Duff's number one fan. She was not only my favorite actress but also my favorite singer. I bought all her music albums-memorized every lyric to every song, watched every show that she starred in and even collected all her movie films. It's crazy. loved her, she was my idol and saying that kinda makes me feel silly. Haha! 

The Perfect Man starring Hilary Duff.
(Picture taken from http://www.amazon.com/The-Perfect-Man-Hilary-Duff/dp/B000B2YR9C)

She had one movie entitled The Perfect Man that really inspired me-not that it's inspiring 'cause it's not at all an inspirational movie-but yes it inspired me to write. Hilary Duff portrayed a girl who blogged about her life and poured all her emotions to it. Feeling the same way, I did the same. In the year 2008, I created my first blog, which is this site I'm writing on. I blogged almost everyday until I one day forgot all about it.

On the next year, what was in were those Starbucks planners that kept people's schedules in tact. Everyone in school had them, including me. Since I'm a very artsy person, fond of colors and decorations, I wrote using different colored fonts on my planner daily.

The maroon colored Starbucks Planner in the middle was exactly the journal I used before,
I can't really show a picture of it since I burnt it down, haha!
(Picture taken from http://crazyshopaholicme.wordpress.com/2010/11/26/2011-starbucks-planner/)

When I finally graduated high school, I read my Starbucks planner once again and decided to burn it. I just didn't want it to exist anymore. I also wanted to try burning something down, I always wondered how it felt like. I wanted to put into flames the memories and see if the feelings went with it. It always looked so cinematic when done in movies. And so there I did it. It was not that cinematic actually, to be honest it was such a hassle; the smell the smoke made as it touched paper, the ashes it created-totally not worth trying.

During first year college, I was asked to contribute for the Lifestyle section of a Philippine newspaper, the Daily Tribune. I was brought to places and assigned to cover the events and before I knew it, what I wrote was published in the newspaper. My first work was published on May 21, 2011 alongside Reggie Rullan. It was entitled Exploring a World of Hamburgers. Don't worry, it will be my second post in my blog!

Daily Tribune, Without fear or favor (Philippine newspaper)
(Picture taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Daily_Tribune.png)

Later, I was invited to contribute for Cook (magazine), Appetite (magazine) and Tinig ng Marino (a Maritime newspaper). Writing changed me. It helped me see life in the lime light, it exposed me to different kinds of people and it matured me in a way. In short, I learned a lot from a lot. I also met a lot of new friends from the media including bloggers, and it reminded me of blogging and how I missed it.

So once again I created a blog of mine at www.blog.com. Everything went well except I started to realize how limited I was in posting pictures because of the capacity it offered. I already invested a lot there but I couldn't stay, I had to move to a new site. That's when I thought of blogspot. When I entered my name to create a www.gabrielleborromeo.blogspot.com domain, the site told me someone already registered in that name. My eyes narrowed, who could have used my name?! So I searched it up. To my surprise, I did, 6 years ago. That brings us back to my story earlier when I was 2nd year high school and created a blog to express all my emotions.

I wanted so bad to get it back, to enter into the log-in. But it was nearly impossible since I forgot my username, my password and even my e-mail account. For crying out loud, that was 6 years ago, of course I changed my humiliating e-mail addresses to a more formal one especially now that I'm writing in publications. It took me days to figure out how to get back in here and to be honest, I don't really know what strings I pulled that got me in but miraculously I am here (and deleting all my old silly posts). I'm still finding a way to change the e-mail+username and the password of this account into something I know and will never forget.

So much for my first post! Well, this pretty much sums up my writing career and why I'm here. I know it's a long story and most of you probably read the first line and fled as soon as you reached the next but if anyone of you actually got to the end of it-then you know how my writing story all began.

-Gabe ;)