Welcome to Year 5 -- I'm just as confused as you are

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! It's officially January 1, 2013 here in the Philippines, so while I run around with a glass of wine (my first new year as a legal adult! ;D) and most of you wait for the new year to come in your time zones, why not sit back and watch me run around like a headless chicken?

I'm just kidding. Kind of.

I know 2012 wasn't exactly my best year, and therefore it wasn't the blog's best year either, but I really, genuinely thank you guys for sticking with me during a roller coaster of a year.

There aren't a lot of you left, I know that because I read all the Best Of comments and they didn't come in truckloads (that's okay!), but I promise to try my best to make 2013 a lot better, and hopefully attract more loyal readers in the process. The most important thing to me though, and maybe to you as well, is that this year Pop Reviews Now turns FIVE. Yes, I know, time flew faster than all (FIVE!) of my best-of lists combined, but I've come this far. We've come this far.

Five years. Five years. I keep trying to drill that into my head, but it never sticks. It's been five years since I started this blog, not knowing where it would take me, and not really expecting it to take me anywhere, actually. But it took me to places I never knew I'd be able to go. And here we are -- five years. None of this would've been possible if you guys didn't give that insecure thirteen year-old a chance back in 2008.

Thank you for taking time out to not just read my ridiculous theories and messy reviews (even if that's a tiring thing too most of the time), but contributing your opinions and interpretations, especially because I'm only five years into the process of developing my writing style. Your comments made my writing the way it is now, and even if most of the time I get really defensive, you continue to iron out the imperfections in it. It means the world to be able to learn about music not just from my dad or my family who're on the producing side, but from people who are on the receiving end of that music, because without you the music would have little or no purpose. I really wouldn't have it any other way.

Enough of my mush, I'll save the rest for April, when the blog actually turns five. On to more important things -- how will turning five affect the blog?

I don't actually know yet, to be completely honest. Like I said, Pop Reviews Now isn't technically five years old until April, so I might wait until then to start celebrations. I have some ideas swimming around in my head at the moment, but none of them are developed enough to reveal, and none are really permanent enough to start on this early. What I do know now though is that I want to make an effort to write better this year, and I want that effort to show even more because five years in existence wasn't a very easy thing to accomplish.

Which is why over the next few weeks, in addition to (hopefully) writing more reviews, I'll be brainstorming for new ideas, and testing them out little by little. Like I said earlier, your input is probably the most important part of this blog, and I look forward to reading your comments over the course of the year.

But in the meantime, I have a massive Gayo Daejun recap to write once I finally watch the MBC show! Again, happy new year everyone! :D