About Me — Danielle Baranda
Sauntering vaguely towards the right direction (hopefully) wherever that may be.
There are probably over a dozen iterations of these first couple of sentences in my head by this point, the better ones of which I, unfortunately, was unable to write down. I’ve never been good with introductions. I never know where to begin. For starters, I go by “Den,” but not because it’s short for something like Denise — I’ve had half-hour conversations with people who just assumed that my full name is Denise, and me being me just never had the heart to correct them. My name is actually Danielle, and the nickname stems from this little inside joke from my high school friends about how almost half of our teachers would pronounce it as “Den-yel.” So it just stuck. But I digress. I started this blog just a few weeks shy before college graduation in hopes of getting the habit of purely writing for myself back into my system before the corporate life would get the chance to make me see it as just my job. It was also sort of a mini project to revamp a couple of old college interviews, papers, and essays I’m particularly proud of and post them on here. Still, I never got around to working on it consistently, and the inevitable came: writing became “just work” to me. So, this is a second attempt. And what better way to start than with an introduction.
I’ve been around for nearly a quarter of a century now and have been writing for only god knows how long. I left home when I was sixteen to pursue a degree in journalism in the big city, which is almost an hour and a half away on a good day (four to five hours on a bad one. You can tell where I’m from judging by this bad traffic situation alone). Outside of hell weeks and tons of papers and other requirements, University mainly consisted of lazy afternoons with my friends just hanging around campus, going to concerts, lots of alcohol, and days I still wish never ended. I contributed to our school’s official multimedia publication as a writer and rendered an internship in the country’s oldest newspaper during my time there. I mostly wrote about current affairs, social issues, films, and feminism.
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After graduation, I decided not to pursue working for a media company and instead delved into content writing and production, a choice I made with hesitation. Hesitation because journalism was my life. Staying up to date with the news was routine to me, so were thought pieces, crunching deadlines, and coming up with pitches. I learned early on, however, that my passion and love for it wouldn’t pay the bills, and I needed to save up for my post-graduate studies, which ultimately was the bigger goal, after all. And so, I went into content writing. For my day job, I wrote about architecture. I’d take on some side hustles here and there, mostly news and entertainment pieces and other technical content work occasionally. At this point, I oddly know way too much information about niche topics you’d be surprised is a thing.
The plan was to resign after two years and finally go full-time for postgrad until the pandemic hit, and those plans had to be revised. The longest time I’d been home before the coronavirus was exactly two months. After graduation, I came home and threw a party, caught up with friends, went to South Korea as a gift from my family, and then went out looking for jobs. I’d start working by September that same year and move out almost as quickly as I came home, with my longest visit lasting only a weekend. Fast forward nearly two years later, and here I am. That early morning back in March of 2020 when I made my way home back here feels like an entire lifetime ago. Naturally, I had to cancel a big trip to Europe I had lined up but still pursued my postgrad plans, thinking the online setup would probably last only a semester. Boy, was I wrong? Still, we persevere.
Life has primarily consisted of both learning and working remotely. Outside of that, some mini-projects I’ve taken on since this whole segment of our lives started include reigniting my love for reading novels (for the hell of it outside of my postgrad studies), wrapping up a book I penned when I was seventeen (edits have yet to be made; hoping to self publish by next year), starting (finally) a podcast with my best friend from high school, growing my little succulent garden, and taking more photos on film. When I’m trying to keep myself from getting burnt out, I also take the time to watch movies and catch up on shows I’ve been meaning to see. Honestly, I probably would have gone to film school in an alternative universe. I enjoy watching documentaries about true crime and history, so my love for biopics isn’t much of a surprise. I also enjoy thrillers, the occasional rom-com, and all the gut-wrenching stuff. I do, however, have this weird love for movies from the ’00s.
Right now, I’m hoping I can grow this little thing into a sensible and coherent nook of my thoughts, unsolicited opinions, and random film and book reviews. Maybe even an anecdote here and there. Like that time I fell asleep in a bathroom back in college or all the most random places I’ve been to out of sheer whim.
If you got some time to spare, go check out my podcast. I host it with my best friend and mainly talk about films, TV, books, and pop culture. You can also find me on my Instagram, mostly sharing my latest film scans.
