If I Could Thank You in More Ways than One

Exactly a week ago, June 7, I woke up late. Too hungry for skipping breakfast, I settled for a bowl of cereals and did the first thing I do everyday, i.e. check my blog. Surprised, stupefied, stunned! I noticed that my statistics bars for the past days shrunk to teeny-weeny lines.

From an average of 86 views a day last week, it jumped to a 986 after being Freshly Pressed.

I scratched my eyes thinking that I might still be half-asleep and refreshed my Dashboard. It didn’t work, the scratching. But when I was refreshing the page, I accidentally clicked the homepage of WordPress, i.e. the Freshly Pressed page. There, right at the center, I saw the title Saffron Sunsets and the story started there, not in the bowl of cereals.

I couldn’t contain my happiness that I literally jumped for joy. I immediately captured a screen shot of the page. It’s like capturing a photo of your favorite moment. ;)

Proud? Yes! I posted this on my Facebook page.

Thank you WordPress! If only I could thank you in more ways than one. Or perhaps, I can. The top 10 countries from where my blog visitors hail are: (1) United States; (2) Philippines; (3) India; (4) United Kingdom; (5) Canada; (6) Australia; (7) Singapore; (8) Malaysia; (9) Japan; (10) Indonesia. For that, Thank you, Salamat, Dhanyawaad (धन्यवाद), Terima Kasih, Domo Arigatou (どうもありがとう).

In addition to WP’s statistics by country, I am also using http://www.flagcounter.com/index.html?

It’s also interesting to note that that post about the sunsets of Kerala was published almost 2 months ago (and I was posting almost everyday last week). I realized that even old posts could be revisited and Freshly Pressed, well, not the very old ones.

It is truly a motivation. To all those who liked and commented, and to those who started following my blog after that (just for the record, my followers doubled after being FP-ed), from the bottom of my heart, I humbly thank you! Because of this opportunity, I get to meet a lot of inspiring bloggers and know more about their own adventures. I was introduced to countless ideas, photos and stories that I wouldn’t have discovered on my own.

Most importantly, thank you Shashank for bringing me to Kerala and for reminding me how beautiful the world is, and so is life.

I am fond of long speeches, but I won’t do that here. Or I did that already? I apologize for I am a drifter. But we have all been drifters in one point or another.

We are all drifters of life.

Love,