So, how was it?

The blog concept was created so people could easily share their work, thoughts and creativity with others in an efficient, dynamic way. Having a blog means sharing it with the rest of the World Wide Web in the touch of a button and probably not be able to delete it completely if we ever intend to after it is published. Therefore, having a blog means taking responsibility with everything we write and being extremely careful about it. Yes, that seems a bit extreme and if everyone feared the things that might happen to them if they did not speak their minds the World would be a mediocre place. Anyways, for those few brave people, tools like the blog were created.

When our English professor asked us to create a blog for the class, my immediate reaction was: “Oh no, this is going to be hard. There goes my class grade…” To be honest, I fear a little technology. It is not that I think it can be harmful or anything, but the fact that I am not very good with it. Having to create a blog was next to my other nightmares such as having to touch a salamander (they terrify me) and having to drink cranberry juice (I just hate it).

Now that the blog is over, I can say a few things regarding how it went in general. After writing 15 posts, which most of them had an average word count between 300 and 500 words, and if we were going to ignore the fact that it took a lot of my time and energy, overall it was a good experience. Sitting in front of your computer being sure that you can say anything and be anyone on a piece of paper is a sort of liberating experience.

This blog was intended to be a learning experience for the students as writers and I must say that I learned some things with this blog. Not that it made a great, significant impact in my life, but it really made some small improvements. Since our classmates had to comment on the blogs and give productive feedback using the Peter Elbow’s rules (which I will go deeper in them soon), they gave me some ways to improve my posts and helped me be more careful with grammar and other parts with the posts I wrote later. Now, to go a little deeper into the Peter Elbow rules: Honestly I did not like having to comment on every single post my classmates wrote, although I admit it was nice to receive feedback from them (sounds selfish, I know). All of my group members commented in my posts and these techniques did help me somehow, as I said before, to improve the quality of my writing and to make my posts more interesting.

If I were to compare the blog assignment with the journal, there is something to be said: I prefer the journal a thousand times over the blog. The reason for this is because in the journal my vocabulary was more “normal”. With this I mean that I have been taught this rule that you should not write in the same way you speak, and in my journal, since it was a first thoughts writing, I was able to write in the same way that I talk, which I found to be amazing. On the other hand, this blog, being public and all makes me write in a more formal manner somehow and I am less free in that way.  Also, for the same reason that this blog is public, and as I said in the beginning of this reflection, one has to be very careful with what one posts on the internet, so first thoughts is not really the answer for it.

Also, knowing that other people know your thoughts without necessarily seeing your face is great. That last sentence applies better for introverts. I am much of an extrovert but I found it awesome sometimes that I could write anything without the fear of being judged (although most of my readers were my classmates, who know me).

In general, the blog experience was a good one, but for technological reasons (or inability with technology) I would avoid creating a blog just for the fun of it. Having said that, I encourage other people to create a blog and share their thoughts and experiences. See you next time!