Personal Blogs

Now that I've been doing this for a few months, I'm starting to notice the similarities in how people start out.  When I started I really had no idea what it was all about.  I'd never read someone else's blog, or even considered that I would want to.  I'd heard of the concept, but it was just a word that went in one ear and out the other.  I decided to give it a go one day, really just to do something other than study, and make the laptop time a bit more diverse.

If someone comments on your early posts it's a really good feeling.  Well it was a really weird feeling for me, because at the time I was unaware of the 'site entries' link, and thought that people had miraculously found my comment.  I understood how people from my course could have found it because I knew that clicking on my name led them there, but the people who commented were not, as far as I was aware, from my course.  But I think if I had understood that element of the OU blogging system at the time, then it would just have been a good feeling.

Then there's the needy phase, where you put a few posts up saying you probably won't keep it up, desperately seeking the attention of your fellow students.  Crying out for someone to say keep blogging!  It's as though it's too self-indulgent to keep doing it unless you know that someone else cares.  Looking back at my first entries I wasn't too bad for this, but I was a little.  It wasn't so much that I didn't want to blog, it was more that I thought I might like to move it away from the OU.  I remember being concerned that when I stopped my studies that I would no longer have access to it, and that it would be quite sad to see what is effectively a diary being virtually burnt.

Anyway, then there's your first rant.  Be it sober or drunk, there's always a rant. 

Then, if you get through that without deeply offending anyone and getting a comment that makes you never want to blog again, you enter the relaxed bit, where you no longer care what people think.

It's much like friendship.  My long lasting friendships have gone through all those phases, in one form or another.  You meet someone you think you'll get along with.  When they speak to you it's exciting, but you're nervous.  Then they turn down an invitation to something and you worry that they don't like you.  Then you feel sure that they do and start speaking more freely.  Then at some point you discover that you have polar views on one particular topic, and have a blazing argument.  This is often years into a friendship.  If you manage to accept your different opinions and to just 'let it be', then you emerge with a very strong bond.  Well that's often how it's been for me anyway.

I find this blogging quite relaxing.  I love reading all the other entries on here.  The course related ones I skip a bit as I often have no idea what they're on about, but the others I read.

Recently I discovered a new phase that I'm entering, which is the fear of the long standing bloggers!  There are a number of key bloggers with the OU, and I definitely get a sense of achievement when one of them comments on a post.  Slightly fearful beforehand that it's a negative comment, of course!

Anyway, there have been a lot of new people joining in recently and it struck me how similarly we all behave.  It must be human nature.  I love it when I read someone's first blog and it says something positive. Breaking away from the mental mould that is uncertainty and understandable caution.  I read those entries and think to myself; there is someone who is confident, and not afraid.  Good on them!  Interestingly my first post uses the words uncertainty and confusion to describe my mental position.  Not far wrong!

I did open the text book.  I read a few pages.  Starting is the hardest part, so I'm hoping that bodes well for tomorrow.  Time for relaxing now.