a trailblazer, but among my family and friends, and in the case of blogs, I am one. While I’m not precisely an early adopter of the technology, my blog is turning 2 at the end of August, and as everyone does on birthdays and anniversaries, I’ve been having a little mental retrospective about blogs and blogging and my experiences therewith (yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not a word). And because this is, after all, a blog, here’s some rambling on the subject.
At first, I started because I found myself sending more and more links to neat articles or websites I found while surfing to my friends, and I noticed that the volume was very shortly going to pass the annoyance threshold (some might argue that the threshold was long past, but we’ll ignore them for the moment). So, having recently started reading some blogs, and often having a lot to say but no one to say it to (say, at 3 AM), I thought I’d start a blog.
The rest is more or less history, but I’ve learned a few things along the way:
- The blog has caused me to become a lot more articulate than I was; reading myself in print usually caused me, after I stopped laughing, to start thinking about how I said what I said a lot more, and to more intelligently formulate my opinions before I went spouting them to all and sundry.
- The whole blog-catharsis thing is severely underrated. I feel so much better after ranting here that even I’m surprised. And sometimes, getting it in print makes it look so ridiculous that I wonder why I was even angry in the first place. Either way, it’s been beneficial to my mental health, which is always a good thing.
- This kind of goes along with my first point, but I think that blogging has made me smarter. I have pretty strong opinions on, well, just about everything, and writing about them on as wide a forum as the internet has really made me think more critically about what I’m saying and why I’m saying it. Also, I started thinking more about how people could argue with me on various topics I blog about, which in turn makes me hone my reasoning and, usually, discard frivolous or unsubstantiated ideas in favor of more logical ones. It’s made me think.
But I digress. To get back to the original topic—trailblazing—I have, I like to flatter myself, instigated the gradual build-up of a nice little group of friends and family who also blog, who are interested in reading and commenting on others’ blogs, and whom I am getting to know better not just by reading the minutiae of their daily lives, but how they choose to communicate them to the world. I love it!
All of them appear in my blogroll in the sidebar, but here are the sites of my little online family:
- Prachee – my sister.
- Matt – roommate and good friend.
- Jieun – roommate and good friend.
- Lori – good friend who is so busy I never get to talk to her, who is almost as opinionated as me, and who I am glad is finally blogging.
- Ila – my crazy friend whom it seems I talked to five minutes ago even though it’s been months or even years. As of this writing, hours, but still, you get the picture.
- Dev – Ila’s brother, my friend, and faithful and regular blog commenter (which rocks!).
OK, you caught me. I didn’t really instigate any of these people to start their blogs, but I’m going to take credit for it anyway.
The Dev said:
Funksysteme.org was created in October 2004 by Dev and Nehal Mankad, and made with the goal of avoiding the blog classification. It is a collection of writings and articles that are categorized and organized in a vague and unpredictible manner as to avoid restriction of our subject matters(es).
But don’t take me off of the blog roll please, no one ever visits the site. Bon Blog-iversaire! …or perhaps Blog Anniversaire!
July 31st, 2006 at 2:23 pm
Prachee said:
For the record, you absolutely were the instigator for me to start my blog.
July 31st, 2006 at 3:32 pm
ila said:
I am honored to be on your blogroll. I have yet to be quite as articulate as you are but what I lack in that I make up for… well, I am a young blogger only a month old so I will get back to you on that.
I too, found out that it would be a lot better to have one place everyone can go instead of contantly repeating stories or emailing pictures or links.
Happy bday bloggie!
July 31st, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Richa said:
Dev: Yes, for the record, I do know that FunkSysteme (is that “s” capitalized?) is not precisely a blog, though I admit to wishing it was, seeing as my main interest is reading what you write, and it’s not as easy to get to the articles/entries you’ve written as it would be were your site a blog. Just my $0.02.
Prachee: Yay! I’m not a complete liar, then.
Ila: No, the honor is mine.
I don’t get to talk to you much, so this is a great way to keep up with what’s going on with you without trying to coordinate schedules for actual phone conversations.
July 31st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
The Dev said:
Yeah funksysteme.org needs a dewey decimal system or something like that. I’ve been meaning to redesign it but I keep falling asleep. My cousin Nehal and I had a long and involved discussion about the capitalized ‘s’ over a game of Madden 2006. We decided that it should be lowercase.
Just search for ‘Dev’ and click the Author radio if you want to search for my awesome writings.
But I think you influenced much more than my blog. I remember that you were solely responsible for getting me out of AOL and into the real internet and the world of Powwow, the best chat program ever. Then with your original website you fueled me into making Du’s Homepage (since redesigned at http://home.comcast.net/~duman/). I wonder if I would have been in web development at all if it weren’t for our annual 10-day visits.
So there’s your influence. So put it under your pillow and the influence fairy will leave a quarter. Ah haha!
July 31st, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Richa said:
Powwow! I remember Powwow. That is so old school, man. And you give me too much credit. Which I will take, mind you, but it’s still too much. Maybe the influence fairy will give me a quarter!
July 31st, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Lori said:
Yep. You inspired me, Richa. I’m not too proud to admit it.
I love keeping up on your thought patterns and experiences by reading your blog. I miss having you nearby for late-night dinners and even later-night chats.
Since I don’t get to talk to you, well, just about ever, I think this is a great way to share. = )
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:55 pm