It's mid-afternoon and I'm home, heading to bed for a nap. I started taking some new vitamins today and they are making me feel "off." Off in the sense that they cleaned out my intestines in a very forceful manner. I need to recover from the traumatic experience.

Before I get to my recovering, I need to send many applauds and congratulations to a classmate who informed me today that he received one of the highly competed for internship positions for the writer's conference BSU is hosting in June. Good for you, Karl!! I couldn't handpick a more qualified individual myself.

You're total comes to $4.25, please pull ahead to the second window. Thank you.

It's a gloomy day, but still a great day to be outside. I just finished doing some raking and then played some rough and tough basketball--by myself. I'm regressing into the stage of having imaginary friends and basketball opponents!

Why is raking "fun" in the spring? Cabin fever, I suppose. I despise winter so much.

I was talking to a friend of mine who used to live in Bemidji but now lives in Pasadena. (This friend actually exists!) She suggested I look into applying for a job at Pasadena City College when I'm done with my graduate studies. I'm already fine-tuning my resume.

My "roommates" are becoming ill, one by one (yes, they actually exist as well). I'm trying to stay away with the hopes that it might bypass my immune system. Illness is just so annoying.

My head hurts.

It's been a while. I haven't felt much like posting here. I still don't really as I sit and write this.
I just got back from a painful walk, with the rain/snow stinging my face. Tonight, sometime after 6:00 pm is the beginning of Spring. Bullshit.

War has begun. Even in the beginning of the world upheaval, love still prevails. I happened to be visiting family this weekend, when we had a great surprise! I'm blessed to have been there for it all.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a good friend about committment. "Committment's not just me loving you as long as I am emotionally attached to you..."

I wonder how people find the strength to be dedicated like that. I imagine that's the beauty of true love.

Sonnet XVII

Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

STUDIO TOURS

I've been assigned to tour the following blogs and comment on them as directed in the assignment link above:

Walk Away Renee
joggua
At a loss...for words

Keep on walking, Renee!

Walk Away Renee is one of the blogs I've visited on a regular basis throughout the semester, so I was glad to see this was one of the three I am to comment on.

I've always appreciated the honesty of Renee's posts. She keeps readers attention by her great use of links throughout her text. For me, it's like opening a fortune cookie when I click on the links, wondering where it's going to take me and how it relates to what she's talking about in her blog. I compare it to a puzzle sometimes, trying to find the connection path of her text to the reasoning behind a chosen link. In my opinion, this sort of deliberate action is what often keeps a reader coming back for more.

I hadn't read Renee's project proposal until this assignment and was surprised to discover another part of the project that I had no idea existed until now. It got me to thinking about the fact that I was reading her blog for the last several weeks, in a perspective totally outside of what it seemed was the intention of her proposal. I'm not saying that's good or bad, merely an observation.

The proposal indicates that she wants to do reflection of her non-English classes. Specifically, the Focus says, "I will post weblog entries that focus on topics from non-English classes I have taken at Bemidji State University. In my blog I will strive for a casual contemplation approachable through an organized topical structure of the wiki, which I will use to report on my blog." I looked through the class cubby independently and attempted to cross-reference them to the posts on her blog and had a difficult time making the connection. This could in part be due to the fact that I already have a bit of a personal "attachment" of sorts to her blog. It's almost as though I don't want the structured academic part that she talks about in her proposal to taint the beauty and freedom that I appreciate already. I'm curious if her project has simply changed from what she intended or maybe I'm making a completely incorrect observation.

From Walking to Jogging

Murray's joggua is also on my list of favorites, long before this assignment. Josh is following his proposal exactly as planned.
His posts tend to be responses to things in the news and I give him major props for often posting his response in the same style as what he is reading. I get a commentary, journalism "feel" while reading Murray's posts. Even as some are very casual in tone, they are consistently giving me the impression of being deliberate and well-planned. There are times where he lets the readers in to have a view of who he is as a person, but then others where he keeps his distance, each time exercising those decisions very effectively.

I like the links to the left of his entries to the various news sources he is using. I recall the first time I visited this project that it gave me a brief glimpse of what kind of responses I might be reading. My brother always says you can tell a lot about a person by where they get their news. Only recently did I start to consider this....

I find myself wondering about the story of the "Open Door" knowing there must be a great story behind it. In my opinion, joggua is probably doing exactly what pioneer bloggers hoped blogging would become.

Finally at a Loss After Walking and Jogging

How lucky am I to have three of the blogs I visit in a regular basis be part of my assignment rotation?

Jessica's At a loss...for words is of particular personal interest for me because I was going to keep a similar blog for my project, but decided I wasn't brave enough to expose myself to the class, finally agreeing to continue the dieting diary I've been keeping in Microsoft Word, with the promise to switch to blog once the semester is over.

I love the honesty of her posts and the way she integrates humor so effectively while speaking to a topic that is sometimes touchy in our society. I am able to see her coming to realizations about herself right in the middle of some of her posts, which is exciting for me as a reader. I find myself wishing she would go into more depth in her posts about how she is feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally--along with when she eats what she eats and how much and wondering if there is any correlation between any of it. Possessing the hectic life of a student, I imagine it's difficult to keep up with the blog and as a simple suggestion wonder if posting several short entries a day, rather than one summative entry would be more effective for her schedule and for the overall success of the blog.

Though it may be difficult to find the benefit in writing down what she's eaten, I hope that Jessica goes back to the "consumption diary." I think it requires observing over several weeks, even months, before one can truly decide if it's worthwhile or not. I'd also like to suggest maybe looking for ways for Jessica to "pat herself on the back" via her blogging. Rather than mentally punish herself for not going to the rec center, she could focus on what good she's done for her body, even if it's something as simple as taking a 10 minute nap to rejuvinate or to paint her toenails, just because. Don't stop now, Jess, your audience is counting on you!

Responding to Blood

If you are going to keep a weblog, it must be for the joy of writing alone. You will never have enough readers, an if that matters, you will always be disappointed.
Weblog audiences grow very slowly, but the readers you attract come deliberately. Do what you can to deserve their attention, and accept that your audience may always be very small. Through your efforts you can hope to gain a few readers and the respect of your peers. Do your best because you love it, appreciate the readers who visit, and don’t allow your statistics to ruin your fun. Rebecca Blood

When I started my blog at the beginning of the semester, I was extremely concerned with the idea of audience. I wanted it to be clearly defined so I could establish a persona and go with it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the fact that this is academia distorts the entire process for me.

Initially, once I gave up the idea of audience, my entries became “better” and I took more ownership over my blog. I felt much more freedom, yet at the same time, much more focused in my writing.

I agree with Blood’s statement of keeping a weblog “…for the joy of writing alone.” It was when I reconciled that in myself that I actually gained an audience outside of the obligatory hits from classmates. Of course it was just friends, family, and colleagues, but nonetheless a faithful audience who actually enjoyed keeping up with my thoughts via the blog.

When the semester shifted to the project blog, my time and energy for the personal blog greatly deteriorated, causing the entries to be weekly, at most. I did my best to take my audience along with me to the project, but they have told me it is “…boring as hell….” I’m disappointed that this meager audience has now left me. I now fail to do as Blood says by blogging “…because you love it….” The project blog is 90% for the sake of getting my grade in this class. In trying to come to grips with the fact that my only audience is my professor, I try to keep reminding myself that it’s beneficial for me as an instructor to have the time set aside to reflect and write about the progress of my class—especially in such a challenging time of the semester. That’s my “bright side” of things.

How, exactly, do you develop an audience for blogging? We could look at other forms of writing to see what process they go through to target an audience, but I think it’s next to impossible to compare a form as unique as blogging to anything else.

John Scalzi compares the aspect of blogging audience growth to other media forms’ audience growth in his column, Whatever, on April 8, 2002, saying,

Since the raw numbers regarding 'blog visits are somewhat shaky, the numbers regarding their percentage growth are likely to be equally so, but I'd be interested to see if the top 10 'blogs, whatever they may be, averaged the same sort of percentage growth last week as the top 10 conventional media sites. If they didn't, then the odds of Nisenholtz winning his Wired bet just got better. Not only that, but Vincent's argument of 'blogging being an alternative to a liberal media (many 'bloggers are conservative) is shown to be somewhat specious, since it shows that when people want news online, what they do is go to the usual suspects first.

Incidentally, it's also worth noting that many of the most popular 'blogs are written by established journalists and writers -- i.e., people who have made their writing bones before coming to the 'blog lifestyle. … Whether the 'bloggers choose to recognize it or not, they still look to and crave recognition from the very media they profess to irritate or, with more hubris, plan to usurp.

So does this mean our audience is more dependent on our reputation outside of our blogging persona? Does what I write have as much to do with who I am? If I intend to have an audience outside of those I already know, I suspect not. However, the thought of establishing an audience sounds daunting and to be honest, like something I have no interest in doing. I’m nothing but a first year graduate assistant. I’m barely able to sort through my own thoughts enough to put them in writing, much less expect an “audience” to form and wade through the mess that is my thinking.

This idea of comparing blogging audience to other media audience still intrigues me though. I searched further and found the article, Blogging: The New Exhibitionism, which says,

Blogging trades the hidden, questionable biases of the mass media for the obvious, proud biases of a human being; blogs are perhaps not more objective than other information sources, but are certainly more honest and up-front about the particular spin on the news they present. The exhibitionistic nature of many of those drawn to blogging means that blog content often provides a much richer, deeper portrait of its author than the same content would if presented in a newspaper article, for example. For all of these reasons blogs represent the quintessential medium for our modern attention-deficient, instant-gratification, self-absorbed, and voyeuristic culture.

What blogs don't typically have is a large, readymade audience -- the "mass" in "mass media" -- which is a given for mainstream media outlets such as CNN or the New York Times. In the blogging world (or "blogosphere", as it is coming to be known), you have to find your own audience. Blog culture is profoundly democratic, in that a blog's popularity is solely dependent on the quality of its content, rather than the factors which distort the mass media sphere, such as the quantity of a network's ad revenue or the partnerships it has with other corporations. The central currency of the blogosphere is certainly the hyperlink; each additional incoming link to one's work represents more potential readers and fans.

Give all of this information, I think I’m “off the hook” and relieve myself of any responsibility to establish an audience for this poor baby blog of mine.