benefits of blogging

I have blogged about this before but I would like to blog it again. I am glad I have discovered blogging for I am continuously benefitting from it. I am not a real writer and I have never written as thoroughly as I am doing after I discovered blogging. The only written document I've done before are letters to parents of my students, to superiors and occasionally to some friends. Oh yes, I have done some research papers but not the full-blodded academician that i should be, I only produced boring, up to par term papers. Had I started blogging then, I know I would have come up with something more decent.

But that's not all! Much to my surprise, I have befriended wonderful people for only a short span of blogging. Before I go deeper, I'd like to reiterate that my purpose in blogging was two-fold. First, to have an online journal, hence, it can be said that I am doing this for self-gratification only, and later on, to leave something behind for my children and theirs, so that they would know what I thought of, how I reacted in different situations and why my decisions at certain issues had been. Gaining friends was a wonderful fringe benefit, so to speak. I started out with my Soft Grumbles which was really a trial blog where I intended to put yet another of my experiments which was writing poetry. Not computer savvy as the average blogger, I had to find my way like a blind man using his stick to feel his way. Slowly reading the instructions at blogger, I learned, albeit with a lot of heartaches, how to add links inside and outside the text. I learned how to manipulate my template, and most of all, bloghop.

It was through bloghopping that I realized how inferior my writing was. I envied blog titles which were really catchy and captured the essence of their contents. I was voyeur of some sort as i read and read different blogs trying to find a pattern. And then I chanced upon Batjay's kwentong-tambay. I was so impressed at its uninhibited content, honest and down-to-earth that I literally checked out all the entries in its archives. After some time, feeling that the owner of the site was approachable, I dared myself to put a comment. And lo and behold, he responded! That emboldened me to put more comments on every entry until we were exchanging emails. AFter some time, he encouraged me to put up a teaching blog and Mga turo ni tito was born. He is the loving husband of the sweet Jet whose writing style is flawless. BTW, the two just celebrated their 14th year anniversary as a couple.

Next was the Sassy's house on a hill. Now, this was my model of what straight writing was all about. Just like what I did with Batjay's blog, I kept coming back to look for patterns on how to compose my thoughts into a cohesive, understandable text. Amd as before, I started out as a lurker, trying to get a feel of what the owner would be like. If you take a look at the archives in this blog, you will discover that I was not putting a link in my blog yet during the first few attempts that i tried commenting. I feared that Sassy might go to my site and realize how poorly written the contents in my site were.

Slowly, I learned how to kick my blog a notch higher and people started coming and leaving comments. I then discovered the sites of The Ca t and Doc Emer respectively. These two sites provided me with more models of writing. The Ca t was writing like Batjay's but in a different style of her own while Doc Emer was like Sassy's albeit this time, it was about medicine and health. By this time, I had already grown confident both in writing entries and commenting in other people's blogs.

From thereon, I have been continuously in touch with these guys. Not only were We putting comments on each other's site but we constantly exchanged emails that gave Doc Emer the idea of forming our own google group called the bloggingberks. This group finally decided it was time to put up a blog of our own and blogkada was born. From the original seven, we grew to a whopping thirty three that we decided to stop at that number or we would be having a hard time maintaining it. I have never seen a group that clicked that well. Members include food connoisseurs Ting and fellow rocker Zennor. There's the analytical Jardine Davies who could tackle any issue just like Sassy, who got me involved with pinoy poets, the blogkadahan twin towers and super models Mari and Ajay who did a very good review of my blog in manila Bulletin, voluptuous Mec who's about to tie the knot with a former student of mine, the beautiful TinTin from Fort Worth Texas, Durga from New Jersey, Cerridwen who lives in California, proud mother JMom also residing in the States, strong-willed Svelte Rouge, academicians Ruth, co-teacher Joyce, the cute Ate Sienna owner of Pansitan and designer of my template, beautiful MrsPi, petite tanya, irresistably beautiful and kind Toni, proud mother Sachiko who lives in Japan, sweet Kiwi Pinay from where else but New Zealand? and the youngest of them all, bunsoy Karla.

Not to be outdone are master story-teller Bong K, master computer manipulator, Polo, kind-hearted Watson, student activist Apol, and inspiringly handsome Tatang Rome.