Why am i writing this?
A wise friend recently told me that a blog is like a puppy, you can’t just get one play with it for a bit and then abandon it. This is how i feel in regards to this blog. For over two weeks now it has sat idle and lonely and i must shoulder the fact that i have indeed neglected it. So from now on i will try and write in it at least twice a week. All very well then, but why? What good comes from writing a blog? Is it just to tell people more about myself in an egotistical fashion? Where do i get value from it? Where do others? Hmmm.
For me part of the value of a blog is in bettering my writing skills with the hope of increasing my employment prospects. Recently over a coffee i discovered that a bilingual classmate of mine also has a couple of blogs that she tends too. Upon questioning she reluctantly admitted that they were trashy fashion blogs and that she actually spent a fair amount of time making them look professional, as she wants to get into fashion journalism. What a brilliant idea! She is already getting a foot in the door by publishing content in the area that she hopes to work in, surely this can only greater her chances of getting a dream job.
But this blog isn’t really all that work orientated, unless i plan on writing for a magazine that specialises in what a twenty year old University student named Justin is thinking about (hmmm would that work??). So there is something else that this blog does, something more personal. Have you ever kept a diary? I did from year nine to year ten. I wrote in it every couple of days, and it makes for intreiging reading now. I notice all of the dumb things that i have done or said, and how i have changed since. In some ways it has helped me not to judge other people that say mean, or silly things, because i have self documented proof that i have done similar. It really keeps you grounded.
But why write it on the web for all to see instead of just writing it in Word and saving it under the file name ‘dumb stuff that i just did’? Because it provides an informal, passive way to keep in touch with people, letting them know if not what i’m actually up to, then what I am thinking. And it is rarely a bad thing to know what other people are thinking.
So if this blog fulfils either of the three aforementioned purposes, then it will be much better than a kick in the pants and will be well worth writing in every couple of days.
What Justin is thinking... 