wah lau, i am on Intelligent Singaporean leh!! the IS is like the "inner circle" of the plogosphere. that means, IS thinks my blog is like, quite good lah.
one part of me feels very happy. the part of me who thinks "yeah! now people know my blog damn zai lah" and the part of me who thinks "now sure got alot of people come read my blog." in fact, in addition to IS, the KTM also deemed me worthy enough to be linked to his blog. wah, talk about high praise (and increased traffic!).
that was my pride and my vanity talking btw.
yet another part of me, feels very scared. "with great traffic, comes great responsibility" said spiderman. or something like that lah. the thing i need to ask myself is, with this increase in traffic, will i be inclined to blog differently? should i blog differently? you know ah, i was thinking, how blogs with high traffic, have some element of blogging for the sake of the readers. Take for example now, when kitana and gayle goh are busy with exams, they both leave some posts of some sort indicating to their readers that they are busy and hence will not be blogging as often.
will i become like that too? (or maybe i already am?) i'm a quite slow blogger, since i take quite a few hours to publish one post, and when i'm more busy with my offline life, then obviously i dun blog so much lah. if i ever reach "popular blog" status, will this mean i must blog at least once every two days, and then those days which i don't, must send apology post to my dear readers? must i be more careful, since i dun want to offend my new audience and be careful not to say something which might tick them off? or be even more lagi careful not to say anything seditious or anything that can "wound religious or racial feelings?"
but isn't blogging is just about writing what i feel like writing?
why do i blog in the first place?
this blog started out when i was introduced to the blogosphere during the WSM incident. i wanted to start blogging because i wanted to be part of the community which criticizes the pompous and tyrannical elite. (herd mentality?) but of course, i had to do it with style. no style means your blog won't get noticed mah. so i thought then lah. that was when i came up with the purple/blue spilt persona idea.
yet, very shortly after i started blogging, i was exploring around the blogosphere, reading what people say and trying to figure out their motivations, that was when i realized, actually i don't agree with many of the WSM lambasters after all. i began to examine my own motives for blogging, and found myself guilty of indulging my own pride and vanity, and therefore perhaps in some ways, i am not unlike WSM.
i found that i wanted to blog mainly because i wanted to impress people that i can be a zai blogger. i want to be a name regularly featured by IS. i want people hundreds of people to read me everyday, say what a great blog i have and stroke my ego. i found myself disgusting. That was when i contemplated closing down the blog, but in the end i decided to continue on, if nothing but for the sake for further self-discovery.
fast forward to where my blog is now. my blue and purple personas have more or less merged (as KTM have observed), and part of me wishes i chose blue and red instead, so now i can use purple as a merged persona =P. regardless, i have decided that i will still keep the purple/blue distinction, but now as a marker of content (purple = less serious, humorous, personal anecdotes; blue = more serious). purple has much less singlish and broken grammar now, and blue is more relaxed in tone, allowing for humour and occasional singlish. stylistically and tone-wise, purple and blue are pretty much identical, and as the KTM has noted, that's not a bad thing.
i find myself posting alot of "philosophical projects" which are thoughts i always wanted to discuss with people during my student days, but never found the opportunity or the medium. admittedly, some of them are rather technical in nature, but i do believe that they have alot of implications which are relevant to the plogosphere (issues about ethics, religion etc). i just need to find a way to present my projects in a more accessible way (i.e. more layman pple can understand me).
so what now from here? i have yet to complete my journey of self-discovery, and in all honesty, i have yet to discover the real motivation behind why i blog. perhaps this blog will eventually focus more on academic philosophy and will shift out of the relevance of the singapore plogosphere. or perhaps it will die a natural death (or i just suddenly shut it down), when i discover that i no longer have any reasons to continue blogging. i cannot predict. all i know is, i will continue blogging for now and let nature take its own course.
i would like to thank the KTM for his advice and comments, which have been influential in helping me to decide my own path as a blogger. his blog is also a big source of inspiration for me.
"with great traffic, comes great responsibility" said spiderman.
I agree with that. I closed my blog for a month because I was like having hundred hits or more a day in September when my blog was highlighted by Intelligent and Tomorrowsg. I didn't know why anyone would be interested in my blog. Hahaha!
"I blog, therefore I am?" ( blogito ergo sum).
Hope that helps you to come to terms with your need to blog.
KTM, I started my blog to record my ups and downs in teaching and my view about teaching. The sudden surge of readers kind of frightened me. Frankly, I didn't know if I would even get into trouble writing on some issues. However, now, I am used to the number of readers. So far so good, no one thinks I have written on issues that I should not. Actually, must blogs be read? I have another blog that records my life outside school. I think no one reads that.
Perhaps you are unaware that blogs have security settings which allow you to decide who can read your blog or not. Most personal "online diarys" are set to "nobody else but me can read", or "only my friends can read" kind of settings.
My guess is, since your blog can be accessed by the general public, the KTM, understandably, would have come to the conclusion that you do not, at least in principle, mind the general public viewing your blogs. Which then begs his question.
Descartes actually never wrote the words "Cognito Ergo Sum" (which means "I think, therefore I am" in English). He wrote his "Discourse on Method" (1637) in French, so what he actually wrote was "Je pense, donc je suis". But the latin translation was the version that history remembered better.
opps. I meant to say "privacy settings" not "security settings" =P.
If you will indulge the KTM, would you mind sharing why you decided to "record (your) ups and downs in teaching and (your) view about teaching", even though you were (earlier) of the view that your blog was not going to be read?
An alternative would have been to simply do the traditional thing and keep a diary. Were you intending to share your blog with your friends?
As a side note, the KTM thinks that it is good for teachers to blog. Teaching is highly stressful and it's good to have an outlet. Beyond that, teachers can also find support and exchange ideas on how to improve their teaching or system.
The only thing that teachers need to watch out for is their language and etiquette because at the end of the day, there is an expectation on their part of acting as role models for the kids.
Teachers should just avoid foul language and bitching about their colleagues, esp. their HODs or Ps. :-P The latter is quite bad form and will get them into hot soup if their identities are discovered.
KTM, I will answer that in my blog. I think we have started a private conversation here.
I am curious about you too.