TsukuBlog | What is TsukuBlog?
TsukuBlog is a blog about Tsukuba, Ibaraki, and Japan. It includes articles about events, news, community information, Japanese culture, and more. Various local residents contribute to the blog and we try to post something at least once a day. We aim to be a focal point of local, timely information for Tsukuba residents.
There might be some people out there who are not sure what a blog is, so here is a short explanation.
A blog is a like a journal or a diary that you put online. Blog is an abbreviation of “web log”. It is a place to discuss all kinds of things related to a topic. That topic can be an individual person’s life, something to do with technology, a trip that someone is taking, or it can just be the private ramblings of a particular person.
Some blogs are written by a single person and others are team blogs. Blogs are meant to be interactive, so there are different ways that you can “participate”. If it is a team blog, you can join the team and contribute some diary entries. Otherwise, you can just visit the site and read what other people have written. You can leave comments about the individual entries by clicking on “comments” on the bottom of each entry. You don’t have to be an author to leave comments.
If you think you will want to write up some entries about your life in Tsukuba, we can make you an author. Otherwise, if you just want to enjoy reading the entries and maybe make comments sometimes, you can do that without being a member.
Another feature of a blog is that it can be “syndicated”, which means that you can get copies of all entries to the blog sent to a news reader (or your email address). This means that you will be notified of all new entries automatically, so you can keep up with the blog without having to visit the actual site. You can subscribe to TsukuBlog by clicking on “Subscribe” in the sidebar to the left of this article. You will need a newsreader to read the entries, but your internet browser may already have one built in. If you are not sure, try clicking on the “subscribe” link and see what happens. If you would rather receive the updates by email, that can also be arranged. Click on “Subscribe” to see your options.
TsukuBlog welcomes new contributors, so please let us know if you want to be an author. You don’t have to know everything about Tsukuba to be an author — as long as you have an interest in disseminating interesting and relevant information to the foreign residents in Tsukuba, you are welcome to join.
If you like the idea of contributing to the blog, but you are not sure how to do it, we will be happy to help you familiarize yourself with the process. You don’t need to know any html or anything. You just have to know how to write. Also, it doesn’t matter whether you are a native English speaker or not. As long as we can understand what you are saying, it doesn’t matter whether your English is perfect. It is the message that matters, not the grammar. Also, if you like, you can save your posts as drafts and then get one of the other bloggers to proofread them before they are published.
If you have any questions, please contact us. We hope you enjoy reading TsukuBlog!