My Thoughts on Blogging and the School Year. [English Final]

1. Explain one or two ways audience feedback helped you grow over the semester. (It doesn't have to be stuff Sutherland said.)
• Have you been tracking your blog's traffic with Google Analytics? If so, you can respond to this prompt using the rich data that Analytics provides: Where is your audience reading from? What are your most popular posts (and why do you think they got the most traffic?) There are lots of possibilities here...

    In my first literature circle blog post for "Patient Zero", the actual author Jonathan Maberry commented on it. This was a tremendously surprising thing that happened to me and it actually made me feel motivated to dedicate more time and effort into the whole Literature Circle process. For example, my Confessions of an Economic Hit Man book review took me a considerably long time compared to the other one's I've done. This is made evident in my use of multiple quotes found in the novel (which took longer than I would have liked) as well as my analysis of the quotes and some themes that are shown. Peer feedback, well any feedback in this case has proven to get me motivated. It lets me know that people are actually taking their time to read what I have to write and it doesn't feel like as much of an assignment anymore. This aspect of it has definitely made blogging/writing more enjoyable. 

    The introduction of Google Analytics really made me pay attention to my blog more often. I would check out the site every now and then out of curiosity about what kind of data it would read. Actually, I posted a post about how cool I thought it was. Since then my blogging data has evolved a lot. As of November 27, 2009 I had a total of 63 views with an average of 1:38 spent on my blogspot. Looking at it now, I have a total of 366 views with an average time of 1:07 being spent there. A surprising little fact is that my original statement of purpose has had 66 page views alone, 47 of them being from different computers. Now this is one of those things where I have no idea why it has become like that, but for some reason it's the most popular/viewed post that I have to date. My absolute favorite aspect about Google Analytics however, would be the Map Overlay feature which shows where in the world people have visited your blog. I have 366 page views from 19 countries/territories. Now this is really really surprsiing to me because I have no idea how anybody would ever find my blog out of all the blogs out there. Besides having it linked to my Tumblr, I cannot think of any other way people would be exposed to it. I've had visits from places like, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Germany, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, India, Belgium and Norway. These countries are all around the world so it's not like only a certain region of the world has viewed my blog. These kinds of statistics simply amaze me. The power of a blog can be limitless as long as you have valuable feedback and good content. I've learned that people will find your blog and it gives me a kind of grateful feeling. It's cool to know that all the effort I put into this blog isn't all for waste and people are actually reading it. Thank you to my followers especially! 

2. How do you like having a blog? How has blogging changed the way you write, the way you think, or the way you think about writing?
• Has blogging had any other effects on your life beyond strictly your "school life"? If so, explain.
• For the second semester only: Do you plan on continuing to publish writing on your blog this summer, next year, or beyond? If so, what are your writing goals and how will you use your blog in the future?

    Well, blogging for me hasn't ever been a new thing unlike a lot of other people. I was first exposed to blogs back in 2006-2007. During that period of time I didn't write much and it was pretty boring writing. I would just write about my thoughts or my day, like a type of online journal because I knew nobody who I knew would really be reading it. Since then, I've had numerous other blogs made simply out of boredom and as time progressed I started to post more and more frequently. I would actually get to the point where I started to feel kind of bad because I didn't post anything in a long period of time. For my blog before this one (which will remain anonymous), I actually managed to produce 66 different posts spanning from 4/26/09 - 8/22/09, so a little under 4 months. That's pretty crazy now that I think about it. Now this blog that I have now is very different compared to the past ones. 

   

    I feel like it's this one that has been the most changed compared to the previous. First of all, the thing that helped develop my blog was that a post was due every week for a grade, requirements were set and I got to work. I wanted this blog to be something meaningful. When Mr. Sutherland first introduced the whole blogging process I know that I could have just BSed everything and created pointless posts, but then I wouldn't get anything out of this whole thing. The key to having a successful blog in my mind is dedication. You cannot get lazy on your posts, or skimp out on the content of it. Knowing my peers/friends could read what I was publishing, I wanted to write better. I tried to make this blog more formal than others and tried to treat each post as an actual writing assignment.

    I would say that my blogging style has evolved into a combination of daily life posts, along with content filled posts that others can relate to. This has all come together in my latest blog. I don't think blogging has has much effect on my "school life". The one thing I would say however, would be that it has helped me produce writing much quicker and more efficiently. I'm not sure if this is because of blogging itself, or the quickwrites that we do in class, but either way it's helped my writing. 

    As of now, I'm not quite sure if I plan to continue with this blogspot account. Tumblr's user interface is just set-up so much better and has made it easier to get exposed to different blogs and have contact with others. Also, since a lot of people have Tumblr accounts nowadays, (because there was some trend about it apparently....) it's a lot easier to network with a wide number of people that I know. I might occasionally return to blogspot to make a post, but I doubt I'll post more than once a month. As for my plans for blogging in general, I hope to achieve a wider audience, while writing about posts relevant to my life, and not just posting pictures and videos. As said in my statement of purpose I still hope to improve my writing and vocabulary. I plan to also create more posts that are meaningful and post them more frequently. As for now, I think I'm just going to blog when I feel like it. Summer is around the corner and it's been a long long year. Blogging has definitely changed the way I think of writing nowadays, as well as the process I go through with coming up with a piece of writing. 

I hope that this will not be the last post on this blog, but who knows?

Thank you for an amazing school year and I wish you well on your future endeavors. 

                                                                  
                                                        With love,

                                                                Alvin Lee 

Rants

I procrastinated this week and I don't have enough time to write a 500 worded post with some meaning so here's a mix of posts from my Tumblr.

I’m tired of all this. I come home everyday tired and as soon as I walk through the door I get yelled at. Lectured on how I don’t do enough to help out, or on my bad habits. I’m sorry mom and dad, I guess I’ll never be the son that you’ve always wanted and it hurts me just knowing that. In my dreams I sometimes wish I was different. How my life would change if I had actually listened to my parents more often, so then I could bring them more joy rather than disappointment. I’ll never be the kid with always straight A’s, or the one popular for their athletic abilities. I guess I’m just an average kid just trying to get by the best I can, but sometimes that’s just not seen as good enough. More often than not, people recognize you for your accomplishments, but not your effort.

It’s not only a family thing either. When it comes to friends, I hate to be the one to disappoint them. Often times I would come home after a long day of school, log onto AIM and some friends would IM me. They would go on to tell me about their daily problems asking for advice and whatnot. To be honest, after a long day of school and a butt load of homework to work on I’m not in the best mood to give advice, but I will still try my best. Then there are those bad days. Those days where I just don’t feel like answering, where I’m just really in a bad mood. Those are the days that get me the most. It sucks not being there for your friends all the time. It sucks to no longer be the one that someone can rely on no matter what. Everyone has their bad days, but it seems like no one recognizes mine. I feel invisible sometimes

When you’re surrounded by people who are just disappointed by you, or sad because of you, it doesn’t really put you in a good mood. It really hurts when you did something wrong, but the other person won’t mention anything. Pretending everything is okay, but in your head you know something is up. The lingering of a guilty conscious is sometimes unbearable. It hurts that I can’t live up to anyone’s expectations, or even my own. I really put in my effort and try my best, but I guess people just expect more of me and to be honest, I should expect more from myself. I’m sorry that I’m not the person you always expected.

I’ve come to realize something. All those positive comments you get from someone, they don’t mean anything unless the moment is right. Once something goes wrong it’s like all those compliments never existed. Yeah I get it, you’re not always going to think a certain somebody is always the best person in the world, but I mean, why even say it then? Because when it really comes down to what matters, out of the things that do matter, one of them is not going to be because they’re the best person in the world.

No matter how many compliments a person receives, it’s not going to come true unless the person believes it for themselves.  No matter how many times you call a girl beautiful, it’s not going to make her think that she is. Once you start to believe in what others call you, only then can you be labeled as that. This is pretty sad because it seems to work the opposite when you’re called negative names. If you’re being called stupid over and over again, eventually you will start to believe that you are stupid. Funny how that works. Call a girl beautiful who doesn’t think of herself as beautiful, as many times as you want and she’ll never believe you. Call a smart girl stupid enough times and she will start believing you.

Google Analytics is pretty cool.

Do you remeber that time?- [WBP]

I know Weekly Blog Posts aren't required this week, but I'm marking it as one anyways. This was written on my Tumblr, but it may not be posted yet:

Fuuuu. So its 3:17AM right now on officially the early morning of 11/25/09. A lot of things have been going on in my life man. I just feel like I need to type this out somewhere. This is probably going to end up as a queued post so don’t trip if it doesn’t really make sense or anything. It’s just my thoughts on the moment.

What am I doing with my life? We all only go through this ‘life’ thing once. At least that’s what I believe in. We only have one moment to live it, one chance to make it turn out like that of our dreams. All this drama that’s ever occurred, the countless unnecessary arguments I’ve gotten into, the people I’ve hurt, what is the point of all of that? Doing it I mean. Sure, we learn from our mistakes and grow from it, but this kind of stuff seems to always happen either one way or another. It seems like nothing can ever stay the way you want it to for that long of a time. Something ALWAYS happens, no matter what. And when it does, I struggle. I struggle to fight it off, to balance it out, to make everything just like how it was that one moment ago. That moment that will always be stuck in my head. That was my moment of peace, serenity. At that point it didn’t matter what else was going on in the world, I was a happy person. I mean truly happy too, there was not one thought in the back of my mind about anything else, but living in that moment. And now when for whatever reason something happens, I always try to get everything back into that one moment in my life. Or at least I’m trying to create a new moment.

Society dwells on the past so much. Everything that happens, we compare to the past. EVERYTHING. My parents are always telling me “Oh Alvin, you used to be such a good child.” As friends we constantly reminiscence about the past. “Oh remember that one time we were doing this…” As a society we’re even focused on the past. Our economy used to be so good. Our government used to be less corrupt. Constantly we compare everything from the present and link it back to the past. So why does the past keep coming up? Is that past moment, just like mine? That moment that everyone always thinks back to? From my parents point of view, are they just hoping one day that I’m just going to become a ‘good’ little kid again? Comparing every bad thing that I do now with all the good stuff I did back then? From society’s point of view, we as a people are trying to stabilize our economy again right? To get it back it what it was like?

So, I just wonder, does everyone have that one defining moment in their life that they will compare it to everything else? That no matter what circumstance, they just wish and hope that everything was just like that exact moment in the past?

I don't even know if I make sense anymore. At times like this, I just ramble.
http://alvinxlee.tumblr.com/
http://www.formspring.com/forms/?739849-1FhAyvH1hv
(Answers to formspring questions are posted on my tumblr)

Formspring!

Get saucy…really?! XDD

Yeupp. Just wait, it’s going to be a new trend.

plans for winter?

As in winter break? I’m not really sure yet. Just relax I guess. Hang out with some friends. If you mean by overall winter, I plan to get more clothes to stay warm. haha.

I love you.

Aww. Love you more.(:

do you like pie? becus i do. :D

I LOVE pie. hahaa. Sadly I haven’t has any in a really long time. PUMPKIN PIE FOR THANKSGIVING MAYBE?? =).

I have a growing respect for you.

Thank youu! I feel like respect is harder to earn these days. <3. how’s your life been lately?

Lately it’s had more downs than ups, but I try to make the best out of it. It’s looking better though!

i like pineapples<3

I’m not a huge fan, but I do like it. haha. Random much..?

GET AT IT:

http://www.formspring.com/forms/?739849-1FhAyvH1hv