As you can likely tell by the fact that I am rushing to finish my blog at the end of the term, blogging is totally not my forte. I was talking with Joanne a few weeks ago, and she made me wonder why that is. I came up with two reasons, and here they are:
#1. Some weeks, I just don't have anything to say about Beyond Borders.
While I'm sure if I racked my brain I could come up with something about BB to blog about each week, it isn't every week that something jumps out at me. Though I mean this in a positive way, the BB experience is a long one. There are 8 months between starting out and actually flying to your host country. Some weeks, nothing happens on the BB front. Some weeks I am up until ungodly hours of the night writing papers three nights in a row, and I don't even think about my blog. Some weeks, quite frankly, I'd rather watch Friends, Gilmore Girls, and Veronica Mars on DVD and forget school exists. Blogging rarely takes priority in my life, and I don't know if that is something I need to apologize for or just accept.
#2. Often, life is a struggle, and I don't want you people to see me fall.
I have had an exceptionally difficult term this winter (more on that later). From day one in January, things just didn't come together for me at all . . . in fact, they fell apart. Numerous times. Whether it was academic administrivia, problems at work, OSAP issues, fundraising struggles, or something else entirely, things just never seemed to go my way. I have come to love and respect each and every one of my fellow Beyond Bordians, and I didn't feel particularily inclined to share these details with them. It isn't that I worry they'd think less of me (at least not typically), in fact I did tell a few of them about what was going on in conversations. I guess I just want to seem like I have it all together. Most people don't like to show their weaknesses, and I am no exception.
Though those are paltry excuses at best, they are honest. I am now coming to realize that I was wrong about blogging in many ways. It isn't that I really have a problem with blogging. I think it is a worthwhile assignment even though my actions don't reflect that. If I had kept up with everyone else's blog, I would have seen that others were struggling as well, and we could have done a better job of helping each other through that. It is important that I make clear that it was never an issue as to whether or not I wanted to read what all of you had to say, or that I didn't care. It was more a matter of finding time, strength and energy to do so. I can't really make up for lost time, but I am reading your blogs now and I really appreciate what all of you have to say. Thanks for updating even those of us who don't keep up.
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Amy,
ReplyDeleteI certainly hear you on the "I don't have anything to write this week" front, like you said sometimes I got so busy with school and such that I didn't even really think about my blog or what I was going to write, and I remember at one point going to Joanne and saying, "I just don't have anything to say" and she told me it would come, and it did. I think it was hard at first for me to get past the fact that anyone could read my blog at first, and then Ruby told me to think of it as another way to communicate rather than an extension of a personal journal, and this really helped, I tried to stay honest when I was struggling and such but I still didn't share everything that was going on in my life. Eventually i got to the point where blogging was still hard to come up with ideas, but not the hated chore that it started out as. I hope that maybe over the summer if you continue with your blog, it can become something more meaningful to you as well :)