Celebrating 1.25 years of “You have a what?”
August 31st, 2008Though I made no reference to it at the time, last June marked the one year annivarsary of this website. Since its conception, I’ve written 104 posts and readers have responded with 1,010 comments. 82.68% of my visitors arrive here on a computer running Windows, and 10.06% are lonely. 60.34% of my visitors are smart enough to use Firefox, and 22.91% are still frolicking with the Internet Devil.
Compared to the millions of other websites, both personal and otherwise, there is nothing special nor impressive about these statistics. But to me, I’m somewhat amazed. People read what I write. People I’ve never even met. People I know nothing about. And perhaps even more astounding than that… I’m not shy when it comes to all that I’ve written, nor do I regret a single thing I’ve written.
This is a new idea for me. I have family members who drop by here, as well as family friends, business partners and offline friends—many of whom I never even mentioned my website to. Under difference circumstances, I would usually go through a certain effort to keep my writings private; I’m not exactly the kind of person who goes about sharing things they’ve written with random strangers… And yet, exactly what am I doing right now?
As a general rule, I try to keep different aspects of my life very separate from each other—I don’t mix business with pleasure, rarely intermingle different social circles together, that sort of thing—but when it comes to this little place, everyone sees exactly the same side of me. One day I’m talking about cupcakes, the next day I’m talking about social chemistry. One minute I’m snarking popular television shows, the next I’m talking about very real workaholic tendencies. If you were to average out my personality over the different social circles I frequent, this is precisely who I am and what I do.
(On a random tangent: If I ever applied for a job somewhere and got turned down because of this website and what I’ve written in it—well, that would probably be more than a little crushing.)
Coincidentally, writing here is greatly improved both my writing skills in general and the way I communicate to effectively get my point across. It has been particularly challenging when I speak on serious topics, but it’s definitely a start somewhere—though it has, admittedly, done little to further my lacking love for English as an academic subject.
I bring all this up because I’m curious about other bloggers. How accurately do you think your website represents you as a person? How do you feel about mixing your offline/online life—do you blog under an alias to preserve some privacy and/or security, or are you happy for anyone to find it? What have you gotten out of blogging? And the clincher: Of all the people in your life, who would you least like to stumble on what you’ve written?
Very well written! I must say, I’m a bit weary about giving my URL to people I actually know. However, my Mother, best friends and boyfriend all know and visit frequently. I’m eagerly trying to get better at writing, it’s coming along slowly, reading everyone’s blogs and getting topic ideas on what to write on, rather than the 99% of girly blogs out there saying “I did this today, I did that yesterday, Tomorrow…. I’m doing something different.” Blah blah stuff. Yanno?
:)
September 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pmThe entire premise of my blog is a result of my paranoia of having everyone I know offline finding my blog. It’s not that I write stuff that’s too private, but some of it’s stuff people definitely do not need to know.
There are different sides to me. Most people wouldn’t believe my blogging me is me, and then there are others (thankfully, not many) who could take one look and know it’s me.
But I’m pretty good at staying hidden. I’m on top of it.
Blogging for strangers is surprisingly quite easy, I’ve found though.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm