Reflection/The Last Post

This is it, The Last Post.
If I was a blogging veteran, I would probably throw in a reference to ANZAC day here, you know, with "The Last Post" and all? I can't quite think of a good one, so this will have to do. Though I am not yet a blogging veteran, I feel I have come a long way.

I must say, first and foremost, that I feel a lot more comfortable writing a blog entry than I did at the start of the semester. I've known friends to be criticised for what they say in their blog, or even just for having a blog. I suppose I subscribed to the idea that blogs are a little self indulgent. I'm not sure that I particularly believe that now. If writing a blog is something that you enjoy doing, as long as you aren't harming anybody else, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with doing it, as far as I'm concerned. Those that feel your blog is pointless or pretentious can opt simply not to read it. Problem solved.

As I look back on my blog posts for this subject, what is most interesting is that I can view my thought process, as I read through each blog. While writing an essay, what I end up with is a very refined version of a lot of research and information. With this blog though, I used each entry to focus on one key question. I would then pour out a stream of thoughts and information, which then led me to an answer. Much of the time, I would already have an answer. What the blog allowed me to do was to find out why that was my answer, and whether or not my natural response was justifiable. This helped me a lot when I did my essay, as I already understood what was at the core of many of the issues I wrote about in the essay, having gone through them in my blog.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until yesterday that while going through LMS that I found a section with blog instructions, tucked away in some folder that I apparently hadn't checked for the whole semester. Apparently, each blog entry is supposed to be roughly 300 words. To borrow from a social networking site, FML. My understanding was that it was up to each of us in the class to determine how long our blog entries were to be. I certainly hadn't heard the number 300 thrown around.

Some of my entries are clearly more than 300 words, but upon reflection, I'm not sure that they could really have been that much less. I remember being informed that the blog was to be used as a way of reflecting on some of the key questions of the course. This was what I did, and it was only because some of these questions had answers that were quite intricate that my blog entries ended up being so long. Oh well. I apologise for perhaps not being quite as direct as I could have been, though I still believe that allowing myself to work through the ins and outs of the important questions helped me through the course, and I perhaps wouldn't have been able to do so in 300 words.

And now, even this entry is getting a little long, so I will end it shortly. The thing that I liked most about this blog, was the freedom to write the way my thoughts occurred to me, rather than presenting only a glossy, finished piece of writing. I can see why so many people write blogs, particularly journalists, who can perhaps afford to be a bit more controversial, as well as write longer, more detailed pieces than they would ever get published. Though I began this class skeptical about blogs, whilst I may not continue writing a blog after this subject, I can certainly understand why others might. Then again, there are a number of things I enjoy thinking, and sharing thoughts about, so perhaps I will start a blog one day. When I do, though, it's more likely to be about Football or music, than it is about social media. But that's the whole point of blogs, and online media in general. They can be whatever each of us wants them to be. And if my blog sucks, there's nobody to blame but myself.