Good Things About Bloggin'

You can tell a blog junkie when he, or she, rants and raves about the positive aspects of blogging giving you the impression that he or she has to keep on blogging or else the rainforest is going to be wiped out from the face of the earth. Don't ask me how rainforest has gotten into this. At this point, I'd recommend you not to get into a debate with a hardcore blogger over the of pros and cons of blogging because there is no way you can win this argument. He or she has had the mind locked that blogging is the next best thing that has ever happened since mobile phone. Nothing compares to blogging. Nothing will ever come close. He or she might even come to the conclusion that it is much much better than chatting. Some of you may agree. Some may disagree. Some just couldn't be bothered. But this is not about agreeing or disagreeing. It's about something I haven't figured out yet.

And what is the big thing about blogging that has caught on in some people as if his or her mind has been conditioned by an entity floating around in the cyber world like wandering spirits whispering, blog blog blog blog...And you go, yes yes yes yes..., your eyes turning red, fingers dancing on the keyboard at the speed faster than the legs of a pregnant centipede about to give birth to a triplet. Centipede ain't mammal, right? Nevermind, this is not about science. It's about the positive aspcects of blogging and what it can do to a person trying to assume a congenial personality. And more importantly how the assumed personality can contribute towards making this world a more sensible place to live, and how your family will benefit from all this financially and emotionally

For one thing you make friends. A lot of friends the majority of which you might never meet in your lifetime or speak to on the phone. This is not a bad thing. It is one of the unwritten rules of blogging you've got to respect as the whole idea about blogging is to remain faceless but yet at the same time an open heart surgery in itself. By that I mean you can write anything you want and no one has the right to stop you from saying things that you have always wanted to say like, my nose is too big. You can say this, typing the sentence in large font, upper capped and underlined, bold, upload a picture of your nose in extreme close up. You can bet your left ear no one will give a bother. Instead they might leave a comment like, 'I kinda like big nose. Let's go out Saturday night.' Or someone might leave another comment 'I have a big nose too, let's start a club to take over the world. It's about time they recognize us big nosers the way they are going to honor left handed people.' By the way, I am left handed.

There you go, another good thing about blogging. Now you know I am left handed. I didn't mean that it is good for you to know that I am left-handed. What I really meant was you got to know about my being left-handed via blogging. Mobile phone can't do this. I can't fit in a statement 'I am left-handed' while talking to you about olive oil. Unless of course you ask a direct question like 'Are you right-handed or left-handed?' What's the chance of you asking me this question? A million to one. That's why blogging is good. You can get around to discussing about any issue any which way you want it.

You may meet a few fellow bloggers in real life. And you will cherish this meeting. Nurturing it in your mind as memories that you won't let go because you don't know when will you ever meet them again. You may have forgotten how they look like but given a chance, you should be able to spot them in a crowd the way you can spot goat cheese from piles and piles of processed cheddar cheese and yoghurt.

As for me, blogging has motivated the desire in me to learn English the fastest I can. Now I am quite comfortable with present perfect continous tense. And past participle. Gerund. Passive voice and active voice. Subject verb agreement. Of course I still have a lot to learn and figure out ways how to use these in a sentence so that I will appear 'educated' and 'well-schooled' and 'metropolitan'. Some of you may remember how horrible my English was when I first started to blog. That's one of the reasons why I deleted the entries I had started from September 2005 and start over. Some friends sent me email demanding that I post all these back. According to them it was the part of me they find rather amusing especially my natural talent to write a sentence a mile and half long before someone says, hey! there's such a thing as a full-stop, you know. I almost had Kak Teh breathless once when she tried to read my sentence. I figured I'd better not kill anyone that way and so I learned as much as I can about independent clause, conjunctions and modifiers. Adjective. I even have to re-learn nouns all over again. Funny thing is, I don't remember English having this many areas that one has to learn. All I remember about my English lesson at school was a pretty teacher whose name I will never forget. Miss Low Bee Lia. According to Sir Awang Goneng she should be somewhere in Google Land. So far I haven't come up with anything that could be use as a positive lead. I'd marry her if she's still single. Which is hardly likely. English teachers don't stay single long enough for me to become an adult so I can marry them. Them? That's plural, right?

I am still not very familiar how to use all this elements in English grammar but I'll show you what I can do with these if you give me a chance. And how else will I be able to show you if we didn't have this BLOG thing? And it's good to know that I can still write the way I used to write i.e sentences three mile long before coming to a full-stop. So now I've got two different styles of writing. And that's good because now I can choose to be either a metropolitan, suave dude, or a cowboy with rough hands going after women with flowers in the hair, chasing after them up the stairs to hear them giggle like firecrackers.

And that's another thing about blogging. You know a blogger like the way you know your own relative. Not a distant relative. A close relative whom you meet often, or grew up with. Or a friend with whom you used to share a room during your varsity days. In fact you feel that you know a blogger so well that he, or she, won't get away with a lie or two should he or she decide to write something that doesn't seem right. Or doesn't quite fit the character you have construed in your mind. You can pick it up the lie he or she tells the way a radar can detect a bogey coming out of the cloud from behind a mountain. You know this because you have read him or her for a month to know roughly what kind of person he or she is. Like now you now Tuesday is my laundry day. And you also know that Tesco is a big thing in my life. Do you know where your sister, or brother, does his or her grocery? You'd know if he or she is a fellow blogger. Otherwise you may have to guess.

Blogging has also enabled me to be invited into the living room, kitchen and sometimes bedroom of fellow bloggers reading about things they write on familiy issues like a plasma TV, dinner, a new sandwich maker or a pressure cooker. You don't invite a stranger into your living room, do you? Well through blogging I can walk through your house in 3D animation. Let's not discuss private things they write about concerning bedroom activities. That's not good. Or is it good since we are all faceless individuals with stories to tell? I shall leave it to you to decide since this is a moral issue that I don't want to get involved in. See? I use 'shall' instead of 'will'. How do you think I could have known how to use that in a sentence?

And blogging can take away the boredom of being alone in an apartment. Instead of watching the changes in the cloud formation every five minutes, I now have a better option what to do with my time. I visit people's blogs to read the things they have to tell. I may leave a comment, or just write 'present'. I'd like to think I invented this 'present' phenomenon. It has caught on a little although not in a big way. It's a convenient way to remain neutral while at the same time, informing the host that you've dropped by to say hello. It's a form of courtesy. I'd like to believe it will catch on in a big way. Too bad I won't get any royalty for it.

And that's another good thing about blogging. It's free in every sense of the word. You can express your opinion freely and no one will give a hoot. Of course once in a while you will receive a nasty email for your opinion but since you are as faceless as the guy who sent the email, it doesn't really matter. I've written about my stance on a lot of things that I believe didn't go down too well with a lot of bloggers out there but I didnt' receive any bomb threat or something like that for my opinion. As far as I'm concerned blog allows you to practise the concept of democracy in the real sense of the word. What can be more democratic than this? Not even India can match the democratic principles of blogsphere. In that sense, blogsphere is better than the real world. But don't get too excited that you want to throw everything you got and become a professional blogger earning enough money to scrape a living.

I can go on and on but you've got a schedule, like you too need to write your blog so I can go visit it to read, and leave a comment or just 'Present' Bergen.

To fellow bloggers, cheers!

Next entry: At the Taekwondo tournament & lamb cutlets.

Word count: 1,741 or thereabout.