The Project:
As a whole, the blogging exploration was very enlightening. It started off a bit rough with the idea of writing movie reviews on Netflix horror movies, but ended up in a good place. After a week of struggle and stress I came upon the idea of writing about my health. This included what I had eaten, drank, done, and the amount of sleep for that day. At the end of each post I added my own personal thoughts about the day as well as advice or an interesting topic. I liked to call it my public health journal. I could have easily kept to myself and wrote on paper or in a word document everything that I had written in these posts, but making it accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it made me try harder. It’s easy enough to talk about improving ones health but to actually start and keep it up is another challenge in itself.
The Progression and What I Found:
My first post, 3/30/2016, was probably not the most appropriate way to start a life-logging health blog. In the morning and up until dinner I had been doing very well keeping hydrated, eating healthy foods and being positive, but then the nighttime munchies hit. My friend and I hit the town and went to Buffalo Wild Wings where we devoured greasy, fatty, not even that good, not even worth it, deep fried food. I then rationalize my actions by stating that it’s okay to cave into temptation every once in a while. At this point, the start, of the blog I wanted to include quotes at the end of each post. That didn’t quite work. Sometimes I had a picture, once or twice there was a video and other times I didn’t have anything. 4/2/2016 is when I added my first link. That day I had went to the Harmony co-op in Bemidji and tried a nice, cold Kombucha. In this post I share my love for tea and the benefits of drinking tea. After this post I started linking a lot of different sources to my blog. In my next post, 4/3/2016, I have several links that go off into the web for those who want to learn more about each topic. My first reflection for that week went very smoothly. In Proposal Reflection 2 I talk about my week and where I had exceeded my expectations and where I lacked.
The way I organized my post stayed consistent, although the content changed. As I continued with my daily posting I did become more passionate about what I was saying. It wasn’t just about keeping track of my food consumption and what not, I wanted to share advice, ideas and information. This included little things like what Kombucha is or advice on how to lose weight or my thoughts on body image. Another thing that stayed constant was my humor. No matter the subject I felt the need to add some light to the subject. One post that didn’t have much to do with health but I still thought was an important topic was on 4/7/2016 where I talk about loving your body. I again go a bit off topic when discussing the male body on 4/12/2016. This was one of my favorite posts because I got to share my outlook on body image even if not everyone agreed with it. Looking back on a couple of these posts I notice that I may have been a little redundant but I also always added some new information some how.
As the semester narrowed down towards the end I did tend to write less in the “thoughts of the day” section and the “advice” section. This was because of several reasons, the weather, papers, exams, work, lack of sleep… etc. Unimportant. My last post, 4/19/2016 and 4/20/2016 was an odd one. I talked a bit about marijuana and whats “bad” and “not so bad”about it. I did start another post that was going to sum up my blogging experience but, I never did post it.
In all, my posting was daily but, it was all over the place. I didn’t have specific topics for each day, but I did make it a point to have something interesting in each. The amount of viewers and likes fluctuated as well. My motivation to post also fluctuated depending on how healthy I had been eating and if I had a topic I wanted to talk about. I really did enjoy this project. It helped me learn quite a bit about the blogging, since I knew nothing about it before. It also helped me realize that it takes a lot of work to keep up with well thought out and interesting daily posts. Kudos to those who do this for a living.
If I were do to this project again I would organize my thoughts a bit better and use specific themes for each post. If I were to become serious about my blogging I would also use my own photography/ art and perhaps even interview people about how they feel about their health. I think getting outside sources really adds to a post, whether it’s a link or an opinion.
One thing I do regret is not being as involved in the blogging community as I could have been. I don’t know if it was because I was new and felt like an “outsider” or because I was nervous and didn’t want to be shot down for any sort of reason. Perhaps if I find time or gain some serious passion for blogging I will start again.
To conclude, I found that blogging is not for me. I don’t have the motivation or brain power to be witty, humorous, interesting, insightful, or any of the things it takes to be a successful blogger. I’m not saying that being successful is what blogging is about. I would be quite content posting about my health every day and only having four to seven likes, but I lack the drive. In order to be good and truly enjoy something one has to have the passion to do so.
My final statement: I had fun and I learned. Thank you.
I guess equalism is a thing (I just made that shit up)
The Hum 