Hello Blogger World! It's me, Monak! You remember me, right?
Hello?
Remember me???
Well, maybe we should become reacquainted. I really can't blame you for not checking in on me after a four year hiatus.
Four years. Now isn't that something.
Starting this blog up again isn't actually my idea. It is an assignment for a class in my Master's program. Oh look at me! In a master's program! Who woulda thought? Turns out, I did, and then I actually enrolled and then I showed up to classes and began school again. I like it.
My third semester began last week, but I missed the first class because my Grandpa O'Neall passed away on January 4. I needed to go home and see my family and this morning at 0200, I arrived back in Fairbanks. Don't you just love those 2 am flights? Not like the dark and the cold are enough of a reminder that you live in a rural arctic community, but standing outside watching the last cab pull away at 2 am and praying a cab will come by the airport really hits it home.
Since I missed the first day of class, I am blindly writing my first post. I read it is intended to be a blog to transcribe our experience as researchers. As communicators, it's important to be able to write to communicate. Lucky for me, I can write better than I can speak, and discovered the therapeutic benefits of blogging long ago.
When I wasn't studying for my master's degree in Professional Communication. Now let's work on this researching thing.
I contemplated starting a new blog, a fresh start - one that would be dedicated to these studies, but (obviously) decided against it. I already have one that will work perfectly fine to showcase another phase of my life, another era, and (hopefully) academic and intellectual growth. This leaves me vulnerable to judgement from previous life, but we all have them, so...so what?
Extra credit points are given to find an academic article demonstrating the benefits of blogging for academic purposes. I found that blogs have been considered by academics as both beneficial and cumbersome, but as Rohan Maitzen points out in his article, it is mostly about discovery and connection. In an excerpt from his first blogging experience he states:
Hello?
Remember me???
Well, maybe we should become reacquainted. I really can't blame you for not checking in on me after a four year hiatus.
Four years. Now isn't that something.
Starting this blog up again isn't actually my idea. It is an assignment for a class in my Master's program. Oh look at me! In a master's program! Who woulda thought? Turns out, I did, and then I actually enrolled and then I showed up to classes and began school again. I like it.
My third semester began last week, but I missed the first class because my Grandpa O'Neall passed away on January 4. I needed to go home and see my family and this morning at 0200, I arrived back in Fairbanks. Don't you just love those 2 am flights? Not like the dark and the cold are enough of a reminder that you live in a rural arctic community, but standing outside watching the last cab pull away at 2 am and praying a cab will come by the airport really hits it home.
Since I missed the first day of class, I am blindly writing my first post. I read it is intended to be a blog to transcribe our experience as researchers. As communicators, it's important to be able to write to communicate. Lucky for me, I can write better than I can speak, and discovered the therapeutic benefits of blogging long ago.
When I wasn't studying for my master's degree in Professional Communication. Now let's work on this researching thing.
I contemplated starting a new blog, a fresh start - one that would be dedicated to these studies, but (obviously) decided against it. I already have one that will work perfectly fine to showcase another phase of my life, another era, and (hopefully) academic and intellectual growth. This leaves me vulnerable to judgement from previous life, but we all have them, so...so what?
Extra credit points are given to find an academic article demonstrating the benefits of blogging for academic purposes. I found that blogs have been considered by academics as both beneficial and cumbersome, but as Rohan Maitzen points out in his article, it is mostly about discovery and connection. In an excerpt from his first blogging experience he states:
taking this extra step each week not only helped me identify the purpose, or, if writing retrospectively, the result of each class, but it made each week more interesting by giving me an opportunity to make connections or articulate puzzles or just express pleasure and appreciation in ways that went beyond what I had time for in class. I pursued links between my teaching and my research projects, for example, as well as between my teaching and my other 'non-professional' interests and activities. I articulated ideas suggested by class discussions that otherwise would have sunk again below the surface of my distracted mind. Blogging my teaching enhanced my own experience of teaching. (Maitzen, R. (2012). Scholarship 2 . 0 : Blogging and / as Academic Practice, 17(3), 351.)If an academic article still leaves one to wonder, I found "15 Reasons Why I Think You Should Blog" from Joshua Becker a good personal reminder.
Looking forward to seeing you around more often. I'm off to reading 1,000 pages of textbooks now. Ciao.
1 comment:
Mindy...I like that you continued your "old" blog. As we discussed in class, you are not only an academic. You are shaped by your life experiences, and how you view the world (in all aspects of your life) is important.
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