So, Why DO I Blog?

Midwife with a Knife tagged me with a meme asking for five reasons why I blog. I've read some other folks' responses to the meme, and they're all more interesting than mine, so feel free to skip.

But, if you're HeoCwaeth, Chaser, Ancrene Wiseass, Styley Geek, or New Kid, I'd love to read your response! (A lot of folks have already been tagged, but if you haven't and I missed you, please consider yourself tagged and let me know so I can come read!)

So, my reasons:

1) I have an ego the size of a large city or a small state. I'd be willing to pontificate at length in person, but no one wants to listen.

2) I like to read what other people write, and once I started reading blogs, I thought I might be able to contribute something. I thought I'd have something useful to say. I'm less and less convinced of that. Nonetheless, I love what I do, and I blog in part because I want to talk about what I do, what I read, what I care about. And sometimes I want to complain about things, because even the best academic department, colleague, administrator, or student can make me crazy sometimes.

3) I think we academics do a lousy job explaining what we do and why it's important to everyone else, including our students. I guess I hope blogging will help communicate what happens with education and why college and university education is so important and actually worth paying for with taxes. I also enjoy reading about what other people do, and what their work means to them. It's like a fascinating conversation that I can have at my leisure with multiple people. Cool.

4) A few years ago, I was part of a vibrant on-line community, including forums. I enjoyed the interactions with people across the world, enjoyed the connections, and enjoyed exploring the ways on-line personae work. When I pretty much left that community, I missed the on-line interactions. When I ran across blogs, I found a new sort of on-line community, which I enjoy.

5) I live far from where I grew up, and I'm sometimes uncomfortable here. Being part of the blogging community is a way of having contact with people who aren't from here, or who, if they're from here, are engaged with the on-line world in more open or different ways. Sometimes I like to blog about things that are new and special to me here, birds, gardening, riding or kayaking. And sometimes I just want to scream about how things here frustrate me.

There you are.