Syllabus covered!

Blogging and blog-reading is like a unique university module. There is a syllabus, but it's different for each student. There are valuable lessons blogging and blog-reading has in store for each student. Basically, whatever the student ends up learning constitutes his/her syllabus. (So the syllabus is actually released at the end of the course!)

Here's a list of valuable lessons I covered in my 'Blogging and blog-reading 101' syllabus for 2005.

• Just when you think life can't get better, you discover blogging and blog-reading.
• A blog can bring you a lot of joys you never thought you could have.
• When you start blogging about stuff, simple incidents are not so simple anymore. Every little thing has a meaning, an implication, a lesson.
• Your blog evolves with every post. Just like you do.
• Blogging and blog-reading can become an addiction, with its own withdrawal symptoms.
• A single post written by someone can change your life.
• Your friends can serve as the greatest motivation to keep the blog going. Thanks, Sinnerman, for your inspiring words "There's so much more you can do with your blog, Sayesha!" when I was writing meaningless posts like "I got up, went to work, came back, slept." Thanks, A and R, for telling me over dinner at that hawker centre in Siglap that night, "Sayesha, you should never ever stop blogging!"
  
• Your closest friends stop commenting on your blog after a while. But they're still reading. It's either that they feel lost in the crowd or they think "Apni hi Sayesha hai yaar, iske blog par kya comment karna." ("She's our own Sayesha. What's there to comment on her blog?")
• You can really connect with someone on blogsphere. And if that breaks, it hurts real bad. It's heart-breaking actually.
  
• Sometimes blog friends seem to become more significant than your other friends.
• It's through blogging that we can really see how hypocritical and imperfect we are
  
• People can get really bitchy on the blogsphere.
• One nasty comment can ruin your entire day. But only if you allow it to.
• Every stranger on the Internet is not a creep.
  
• There are creeps on the Internet though.
• Don't let bludgers (those who have grudges against you or your blog) bug you. Bludgers are buggers who bludgeon your blog. (Wah, cool tongue-twister, eh?)
• I know a bludger who dislikes me thoroughly, but my statcounter tells me she comes back every day. I wonder why.
• Commentators do not have to agree with everything the blogger says. You can have a huge argument with a commentator, but if it's done in a mature way, you can end up being friends without any grudges of the old fight.
  
• Sometimes, creating an 'anonymous-no-comment-no-profile blog' can help you cope with stuff that your 'normal' blog can't. (Yes, yes, I had created one some time ago to cope with some personal stuff. Don't ask. I killed it recently. It was making me more miserable. I'm so done with feeling miserable. I don't need it anymore.)
• Sometimes you may have a lot of comments on the post, but something just doesn't feel right till that one person comments.
• One can get insanely jealous to see their loyal commentator on the blog of someone they don't like very much.
  
• Some comments can get to your head. Others can make you cry.
  
• The thought of not having a single comment on a post is scary.
• A note about certain commentators -- if you shoot yourself down, they love you. If you love yourself, they shoot you down.
• Your profile picture can become your identity. Like a little brand logo of your own.
• You can fall in love with a complete stranger because of that one post he/she wrote.
• Blogging helps one to accept criticism better, not to hold grudges and to judge people less.
• Your blog can make you some really amazing friends.

Now let's see how much of the 2006 syllabus I can cover.