A small step into cyberspace ...

I’m not sure why but I feel that I need to mention that I am new to blogging. I previously avoided reading blogs as I perceived them to be some kind of diary input where people revealed their soul and discussed how they lost weight in 30 days — with details of what the burger made them think and feel as it reached the pit of their stomach and then the pit of the latrine. (Yikes, am I being politically incorrect and insensitive to a problem that is quite serious?)

Anyway, I’ve recently changed my view about blogging. Over the past couple of weeks I have become a regular reader of Thought Leader. I have admired and envied the ease with which some people managed to get their points across and not be fazed by the sometimes hard criticism they receive. I have always justified this by saying that they are journalists — that’s what they do! They are used to it.

So when the idea of me submitting “stuff” to TL was suggested to me, I was a teeny bit horrified and couldn’t help but wonder if this was a result of my good karma or my bad karma.

After much thought, I decided to do it! It would be a great way to debate environmental justice issues — I’ve been told that online learning is going to play a bigger role in education; perhaps this could be my learning. I went online and browsed through a range of blogs to get an idea of the writing style and the “lingo”. Once again I was hit with trepidation. Bloggers jumped from one idea to the next and then back to the first with a conclusion on something that they never discussed in the first place. What the hell was this?

Well, I have decided to take the plunge and try this out! The thought that something I write may be open to public scrutiny is quite daunting. But even worse is the thought that nobody would even bother reading what you write because it is not worth their time or energy. Funny enough, the recent load-shedding events that have been driving everyone into a frenzy has actually consoled me — maybe people just won’t be able to get online and read my blog.