This post is written in response to the group writing project hosted by Pablo Pabla at Blogsreview.net. You may want to read The story behind my blog for a somewhat related history of this blog.

Why do you blog?

Image credit: Question mark block cookies by rayeosunlight.

I think I’ve been asked this question many times before, especially by non-bloggers who haven’t found the fun in blogging :D And I don’t remember giving the same answers because I don’t have a “default set of reasons.”

When I started my first blog in October 2005, it was to keep my family and friends updated on my whereabouts and the things that I do on campus and off. Before long, I realized that only a couple of my family members dropped by my blog, and (at that time) none of my friends were into blogging and blog-reading. Hence, I reverted to keeping in touch via emails.

After a while, I found that I enjoyed blogging and editing my themes and networking. I’ve also found that I loved to learn new things everyday, mainly because I have always liked working with computers and I seemed to have a little bit of passion for writing, so I gradually moved from writing on (two separate) free blogs to hosting my own personal blog in June 2006.

As with other learning opportunities, the most important lesson was learning about myself, and what I loved to do. So I started two new blogs in March 2007 — one on creating, raising and spreading awareness on issues that we should all be concerned with (The Giving Hands), and one on turtles, which died after a while due to the lack of direction. I very recently revived my turtle blog, The Turtle Talks, and I would like to build it to be a resource blog for turtle lovers or for anybody who would like to learn more about turtles.

What do you hope to achieve by blogging?

One of the best things about blogging is that I get to meet many people whom I later call my friends. I may not have met many of my blog readers, but they’re still my friends nonetheless. So I hope to be able to continue meeting people and making new friends :D

But of course, I hope to influence my visitors and readers with my other two blogs as well. The Giving Hands is hoped to instill a sense of responsibility in ourselves when it comes to our environment, or even our own health. And what better ways to do that than constantly sharing eco-friendly tips and health-related issues? The Turtle Talks, on the other hand, is the beginning of my personal journey to create and spread awareness on the plight of our turtles. Like I’ve mentioned above, it is hoped that the turtle blog would be one of the resource blogs for anything turtle-related :D

Additionally, I would be delighted to know that anybody who drops by leaves the blogs knowing that s/he has learned something new that day :D This would be my greatest satisfaction!

How much time do you spend a day doing blogging related work?

Image credit: Networking by skampy.

This really depends on how much time I have to begin with. If it’s a Friday (and since Fridays are our off days in Terengganu), I would spend a big chunk of my time blog-hopping and leaving comments and basically networking. On top of that, I also usually roughly plan my schedule for The Giving Hands and The Turtle Talks because I am in the middle of developing these two blogs so I would like to ensure that those two blogs aren’t left high and dry for too long. For posts on these two blogs, I usually take between 30 to 60 minutes to draft and publish a post, though I may sometimes take more than 2 hours, especially on subjects that I am not familiar with.

I generally take anywhere between 15 to 45 minutes to draft and publish a post on my personal blog. These refer to posts that do not require much research (or any research at all). And I don’t plan the posts because it is meant to be a personal blog, not a resource blog. Plus, I’m not a superstar, so I don’t lead a very exciting life, hence I don’t have much to write about on a daily basis. Plus, who would want to read about MY LIFE all the time?! :D