Blog 101. That’s the name of today’s game, and actually really the game of the following month.
As some of the more regular people on this blog may have noticed, I have certainly not been regular in my content. Ever. I even claimed I was leaving this blog for another, but it was too hard not to come back…
Luckily, WordPress came up with an idea to get me writing again. ‘How about an organised course with ideas for everyday to play with for a month?’
I like a challenge. Unfortunately I’m giving myself a stupid challenge for today on top of the main one – mainly being to write this in five minutes so i’m logged into the university system in time for results (uni results today for me!)
Soo…let’s see how much reasonable content can be created in five minutes….
Today’s challenge is an introduction post. I’ve done these in the past, but the for the sake if the challenge, I’m happy to oblige. It’ll just be more in a sort of retrospective way, so rather than ‘what will I do on this lovely little webpage?’ I want to say where blogs have taken me so far.
My first blog was this – thoughtofVG – A mad conglomeration of ideas, criticism and poetry with little direction at all. I loved it though, and it has managed to collect a reasonable, if not large following over the time I was more avidly using it.
Then came TVGinChina, which unfortunately had to be created on a horrible website called offexploring due to The great firewall of China blocking WordPress. This blog tracked my experiences of being a volunteer Teacher in Far western China for a year. This was also when ThoughtofVG originally started to disappear. It’s hard to post on a blocked website.
Oh and there’s the five minutes over, uni marks are available…I want to carry on writing instead though. Sorry university marks, you shall remain neglected a while longer!
Now I’ve started a language blog at polyglottingofVG, and this is my main blog currently. This post I however decided to stick on Thought as I see it as a kind of central point for my other blogs, even if it isn’t the main one currently!
So, about me for new faces, or as a reminder, or for those who really really hate about pages which are separated from the main blog thread…I’m sure that’s a thing…
I’m Tim Van Gardingen, I’m 21 living in the UK and I’m a language student. My degree is in German and Chinese, but I learn Swedish, Arabic, Dutch and a little French on top of that. Languages are awesome, and I like to give them the attention they deserve…which when you have so many on the go at once is a serious lot of attention.
I also have a soft spot for music, art, literature, philosophy and travel too. I had a whole year where in my spare time I was able to travel across China, and that certainly gave me a travelling bug.
For blogging aims, I’m now wanting to learn after 3 years on various projects how actually to gather a following with shared interests. That’s why I’m taking part in blogging101. With a following with such a mutual interest, I hope that there can be to some extent exchange of ideas and experiences. Sharing ideas and knowledge is powerful, so with a bit of luck I can learn a bit about how to gather a following like that!
And thats blogging101 1. Too many 1s…