Over the years I've had, I believe, five different blog accounts, four of which are still either active or at least valid, if somewhat dormant. Until Live Journal got blocked that was always my main blog. For a while I had a backup at blog-city, but blog-city got blocked, so I abandoned that (I really hate using proxies) and opened a backup at over-blog, which is now my permanent backup (and getting a hell of a lot more traffic than it used to). I started using blogspot a few months ago, at first just playing around, seeing what I could do with it, and when Live Journal got blocked, I decided to make this my main blog. I also experimented with canalblog for a while but deleted that blog when I shifted my main blog here because I use the same username for both and I wanted to avoid any possible conclusion. After deleting that canalblog blog, I discovered I still had a live account there, and I couldn't find a way to close that.
So here I am with more blog accounts than any sane person should have. I intend to keep my Live Journal account semi-active, I have obvious and good reasons to keep this blog and its backup at over-blog going. What the hell do I do with this canalblog account, though? Well, I suppose I could let it expire.
Then last night I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, mind refusing to shut up and let me sleep yet again, and I thought, well, I fell out of the habit of studying Chinese regularly months ago, and I really need to start that again. How can I motivate myself? Wait, I have this fourth, unused blog account at canalblog. Maybe I could use that as a motivator. Yeah, I could post my own attempts at writing Chinese, like I used to do at Live Journal, and I could also post stuff on what I find in my textbook or in 余华/Yu Hua's 活着/To Live (the first novel I'm attempting to read entirely in Chinese- and I'm making very slow progress indeed). Yeah, if I can keep that going regularly, maybe that'll help keep the motivation going. Well, it's worth a shot, anyway.
And just so you know, the new Chinese study blog will be Bezdomny etudie chinois. I can't guarantee it'll actually continue to be updated. It may well fall into disuse like it's predecessor at canalblog.
So I guess I better get on to setting it up properly and updating the blogrolls here and at over-blog.
4 comments:
I've got five as well, but only that LJ one has ever been downed because the host got blocked. Spaces in the main one; blogspot the spare, but you wonder how long it'll be before that gets blocked again; another with a host whose ethical record is questionable and which I never knew what to do with; and a fifth one, now unused, which I acquired because I needed to sign up to a website to get a file. The LJ and the last of these had specific purposes.
I should post a little more to the blogspot one to keep it active, but I'd need a specific purpose, because Spaces has been getting more traffic recently and I don't want to divide my focus.
Anyway, using one blog for your study of Chinese sounds like a good idea and may keep you motivated. If it doesn't, I'm sure lzh will keep you motivated, but not in a good way. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I think four is the most of had at one time. I'm also now up to three photo accounts, one of which has no photos, another of which has only one.
I understand the whole divided focus thing, which is why I've only ever posted my 'real' posts (i.e., those that aren't inane rants about whatever is in the news) to my backup blogs. It's also why I intend to only keep my LJ alive enough to read my friends page, even if it finds itself back on this side of the firewall.
Trouble with lzh is she's only good for oral Chinese and listening comp. She's never forced me, or even really encouraged me to get stuck into the reading and writing that I need. She's supportive, but I need her to kick me up the arse every now and then, cos I'm hopeless at motivating myself. That's the reasoning behind a specific Chinese study blog. Now I just have to keep the bloody thing going.
It appears that my Spaces blog, as you suspect, has been 911ed by Nanny. I'm switching to Green Bamboo on blogspot (http://green-bamboo.blogspot.com).
Bloody nuisance, of course. I'll at least be able to post a valedictory message on Spaces when I'm in New Zealand late next week for my sister's wedding.
Odd, I would've thought Spaces would be quite safe, considering Mr Gates seems to have his hand firmly planted down the government's pants.
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