Hi, everybody!
I'm supposed to write some reflections about my first two weeks of blogging. Do you see the photo on the left? Well, it perfectly explains what kind of approach I had with this activity at first!
I knew what a blog was, of course, but I had never used one before. I usually don’t spend a lot of time navigating the internet, especially because I still don’t have the ADSL line at home, so my parents go out of their heads when they recieve the telephone bill! For this reason (and for many others ;-) !), I’ve never developed my t
echnological skills more than what was strictly necessary. So, try to image what my reaction was when I realized I would have to spend many and many and many hours developing my personal blog for the following eight months! Yes! I immediately became sad, worried and angry like the poor Donald Duck you see in the image on the right! So, I must admit that I began my experience on blogs a little mistrustful. But at the same time, I entertained hope because teachers told us that this year course would have been a good opportunity to improve our written and spoken English. And I need to improve a lot my English! I knew that it would have implied a lot of effort, but how can you better without any effort? Fortunately, after a first moment of disorientation, things have been bettered. I’m gradually finding my feet with blogging and soon I’ll have the ADSL line at home! :) After two weeks, I can say that the idea of blogging is quite good; I’ve seen that it’s a very useful way to share information. For example, thanks to my peers, I’ve discovered a great blog on recipes (thanks, Marta!), I got new information on translation tools, and I visited new web sites on travels, which could be very useful to plan my travel to Scotland. To tell the truth, I sometimes find difficulties in writing my posts and comments: I don’t like writing very much, especially because I spend many time to think about what to say and write: I’m a pedantic “writer”, so I want my thoughts to be expressed very well and I work a lot on my English, which should be as correct as possible. I surely should work more on the time, because I can’t spend the whole afternoon to write few lines… I’ve many others things to study!
As regard the language, I think that blogging could be very useful to improve our English. Until now, the English teachers have insisted on writing skills focusing particularly on formal register and academic writing. I was used to write in a formal way, so now I’m not still able to manage the colloquial written style, but I’m sure we’ll be able to learn it, even because blogging means a constant exercise and exchange of information. I still find difficulties in memorizing new words but I believe that continuing reading and writing every week is a good chance to improve my register. I hope that all this effort will bear fruit!
See you soon!
Bye bye!
Martina