What it’s been like being an MC blogger

Hi everyone. This is the last blog for this academic year. The 20^th blog!  I’ve been reflecting on what it has been like to blog for two semesters, and so I looked back to see what I had written when I first applied for the gig. I wrote in part: “Through blogging, I would share information and knowledge which I have gained working and at MC, and write about my journey re-becoming an artist, helping to sharpen my focus and be more directive about my life.”

Yes, I did write about my journey re-becoming and artist, and yes, it did help to sharpen my focus and be more directive. It was a good experience all around and it kept me in reflective mode. Each blog took at least an hour to write, and that was after I had the basic idea of the post. Sometimes they got very personal.

This experience also made me think back.

You see, I used to work a regular job.My boss had asked me, several times, to write a blog about my work in Africa. I was in charge of several projects and looking back, I sure had plenty to write about. And bear in mind, they paid me a salary. But in those days – around 2012 – I didn’t read blogs. They didn’t seem very useful or interesting to me. And so, I told him that if I didn’t read them, probably lots of other people like me didn’t read them, and I thought that other means of communication like direct emails might be more effective. In the end, a lot of my other colleagues also balked at writing a blog because we were so overworked as it was, and this just seemed like another unnecessary bureaucratic thing to do. A few years later I retired, and that was the end of it.

But then when I saw an ad for bloggers for MC, something peaked my interest, and I applied. And I got the job. Isn’t that strange? At one time an employer asked me to do this, and I refused, but then willingly wrote a blog for considerably less money.

Well, all I can say is that it has been fun, and challenging to keep on track. Maybe I missed out contributing to a blog when I was gainfully employed, but now that I have done one for fun, I recognize its value. In conclusion, I would like to thank all the staff at MC who manage the blogs and their promotion, especially Brady, Lisa, Emily and Stephanie. To all the fellow bloggers especially Kayla and Maddy, thanks for your great posts. It’s been a good voyage, glad to have met you all, and I hope some of you found my posts to be interesting. Bye for now, maybe I’ll see you on campus next time.