I’ve been blogging now since 2004 but the first years were pretty spotty. Since 2006 I have been regularly blogging with a few breaks in between. I was finishing up my MSW when I began my other blog, and it was a personal blog at first. I was writing about all the things that I cared about – what I was reading, what I was doing in school, my thoughts on my profession, being a parent, what I cooked and ate. It really started to change focus and became directed towards a specific topic (adoption) after I found out that it wasn’t just a few of my close friends who were reading.
I have friends who blog, most of them anonymously. But I’m not. People know who I am, where to find me, even though I used a pseudonym. One of the things I’m curious about is the intersection between the personal and professional in a blog. I often read social work blogs but I rarely comment. The faculty at my school and cohort in my doctoral program all know that I blog, some even read it occasionally. When I was working out in the field, my coworkers and supervisors all knew about the blog as well. I tried to maintain the combination of personal and professional with integrity, but it’s hard. But no matter how hard it can be, I think that it’s really beneficial.
I know that when I read about the world of others who share my interests and concerns it makes me feel less alone in the world. It also helps provide some larger context. You know how sometimes it seems like you just can’t make sense of something until you see that someone else has struggled with the same thing and you learn from what they have done. I have definitely benefited from that from both the other adoptees who write about adoption, and from other social workers who write about their work.
I came across this today, through the Social Work blog. I think it’s such a brilliant idea. I would like to encourage my department to consider something like this, however I don’t think anyone will take it on. It takes a lot of time to blog, I know that. Perhaps it’s because I have been doing it for so long that I don’t see it as being such a burden. I love the idea that this school has a dedicated site for their student bloggers! And wouldn’t it be awesome to have some of the faculty blog as well?
My university provides free blog hosting to its faculty and students and at one time I started a blog there. I left it mostly because it was too much work to do the coding even though it is free. Maybe I should reconsider and move this blog there. And get a few of my friends and cohort with me!
JaeRan Kim 