I was recently given the task of writing a summary report for my work this last year at the ATL – a somewhat daunting task, given a 2-page limit. Anyway, I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on my experiences in 2009, helped along greatly by this blog. I think blogging has actually come to be the most useful tool I’ve learned to use in the last year – it serves many purposes for me:

1. I think most importantly, it allows me to organize my thoughts, and forces me to look critically at experiences I’ve had and try to make that into a narrative, or something like it, that another person could follow. This is something that I don’t normally do – especially if the experience happens to be difficult or painful for me (see posts on the NCORE conference). I very much appreciate the sort of therapeutic value of sitting down and making myself think about things.

2. I like the feeling of putting myself out into the electronic abyss – something I was originally terrified of. After doing this for a while, however, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions; first of all, seriously what is the worst that could happen? Someone disagrees with me? Thinks I’m a bad writer? Okay, well, that’s going to happen anyway, so why worry about it here, where at least you aren’t confronted physically to your face? Second, I’ve been very thankful for all the kind and encouraging comments I’ve gotten from readers – they aren’t terribly frequent, but they remind me that at least a few people “out there” think my thoughts are worth reading and considering, which is gratifying and humbling.

3. I love, love, love having a record of the last year! This was a benefit I didn’t even consider when I started, but now, when I’m being asked to write a review of my year with the ATL, I have the perfect place to go to remind me not only what I did, but how I felt about things, how they challenged me, etc. It reminds me of when my grandparents took me and my older sister to Europe after we graduated from High School – they bought us each a journal and told us we should really write in it every night to remember what we did. So, being a good granddaughter, I did as they said, even though I was exhausted most nights and didn’t really enjoy the process of writing that much, and let me tell you, I couldn’t be happier that I did! I wouldn’t have remembered a quarter of what we did that two weeks if I hadn’t written about it! (For instance, I was proposed to by a very friendly waiter in Brussels one evening!) So I’m beginning to feel very much that way about blogging. Often I don’t feel like it’s something I want to do, but I’m always glad once I have.

From my favorite web comic, xkcd - note the "blogipelago" at the bottom left...