Did You Know Easter Is on March 27 This Year?

Of course you do.

Here we are. I’m finally done with my Commenting Bootcamp assignments. For fifth and final task, I responded to a couple of comments left on another one of GeorgieMoon’s posts, “Here’s an Easter rant from me…..” The two users were foguth and syllabubsea.

To be quite honest, I had already did what was asked on Assignment 5 in the first two assignments. For Assignment 1, I responded to r_prab on Majka’s post, “COLOR YOUR WORLD – RADICAL RED.” While working on Assignment 2, I responded to a comment left by anne on a post called “Blog social” by sable. That inspired me to write that post about my Twitter woes.

All in all, it was fun and enlightening to do the Commenting Bootcamp. I’m kinda glad it was for one week, though. In a way it was harder to make comments than it was to personalize my blog. Many bloggers prefer substantive comments and I’m the same. One can’t simply jump into a conversation. We must bring something that others can respond to or think about.

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Polite Disagreement: Hillary Clinton for President?

For Assignment 4 in the Commenting Bootcamp, I had to find a post that I disagreed with, whether it was the premise or specific sections of it. I would then politely state my point of view.

It’s not easy finding a random post in this regard, so I decided to go by a tag: politics. That sped up the process and I immediately saw some posts concerning the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. One post really stood out to me: konigludwig, who runs The Progressive Democrat, wrote “How Can The Democrats Fight The Entrenched Powers?” I read that post.

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What Was the Post About?

In the post, konigludwig pointed to two editorials from two liberal — oh, excuse me, Progressive (yuck!) — publicans. The first was “Hillary Clinton for President” by Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone) and the second was “Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination” from The New York Times’ Editorial Board. There was also a complaint about these two posts: konigludwig found them to be condescending.

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On What Grounds Did I Disagree?

As I write this post, my comment is in moderation, but here is what I wrote:

It’s Fun to Ask Questions

This is funny. I fell behind in a one-week Commenting Bootcamp, but I had already done everything asked of me in Assignments 3-5 before I started the bootcamp.

Regardless, it was my goal to work on the assignments as promised. That way, I could discover even more blogs and link my fine readers to some posts.

For Assignment 3, I visited Pawful living🐾🐾doggiebloggie’s blog and commented on a post called “The Disagreement Talkophobia.” In this post, she(?) — I’ll correct that if I’m wrong — shared some posts she left comments on and left some advice for proper disagreement.

I agreed with the list, especially the part about being respectful. In my agreement, I talked about how there is so much disrespect online and offline by people who argue, even over trivial things.

It’s true, though. Sports and politics in particular will bring the worst out of some people. So does any type of fandom, especially online.

“We like this game/show/movie/pairing/person. Why don’t you?”

“Oh, he doesn’t like it? BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!”

And then when one group is called out for their BS, they want to deny they do anything wrong and deflect blame.

This is why one time, I reflected on why people might just hate something or someone because of that person or thing’s fans. Originally, I thought that was a pretty weak argument, but now…

On the other hand, I have had some nice discussions with people I thoroughly disagreed with. I respect people who can keep their emotions in check when there are disagreements. And it’s better to see it reciprocated.

Oh, what did I ask Pawful living🐾🐾doggiebloggie? Basically, if she has any arguments online and whether those arguments were more intense than those IRL.

How about you?

Personal Stories? I Got Nothing.

But you clicked the link to read this anyway, huh?

Ok.

Assignment 2 for the Commenting Bootcamp called for me to leave a comment on a blog where I never commented before…but relate a personal story with the post I had just read. While I’m not really comfortable enough to talk openly online about my life, there are stories I’m willing to share.

To be perfectly honest, this assignment was the most difficult for me. Why, you ask? Really, the hard part was finding a post to comment on. I went through a number of posts, and while I could leave comments on them, I didn’t think I could leave any substantive feedback on them. Finally, I came across MaggieMayQ’s post on her blog, Balloons and Popcorn.

What Was That Post About?

In “They say it’s personal,” MaggieMayQ talked about her decision to have her hair cut short. She hated having to deal with long hair and just took a leap. In the post, she also shared some images of herself before and after a haircut.

On the whole, I like the cut. I have seen more women take chances and shave even the sides of their heads and pull it off. In MaggieMayQ’s case, more was taken off in the back. This allows her to wear her hair down or put it up in a ponytail.

Discovering New Blogs (March 21, 2016)

This weekend, I saw a Tweet from Bloggers Meetup that mentioned a new session for Blogging 101: Commenting Bootcamp. In that instant, I decided to join because of how wonderful the last Blogging 101 course went for me. Also, I still need work in the areas of finding new blogs and commenting on them.

The Commenting Bootcamp course just started this Sunday. The first assignment is for each blogger to find three blogs to comment on. The blogs don’t have to be run by those who have recently joined this course, but they have to be blogs we never commented on before.

Of course, it was very easy to find more than three blogs, but I will stick to three for this assignment.

The first comment I made was on GeorgieMoon’s blog, for the post “Do you understand me?” The post looked at an article from The Daily Mail that covered old British sayings, their meanings, and origins. Since I recently started a series of featured posts that deal with famous sayings this post clearly stood out to me.

The next blog post that intrigued me was a post by Majka. She is taking part in a Color Your World Challenge. I left two comments actually, for the post entitled “COLOR YOUR WORLD – RADICAL RED.”

The third comment I left was for the post entitled “Doing Nothing” on A Grammas Life. This was a nice, calm post to start the week.

This assignment was fun and easier than I expected when I found the time. It’s always good to find new bloggers and start up a conversation with them.

I Formally Accept the Versatile Blogger Award

Recently, I was nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award!

Three people actually nominated me. Thanks go to joanne2016, owldragonash, and Amina. Thanks, ladies!

It has taken me awhile to get to this. For one thing, I took so long because I was debating whether or not to accept this award (and the Liebster Award), but…I ultimately realized that the main point would be for me to recognize other bloggers. That, too, has taken awhile because I have only begun to dip my feet in that pool and I wanted to find a group of other bloggers that might not have garnered that much attention.

Finally, I am pretty slow when it comes to blogging for myself. I need some time to properly get my thoughts out, do some research if needed, and edit my text. (Even then, it may take me longer to see my own spelling and grammatical mistakes :cry:.) Particularly for this post (and the next), I had to do some research about the award origins, find some people to nominate beyond the ones I have met recently, and to make sure that some of them hadn’t already been nominated for this award before.

And My New Feature Is… [Poll Results]

As part of Blogging 101, I had to come up with a new feature. Last week, I made a post about my thought process, but hadn’t really decided on one. At the end of What’s My Feature? I’m Thinking, Boo…I’m Thinking…, I asked for some input and later added a poll

Here are the results:

Darn kids and their low voter turnout.

No votes for Typography. 😥

I wish there were more votes for this, but at least there was a clear favorite. So, it looks like I will be doing a new feature on famous sayings. Although I already have some sayings in mind, this will of course require research. Not only will I need to look into more famous sayings [around the world], but I will need to look into the possible histories of each.

Which day of the week should this new feature occur? To me, it seems fitting for a Sunday. And it looks like I can find some time this Saturday to get started, so I might be able to officially kick off this series next week.

Thanks to everyone who voted and watch out for the new feature!

25+ Followers?!! Time for another Post

Part of being a good neighbor on blogs is connecting with other bloggers. The Blogging 101 course I took was extremely helpful in getting me to reach out to the blogging community and establishing a dialogue.

I think one thing I can do is recognize other blogs and share links with my readers from time to time. Part of that answer for me might be giving occasional shout outs to my followers and any posts and I like.

In particular, I gained 7 new followers since Sunday (and I gained another as I began to write this post to make it 8). That’s big for me, especially considering that I started this blog in late-August 2015 on a whim and miraculously still managed a net gain of 7 followers before this month. February was the most productive month I have had as a blogger and must thank the community for that.

What’s My Feature? I’m Thinking, Boo…I’m Thinking…

So…the last big assignment for Blogging 101 involves me deciding on establishing a feature for this blog. A feature would be a type of blog post I would be regularly —like once a week, usually on the same day of the week. This is different than a blogging event, which calls for the participation of others from the blogging community.

This would also be different than a series of posts I’m currently working on. So far, I’ve started around two series of posts I would like to finish:

• Arguments That Give Me Pause: The series was started on another site, but I fully intend to finish it here. I have already published a few posts and need to do quite a bit of research. Stay tuned.

• Things I Don’t Like about Television: This was also started on the same site, but I have since revised some topics and created new ones. This list is still being evaluated and I am currently pouring more attention to these posts at the moment.

I might also transfer some older posts here that are also part of a series. Some readers gave my excellent feedback for a number of those posts and one poster said they learned quite a lot from reading them. Perhaps I could share them with a larger audience.

Building My Brand (on WordPress)

For Assignment 14 in Blogging 101, we each had to work on building our brand. In order to do this, we were given three choices:

1. Create a custom icon for our sites. This shows up on the browser tab.
2. Create a fan page on Facebook to promote our posts.
3. Create image widgets for a sidebar.

I went with the first option.

As I was working on working on this assignment, my first thought was to create the icon by hand. Either I would draw something traditionally or do it digitally. In any case, an idea would have to be sketched out.

The two ideas I came up with were: drawing part of my face; or using the letters in my screen name artistically. During the sketching phase, I liked how the letters looked. The self-portrait can still be used for another project.

The icon I’m currently using was made in Adobe Illustrator. Here’s a sneak peek:

This is still a work in progress and things might be changed later.