“You must write at least two blog posts every week,” said Ms. P, my English teacher, pointing her finger at me. “Okay. I have chemistry worksheets to finish, everyday quiz in Geography class to study for, AP World History essays to write, and now she wants me to blog. Twice a week. That’s great.”—this is how I reacted in January, 2008.

Let me confess (although the effort that I had put in my blog so far makes the confession quite self-explanatory). I did not take blogging seriously. I thought blogging was boring. I considered writing two posts a week as another burdensome assignment. Yes, honestly, to me, blogging was homework that I had to finish although I hated to do so. But please wait before you (a blogger who worships blogging) condemn me for my past ignorance; and realize how I used past tenses. I repeat. I thought blogging was boring; but not anymore.

It took three days for me to change my mind. First, I changed the theme. I took my time and chose the background design that I was attracted to the most. Changing the theme indeed brought significant impact. The visual attraction stirred up my attention for my own blog site. (I would like to call it as the “visual impact.”) Then, I began exploring blogs of others. Through wordpress.com I searched through people’s blogs looking for common interest; and I found one. I read a blog post title “Lost 4.10” by Billy Liggett who is “a 31-year-old newspaper editor living in Sanford, North Carolina.” He discussed about the tenth episode of Lost, the television series that I go insane about. (I am planning to write a reflection of the episode for myself, so let me set this issue aside.) Visiting other people’s blogs and reading their posts aroused strong motivations—motivations to write posts and to take care of my blog. So I brought such desires into actions. I wrote about subjects that I was recently interested in. People all over the world began responding to my visits. The cluster map soon started to exhibit red dots on various regions.

It was not blogging itself that was boring. It was me. I was the one who made everything tedious. I was a boring blogger. You may think blogging is fun, and you may think it isn’t. But you should remember: you are the decision maker. You have all the authority to make blogging as the most incredible way of expressing yourself or to make it as the most irritating homework assignment ever.