Friday, March 5, 2010

1 year of blogging gave me.....

...at least 50 regular readers – 27 blogspot followers and many others – thanks to blog readers and blog aggregators

...new e-friends, people I have never met but keep in touch with that Google decided I should follow them in buzz.

...motivation to write in Tamil after 18 years

...audacity to ‘publish’ an article in German :D

...2 articles in the local newspaper

...an offer to co-author a book

...a flurry of enquiries about Studying in Germany and I love playing the mentor :D

...a travelogue to share with my colleagues and friends

...a forum to discuss, participate in charity and related activities and publicize the need for it

...a marketing platform - 2 companies thanked me for promoting their products and no, they neither asked me to nor paid me for it, I would like to think of those as my good deeds for the day :D

...a driver that tripled the time I spend in reading - am running out of english books at the Munich library, God bless e-books !

...a simple way to overwhelm Thatha on his 70th B’day

...an outlet to reminisce about the family- homesickness can really do weird things to you !

...a way to preserve memories – if ever I am in the ‘Ghajini’ stage, I don’t need a diary :D !

and above all, it makes me feel alive (Blogging makes me feel alive, does this make me a nerd and am I secretly proud of it ??), provides me with an independent outlet (since talking would mean imposing on someone else’s time) and of course clears the clutter in the attic !

Interesting stuff...

I discussed crème brulèe with a Google engineer from San Francisco and I generally don’t discuss desserts with strangers !

Most of my readers are from Germany, the US and Australia (Blog stats show 14 countries). India is 4th in line – the hmmm-interesting part is I know just 3 people in Australia and the eyebrow-raising part is that most of my family is in India.

The fun part – definitely the compliments...after all, vanity is my favorite sin. How can one disagree with Al Pacino :D ?!

Appa said I should write for magazines...Oh..well...parents...

A friend said I should write a book...

Another suggested I write a newspaper column...how does 'Gossip and the city' sound :D ?! I can make that a book and possibly a movie later ;) !

Another said I deserve a ‘Blog with most topics’ award...how nice this sounds instead of 'why do you have an opinion about everything under the sun' ?!

Dewdrop gave me a blogger buddy award a couple of days ago....THANK YOU (this is not just for the award, you know that right ?)

For a few hours I spend every week, this doesn’t seem like such a bad deal...so yeah, I’ll keep going...and needless to say (and I am still saying it :D), I just completed a year of blogging !

PS: This is probably the right time to ask about suggestions to improve, I do have a couple of ideas but feedback from the readers would make a lot of difference, right ?

Gold fish translator:
Thatha - Grandfather
Appa - Father
'Ghajini' - refers to an Indian movie (in Tamil and Hindi) about short-term memory loss

14 comments:

  1. ENga unga scene kku oru alave illiya ??

    Ippo indha madhiri oru post naattukku thevaiya ?? Appappo oru post pottu, nee lam ennada pannitrukka, enna paathiya nnu kekka vendiyadhu ...

    "Saadhanai Penmani" nga neenga ... You'll probably include this sobriquet in your next year's blog on the same topic ... "Enna Koduma Saravanan ?"

    Sorry for the tamil, But, Once you pick English, words are getting formal and diplomatic ...

    :)

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  2. Sorry ... Sorry, I was in a hurry to see my comments ... Please ignore my comment in one of the previous posts ...

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  3. I wrote a long comment, then there was an error :)

    The gist of it is this : Excellent work, keep going, accept all the writing offers, continue to write about all that you think is worth your time and effort..

    I am glad you made it big in blogging in such a short time and you must venture into technical side sometime, if that will interest your workplace and career..

    Fiction, Movie scripting, Story Boarding for Documentary movies are other fields that your kind of writing will shine :)

    And keep clearing the attic, so you can take in more and give away more :)

    All the best,
    Dew

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  4. @Gokul

    There are people who need recognition for what they do and much greater people who don't need any of it and keep going with what they have/want to do....I am obviously in the former category and I rever people in the latter.

    @Dewdrop
    I owe a lot to your encouragement.

    @Bharath
    I also owe a lot to your tips for motivating me to increase my blog hits

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  5. Your blogs are wonderful,interesting and some are deserve to be kept as reference for youngsters.The way you see the things and write about variety of things are fabulous. The one which touched my heart the most was about your Father and he must be a Proud man to have a daughter like u. Good Going.Keep it up.

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  6. Great Going SG. :)

    Congrats.

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  7. I have read almost every blog of yours....but have never left a comment (only due to my laziness). Its high time to Congratulate you now on the great work. Good luck...look forward to more such interesting reads.

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  8. Wow!!! 1 year already.. Congrats.. keep going.. thanks for remembering me at this time. i'll be always there as the "anil" u know.
    Going forward would like to see you come out off the safe topics.. and touch some controversies (political, religious and cultural) thats when the fun starts..:)
    you can start by writing on Nityananda!!!

    (looks like those who are writing blogs regularly, if they don't write about Nitty, will be banned :) )

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  9. :) ur attic seems to be the most interesting attic in the world...keep doosi tattufying ur attic more for from it comes not mere dust, but all gold dust....

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  10. and yes happy women's day in advance :-) i know somewr inside me such posts n blog from u all is shaping me to be a better (hu)man...

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  11. Hey keep up the good work dear . You are rocking !!

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  12. I am just a recent reader of your blog.. Wow the blog adds a reality than fiction.. COntinue the same way and do write lot in tamil...It gives lot more emotions to your words..i was able to match myself to all the events that you described in appavum naanum.. Children in this generation misses all those... Great work Sowmya

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  13. super.. keep going sowmya ka :P

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