Learning to Blog

This whole blog thing – writing for, not reading – is new to me. Not only is it a case of writing something (and trying to put it in a way that it is interesting if anybody actually reads my blog, which so far, has not happened except for my mom) and putting in the visuals, but there is the linking and downloading and url's and a whole new vocabulary and skill set to learn.

I think I once learned how to make a loop in computerese "if x then goto…" and actually managed to get a single line of silliness regarding a teacher to repeat itself ad infinitum. But that is the total extent of my fluency. This doesn't mean I can't trouble shoot or deal with new hardware or software, but the finesse, the je ne sais quoi, that is something I do not have (yet). Well, at least I enjoy myself while I am learning!

I look at my blog and I think – "ok, the photos I like", but I like them better when I can download them straight from my computer or Picasa. But either the Beta-Blogger or a parameter somewhere in my computer, doesn't always let me do that. Instead, I have to go into Hello and send pictures to my neo-blog (that I abandoned to move over to Beta after 3 posts), then cut the html code and paste it into my post. And then the picture is like a textbox and I can't write beside it. Most annoying.

When I look at my blog I see the same template as every other beginner and I want to make it special, but how – so I spend hours looking at other blogs, and try to figure out what elements I would like and what layouts look good. But how do I make my template do what I want it to do? I found FoodBlog S'cool and I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time there trying to make me look better and be more efficient, which is kind of an oxymoron – spending hours trying to learn how to make something more efficient! I also went into the Blogger Help Group and see that there are alot of people looking for similar answers.
dinner

Anyways, before I start surfing and researching I make dinner (usually) and eat it in front of the computer. My life online only starts at around 8pm. This sounds late, but life in Israel is not all milk and honey, only fairly recently have the majority of companies implemented the 5 day work week. A standard working day (unless you are a VP or CEO) is 9 (plus 1/2 hour for lunch), but there is so much job competition that I work closer to 10 or 11 and only get home after 7pm most nights. Which means that by the time I am working on this blog my brain is not functioning at the peak of its performance capabilities, not that it works that well at the best of times.