Passionate Geeks: Confessions of a Blogging Geek

Passionate Geeks is a monthly feature (the second Wednesday of the month), where people are invited to explore and share about those things that they are passionate about.
What kind of a Geek are you?

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Hello.  My name is Corina and I am a blogging geek.  At least I used to be.  I think I still am, I just don’t have as much time as I used to, but any chance I get, I start blogging and get lost in it and before I know it, three or four hours have gone by and I’m still blogging.

Blogging?  How can someone spend so much time writing blog posts?  Doesn’t it take just minutes to write the post and publish it?  Well, technically yes.  I can write a post, proofread it, and publish it in as few as ten minutes.  Sometimes it takes a lot longer.  It just depends on what I want to say and how perfect I want it to be.  However, that’s not what I mean by blogging.  What I mean by the verb blogging is that I not only write blog posts but I read blog posts and interact with the writers and with the readers and commenters on my blog and many others.  That’s the fun of it.  I have a whole world of friends in the blogging world.  I read their blogs.  I comment.  They comment back and sometimes I go and reply to their comment.  At times I end up commenting on comments by other people and a whole dialog and friendship evolves.  From one blog I will visit blogs of some of the commenters and end up leaving my comments there.  Some of those bloggers will come to my blog to read it and will comment there.  Some of my blogging friends I have known for upwards of 8 or 9 years.  That’s a long time to know someone without meeting them.  I have also met some of my blogging buddies in person!

Why blog?

Well, I first started blogging around 1998.  I did it for myself.  I needed an outlet.  I used it more like a diary, at first.  Then I started to write comments on things that happened throughout the day; things that happened with/to my children.  I was a single mom by then and I didn’t have anyone with which to discuss things so I used my blog.  At that time, I don’t think I ever got a single comment.  That was fine because that was not what I wanted.  I wanted to remain somewhat anonymous and invisible.  Then things changed.  I got the writing bug again.  I had/have always loved to write (short stories, memoir pieces, and some poems) but had stopped during my marriage and as the babies arrived.  But then, as a single mom, especially in the first years while my divorce dragged on, I began to write again and that writing ended up on my blog.  Then I started another blog and that blogging platform closed down shortly after I started that blog so I went back to the old blog.  All told, I think I tried about five different blogging platformes before I ended up here on WordPress in 2007.

What do I like about blogging?

A lot!  I like that it allows me a platform to “speak” and to be “heard”.  It also allows me to get to know other people’s worlds and realities.  I get to read about people like me all over the world and about people who are very unlike me, all over the world.  I have blogging friends in about thirty of the U.S. states and at least fifteen different countries.  I have friends of all ages, too.  I have blogging friends that are older than I am, some my age, and the majority are younger than me, including several teenaged bloggers!  I’m more like a mom to some of them and that’s fine.  I can fill a lot of roles and mom is not a bad one to fill.  Neither is “cheerleader” for some of these younger bloggers.

What can you learn from blogs?

I often use blogs to learn about a number of things and places.  Before a trip I might search for “Australia blog” like I did before my trip to Australia.  I found many blogs written by Aussies and some written by people traveling to/in Australia.  I learned of some things to do and places to visit that were not in the travel books my son and I had purchases.  Before my daughter went off to college, I searched “MICA student life” and “living in Baltimore” and got some insight to where she would be living.  Often, I will read one blog (for example this blog shows a wonderful mosaic and links to this  which got me thinking about mosaics in public places which led me here. And for some odd reason I started to think of Gaudi and searched his name, finding this famous place.) which leads me to another and another and on and on.  There’s no stopping because one little thing will set me off and I will stumble upon something else and pursue that until my attention is diverted elsewhere.  See?!  It could take hours and hours without even writing a single word.

How Geeky Am I About Blogging?

Well, I read a lot of blogs.  All kinds of blogs.  I know what I like and what I don’t like about different blogging platforms (I really dislike Blogger).  I try to keep on top of things as to different features and options available on different platforms.  I keep an eye on different blog themes.  I participate in blog memes all the time.  (A blog meme is something like a pre-defined topic or format that each blogger makes their own.  For example: 10 Things I Am Thankful For; Photo Of the Day; Wordless Wednesday; Silent Sunday; etc.)  Then there are blog hops in which bloggers are invited to visit blogs of those participating in a particular theme or topic such as the HUGE one that takes place in April, A to Z Blogging Challenge.  In that one, there were around 1500 participants who each wrote a blog post every day in April that was about something beginning with a specific letter of the alphabet.  For example my entry for X on the 28^th  or my entry for Y on the 29^th.

Geeky Blogging

I blog on my laptop.  I blog on my tablet.  I blog on my phone.  I have even written entire blog posts on my phone (okay so I had to go back later and fix all the typos that I couldn’t see on my phone).  If there is a day that I don’t get to blog, I make sure I read at least one blog and comment on at least one before the day is through.  It keeps me from going places where there will be no internet connection.  I don’t want to miss my blogging.  To me, it’s like a daily chat with a friend that I cannot miss.  Yup, that geeky about it.

Okay, I could tell you more but I’m getting behind on reading blogs and I have to get back to that!  See you in a blog!

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Corina

Today’s Passionate Geek is Corina Carrasco, who  blogs at Wasted Days And Wasted Nights.  She is a born and raised California Girl living in Portland, Oregon for the past seven years.  Other than blogging and writing, she is also a “Grandson Geek”.  Her two grandsons, Anderson and Spencer are what keeps her going and going and going and …!  Corina is just now rediscovering her love of cooking.  She is also an avid reader (Kindle rules!).  If you tweet, you can find her there @pdxCJC.