After the Rain

The landscape is saturated with the smell of warm, wet grass. It was raining an hour ago. I’m going for a quick run.

Quiet Please, Games in Progress

I am fully occupied with watching the Olympic games. Not surprisingly, last night I dreamt I was one half of a table tennis duo and the night before I was Nastia Liukin’s rival on uneven bars. I want to write more, but I’m very distracted by a handball match right now. Oh dear!

The Olympic Games

How are you enjoying the Beijing Olympic Games so far? My favourite events (shared by many I’m sure) are gymnastics, track & field athletics (sprints in particular), diving and swimming. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of weightlifting, beach volleyball, archery, fencing and judo.

I’ve never been a fan of long distance events but I watched part of the 245km cycling road race (which saw Spain’s Samuel Sanchez taking the gold) on Saturday and boy was I blown away by the amazing display of endurance – 6 and a half hours of continuous cycling!

As a child I dreamed about becoming a perfect 10 gymnast like Nadia Comaneci – gracefully athletic yet beautifully composed. I’m about two decades too late to start working on that dream so right now my participation is mostly confined to non-competitive sideline activities such as keeping track of the different colours and designs of the dresses worn by the ushers Olympic hostesses, finding out things like “Why do athletes bite their medals?” and guessing how many world records Michael Phelps would break – my guess was 4! Looks like I’m wrong!

Two decades ago, I wouldn’t know about things such as match-fixing, doping or the “Free Tibet” controversy that surrounded this Olympic games. All athletes were like heroes to me and the Olympics, the biggest stage to show the human mettle. Maybe that is the best way to enjoy the games.

What is your favourite Olympic sport? Do you have an Olympic dream?

The Fragility of Life

Like all our other cats, we didn’t choose to have our Princess, she chose us.

She just appeared at my apartment door one day and slowly eased herself into the house. At first she only stayed for the food but then her stays grew longer and longer. She figured it’s more convenient to take a dump in our bathroom instead of going outside every evening. She also found out that for the small price of a lazy purr there are people willing to massage her royal body. After awhile, she stopped going outdoors and without realising it, we had unknowingly signed ourselves to a life of feline servitude.

And today, just as suddenly as she’d arrived, she left.

Rest in peace, dear friend.

Thoughts on Blogging
Comments, Validation and Why We Need the Audience

Stephen wrote a interesting entry on blog validation in the form of comments at his blog One Life. I think most of us share what he is feeling sometimes (or most of the time).

When a blog entry is published, we can safely assume (with the exception of a locked private blog) that the author expects an appreciative audience . And rightly so, for we, as writers, would spend many hours trying to come up with, and edit to near-perfection, a post worthy of publishing to the world.

I used to spend quite a bit of my time wondering why only 1 out of 100 readers would leave me a comment but realised most of the time I myself am not participating in the conversation on other blogs because there’s really nothing new or interesting to add.

Unless a post is particularly provocative, the reaction generally consists of a few variations of agreement or disagreement. It’s like being in a classroom discussion– after the 11th person has voiced his opinion, there’s nothing much left to say that has not already been said.

Still, it’s great to have comments! My first blog was running for 7 months before I got my first comment – which is still one of the most exciting days in my early blogging history. :) I also look out for the best critics among my commenters as they are the ones who tell you like it is and probably move in between camps (for/against/neutral) according to what you’re posting.

Here’s something good to know: Problogger has about 50,000 subscribers (according to the displayed Feedburner widget). The actual number of readers may well be more than this but these 50,000 readers are the ones considered “engaged” — readers who care enough about the content of the blog to actually subscribe to the feed. A quick browse through some of the posts shows that less than 1% (or 500) of the readers would actually leave a comment. Steve Pavlina also mentioned in his blog that “well below 1% of visitors ever post a comment“. What are the other 99% doing? Probably just nodding quietly to themselves. How do I know? Because I myself did quite a bit of that nodding thing today. :D

While some of us see a comment count as the mark of a successful interactive blog, others preach high subscriber count at the true indicator of a blog’s success. Damien on the other hand has gone on to develop his own quantifiable rating system of measuring the success of his Funny Farm – i.e. CAN™.

With a blog that focuses on money-making, success is usually directly proportional to the number of readers the blog has. For other types of blogs, some people have said that the number of readers play a less important role in defining success.

I personally believe that we need an audience no matter what because we want to feel appreciated for our art, in this case, our writing. I don’t want to paint a beautiful picture and keep it locked in a room where nobody will ever see (even if I do not have the intention of selling it). I want it displayed in a gallery for all to appreciate and admire. I call this my “Excellence in Giving to Others”, or *ahem* ego for short. ;)

My ego loves performing in front of huge appreciative audience. She would like to thank you for choosing to read this entry. She is also fond of comments so please leave one (or two)? :D

Ouch Good Pain

One of my ex-colleagues pronounced the name of this bakery as “Auuw Bon Pain (as in painful and not pahn – the French word for bread)” and thought the words translated to “Ouch! Good Pain”. It was very cute and quickly became a running joke among us — every now and then someone would announce that he/she is “in the mood for a good pain”. :D

Today I’m in a lot of bad pain so good pain sounds like a great option. Well, in any case, it’s good to remember that this too shall pass.