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January 17, 2005
blogs: not the healthiest forum
there was an article in newsweek a number of weeks back that cited the trend of blogging as a reflection of rich campus life at many colleges. they even noted that "blog" had made it into the dictionary this year as online journaling or something. for once, it seemed someone had something good to say about what happens at colleges beyond abuses of alcohol, time, resources, sex, etc. and for the most part, i'm still convinced that they are right (i suppose i wouldn't be writing this otherwise). but i do have a concern.
i remember in my time in santa cruz bolivia that working with spanish always felt like a bit of a code. day in and day out i would go through everything as normal, understanding well what was happening, but i felt like words were external for me. in church, i never felt like i could connect with prayer/worship as i do in my native language. i imagine that given a number of years more i may have acquired a sense of the weight that words carry and connected better with what i heard and said at a deeper level.
one of the areas that this made a difference was in the area of colorful langauge or even sharp comments. i remember the kids i worked with who would swear a lot, and in correcting them it felt funny because the word really held no weight for me, but for those around them it certainly did. it was sad to see some north americans say some pretty harsh things sometimes to locals that i couldn't imagine them saying in english, and i wondered if the reason could have been partly that there was this disconnect between langauge and meaning.
how this translates to blog journaling (that includes xangas, livejournals, etc.) is that i think sometimes the disconnectedness of posting something digital out there gives people more space to speak. space to speak is good, but the question is where. i feel like i've been able to vent some this blog at times, but have i considered who is my audience (of which i'm really not sure if anyone more than my girlfriend reads this) and how might the material be taken?
blogs may have a place for starting some thoughts, but maybe not for how the discussion is continued. once again, i think i find myself advocating highly real interaction, face to face, and in english if that is what works best. and when there exists a language difference of any sort, let's be careful.
Posted by Derrick at January 17, 2005 08:21 AM
Comments
I read your blog Derrick! Well said, I have considered this topic myself (of a language you are not familiar with not holding as much value as your native one) but you said it in such simple and clear way. Could this be related to how one thinks in their native language. Maybe when one gets to the point of thinking in another language the words and expressions begin to hold more sentimental value. Of course this does not make much sense with the blog writing. How can you think in terms of blog writing? Just some thoughts.
Sincerely
Your Cousin from down South
Posted by: Matthew Tieszen at February 2, 2005 01:55 AM