Thanks, Blogger.

When the blog project was first announced back in early November, I intially felt skepticism at the worthwhileness of the endeavor. To me it seemed like a public journal, open to the whole world for critique and ridicule. I thought the blogs would extend the classroom competition and just be another source of stress from AP English. And I was right, to a point. The blogs are stressful. Coming up with creative, banter-worthy ideas twice a week can be a major challenge. I know that I have sacrificed many Sunday nights by staring at a blank computer screen until I thought of something to write about. For almost every post I have, there is another unfinished one waiting as a draft, never to be published. 

As this three-month project comes to a close, I ask myself the question, Was it worth it? Does the payoff of the project match the time and effort I put into it? After much reflection, I have to say yes. This project has effected me in more ways than I can currently contemplate. For starters, my blog has given me more confidence as a writer. Normally, my written work is only read by a few people, tops. A majority of the writing I do for English goes straight from my computer to Ms. Serensky without anyone else's evaluation, which is fine, for poetry papers and data sheets, but realistically, nothing good was ever written without multiple inputs. The blog project has given us a chance to read our classmates writing, comment on their post, and receive comments on our own. 

Most importantly, the blogs allow our writing to be heard, and continue to be heard for years after we finish the project. Unless we delete our blogs, they will continue to reside on blogger.com for who knows now long. Although it's a long shot that someone will ever stumble upon my blog randomly and actually read deeply into my posts, the possibility of my words affecting someone else in the same way Kesey's or Lahiri's novels affected me is thrilling. 

In short, I am extremely thankful for the blogs. They have opened up a whole new media to me and my classmates and the skills we acquired in our short time on blogger.com will surely help us in our future  writing.