Blogs, Blogging & one-sided friends

So, as I sat here at my desk eating my lunch and downing a quick coffee before my first hockey class of the season (yay!!! hockey's back! ... note: the only reason I might possibly look forward to winter rapidly approaching) I read a few blogs that I occasionally read. It's really only recently that I got into this whole blog thing. I never thought I'd become an avid blog reader, or blogger myself.

I was first really introduced to the concept by Josh (found over here at life's propagation, aka quarem.blogspot.com) when I worked in a lab with him in Victoria. When I left there I found myself checking in on his blog just to see what was up and really enjoy reading his posts on whatever he's doing/thinking/reading etc.

This got me a bit interested in blogging, and I had some ideas for things I might put out there to share. I tried my first blog shortly after but it didn't get very far... abandoned after 1 post... I still feel bad for it. Then I tried using a blog format to communicated with my 1st year physics tutorial students, and actually that more or less worked out, though I think there are probably better ways. I maintained a little election blog with some friends last year, but that had kind of a limited life span anyway and is silent for now. Then I decided it was time to try a personal blog again... this one. I figured it would mainly be a way for me to post my goings-on while away on trips and interesting stuff about my life in Montreal, and that maybe friends and family would read it. So far, that's about what's happening... but there are also quite a few people who visit who I'm sure I don't know.

So this brings me back to the reading end of things. I was just reading this blog that I stumbled upon in a totally random fashion while looking at some photos on Flickr's "interestingness" page (because I'm getting into photography now, and I find it fun to see what other people do with their cameras, what lighting they catch/create, what angles look interesting, etc). So now I find myself reading this blog about this girl from Oregon (you can catch her over at lylium.org), and I'm suddenly so happy and excited for her starting College! And it occurred to me... this is a bit weird. I mean, here's this girl I have never met, have no connection to, and yet I find myself really, genuinely excited for her. At the same time I feel a bit strange because she knows nothing about me... at most, I am a few pageloads and maybe she knows where from. I could post a comment, but I don't have anything really to say other than "Hi, I've been reading your blog, you don't know me, but have fun at college!"

Anyway, despite this strangeness, I still like the idea of blogging. I also find it intriguing to think that someone might randomly stumble upon my blog ramblings and read for awhile and feel some connection (though one-sided, and a bit strange) to me.

So on that note, I hope I will post a bit more than I have since getting back from Germany (yes, I'm back now). I still have things I've meant to write about and post pictures of from the trip, so hopefully I'll get to that soon, but work is getting in the way as I have made a pretty good plan of things I must do to finish this PhD thing, so now they must be done.

(ps - for some reason, it seems that comments are not working here... I will try to resolve that and post again asking for test comments.)