The Xinner's guide to blogstalking (or how to waste away your afternoon)

What made me really get into blogging way back in '03, was that I've always a bit of a people-watcher, and so really enjoyed reading my friends' blogs. Their thoughts and perspectives on things they were experiencing (that I often knew about firsthand) revealed a side to them that I didn't really get a chance to see in real life. What you write in your blog can sometimes be quite different from what you would talk about.

As I moved from high school to university, I found I still belonged to the blogosphere, albeit a slightly different one, when one of bible study mates remarked on the existence of my blog. I suddenly realised that here too, a blogging culture existed, one which I felt I should get better acquainted with.

So, here's my guide to getting to know your blogosphere, aka blogstalking.

1. Obviously, ask. One of the primary ways you can find someone's blog is by asking them if they have one. You aren't going to find a blog if it's not there. Makes an excellent opportunity for conversation too, as it begs questions like 'why blog?' and 'what do you think of blogging?'. If you, like me, take vicarious pleasure from the reading of blogs, you might want to play that down a bit by focusing on the other person in such a conversation, as well, we all know that stalking is weird and possibly even sociopathic.
2. Blog stalking is not about targeting specific people, but getting to know your network of bloggers and the blogosphere in which you belong. Once you have the address of one person's blog, you will often easily find other blogs through links on their sidebar. Let the click-fest begin!
3. Facebook is an excellent tool for discovering someone's blog. If you check under their profile information in the sidebar, or under the info tab, you may just strike gold.
4. For most part, there is no way that a blog is not linked from some other place on the web, whether it is another person's blog, or Google, or Facebook. Have faith, if you are sufficiently determined, you will be aptly rewarded for your efforts.

Oh dear, I fear I have just opened a can of worms with regards to blogging culture, privacy and why-I-am-not-a-sociopath.

Beatitudes

1. Sunlight shining on a white picket fence against a backdrop of green
2. A cool breeze on a sunny day
3. Running against the wind
4. Running with the wind
5. Realising you're not alone
6. Dancing cheek to cheek
7. The smell of freshly laundered linen
8. The smell of someone who's just had a bath
9. The feeling of Hazeline Snow on dry skin
10. The whoosh of air in a flying leap or in the angular momentum of turning
11. An anticipated meeting of old friends
12. Colours in the afternoon sun
13. Being a part of the music
14. Good group/team dynamics
15. Meaningful conversation
16. Getting something, really understanding it, for the first time
17. The salty smell of the sea
18. Holding a stuffed toy
19. Having your hair stroked
20. Being held
21. Making someone's day
22. Finding God in the small things

A minute of silence

Interesting thing happened in the library today. I was studying when it was suddenly announced,

"It is customary that at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month we observe a minute of silence for those who have died in the war..."

14:10

Only 50 minutes more,

to 3 pm - class dismissed.

I look around at these familiar unfamiliar faces

belying what they feel and think -

I smile and look away

knowing they cannot know me

any more than I know them.

Only a few more days till I return

to a swelteringly humid little island.

Only a few more days,

but it can't come sooner.

And only far too soon before I'll be back

in another giant flea-ridden furnace.

Who really knows another's hidden landscapes? For

Each heart knows its own bitterness -

Incapacitating fears and debilitating sorrows,

private tears we never cry and never let on,

lurking in the shadows, weighing down our souls.

The little, everyday tortures we'd never dream of sharing,

we're burning in our own private little infernos.

Different ghosts haunt different corners,

different trusts I know I've broken,

different hopes misplaced in me -

another set of haunts to avoid and run away from.

Another set of demons turn me cold.

Still I try in vain.

Beneath the sweetness of smiles and

the concerted effort to turn away

the tiredness and

tightness

in my chest -

老了， 累了-

the growing apathy to

this world's concerns,

I rest on the Word

alone.

But I confess, in a hell that is both hot and cold,

the warmth of such a comfort's hard to hold.

My spirit's distance only superseded

by the distance the spiritual can seem

from my earthly fallibility.

I'd rather something more tangible, but

all the world's a stranger.

For no thing can thaw this heart,

no one else can share its joy.