"VOF Week 3: (Internet Demystified)".

When I first bumped into a blog I had no idea anything like it existed. I had in fact asked a colleague to give me a website address to a friend’s website. My colleague replied, ‘actually she has a blog, not a website’ and I thought, yeah, whatever. On following the address, I was so fascinated that someone could write so much about themselves, and people connected in such a space. It demystified the Internet for me and I think for three consecutive days, I read any blog I came across and quickly posted my comments. I felt safe to express myself and free to critique, disagree, through spanners in the works etc.

I would say my drive and passion for blogging has always been my greatest challenge. Blogging can take up a lot of your time and if you have a regular job where you have goals and targets to meet each day, your work can suffer at the expense of blogging. When I used to have a regular 8-5pm job, I had Internet access from the office. I realized that I needed discipline to write down all I wanted to say and still be able to do my work efficiently. I tackled this by noting things down on a notebook to blog about later. Because of a rigorous work schedule, some of my items were stale by the time I got time to blog about them.

It has also been a bit of a challenge to get hits on a blog and people who engage with you especially on matters related to women’s rights work. I like the idea that I can invite friends to my blog without them identifying me, but I guess most of my friends are not interested in blogging. That is why I am very excited by World Pulse that offers this space for like-minded women to connect and interact.

I currently volunteer for a number of organizations, which means I cater for my Internet expenses, which are quite high in Kenya. I therefore cannot spend lots of time blogging. Again I battle with jotting down thoughts to blog about later, which doesn’t always work. I have however realized that it is always better to blog immediately I think about something because I will generally take sometime to think about an idea, I could use that time to blog. For example, my ideas in PulseWire are very spontaneous; the ones I jot down on my notebook rarely see the light of day.

I am learning to use my phone for blogging because I have it all the time, can take it anywhere and it is cheaper to access internet via the mobile phone. I also got a laptop, which means I can blog anytime from the comfort of my house. I hope to invest in a high tech mobile phone and trust that I manage to get a better and cheaper Internet bandwidth so as to improve my blogging.