New Year, New Blogging

Welcome back to the blog!  We left off somewhere midway through last fall, when I let the blog slip away, and so begins my after-a-long-absence meditation on blogging.   Throughout the past months I've taken a lot of satisfaction in maintaining correspondence with close friends, as their robust responses are my biggest reward.  I also enjoy the form of self-disclosure and revelation that a one-on-one meeting with a friend provides, so I have chosen to divide my blogging time between e-mail and meetings.  However, the trade-off is while I am forging good relationships, I also miss out on the opportunity to share my experiences and impressions with the wider community, anyone who might potentially have an interest in reading them or could benefit in any way.

When I was in Florence, I wrote a blog entry just about every day.  The composition of my peer group was a bit different back then, as there weren't specific individuals to whom I wrote frequently, and since it was my first time traveling abroad by myself I wanted to make sure I kept every detail for posterity.  Sometimes, when my roommates went out for a night on the town, I politely declined so that I could craft my blog entry.  I traded potentially fun social experiences for nights of introspection.  In some ways, I am happy I did as I have a very thorough record of my times I can easily read through and share with someone who might be interested in Italy.  

During my trip to Tokyo one year later, I kept a blog for a week but I had two other things pulling at my time and attention: the pen-and-paper journal I was required to keep for the class, which proved to be a good personal outlet, and a few correspondences with people abroad I had an interest in keeping.  My professor, Sensei Morgan, was against online blogging and felt it detracted from contact with the culture and more personal forms of writing, and said that "you can watch videos of Tokyo on YouTube from your computer at home."  So, I adopted this philosophy and stopped the blog after my orientation in Chiba and upon my arrival in Tokyo.  

When I taught in Guatemala, much of my energies were put towards fostering ties with the children and other people there, so I continued the trend of pen-and-paper writing when I most needed an outlet and wrote e-mails.  I started a blog, but never updated.  It was one of the best summers of my life, and I'm glad I became completely immersed.  

So, here in Madrid I decided since this was a big undertaking to once again rekindle the blogging spirit.  Since I've once again found an outlet in other places, I've been less hard on myself and instead followed my courses of inspiration.  If responding to a message or meeting a friend for coffee is more compelling, I will do that.  Though, I do want to still keep the blog going from time to time.  One of my goals for the New Year 2012 is to improve my concentration, an area I did not previously realize needed work but now would like to make better.  I also found a new way to express my art and writing in the form of ¡Extran Hero!, a comic travel journal that I'm looking to update this spring.  

Which do you prefer: writing to loved ones, seeing people in person, keeping a blog, or turning experiences into art?  Or, do each have their separate or linked value?  Are they all worth doing?