And here I go .........

Never had I imagined that one day I would do it, but here I am creating my very first web-blog. I was always a bit skeptical about my capabilities as an amateur writer. Due to which I never tried my hand at blogging, despite the encouragement extended by friends, who, I must mention, are highly competent writers. I was certain that the only scripts I could ever make public were those written in MATLAB or C++. Call it some kind of complex; call it a fear of rejection. The fact is I had no faith in myself. This changed, however. Recently, I was completely disillusioned. All my fears shattered. The credit, for this turn of events, goes to a handful of offbeat testimonials I wrote a couple of days back, which were praised by everyone who read them. This appreciation was what boosted me to take a plunge into the world of blogging.



Being a newbie, I decided that I need a brief orientation before I could venture any further into this new world. Thus, began my quest to find some good “How to”s and “What not to”s for reference. Google, the master and lord of all internet searches, gave me a decent number of articles, which shed light on “The Art of Blogging”. After an hour of delving, I was finally satiated with all the information my brain had devoured. I felt like a powerhouse of blogging. Being an epitome of generosity, I contemplated tutoring all the poor and helpless people incapable of assimilating the complexities of virtual world. And at that moment it struck me, I had used the word “world” for the third time now and also “that” is, apparently, my favorite word. I had used it four times already and would probably use it another five times. So I got back to what I had set out to do; create my first blog.

Phase one involved coming up with a name for my blog. It was quite agonizing, actually. Every title I came up with was already taken by, at least, four other bloggers. I was rather irked by the fact that my brain was not being imaginative enough to conjure something not so clichéd. It was simply not going beyond permutations of ‘ramblings’, ‘musings’, ‘confused soul/mind’ and other such hackneyed words. Blaming ten months of complete inactivity for my stifled creativity, I decided to call it a day. To refresh my mind jarred by this setback, I decided to go for a walk. The weather in Canada is quite pleasant these days. The multi-colored foliage, typical of fall, adorning maple trees all around is a definite eye pleaser. In midst of admiring the beauty of nature, my mind rushed back to its unfinished business. Suddenly, all my thoughts were, once again, centralized at my blog; this time examining its nature. About 200 meters later, I was ready with my title, ‘No Reservations’. A quick search on Google, after my return, revealed that it was, to my relief, not overused. I spent next the few minutes gloating over my victory over banality.



Phase two was relatively simple. I looked up a few websites that offer free space. We have quite a lot of options there; blogger, wordpress, typepad. I decided to go with the first one. No particular reason as such, it was more of an ‘eeni meeni miini moe’ thing. It also has got nothing to do with the fact that I worship Google. Anyways, after having signed up, I played around with templates until I got what I liked. I made it a bit fancy by adding an RSS feed from my picasaweb album (Yes, the slideshow flashing next to the posts is a compilation of photos taken by me. If you like what you are seeing and want to check out some more pictures, please click here). I wanted to add a nice streaming audio to complement my work but could not do so due to time constraints. (No, it was not because I am very lazy or have a tendency to procrastinate. I had other stuff to do, important stuff. And yes, I can read your mind.) Satisfied with the overall look and feel of my page, I saved it. Here endeth phase two.

With the culmination of preliminary stages of blog-creation, I began typing my very first post. This short journey of initiation has been both stressful and exciting; emphasis on later. Although not a big feat, the pleasure derived was equivalent. With that said, we now come to present day where you, my reader, are reading this post and I am anxiously waiting for your comments. My thanks to all those who made it to this line and liked what they read. For those who didn’t, you are probably not reading this but if you are, I thank you for bearing with my first attempt at writing.

(Quick quiz: How many times has the word ‘blog-’ appeared in my post? Consider all usages :P)