New Year... Hopefully Renewed Interest?

Happy 2008 to all! It's been some time since I've posted to my blog due to a combination of end of year business, project planning, board meeting, and just the usual holiday distractions. I'd be lying, however, if I didn't admit that my finger has been hovering over the blog's delete button over the past few weeks.

I initially started blogging as a more sophisticated means of journaling. I've kept a written journal of my field work for as long as I can remember. On my shelf in my office are journals from the Galapagos, Honduras, Canada, Florida, Micronesia, Hawaii, Fiji, Papua New Guinea... a long roll call of the many places I've been fortunate to visit. I've recorded my thoughts, ideas, impressions, frustrations, and tried to describe the sights, sounds, and smells of my field work. Though not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, I've here and there attempted to sketch a fish, bird, flower, shell, or vista that caught my interest. In all, I have some 15 journals that I've filled with my ramblings.

With the blog, I thought I'd have a more convenient way of consolidating my thoughts in one handy, albeit virtual, location that can be accessed practically anywhere. Plus, I could immediately save photos of my travel that have previously lived on miscellaneous CD's scattered around the home and office. While I've always maintained that I journal with or without an audience, the blog environment allowed me to broadcast my focus of coral conservation, as well as a peculiar hodgepodge of leftist political agenda, queer observations, and other commentary to anyone who bothered to read. I've never been much of a "joiner" and the idea of virtual social networks like MySpace, Friendster, or the other online communities holds little attraction to me. So imagine my surprise as I found myself part of a microverse of ocean science/conservation bloggers.

Even in this small cadre of ocean blogs, there seemed to be a niche for every conceivable affinity. Whether you're looking for fish, marine inverts, deep abyss, policy, technology, climate change, or seafood, there's a blog for you. Which is all well and good, but I've been dwelling on whether my particular contributions to the blogosphere are value added for me. It's a time intensive process to write what I would consider to be an interesting, readable post. Don't get me wrong, I certainly write a fair share of extemporaneous light humor, reaction, or opinion posts. But I try to mix it up now and then with deeper analysis or commentary. Plus when in the field, I try to share the daily workings of conservation in action. This is certainly more time consuming and requires more planning than simply journaling bulleted impressions in a notebook.

I suppose what I've been dwelling on over the past few weeks has been my return on investment. I see some of the popular blogs that not only wrangle baffling volumes of reader traffic, but also successfully engage readers in dialogue. To be sure, some of these bloggers have the added advantage of a somewhat taller soapbox than I can boast. And for me, blogging is not part of a job description that already keeps me occupied up to 12 hours a day and through all too many weekends. And my boyfriend would be the first to admit that I spend far too much time already at the computer.

I'm providing this context as neither an excuse nor as a call to sympathy. Lots of bloggers are juggling full-time jobs while maintaining excellent sites. Since this is my public journal, I'm merely providing some details and backstory on my lack of recent internal incentive to post. I'm not quite certain I've fully reconciled how I feel about my commitment to continuing this electronic experiment. But like I said at the start, I'd be journaling with or without a blog. And for now I think I'll keep the experiment running.