I am thrilled to have such good company for the September Blog Challenge (and reminded of how technology can bring together people from around the world and different parts of my life). Please take some time to visit and read the following bloggers, and consider subscribing to their blog feeds, following them on Twitter and Facebook, and commenting on and sharing their posts.
Also, there is still plenty of time to join us! Drop me a line if you have any questions.
Allyse’s blog: The Frog Lady: Engineer by Day; Frogger by Night
Allyse (aka The Frog Lady) has been blogging for a little more than a year and already has found her rhythm and following. She describes her blog as follows:
“This blog is for anyone who enjoys frogs. Whether that is just to watch some of my frogs and tadpoles grow up, get ideas for a new tank or get some insight on what I do to maintain my tanks, frogs and now tadpoles.”
Read her 1 Year Blogversary post from earlier this year as well as her posts in another blog challenge, the April A to Z Challenge.
Study abroad student blog: The Cross-Cultured Condition
The author of this blog is a study abroad student beginning the first of two semesters at the Université de Montréal (after having spent a year studying in Paris recently). He is also my nephew, and I highly recommend his blog to anyone interested in travel, language, culture, and youth. A recent post, “Linking Language with Power, Understanding, and Sharing,” is a good example—a thoughtful reflection on how our understanding and use of language affects our access to power and our ability to understand others.
His final words about his first day in Montréal, where there’s “maple syrup-flavored everything,” captures his sense of adventure and optimism:
“So perhaps my first impression of Montréal was not what I was expecting after listening to Michel Rivard’s Styromousse. Maybe my excitement and confidence wasn’t as infallible as I believed. But these are important feelings to acknowledge, to understand, and to overcome. I don’t need to convince myself to love Montréal, I need to find the reasons that make me love it. So here’s to another year. Another country. Another blog, and more memories than I will ever be able to fit into my crowded journals and photo albums. I’m up for it.”
Marianne’s blog: Marianne Kuzujanakis . . . on how I see
Marianne wears all of her many hats as a “pediatrician, homeschool educator, gifted advocate, and writer” as she writes her blog and shares beautiful original photographs. Her most recent post, “Beautiful Imperfections,” is about the Japanese idea of wabi sabi and is indicative of her style and voice:
“[W]abi sabi is the accepting of imperfections and impermanence precisely because the imperfections and impermanence are the key elements of beauty. Character. History. Wabi sabi is the life journey that emanates from an old desk or china cup, as much as a grizzled old tree trunk, or the caring face of a beloved parent or grandparent.” Read More
Also check out Marianne’s writing at the Huffington Post.
Mary’s blog: Commonplace & Curious
Mary’s first post in the Blog Challenge is titled “Sharpened pencils and fresh notebooks,” in which she writes, “What I love about back-to-school is the promise of new beginnings, pencils sharpened to a perfect point and fresh notebooks with empty pages begging to be filled.” I couldn’t agree more.
For anyone thinking about blogging or want to blog more, Mary wrote a good post this summer in honor of her one-year blog anniversary on what she’s learned so far:
1. Momentum is key, as it is with so many habits. The more frequently I blog, the more motivated I am to keep up with it. It’s very hard to get back to blogging after neglecting it for weeks or a month at a time.
2. My motivation to blog has to be simple – write it and share it….
3. I’m still learning to let go of being a perfectionist when it comes to writing, and blogging has certainly helped me make progress in that regard. Read More
Also, be sure to read her very first post on why she procrastinated starting blogging (reasons that will be familiar to many of us).
Jo’s blogs: Gifted Resources Blog, Sprite’s Site, and Personas, Profiles and Portraits
I love how Jo Freitag (in Australia) has responded to the Blog Challenge. She has three blogs, so plans to publish 10 posts on each blog in September. Here are some of her recent posts:
- Gifted Resources Blog: VAGTC Conference 21-22 May 2015 (Jo’s experience at a gifted education conference in Melbourne, Australia)
- Sprite’s Site: Stories of the OEs (explaining Dabrowski’s theory of overexcitabilities with drawings)
- Personas, Profiles, and Portraits: 2015 Edublogs Teacher Challenge Step 8 (on creating and using video)