My Very First Blog Post EVER

This is the very first blog post I ever did. I re-read it on my old (currently defunct) blog and thought, well gaaa-lee!!! Wow. I was deep once, lol. So enjoy.

So I started this blog because, well... I started this blog because...

Blogs are supposed to be the revolutionary media through which the ordinary, everyday, not-so-well-known-if-known-at-all person can express his/herself to a (hopefully) wide and varied audience. They aren't even that new. The concept has been around for quite a while now. So that means I'm several years behind. And why?

I could blame my teachers and all those persons who are supposed to facilitate the educational process. I could say that they didn't encourage me enough to have an avid interest in the wider world of journalism, that they themselves didn't seem to know anything more than standard, ineffective methods of teaching... purely by rote, and that this unengaging, uninspiring sort of tutorship is to blame for me being so disgracefully out of sync with my chosen career, and it would probably be very close to the truth.

I could cite lack of mentorship or fellowship opportunities in a small, developing country like Jamaica. I could say that here, you have to be among a chosen few and have a certain level of experience or luck or links or precociousness in order to actually make any advances in a field like journalism; a field where jobs are limited, opportunities are few, and the salary is not too exciting either. And that would be no lie.

I could point out that in a society like mine, if you aren't studying to become a lawyer or a doctor, or someone who works in a bank, next to no-one recognises your career as anything significant or important. I could refer to the overwhelming ignorance about and therefore gross unappreciation for journalists or journalism in this country. I could explain that what we call the "grassroots man" in Jamaica has not yet come to terms with the role that good journalism plays in his development; that no-one has taught him to appreciate a concept so abstract, so he hasn't, and it really is no fault of his. Or mine.


But it wouldn't make a difference. It wouldn't change the fact that I am still only just starting a blog.

So I'm starting a blog because it's about time I did (and because some benevolent stranger named Pepe encouraged me to do it around the same time I was reading in magazines about blogs and had actually found a couple that were quite interesting).

I'm starting this blog because the whole concept behind blogs (I think) is to recognise the existence of people like me who may not have international acclaim or coveted millions, but still have something to say: I have a story worth telling, and if I get lucky, then someone, somewhere will think it's worth listening to.

I'm starting this blog because I am. And that alone warrants notice.