Improvements

One of my resolutions for 2009 is to improve the quality of my blog, and I signed up with Sophisticated Dorkiness's project to keep me on track. I skimmed through a couple of the articles and can specify that I'd like to improve the quality of my blog's content, the design/layout, and I'd like to build a sense of community with and among you the readers of this crazy thing. At the moment my goals are really general:




* I've recently started doing this, but I'm going to continue to compose my blog in a .txt file before pasting it into blogger. The idea is two-fold; first I've learned the hard way that the formatting gets all wonky if I compose half my blog save it, add pictures, save it, etc. And second, composing offline gives makes it ever so slightly less likely that I will publish before running spell check. So my intention is to compose first, add pictures second & publish *after* at least a cursory attempt at editing. (of course spell checker isn't working at the moment.... the best laid plans...)




* Speaking of editing, I want to work towards getting a better quality to quantity ratio. Not every post needs to be a long & rambling stream of consciousness. ;)




* Finally I want at least some of my posts to be helpful to people who are planning to visit SE Asia or planning to teach abroad or anything like that.




* Which ties back in with the community aspect. I want to get more plugged in to the ex-pat / teaching abroad / traveling bloggers community. I've found a few interesting sites, but there have got to be more out there! And, I want to put this blog out where the people who might find my experience helpful might go looking for it. I know that when I was thinking about going abroad I actually only found a few relevant blogs and many seemed to be out of date or not updated very frequently. It's interesting/ exiting for me to read about other people's experiences and hopefully I can add my own perspective to what's out there.




So those are, loosely, my blog goals... or 'good intentions' for 2009. I'm sticking with the project and as relevant topics or tasks appear, you'll be seeing more about it.



There have been slight improvements in other areas of my life.


- My tummy seems to have settled - huzzah! You know, until the next weird thing I eat.


- One of the other teachers was eating "Cup Jok" today and it was really good so I got some for dinner tonight. It's kind of like cream of wheat, only with rice, and salt, and just enough chicken & green onion to give it a slight flavor, just add hot water. This could be a new breakfast / I don't feel good type of meal. Not a nutrient rich meal I'm sure, but the excessive layers of plastic packaging and freeze-dried nature of the "chicken" reassure me that it is quite free of e-coli & salmonela. Huzzah!


- I got new sheets and a bedside lamp (and a lightbulb, which obviously wasn't included with the lamp, nor carried by the store where I bought the lamp, but finally obtained nonetheless). Huzzah! This means I can read in bed (actual books - not just the interwebs!) Of course, I still don't have a bed-side table, but you know... I'm taking the improvements where I can get them.