Contention: Whether I should revive my blog
Main arguments:
1. As a GP teacher, I have a reputation to protect and expectations to live up to, especially when I write in a public domain, thus I am not sure if I can meet these lofty standards.
2. Teaching takes up so much time and effort that my life is embarrassingly bland outside of school. It depresses me when I realize the only thing I can blog about is...school..and students...and school...and students...
3. Blogs can be a never-ending source for trouble. Just look at the recent hoo-huh in one of the CCAs because of what a teacher has been blogging about. And who knows, one of these days my blog might be used as evidence against me when someone tries to claim that I harbour insatiable lust for my students.
4. 06S23 has previously printed pages from my blog...and * horror * plastered them over the walls of G101, much to my embarrassment. They didn't even bother to censor what I said about Brandon's underwear! (read 3 again) While colleagues came up to me and compliment my writing, or said that I had provided them with amusing entertainment while they were invigilating an examination, I am not entirely sure that I have not ruffled a few feathers among other colleagues.
5. I'm quite confident that nobody reads it anymore. Afterall it has been six months since I last blogged. Who would keep returning to a blog which has not been updated only to be disappointed time and again? (Okay, to be honest, I do, but that's an isolated example and I am not representative of the human population.) And I am not the sort who publicizes his blog in his msn nick, that is just so not the kind of thing I do. (To be inferred: somebody else should do it for me.)
Counter-arguments
1. The hordes of students who beg me to start writing again. (which just further confirms my fears for arguments 1, 2 and 3 stated above)
2. As a linguistic major and a GP tutor, I must admit that I do like writing. Meticulous rearrangement of words down to the syllable-level; rummaging through deep recesses of my brain thinking of the most effective word to convey the most subtle nuances; putting thoughts to paper (okay, fingers to keyboard) and laying out ideas to achieve the rhetoric effect that I desire. Yeah, that sounds like fun. (cue: shouts of "LOSER!" and rolling of eyes)
3. Encouragement from a student who says my blog is interesting, and different from the other dumb blogs he has seen. (Identity of the student is concealed so that his friends will not realize that he thinks their blogs are dumb)
4. As i re-read the earliest entries, they did bring some joy and nostalgia to me, and I could hardly believe that NIE 2005 seems so long ago, or that I used to * gasp * write Chinese poems. It would be nice, I think, in two years' time, when I have done sufficient damage to the minds of our youths and moved on to the subsequent phase of my journey, to look back at this short but momentous stage of my life.
VERDICT: Unsure. I know inconclusive writing with an unclear thesis is the hallmark of a failing essay, but I just can't bring myself to commit.
