1- Are you happy with your blog layout as well as posts?LayoutSort of, I like the black background since the beginning, but I feel the sidebar is a bit crowded & needs trimming.
PostsLet me say: satisfied, since most of my posts are not up to the level I want them to be at. Sometimes I think of a certain post as a step forward, while other posts seem like additions or updates :\
2- Does your immediate family know about your blog?Yes, but they're –generally- infrequent readers, some of them call it "website", and some show an interest by reading other Kuwaiti blogs and having an intention to start their own.
3- Do you find it embarrassing to tell a friend about your blog?No, my friends discuss my posts (every now & then) and ask me about updates.
4- Do you consider blogging a private matter?Private in the sense of its origin (see: author), but if you come to think about it, we publish our posts to interact & share with the world, with no exception.
So, I think privacy is only found in our quasi-anonymous identities (nickname/alias/profile), while the rest is not ours but everyone else’s, or as G.K. Gebran put it:
أولادكم ليسوا لكم، أولادكم أبناء الحياة
5- Did blogging positively affect your thoughts?Yes indeed, especially while reading other blogs. Everyday I learn something new, be it a new idea, technique, meal, story, news …etc you name it.
6- Do you visit the ones who usually visit you? Or do you open yourself to a bigger sphere in the Net?I started reading a small number of blogs, by accessing them directly. Then I started to read posts from any Kuwaiti blog
Safat sends me to.
Currently, I'm using RSS feeds (
sage) to read updates from the blogs I like & enjoy, Kuwaitis & non-Kuwaitis alike.
7- Is the number of visitors important to you? Or you care more for your commentators?I care about what people show interest in, by "analyzing" the “comments X visits” tendency, and by checking what people usually check or look for in my blog (through
my stats).
8- Did you try to imagine your commentator's physical appearance?No, but I imagine their "mental age" which is reflected in their posts & discussions. I prefer the experienced ones, you never regret reading or having a discussion with them, whether they share your viewpoints/beliefs or not.
9- Did you find a real benefit from blogging?Nice people, knowledge, good time… Yes I did.
10- Do you feel that the blog-o-sphere is an isolated entity from the actions in the world around you?When I took my first step in blogging, I thought it was. But after spending almost two months blogging, I found out that the blogosphere is not isolated (some exceptions exist). I think of it now as the “other side” and the rest as
Plato’s cave, since bloggers have dual nationalities, the first in the physical world and a related one in “Cyberia”.
11- Does a commentator's criticism bother you, or do you think that criticism is a healthy debate?It doesn’t if I did, said or expressed something I’m not sure or aware of. Because such criticism will help me to create a more comprehensive idea about what I post about, give me an opportunity to think through several points of view and present me to new frontiers.
What bothers me, or let me say “concerns me” is people’s opinions & stances that are merely built on unexamined information, prejudice or maliciousness.
Criticism is a beneficial mean, it opens new windows for our thoughts, so it’s welcome here.
12- Do you have paranoia toward some political blogs and do you try to avoid them? Were you shocked that some bloggers were arrested?At ll, actually it’s like:
قطو وطقيته بمصير
As for arresting blogger, I feel sickened whenever I know about such incidents.
13- Have you ever thought about your blog's fate after your death?Yes I did, as one of the things I thought about after my decease. My e-mails, blog, writings, pictures, notes, computers and several personal assets.
14- What is the song that you'd like to have it linked to your blog?Marcel Khalife’s
“Passport”. (Mahmoud Darwish’s
Poem)
