Ada orang baca ke? (Is anybody bother to read?)

I read a friend's blog today. She was tagged by her sister. Usually, when a person being tagged, he/she will tag another person la pulak. In her case, she didn't do so. Instead, she wrote there, 'bukan ada orang baca pun blog ni'. I stunted for a while and smiled. Then, I commented something that I will elaborate here.


To me, writing a blog (when I first started) is to kill the time. I used to work before and surrounded by many people (colleague, students, parents and vendors). I talked a lot (I was a college counselor - eh! a counselor supposed to listen and not talked a lot laaaa). Yeah... I talked to friends, to parents - whenever they called me, or whenever they came to my office. There surely be clarifications needed like syarat-syarat program, how my son can excel, could you please advice my daughter and so forth.


So,'losing' all the havoc means my life will be a bit empty. To 'fill the emptiness', my friend Aniz suggested me to write a blog. After reading a few blogs that she suggested, I felt like doing the same. I wrote just about anything that came to my mind. Then, I record things that happened in my life. I wrote about my experience with people here. I also inscribed my journey experience to new places. In fact, I also created blogs for my kids and recorded every important events in their life that I know soon to be forgotten.


I didn't expect people to read my blog at first. But, when I started to look at others' blogs and saw manyyyyy comments, I felt something. Something that tells me, hey! they wrote and people read. You wrote but people don't read. You are not famous??Then I visited others' blogs and gave comments. Then they came and read my blogs and left comments. Aha!! that's the way. You read people's and people read yours. I was excited when knowing people are reading my blog. I felt like making friends and I love having many friends.


Of course, having new friends (or rather cyber friends whom I haven't or would never met at all) contented me. Having people reading my blogs would make me think, people like what I wrote and it would encourage me to write more.


But, does it mean if people don't read my blog, I will stop writing then? Stop jotting my life experience here that is so invaluable, stop making notes on my kids updates and stop killing the time? I had analyzed this situation with a few justifications.


First, most of my entries are in English (not many melayu like to read something in English - myself pun sometimes). I forgot to mention that I chose to write in English in order to improve my English. I did g00gle for the right word to use (sometimes). At least, I can increase my vocabularies. I used Bahasa Malaysia too sometimes when I felt like writing in Bahasa. Its my blog anyway... who cares ;).


My 34 years experience being in this world is not the same as 45 years experience of the others. The stories are different. My kids are still small. My journey is short. Nothing much and if there is, the others would have experienced it long ago. Not interesting to them anymore.


I always told my students, if you want to be called for an interview, send your resume to 20 different companies. The possibilities are, 3/20 will read your resume and call you for an interview. Same goes in this blogging activity. If I want people to read my blog, I have to visit 20 blogs. The chances is about 3/20 or if I'm lucky enough, there would be more. Plus, of course I can't expect people who just write and never bother to read others, to read my blog. Like, a company that in a midst of retrenching its staff wouldn't bother to read anyone's resume. Thus, never expect a reply :).


Some people read but leave no comment. They read for pleasure. So, its not necessary when I don't receive comment meaning nobody reads. But of course, 'informing' the tuan rumah about your presence is a nice thing to do. But sometimes, there are entries that people just don't know what to comment. I can't force people to write a comment. I have a friend whom always read my blog but I know she'll never leave comment (heheeee.. I know you're smiling ns!). How do I know? Because, she's my friend. So, if my own close friend doesn't leave comment while being a 'devoted reader', I can't expect a comment from those whom I never met right...


Finally, hey!! why bother? if I want people to really read my blog, go and advertise. I saw people blog hop and said something like 'hi! please come and visit my blog.' I'm not to that stage yet. Those people have reasons for doing that. Perhaps they have something really wonderful or interesting that they need to share with others. To me, I don't have anything that is extremely special that require people's attention.


So, be it. I can't please everyone in the world. Besides, my main reason writing a blog is not to be famous. If I happen to be, that's a plus (heheeee!!!). If you don't, continue writing. Life is too short for me to worry about petty things.