Proud to be a blogger

I'm known to exaggerate everything I say, but trust me, the following statement contains no such thing:

Blogging for ECS has changed my life.

It all started a little more than a year ago when I was browsing my School's undergraduates pages. I saw a notice calling for student bloggers so I volunteered. When I went to see Joyce, the person in charge, she told me what was expected of me and then surprised me by saying that I'll be getting paid 20 quid a month. That means with the required minimum of two blog posts a month, I'd be earning up to 10 quid a post! :D

So I started blogging for them in October 2007. I thought it was going to be a relatively hush-hush affair; maybe they'd stick my blog in some obscure link deep within the depths of the prospective students' pages. Boy was I wrong. Within a month, my mugshot was on the front page of the School's website and loads of people started mentioning about my blog. Soon afterwards, my lecturers were quoting my posts in lectures the same day they were published :D

But the most prized reward for me is when I receive positive feedback about what I've written. Initially, it was Joyce's encouraging words that drove me forward. Later on, I started to get approving emails from people reading my blog; prospective students, parents, advertisers, even our School receptionist! There was a student who asked me about coming to Soton and now he's one of the bloggers as well :)

It wasn't until things started to happen that made me fully realize the extent of how much my blog is opening doors for me. I had my first podcast made (which to this date I still haven't managed to watch until the end because I can't stop cringing!), I'll be in print twice by mid-November, and most importantly, I've been offered a PhD scholarship and job opportunities as well!

What strikes me odd is that I got all this for being a blogger. If I were to be back home and say "I'm a blogger!", people would start thinking that for some reason I'm an anti-government rebel who's going to jail some time soon, thanks to some pretty high profile government vs bloggers lawsuits. It's a pity how huge the difference is between blogging in the UK and blogging in Malaysia. I hope someday, people's mentality about blogging back home will change.

So yes, I'm proud to say I'm a blogger. At least here in the UK :D