Monday, September 15, 2008

What is the Mission of this Blog?

This Blog is dedicated to the cohorts of the ACSian Sec 4 Class of 66 and PU II Class of 68. Their questions and comments led to the humbling realization that the value of the blog comes from what visitors get out of it rather than the effort to put in the latest and greatest features.

Since it is impossible to give a complete answer to each questions, comments from the community are welcome when Acsian Blogger is unable to answer in a timely fashion. To encourage answers and avoid spam, comments will be moderated before publication.

There are a few simple things to keep in mind:
  1. Experiment to your heart's content! It is unlikely that you will do any irrepairable damage accidentally, so experiment without worrying about making mistakes, and no one else will know about it. In fact, if you learn something new, it may be valuable to share your insight. On the other hand, no special precaution is taken to make it bulletproof, so if you knowingly and maliciously do any damage, note that the full force of the curses and ill will of the cohorts and friends will be upon you :-(
  2. Web unfamilarity is the natural state for many of us! Many of us were brought up and went to school at a time that the internet did not exist.
  3. Remaining Web unfamilar is limiting your access to a wealth of information! Given that (2) above is true, and that you are now aware of it, means you should try to get out of that situation as fast as possible. One way is to consult your children, nephews, nieces, grandchildren.... however, if you feel as senior family member they should be consulting you, consider asking your questions here, where you will have a group of friendly cohorts able and willing to help you so that you can proudly show off your new found knowledge and capabilities.
  4. Contributing to the blogs will help you exercise those English Language and General Paper Brain Cells which were not used since ACS days! Many of us did not have the opportunity to write or speak as well as when Mr Ong Kang Hai and other dedicated teachers were continually correcting and penalizing spelling and grammar mistakes. Many of us actually faced deteriorating standards because of the lack of exercise of those cells, and the environment we found ourselves in.
  5. Writing a blog article is simpler than writing an essay, composition or a book! The unit of a blog entry is an article discussing your thoughts, or a comment to somebody else's article or comment. Do not worry about the structure (like we needed to in school) or making it look nice and perfect. While there are purists who are very picky about how things are presented and said, realize that the message is more important than the medium. As long as you have something to say that is interesting to someone else, go ahead and blog. In this day and age, there is a preference for brevity rather than for long windedness.
  6. Write or Comment on something you know or feel about or have an opinion. Do not feel obligaged to discuss or write about all topics.
  7. Expand your horizons, and start small! The first attempt was a blog about nostalgia and our reunion, because that was all the material that was available. Since then, suggestions were made about presenting and sharing life experiences about travel, gardening, food, the web, and so on. May I suggest a couple of additional topics: life philosophies, the principles you live by, and health.
  8. Do as you learn, and learn as you need to do. This results in continuous payoffs while you are learning, rather than spending a long time doing the learning then practising.
The posts in this Blog will attempt to address every question on how to use different features of the group of ACSian Nostalgia blogs in an easy and convenient way, and how to get more out of what is already there.

Keep in mind that the objective is not necessarily to present the best way or all the different ways of doing something, but more to show the way to do something in a way that has been personally experienced.

On the left hand side of all the pages is a list of suggested topics. While the polling date is set to be a week, feel free to express which ones you want to hear about soon, so that it would be possible to give priority to writing those as time permits, and to ignore those that nobody is interested in. Of course, voting for all the topics would end up negating your own votes, and is equivalent to not voting at all!

Finally, if you would like to comment on this article or add your own comments or questions you would like answered, please click on the comments link just below and write what you like.

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