One

I rang up my parents the other day to talk through one of those family crisis things that happens to all families and after we were done hashing through all of that, my father exclaimed:

"Lawd, girl, you ain't easy."

Daddy has been saying that particular expression for a very long time now but I laughed nervously, guessing what was coming next.

His voice went all soft, like he was trying not to let Mummy in the back room hear.

"You google yourself?"

What could I do but giggle in embarrassment.

"Yes, Daddy, I've googled myself."

"Girl, what you doing on that side of the pond?"

"I'm blogging, Daddy, I'm a blogger."

"You ain't easy. Ever since you a likle girl, head up high like you wan' see everything. How you go and make Google take notice of you like that- you're 4, 5 pages deep, ya' kno'"

Yup, Daddy-o, I know.

I don't know how it happened, it just sort of did. And well... it was my blog's birthday this week. Kalinago English is one year old.

So I decided it's probably about high time for a little reflection on the reasons why I blog because this week while I was working on a project for a Publishing House it hurt not to be blogging.

Dan Pink, I think, hits the nail on the head. Motivation, he says, boils down to three things.

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose.


Autonomy
Last year I was offered the opportunity to write a Business English course book which I turned down mainly because of the abysmal pay.

As I don't earn much from the blog, why one and not the other?

Okay... as a dogmeist I'm hardly interested in writing a media I don't believe in. But I do write resource materials so that's not really it.

It's because the blog is mine.

It's all mine. Every single article, the good ones and the bad ones. The outstanding drafts, the layout, the half-finished ideas and series. An enormous amount of satisfaction that I can produce this thing all by myself.

The photograph was taken by my little brother and is of the harbor near our house. The name comes from one of the tribes I'm descended from.

The whole thing is me, comes from me and yet is not about only me.

Mastery
If you were to have a look at my articles from October or November last year, well actually - please don't, you'd have noticed I'm becoming a better writer.

Now, it's not that I'm a big head, and in part it's to tell new bloggers to be a little patient - you will get better and people will come and visit your site, but it's also to share how thrilling it is when I compare my writing and teaching six months ago with today and recognize that in six months, in another year I will have learned even more.



Purpose
I write for teachers.

For teachers just like me. Teachers who I educate, teachers who teach other teachers to educate too.

Whenever you get something out of my blog, out of my words or videos, when you reflect as I do on your own teaching practices - I get a kick and feel like I am contributing something to the world I live in.

I'm always thinking of new things to share with you.

At the top of Maslow's Motivation Pyramid is the actualization of the self, however I think there is an even greater drive for motivation and that is being part of an actualization of a community.

It's never been about Google. It's not about what OneStopBlogs thinks or Babla and I don't really care about visitor statistics.

I blog because you come: you read, you share.

Thank you for a great year.


Best,
Karenne