the air

March has been quite an interesting month for me. Not only was it filled with some surprising moments, it also marked somewhat of a downturn in my blog. Much of the shortcomings for this month can be attributed to the fact that I became extremely busy with my school work and I could not afford to spare precious moments to write on this blog. I think it is significantly better to write quality posts rather than maintain a post-per-day that has absolutely no quality to it. To offset the possibility of losing all the readers, I decided to run a contest as well. Although there are some things that I wish I did a bit differently, everything about this month has been quite successful and I’m very thankful for that.

Failed Goal

I did not successfully accomplish my goal of having at least one post per day. Although I did average a little more than one post per day, I was unable to write daily. Throughout this blog, you will notice that I strongly emphasize the fact that every successful blogger should have at least one fresh post per day or maintain some sort of consistency. I chose my consistent platform to be one post per day. The biggest obstacle I have had in the past couple of weeks has been the amount of increasing work due to courses. I have so many projects due and meetings that sometimes, I have no choice but to start sacrificing tasks which are not essential to school. Even in the days ahead, I am looking at significant problems due to school and there is a strong likelihood that I will have no choice but to miss days writing posts.

March Contest

This is by far one of the most important highlights of the month regarding this blog. I started this contest as a way to not only alleviate the burden of writing daily, but also a way to increase traffic. All in all, it was a successful contest because I was able to increase the amount of readers and it taught me to have a bit of a thicker skin. Apparently, there were a few folks who thought my contest was a way of “trying too hard” to gain readership. It was even suggested that I run a contest once my blog is more popular. My only answer to that point is the fact that it does not matter when I run my contest. I’m not here to simply bribe people. Rather, it was my hope to create more awareness about my blog and it worked. Those who criticized my move were aware of my site and came to visit. In my opinion, my goal was accomplished and there is a lucky winner. I decided to give someone a gift certificate from Amazon because I feel they have some good deals and free shipping. Essentially, the winner of the contest can buy something and not pay a single penny for shipping. Overall, I am pleased and a huge thank you to Jennifer Lynn over at BrokeAss-Student for advertising my contest.

Blog Improvements

I also spent some time this month improving certain areas of The Air. Most importantly, I revamped the layout of the Must Reads section, which is now known as The World of Air. I realized that the older layout was simply too congested and did not present the material in a pleasing way. I also added a module to the sidebar known as The Air Club, which will basically link some of the best articles I feel I have written. Although the World of Air also has similar content, I think The Air Club will also be used to highlight posts of special interest. Generally speaking, I’m not quite sure where The Air Club will evolve into, but I am willing to try new things and see where they lead to.

New Technology

For the first time, I got a chance to try out both Microsoft Office 2007 and Windows Live Writer. Both applications (Word 2007 in the Office Suite) allow me to publish directly to my blog without the need to login to my blog and type away. The advantage to this is the fact that I can write several posts in advance and save them for later, all on my computer. I don’t think either application will completely replace the need to login to my blog since there are tons more administrative features on my blog that I cannot control through another application. I think using Word 2007 to publish my posts is a great idea since it checks spelling and grammar at the same time, unlike Windows Live Writer. I realize that although I am using Word 2007/Windows Live Writer, I am still unable to write daily. However, the spare moments that I do have, I do write partial posts and as soon as I complete them, I publish them.

Flights

The past two months have shown me great things about myself and this blog. I was able to win two scholarships, one for independent research and the other for academic merit. I am very pleased with the progress I have made academically and I thank everyone for playing a role in my success. You may not believe it, but you too have contributed to my success by just visiting my blog and encouraging (directly or indirectly) to continue writing and never giving up. As April swings into full motion, it is my hope to be able to post daily and see how things progress. I think some of my new goals for this blog will be to increase the number of readers, start moving up on the Technorati scale, and try to find ways so that there is more lively discussion in the comments section. I think I have a few ideas of how to go about doing so and I cannot wait to see how the month of April unfolds.

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