Okay, not the usual kind of title for me… but there is a good reason. Normally, I do a little “year in review” at the beginning of a new blogging year. This year, I forgot to do it. Which was really a good thing, because in January something big happened on my blog. And that has to do with Mongolia…
When I began blogging, I had no idea what I was doing. People kept asking me if I had a blog, my husband kept telling me I needed a blog, and all I could think of was “Why in the world would I want to blog?”. I still think that every once in a while. The truth is, I am not a natural blogger. I am not dedicated enough to make sure I schedule posts for regular intervals, or to pursue all the social media options available to “boost my this” or “increase my that”. I’ve not taken to Twitter (the horror!) to try and be trending, or to follow other people who do what I do. I am not a natural social media animal. And I don’t make money from my blog, and I’m not trying to make money from it – it’s a sideline, a public soap box, if you will, to my “real” job, which is working with and educating parents and teachers, and teacher-trainers. Sometimes I feel like I need to do a lot more, to comb the web for followers, and try to get sponsored posts, and do “blog hops” to increase my readership. Sometimes it feels like if you aren’t the most dedicated blogger on the block (on the host platform?) then there is just no point to blogging at all.
Which leads me back to Mongolia… One of the things I do really like about blogging is “seeing” the visitors from all over the world – some come and go without ever leaving a footprint, apart from in my “stats” page. Some join in, sign up, and comment away. Either way, while I can’t see exactly *who* has visited, I can see where they have come from. From the very beginning of my blog days, I’ve been a bit obsessed with the world map stats page. It shows a map of all the countries in the world, with colour codes. If a country is in white, it means that nobody from that country has ever clicked on my blog. In my first year, I watched with interest (and yes, pride) as more and more countries turned from white to orange. And at the end of my first year, I had over 100 countries on my map! But what I saw, when I looked at my map, was a big white space in the shape of Mongolia… I don’t know why Mongolia stood out to me – maybe because it is so big, or because it, alone, remained steadfastly white, as I conquered the former USSR countries and Asia… Maybe because Mongolia seems so far away and remote and unobtainable. For whatever reason, I became fixated on Mongolia.
So here I am, two years on. People from 154 countries have visited my blog – including countries I did not even know existed! I am so delighted that people all over the world are thinking about bilingualism, and Googling about bilingualism, and visiting my blog to share in my world. And yes, in January 2014, I finally got Mongolia! I don’t know who you are, or anything about you, but whoever you are in Mongolia, who clicked on my blog four times (!!!) – thank you for making a very happy blogger of me!
No, I’ll never be a blogging powerhouse. I’ll never make a list of “10 most popular blogs”. Frankly, I’m too lazy! But if my blog has helped a few people along the way – made somebody feel better about their choices, or more confident, then that’s enough for me. Well, that, and Mongolia.