Thing #12: Creating Community through Commenting

After reading "How to Comment like a King (or Queen)" I was a much more enlightened blogger.  I especially liked tip #7:  Remember the Power of Words:  Beware of Darth Commenter.  Basically this pointed out that there are people out there who will use derisive comments to wreak havoc on a bloggers psyche "like Darth Vader with a light saber"  Newbies Beware!!  I thought this was important to remember when a new blogger, you may not realize it but these types of comments can act as subtle detractors from the whole blogging experience-leaving one to lose confidence and momentum and possibly stopping a blogging career in its tracks. For the whole story go to:
 http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-comment-like-king-or-queen.html

Another blog which discussed the commenting aspect of blogging was "(Drape's) Takes to Edublogger Etiquette".  There is a great discussion here (full of reader comments!) about responding to comments on one's own blog.  Should a blogger respond to all comments or just the more meaningful ones?  Is it okay to respond to some or most comments by private email or is responding publicly better?  What about never responding to comments?  These were several questions which were discussed by readers, here is the link if you wish to read more...
http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2008/05/edublogger-etiquette-responding-to.html

As far as my own comments go,  I am working on responding to 5 classmate's posts re. their blogs.  I am finding their blogs to be quite interesting!! 
As far as finding two blogs of personal interest to add comments to, that was easy.  As many of you know, I have a 4 1/2 month old daughter named Anna.  What you may  not know about Anna is that she was born with Down Syndrome.  Going through the shock and struggle of accepting this after her birth (none of the prenatal testing I did showed this possibility) and trying to learn as much  as possible,  I  went looking for blogs by other parents of young children with Down Syndrome.  I found two marvelous ones that I have been following ever since (they are listed on my sidebar) and for which I am grateful to have as a part of my continuing quest  into being the best mother and advocate for my beloved Anna that I can.  As much as I adore these two blogs however, I have never posted comments to either and this assignment has given me the courage to do so.  That in turn has made me become a part of the community of bloggers in a way that I was not before.  I must agree with what the title of thing #12 is suggesting:  we create a community when we comment and respond (whether personally or publically) to each others blogs in Blogland.  Blogging is a new sort of interactive journalling, instead of the one sided process of just writing or reading the journal as in the past, Blogging allows the writer and the reader to respond to each other in real time thus creating a personal relationship between the two in a way that has never  before been possible.

Thing #11: Library Thing

I signed up with library thing and entered about 10 of my books.  I then looked at the groups and found an interesting one called "I see dead people's books" which is a group of people who put up profiles of famous people and their personal library collections.  Want to know what Marie Antoinette or Marilyn Monroe had in their library?  How about Franz Kafka or William Shakespeare?  You can find out here!  I found this group fascinating, it even showed me which of my books I shared with these famous dead people (Marilyn M. and I shared 3 James Joyce titles, who knew she was such a reader?).  I really enjoyed Library Thing.  You can look at book reviews, write book reviews and do all kinds of fun things here.  There are a lot of members and many interesting groups to look at, including local groups in the Houston area. There is also a talk feature where members post about various literary activities they are engaged in such as the "50 book challenge" or the "readers of YA lit" discussion group.  I found many interesting things here and will definitely be back to explore when I have some time to do so.

Thing #10: Anna and Mischa as created with help from "Image Chef"