A-Z reflection post - Journey of a Survivor!

What is it all about?

       I hadn't even completed a whole month since I started blogging when I signed up for this challenge. I certainly had no idea about what it was but when I saw the excitement it was creating in the blogosphere, I understood it was something important and I couldn't stand the thought of being left out! So I dived into it without thinking much! Little did I know it would be so much fun and tiring at the same time.

      When the time came for deciding the theme, I wanted to select something that would be easy. So I selected the theme emotions which was easy enough as there were lots of them to choose from and writing about them should be easy enough. Well that was what I felt about it initially. But trust me, it was anything but that!

How I survived it?

       At first I hadn't scheduled any posts, I thought I would do it when the challenge begins but thanks to the lovely people in our facebook group, I got to know the importance of scheduling posts before hand. Four days before the challenge, I started scheduling. I couldn't complete much. All the later posts were written the day before the particular letter. It was truly a challenge. I was juggling between college and blogging. There was so much to do. Internals, project, competitions to attend and obviously that meant time for practicing; which left me with less time for blogging!

        With everyone actively doing blog hopping, I felt guilty that I couldn't do it with the same rate. At first I tried to visit all the blogs in the group but soon realized that it wasn't possible. I was neglecting everything else in the process. So I decided to go easy on myself and bookmarked a few blogs that I liked. There were some 20 - 25 blogs. I stated to get up early by an hour than usual to go through their posts and comment. Then I commented on few while I traveled in bus till college. Whenever I got spare time, I used to blog hopping till the extent that my friends started complaining about not giving time for them! Some days it even happened that I returned home by 9 pm due to project and wrote the post for next day! With wifi not working at home few days, I have even gone to the length of borrowing dongle from my neighbour to schedule posts. It wasn't easy at all and there were a lot of hurdles. But I finished it! Yes there are many blogs which I couldn't visit but I am planning on doing it in the coming months.

Who helped me?

       I seriously couldn't have completed this challenge without all the love and support I got from my friends. I would especially like to thank Shailaja V for adding me to the group, which has now become like a family to me, my dear friend Nibha and Porthos aka S(t)ri for the constant support and most importantly, my best friend Sadiya for putting up with me. I have made her feel sick of the term blogging by bugging her always about what to write. In middle of a class or during a study period, I would suddenly get an idea and I would make her listen to it and ask for her insight about it. I used to bug her to suggest me the emotion beginning from the letter or a story to go with an emotion. She used to get irritated sometimes but still she helped me a lot till the end to complete this challenge. A big thanks to you Saddy :) And also Usha Menon, Nabanita, Sushree, Sreeja, Kathy, Titli, Sunday Visitor, Shilpa, Pheno Menon, Prasanna, Liz A, Suzy, Sulekha, Sachin, Rajlakshmi, Beloo, Proactive Indian; thank you for your constant love and support :)

What I learnt?

       I have read so many posts and have got an opportunity to connect with many wonderful bloggers. I have learnt that there is much more to blogging than just a few random posts that I used to write before. The comments from my readers have helped me improve my writing style a lot. And I have learnt that scheduling the posts before hand can save a lot of difficulties during the challenge. I have learnt to manage time and most important of all, I have learnt to face the challenges head on! I have made many friends too. Hoping to keep in touch with all the people I have connected with during the challenge.

       Congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge :) Yay! We survived it :) And now I proudly flaunt the badge of the survivor on my blog :)

Until the next post (Challenge? ;) )

Keep Smiling :)

Love,

Swathi :)