This post is part of the blogging fundamentals tutorial offered by WordPress. If you are a regular follower of my blog, you are probably not interested in this path. I will try to remember to title all related posts with Blogging Fundaments so you can recognize and skip 

Today’s assignment was to go into Reader with 5 tags and “visit the neighbors.” So far, I have explored one tag–Zentangle–and I have come away with several people whom I am now following. As soon as the power comes back on, I will try “writing,” something along the line of novice photography, mysteries (to read, not write), and maybe computer coding. I am not sure about the last two, but we will see what comes up. 

While I am waiting for access to my computer (I am using my iPad right now), I thought I could tell you why this space is called Write of Passage. When I named this space several years ago, I had no idea what choose for a focus. So I named it Eleanore’s Ramblings. Every now and then, I would blog about one thing or another, but I blogged neither regularly nor on a set of topics. I already had a professional blog relating to education, and a few Blogger spaces to review kids’ books. But what to do with this site? I was clueless.

Using WordPress’s Bloggers U, I signed up for a class on basic blogging. Back then, the workshops started on a particular date, and a whole group of us interacted among ourselves and with the facilitator. There were fewer than 50 of us from all over the world, and it was not long before those with similar interests got to know each other. Several of the blogs I follow go back to my first Bloggers U class. 

About six months later, after my blogging became seriously anemic, I took the class again. This time, there were over 100 participants, and it was almost impossible to follow all classmates for long, especially since many of us were getting behind or dropping out altogether. However, it was during this second run through this tutorial that I felt comfortable enough to focus this blog. My interests for this space were two-fold: to hone my writing skills, and to write about my experiences of and personal observations on being a senior citizen. So I played around with blog names and came up with “Write of Passage.”

Older posts in this space include tips on writing that I had picked up from others and from books on writing. Other posts used the writing to talk about getting older. One of the things I have done recently is study art. I am not particularly talented in this field, but I wanted to learn how to draw. Locally (well, on the French side of our little island) I found an artist who was willing to work with a talentless novice. As time went on, I added oil painting to my study, so that a few months ago, when I picked up Zentangling, I thought it would be interesting to talk about how visual art forms and writing intersect. 

Although tangling is still my current focus, writing about my experiences as I negotiate lessons on my own fits comfortably into the blog name, so I won’t be changing that for a while.  One thing I find interesting is the limitations the aging process can put on learning new things. Not only are memory functions no longer as good as they once were, but the body sometimes refuses to cooperate. For example, I’ve developed a fine tremor that makes it difficult to control what my hand does with a pencil or paintbrush. Some days are better than others, but I have had to rely on implements to help me–templates, French curves, rulers, etc. Even so, it is fun to learn new things, even when my body frustrates me.

Well, the power has not returned yet, and I have a dental appointment to get to. When I get home, I will charge up my laptop (MS Office updates drained it over night) and continue exploring the Reader. 

Happy blogging!

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#educ_dr