On Starting My Blog

So here it is - at long last, my first blog springs to life! After months of pondering, deliberation and boring the Wonderspouse silly with “When I start my blog I’ll . . .” conversations, I’ve finally done it! Hooray!

I’m setting off into the blogosphere with a certain amount of trepidation. Various books and websites have instructed me that my blog should be different, entertaining, interesting and short. It should also contain humour and lots of links as well as being jargon-free and giving an unusual viewpoint on the world. Furthermore, there are apparently trolls on the internet who will take any opportunity to criticise my blog just for some kind of sport, leaving me a quivering wreck on the floor under my desk. Oh crumbs, what have I let myself in for?

My only previous experience of “blogging” in any shape or form has involved posting rather a lot of updates on Twitter. When I joined Twitter I complained to the Wonderspouse that I didn’t have anything to tweet about. However, 2000 updates later, I seem to be managing fine, so I’m kind of hoping the same will happen with this blog.

The Wonderspouse, who is an author with his own blog, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes, has asked me on several occasions what I’m going to blog about. My rather simple answer has been “I don’t know”, and, guess what, I still don’t! I have so many and varied interests, that I’m not sure I could ever stick to a single-subject blog. Really I’m a “Jack of all trades and Master of none”, although the Wonderspouse rather flatteringly tells me that I simply have Too Many Aptitudes!

Maybe the best place to start would be with my blog’s title? It was inspired by a throw-away comment I made when I was asked why I had started a maths degree, having previously gained a music degree. I responded by saying that I was specializing in degrees beginning with the letter “M” (oh, and in case you’re interested, next on the list is modern languages, not moggies!). As it turns out, I do seem to be rather interested in things beginning with M, so a blog title was born.

Music is an obvious blog topic for me. I can state, quite categorically, that I could not imagine life without music. I have been obsessed with sounds, instruments, and compositions for as long as I can remember. My father taught me to read both music and words when I was 3 years old, so I really have no memory of life before music. I was brought up in “the classical tradition”, and eventually studied music at degree & postgraduate level. These days I have also branched out and discovered the exciting and vibrant world of Indie and Rock music! I continue to play the viola reasonably well and the piano fairly badly, and I’ve recently discovered the joy of electric guitars and fallen in love with the bass.

I’m less sure how I’m going to blog about maths! However, I am setting myself the challenge of saying something interesting about a subject that fascinates me so much that I spend vast swathes of my spare time studying it in the hope that I will eventually complete enough course units to gain a BSc. I can become engrossed in solving maths problems to such an extent that I forget about life’s difficulties and I find working on those problems deeply satisfying. I’m particularly fond of pure mathematics, as I love the way that it makes me think very clearly about abstract ideas in such a logical way.

I could write pages and pages about moggies, so you’ll be relieved to hear that I intend to restrict each blog post to 750 words or fewer. The Wonderspouse and I live with four fabulous felines - although “fabulous” is sometimes replaced by another, more robust, word beginning with “f” when we see the damage they do to the house! As they are so integrated into my domestic life, I don’t see how they can possibly stay out of my blog.

As for all the other “M”s listed above, we’ll all have to wait and see how they work themselves into blog format. I feel like I’m setting off on an intrepid adventure of blogosphere exploration! Maybe some of you will come along for the ride? Oh, and thank you so much for reading to the end!