Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year; Happy New Blog


Photo courtesy of Thierry Jouanneteau

I'm most excited to be wishing you all a happy and healthy 2011 from a new blogging space.

A little over a month ago, after letting my "expat" blog La France Profonde lie wordless and photoless for over two months, I realized I missed blogging.

Many of my close blogging buddies have been led down the Facebook/Twitter path, and I have followed. But as I started making an occasional post to La France Profonde in November and December, comments floated in.

And isn't it a lot more satisfying to get a comment on your blog than a Facebook notification, or a Twitter DM, RT, reply, or mention? It certainly is for me.

But I need a clean slate.

Since starting La France Profonde five years ago, I have begun to feel more and more disconnected from the image of myself as "An American in Aveyron," blogging primarily about a little-known, bucolic patch of France:

I am now French AND American.

I don't see much of Aveyron's lovely countryside since I spend all week in a modern school building in Bourran, Rodez's new, modern business area.

I go to Paris more often than I go to Millau.

And I have so many other subjects to write about: travel, music, teaching, books, social media, food...and why not the occasional "this is what's going on in my life" post that blogs were meant to be for?

I could, of course, do all of the above from La France Profonde, but I somehow don't want to denature its original purpose.

That's also why I'm not going to bid it adieu. Someday, if time and inclination allow, I may go back to blogging about Aveyron.

But for now, this is where I belong.

19 comments:

  1. Hi Betty. Have also been waylaid by facebook and twitter and have also missed blogging. So glad to see you back. Bonne année et bonne santé!

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  2. Betty, a big fat congratulations and thumbs up on your new blogging environment and endeavor!

    I don't Twitter because I don't have a close relationship with a cellphone.

    And, with the exception of a big holiday, or wishing people Happy Birthday from afar, or communicating via email with people who think that email begins and ends at the dedicated fb email module, I think of fb as a place established to reach out--quick and dirty--to far flung friends and family in a pinch.

    But, if fb is sound bites, blahging is paragraphs of fascinating glimpses into the minds and lives of interesting and motivated people that one is privileged to know and read about!

    Happy New Year and Happy New Blog!

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  3. Yeah! A new blog! Welcome back! I have noticed lately that quite a few of my on-line friends are stepping away from FB and Twitter (and in particular from FB) to come back to blogging, where the real substance is.

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  4. @Betty What a nice surprise to "see" you again. I left a longish post on your blog.

    @The Pliers Thank you for your encouragement. As for Twitter, I don't actually use it from my cellphone. It is fun and professionally very interesting, but can become a clicking black hole. To be used with care.

    @spaced Wow! So this is where the real substance is? That's setting high standards already...

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  5. I like your new place! :)
    Here's to a new year and a new start.

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  6. I like your new place too. Perhaps I will follow suit.

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  7. Great! I have added your new blog address to my Google Reader...Glad that you are still blogging ;-)

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  8. A quote from an email I received on February 1, 2006:

    "I have started two blogs on Blogger, so I was pleased to see you suggested that site. I am enjoying writing them even if I have virtually no feedback yet! I guess that’s normal since I think I’ve only told my parents and sister about them!.... The first one is about life in this area of France and the second one is about French food and cooking magazines. I hope you’ll take a look. They are very basic technically but it is a good way to force myself to write something."

    5 years later, you're a blogging pro and social media whiz!

    Congrats and Happy New Year!

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  9. @Loulou @Alison Thank you for your support. At first I wanted to get the site all "set up" before starting, but of course I didn't have the time, and there's something nice about a blank slate. I'll review my sidebars little by little and see what I want to keep.

    @Alison -- I'll be interested in seeing what you decide to do.

    @TN -- Thanks for the comment and I hope you will pick up your blog again under some form.

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  10. @Steve Leave it to your organizational skills to be able to dig up an email from 2006 just like that! This weekend I too was thinking about the help you gave me in getting my blogs started. I remember contacting you when I hardly knew what a blog was...anyway, thanks for that advice, and as you said, look where it has taken me!

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  11. 2011 is going to be more interesting looking at the world through your window.
    Bonne annee and happy blogging!

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  12. @Nadege Thank you for your faithful following! You are one of my only commenters who doesn't have her own blog...maybe someday?

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  13. While I will miss La France Profonde, I will follow you here, and repost the correct link soon. Change is good.

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  14. Hello Mimi! I was just thinking about you -- part of the "New Blog" project will be to go back through all of my blogrolls from 3 blogs and check out who is still around! Happy New Year and I hope you are well.

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  15. What's the over/under on the first appearance of The Kinks in a post? :)

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  16. @Randal Bien vu. That will be coming soon. I actually have a few Kinks posts from one of my "other" blogs, And So Forth, that I hope to move over here because I want them to stand as part of my blogging record!

    Bonne année!

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  17. I'm just glad to see you are back to blogging!

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  18. Bonjour from Aix en Provence! I just found you and can sooooo relate to the occasional creative re-organization that seems to be necessary with a long term blog.

    Felicitations on the new endeavor. You have a new follower.

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