Personally, I don’t enjoy public speaking. However, I feel like reading this wasn’t as scary as I expected. Having my iPad right in front of me and being able to stay in my seat gave me comfort. Practicing beforehand allowed me to stutter less. At first, I felt weird sharing parts of my life to people I don’t know that well. But when everyone shared their story, I felt like I was able to know people in my class a lot better.

If I had to pick one statement as a favorite, it would probably be Micah’s where he talked about why the bill should be split on a first date. I thought this statement was very personal. Moveover, I was really interested in hearing the opinion from the opposite gender. In general, I really liked statements that included a personal story and ones that are relatable.

The easiest/ most positive thing is coming up with the story. I had many ideas and stories I could write about. I liked how we were able to write basically about anything we want and the amount of freedom we got made it really easy.

At the same time, that narrowing down the story and trying to make it sound interesting is the most challenging part. It was hard to keep the story within 600 words while being able to give all the background information. In addition, there were so many things I wanted to write about that took me awhile to find the most interesting story.

I would prefer to be given 1M dollars straight away because I could put 80% of that money into investment and earn a profit out of that. I could probably get a lot more revenue than snapping non-stop. In addition, I will be able to start my own business. It will take you 100,000,000 snaps to reach 1 million dollars. If you do one snap in one second, that would take you 1157.4 days of snapping non-stop and that is 3.17 years. I feel like by that time, my finger will be completely destroyed and I can’t really snap in the first place.

I believe in Sushi Pizza

I believe in being mediocre

I believe in lai shi (red envelopes)

I believe in quitting myself and restarting

I believe in there’s no place called home

I believe in map-quest

I believe in falsies

I believe in what I believe in

I believe in being extra

I believe in change

Extras

I believe in coffee

I believe in shooting stars

I believe in not seeking for attention

I believe in reaching out

I chose CNF because this class sounds quite interesting and I’ve heard many recommendations from people who have taken this class. I like the idea of being able to work on or plan our college essays during this class. That will help me a lot and save a big chunk of my time. In addition, I like how I will be able to pick a book that I find interesting to read instead of getting assigned to a book. Through this class, I hope I can become a better writer and be able to generate ideas faster. 

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.