Here's the entire 30 Day Blog Challenge list.

I'm slowly, very slowly, getting through this list (like it's taking me months!).  If you want to join me, let me know and I'll post a link to your blog.

Day 1: List 10 random facts about yourself.

Day 2: Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and describe how they became fears.

Day 3: What is the greatest amount of physical pain you have ever endured?

Day 4: List 5 things you would tell your 16 year-old self if you could.

Day 5: What are the 5 things that make you happiest right now?

Day 6: What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?

Day 7: What is your dream job, and why?

Day 8: What are 3 passions you have?

Day 9: What defines you?

Day 10: Describe your most embarrassing moment.

Day 11: Describe a few of your pet peeves.

Day 12: Describe a typical day in your life.

Day 13: Describe 5 weaknesses you have.

Day 14: Describe 5 strengths you have.

Day 15: If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

Day 16: What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?

Day 17: What is the thing you most wish you were great at?

Day 18: What is the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?

Day 19: If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?

Day 20: Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

Day 21: If you could have 1 superpower, what would it be and what would be the first thing you did with it?

Day 22: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

Day 23: List your top 3 hobbies and why you love them.

Day 24: Describe your first job.

Day 25: If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?

Day 26: What popular notion do you think the world has wrong?

Day 27: What is your favorite part of your body and why?

Day 28: What is your love language?

Day 29: What were your three favorite toys/games as a child?

Day 30: List 5 things you would hope to be remembered for.

via Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine with my morning quiet time?: 30 Day Blog Challenge.

Kirsten is taking up the cause of the Personal Blogger. I find it hard to stick to writing about blogging, publishing or writing from the personal perspective. Somewhere along the way it dips into getting comments, traffic and readers and then you find yourself in the land of the SEO gurus who want to sell you their e-books about blogging. It is all a circle.

My nephew, Zack, is visiting for awhile. He likes when I mention him here. I'm not sure why. So for Zack...

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The challenge of being a personal blogger is keeping it that way. I enjoy the added challenge of building my site and traffic and seeing it grow. I understand that most people are going to be lurkers, I don't comment on every single post or blog I stop at after all. So having a web counter gives you that little boost to see that it's not just yourself and a few friends reading your blog.

But, once you get traffic others want to benefit from it. People seem to expect they have every right to perch like a cow bird on my blog. I don't understand their attitude. It seems very arrogant to think I should want them here. I don't.

I get at least 2 or 3 emails each week from someone "writing for a client" or themselves telling me what a great favour they can do for me by putting ads on my site. Do you see ads on my site? Other than the one text ad thing which says I will make $1.91 eventually, there aren't any ads here. I could understand their attitude that I would want their ads if I was running an ad farm. But, I'm not. So clue in and try another blog.

What really really does peeve me, far more, are those who want to be my friend. Do you even know my name? No. How can you be my friend when you know nothing about me. You wouldn't miss me if I was hit by a bus an hour from now. The only impact my absense would have is the worth of having a link to my blog traffic. So peeve off and befriend some rock or something. I only want to be friends with people who at least have the interest in making a return visit and actually reading some of my blabbering.

I use my Technorati list for blogs _ I _ read. Yes, me, not you. I do not use it as a way of trading links. I do not expect anyone on that list to link back to me. It is nice if they do, I don't check into it. That list is for me. It is a list for me. Hope that helps some of those people who think they are my friends and should be added to my blogroll because we are such great friends. I don't trade links on my blogroll. Of course, it would be nice if any of those friends would read this. They won't. They don't read blogs they just use them.

Anyway, that is my little rant except for one last point.

The problem with having a personal blog and the ego to find traffic is that you put time and energy into promoting it and don't always have time and energy to post to it. Kind of silly. I aim to post each day but some days I am cheating to get content. I would prefer all my posts to be real blog entries and geeky looking stick figure drawings. But, I work, I have laundry and I like to sleep at least once every 24 hours or so. Some days a cheat is all I can do. But, I try to make them interesting cheats, not just another cheap cheat. :)

So there are my thoughts about blogging today. It's not easy being a personal blogger in a world of monetizing mania. But I'm not forgetting what I liked about blogging in the first place and I'm sticking to being a personal blogger, with pride in creating for myself and those who wander in for a look.

I’m job hunting. Some people I know actually enjoy this. But, those are the same people that seem to lead a charmed life, where things just fall in their lap and one co-incidence leads to a great opportunity. Then there’s me. For me job hunting is one closed door after another and another and another. Seldom do I even hear back from a human being. I dread the whole thing. Of course, those people I know try to understand and give me great encouraging words about how there are so many opportunities and to remember what a great worker I am and how someone like myself is just what a company is looking for. If they would actually notice me.

It’s dragging along. I look at the popular job search sites. I look at local sites with job listings. Sometimes I read them and just disqualify myself. Some I read and just think they sound so pompous asking for university education to man a call centre phone. Then there are those which I think I’d be great for. I send off my resume, tailored to fit. I write a nice cover letter and wait… still waiting, yet not really rushing to check email each morning any more.

It’s enough to make you dislike those people with their charmed lives. Those charmed people who get raises just cause they asked for one. Those people who have their dream jobs each time they get hired, and they always get hired after just a few interviews. It almost makes you want to give up, if you really had a choice about the whole employment thing. But, someone has to ask if you want fries with that… might as well be me.