Initial Post

Ok so this is my first ever post on a weblog. How very exciting. I've decided to become a blogger for a number of reasons. Firstly, despite my brother having the accolade of 'computer geek' within the family, I feel an inner geek rising within. Having already designed an interactive CD-ROM, created my first website and now having gained a work experience placement in Laos where I'll be tinkering, once again, with CD-ROM design, I feel I have reached the stage in life where starting up a blog is just the next thing to do.

Secondly, I am conducting research into blogs for my masters dissertation. By performing textual analyses on various blogs, I am going to look at how and why people talk about illness in their blogs and whether blogs could provide a useful source of information within the over-arching framework of medical narrative research (impressive huh! :) ). Basically, medical narrative research looks at whether encouraging medical practitioners to listen to patients' stories (i.e looking at their illnesses within their social context) improves their diagnosis and treatment of the patients' conditions. I'm going to see whether the information in blogs could benefit this research. Fingers crossed I'll find something inspiring to write!

If anyone comes across this blog and knows of any research that has been undertaken looking at patient narrative in blogs, I'd love to hear from you as research in this area seems very thin on the ground. I'd definitely like to hear from you if you have come across research into blog therapy i.e the therapeutic benefits of writing blogs.

Thirdly, I have a tendency to rant about anything and everything. This blog will therefore provide me with workspace to rant, a place to collect my thoughts and more importantly an opportunity to practice writing, which in media is obviously quite important.

Finally, as I am about to jet off to Thailand and Laos, this blog will allow anyone who feels the need, the opportunity to check up on what I'm up to. It also means I will no longer have to harass friends with the most evil emails of all; the lengthy mass travel emails which gloat about the amazing time people are having abroad (those which you find festering in your work inbox on a damp and gloomy Monday morning)

I hope this will be an enjoyable blog although I don't expect I'll have many avid readers :)