Here I am, a second year Professional Communications student and aspiring journalist starting my first ever blog. My biggest dilemma, what do I title it?

I would like to blame this fierce obstacle of commitment issues for my lack of online presence. And for why it took the inclusion of a blog into the curriculum for me to actually get serious about it. Truly, starting my own blog has been on my agenda for most of my high school life and indeed the entirety of my university life and yet previously, when I got proactive about creating one, I got caught up in the pressures of a perfect header and quirky avatar and then I would bail with a sharp slam of my laptop and a trip to the fridge.

It’s not about the physically writing of content, as this is indeed my passion. More so, I’m just panicked at the concept of a blog truly being an insight into me as person. There is no style guide to follow, as there is when writing for any given publication. The whole thing is up to me… and there are too many questions to address; Who is my audience? Why am I writing this? Do people care? And no matter what I write, the most terrifying concept is that as soon as I press that ‘publish’ button, it is exposed in the public domain that is the Internet.

Adrian Miles addresses this idea of the Internet as a public sphere in the Week 1 reading, and highlights the integral care we must take when posting public content. As he states, we are creating our online persona, of which we are in control of. It this idea of how I want to be portrayed that has me so bewildered, as it makes me second guess who I am away from the internet. This train of thought then, has allowed me to come to the realisation that my personality is not a tangible and absolute thing and that it grows and evolves continually. My online persona then, should simply be a reflection of this and therefore I must allow it to grow as I work my way through this course.

And so I would like to officially welcome you to my blog, and to invite you on the journey that I undertake as I work to build my online presence and voice.