A New Blogging Challenge: Writing Without Inhibition September 27, 2007

So hopefully my yard sale blog will do really well, because it looks as though I might be selling ALL of my furniture and moving to Chad. I can live in Mongo and experience plagues of locusts firsthand. Of course I will blog about it, at least until I am killed by rebel forces.

Why move to Chad? I gave my new Gmail address out to my neighbor who sells Mary Kay, and didn’t realize that the name on that account shows up as “Michelle Cepeda” who, by the way, has been getting Googled lately. She sent me an email that quoted one of my posts.

I really don’t know what to say.

Michelle Cepeda is me, but most people don’t know me by that name. So I felt safe. I’m one of those people whose writing stands still like a squirrel in the middle of a busy highway if I know that someone I’ve met on terra firma is reading what I write. For example, if I had realized that my neighbor was reading my blog I would never have written this:

There’ll be no multi-level marketing pimpin’ over here. Unless I decide to become Mary Kay rep, of course. Any cross-dressers out there? You know I have to put my own spin on things. It would be fun to build a large network of shemales and then go to one of the Mary Kay conferences as a super-duper team leader director person and earn a pink Cadillac while others explode with envy, splattering the walls with NouriShine Melon Sorbet lip gloss. A girl can dream, right?

Oops.

I totally set myself up for this by the way. When she talked to me about Mary Kay, I mentioned that I was trying to make money writing. I mentioned a blog. Mistake. She asked for the URL and I said that I don’t give it out due to not being able to write when someone knows it’s me. I said I worried too much about the small community that I live in.

You know what? If someone said that to me, I’d be at the computer Googling their name the second I got through talking to them. I’d probably suspect them of running a porno ring of circus sluts or something. So I totally can’t blame her, because I’d do it myself.

So, this presents a new challenge, which is to not freak out and go ahead and write anyway. People don’t always get my sense of humor in real life, they won’t always get it on the blog, and hopefully someday I won’t care.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out what to say in “real life” so I don’t come across as a passive-aggressive bitch. Ideas? Plane tickets?

How To Make $0 Dollars Blogging and Feel Great September 25, 2007

At the moment, I’m working on getting approval for my next blogging idea. You see, I’ve finally figured out how to blog while I’m at work. I suppose this makes me money indirectly, since I get paid to be at work, but anyway…

Previously, I’ve dismissed the idea, because I didn’t think the concepts behind business blogs applied to schools. I was wrong. Here is what Entrepreneur.com has to say about it:

A blog allows your business to engage with current and potential customers in a direct, informal, no-pressure way.

I thought this didn’t apply to me because I don’t have any customers, at least not in the traditional sense. Then it dawned on me…the students are my customers. Duh!

I began to consider what services I could provide to them by creating a class blog, and came up with the following:

1. A way to connect with classmates who they will no longer be in touch with when they return to their regular school. Students who want to have their pictures on the site can put them up. This will make the site popular, as opposed to one of those teacher sites that sit on their district’s server with no friends.

2. A more comfortable way to contact me and let me know if things aren’t going well in their classes after they return.

3. Information on addiction. I found some great videos about the ill effects of meth that I can embed. Really gross, gory stuff. They’ll love it.

4. Information on abuse. I can provide direct links to Child Protective Services.

5. Information on what to do in a family financial crisis. Many of my students are more financially responsible than the adults in the home. Links to social services can help them to help their families and in turn, themselves.

6. Links to, and excerpts from articles written by ex-gangbangers about how to be successful outside of gang culture.

7. Contact information for lawmakers. I always encourage my students to use their voices and be politically active. This is a quick and easy way to accomplish this. I will also include a legislative calender.

8. An opportunity for students to express themselves publicly using correct grammar, spelling, etc. Writing for a blog will be much more relevant than many of the writing assignments in the textbook are.

9. A way for students to show off their artwork and other projects that they are proud of.

This is pretty much a brainstorm post. If anyone can think of any additions to this blog that would benefit “at-risk” students, do let me know! Just keep in mind that marketing and recruiting for my alternative school are definitely not goals!

Are you interested in $25 in your PayPal account or a set of shot-glass checkers? If so, get busy entering my September Contest!

Have a Garage Sale on Your Blog September 24, 2007

I’m going to see if I can make some real money with this blogging stuff. Real as in selling the gorgeous hutch I’ve had sitting in storage for the past two years because I can’t bear to part with it. I decided to blog about my hutch. Perhaps a link to my blog in the local newspaper will interest someone. I plan to list several other pieces of furniture as well. Here is the reason:

I have decided that it is time to make my “luxury apartment” look a little more luxurious. It is my heart’s desire to have a sofa/chair/ottoman combo that resembles something out of Shag’s artwork. Purple velvet with lime green will do it. If you also like to fantasize about furniture, you can go play with fabrics and styles like I did at J Raymond Furniture. And no, there is no affiliate program there–I am just looking to waste your time, nothing more.

Not having thousands on hand to throw at this endeavor, I created this blog to fund my furniture fund. I call it “Goal-oriented Blogging”, which is something quite different from whatever it is I am doing over here.

So here is the blog.

Michelle’s Yard Sale

I’ll be adding more things to it as I place ads in the newspaper. If, like me, you live in a very rural area with no Craigslist, you may find this is the way to go. I’ll let you know.