Blogger Turns 10: What's your story?

Dear Blogger,

This is a respond to your invitation on blogger.com dated 18 Jun 2009. This is my story and of what Blogger has meant to me.

I tried my fingers on the web sometime in the year 2000. Back then, in my hometown here in Sabah, there were not so many of us who had access to the internet. Data transfer was also very slow. I used the internet mainly to get information related to my job at that time as an Oil Palm Plantation Estate Manager. Websites that I frequented most were those hosted by The Malaysian Palm Oil Registration and Licensing Authority (PORLA) and Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (PORIM). The sites had helped me to keep updated with issues pertaining to the oil palm industry particularly on the highly fluctuating market.

I joined Blogger on March 2009 with my blog, Kunakians, which literally means The People of Kunak. Kunak is a small town on the east coast of Sabah, Malaysia. Little did I know then that there is another place in the world known as Kunak (in Kazakhstan) until I recently, thanks to Google earth.

My first post at Kunakians is in Malay or as we, Malaysians, like to call the language Bahasa Malaysia (the Malaysian Language) just to distinguish it from the Indonesian Malay Language. The article is in the form of a report on the activities of 70 elderly village headmen attending an outward-bound course on an isolated island.

On April 27, 2009, I introduced another blog at Blogger, Kunakians2, to post my articles that are written in English. The first post, Luffa Aegyptiaca, still bears the report format with a little sense of research.

Following a power crash on April 29, 2009, my hard disk was badly damaged and I had to replace it with a new one. Indeed, I lost innumerable valuable data, including materials on the subject of the history of my hometown, Kunak that I have accumulated over the past four years.

After getting a new hard disk and installed the operating program, I browsed the web using Google Chrome. I was so happy to see that the articles and images that I had posted on Kunakians and Kunakians2 are still there. It makes me realized that one of the benefit bloggers get from blogging is the safekeeping of articles. Now, I am back to gathering information on the history of Kunak, write whatever I can and immediately post it to Blogger for “safekeeping”.

Wide interactions with people have brought me to frequent open discussions. Some offers ideas while others asked for opinions. I post subjects that in my opinion are worthwhile to share with the public.

A few weeks back, I was at a coffee house with three friends when we overheard the afternoon news from the coffee house TV set mentioning a pandemic called Influenza A(H1N1) which has been confirmed to be affecting Malaysians. One of my friends, the eldest among us asked, “What kind of illness is that? Is it similar to AIDS?”

As a Microbiology graduate, somehow I managed to recall some information about the topic so I said to him, “Influenza shows symptoms similar to that of common cold, fever, coughing, headache and the like. But I’m not very sure of H1N1”.

“If an illness is on TV, it is dangerous”, quipped another friend scratching his quite bulging belly.

Our eldest companion began to look worried. The piece of roti canai (Indian bread) he was about to deposit into his gaping mouth stopped in mid air. “Is there any medication for it?” he asked intently.

“Don’t worry so much. Our friend here will find out and tell us about it”, said our friend with the big belly. Pointing at me, he continued, “Our friend here was a science teacher. He should be able to find out how to avoid getting that illness and to find out whether there is medication for it or not”. He went further to tap my back, too hard, that I can tell because it hurt, and added, “You can, right?”

“I’m not sure, Panglima”, I replied honestly. “Maybe I can find some clues about it from my old college textbooks and lecture notes. Maybe there are some information on the web as well”. (Note: Panglima is a Malay word for warrior. Here, in Kunak we amiably called a friend Panglima as a sign of mutual respect).

As soon as I get home, I began to dig into my old lecture notes and textbooks on virology, browse the web for accounts on the new pandemic then scribbled some notes. Three hours later, I found myself struggling to type an article in the simplest term that I can think of for my friends at that coffee house. I came up with, “Mengenal dan Menangani Influenza A(H1N1)” (Identifying and Coping with Influenza A(H1N1)) which I posted at Kunakians on May 29, 2009. I printed three copies of the article and distributed them to my three coffee-house friends.

I posted a serial “Keajaiban Nombor” (The Fascinating Numbers) following suggestions from some of my ex-students who claimed that the method of calculating I taught them when they were in school had helped to improve their mathematics. They also mentioned that the skill is also very useful in everyday life.

There is so much to tell on Blogger and I albeit of myself being just joining a few months back, what more of those who have been with Blogger from the start.

For me, it is suffice to sum up with two main reasons for me to keep on posting to Blogger:

• It is the best way to share information with people around the world who find the information in my posts worthwhile, while realizing that I tried as much as possible to avoid hurting or discredit anybody.
• It is a safekeeping place for ideas that may never come again.