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Blogathon Workstation, 5:00 AM

As I planned for this blogathon, I decided to go with a theme. Since I was also preparing for a certification, I started out with the theme of business analysis and certification topics. But that by itself, I found, would end up being boring, and would appeal to very few.

Meanwhile, when I chose to blog for the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association and contacted them as well as some members of the Hearing Loss Association of America, they were very supportive of the idea and offered to help me with it as well with guest posts, information etc. Seeing the interest received from them and given that part of my blogging effort is also to raise awareness of the needs of hard of hearing, I had decided that the topics should be divided between the two.

The last stretch has been the hardest to focus on a theme, especially when it came to some dry areas. So I decided to simply have fun, and write about things that came to my mind during this last leg.

Fundraising:

I didn’t really set myself any goals this year with respect to fund raising as I wasn’t sure.

Connections:
One of the biggest gains from this exercise was the connections I was able to make. The local Vancouver Bloggers were awesome as usual, but what was amazing was the connections I made and the support I received from people I haven’t met in person yet, but who have been awfully kind to do features and guest posts for me. More about the guest posts in my next post.

Blogathon Workspace, 4:30 AM

As of 4:30 AM July 26th, I’ve completed 24 hours without sleep. I woke up at 4-ish on Saturday morning. I didn’t sleep much on Friday night either.

Raul is walking to everyone’s workstation with a friendly smile and his trademark “How you doing?” He has been doing it for three years now and so has Rebecca. I see that Barbara has done for four. Blogathoners in other parts of North America must have been doing it for a few years as well.

My monitor, Tina has been encouraging me along the way, checking in on me. I wonder how she was able to blog as well as monitor & cheer other participants. So thank you, Tina!

It’s almost daybreak now. Three more posts to go for 49. 1 hour left.

Will I do it again next year? Why not?

Blogathon Workspace, July 26th 4:00 AM

Rebecca just gave me a Make Good Certificate. I didn’t know what Make Good was, so I did some quick reading about them on their website.

MakeGood seems like a way to promote the corporate social responsibility of the company, connecting them with charities – like a trust mark of charitable behaviour of the company. They’ve partnered with United Way as well.

Blogathon Workspace, 3:30 AM

Just another rambling.. Are the aptitude tests like GRE, GMAT and a slew of other IQ tests really relevant? Shouldn’t they be revamped to something else, to test for participants creative abilities as much as logical reasoning?

Even IQ tests for instance, measures reasoning and patterns and so on – requiring you to follow critical thinking. Which makes me wonder what a creative person’s IQ would be.

Is there way to measure the Creativity Quotient? Is creativity not part of intelligence?

Blogathon Workspace, 3:00 AM

I recently read a blog post by fellow Vancouver blogger David Morton. His blog titled the Inspiratorium has some great posts including some of his works on a novel set in a medieval period.

This blog post interested me because it was about a news article from Vancouver Sun featuring a miracle where a dying man for whom all hope was lost was miraculously cured by a priest using a relic belonging to a monk.

The debate between science and religion was interesting, and I told David that I enjoyed the article and that it would be an interesting topic to discuss. So I’ve decided to use that as the topic for this post.

While I’m not anti-religious, I’m not very religious either. However, the topic of religion and faith has always interested me. So, do I accept the miracle theory or reject it? That a dying man was cured by a cloth from a priest is in itself a miracle.

But the rationalist in me says that there has to be an explanation for everything. An explanation that, science, at the moment cannot answer. Until then, it would remain a miracle. I don’t think it is the arrogance of science though, in trying to solve the mysteries, and trying to find answers.

Sages have been trying to do the same, in trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. Who says scientists can’t believe in God or religion?

It’s just that at some point in time probably in the middle ages, science and religion parted ways, each attempting to seek the truth in their own way. Will science help find God? That would make for good science fiction!

Hope these ramblings at 3:30 AM make sense!