“Life Discovered” seemed like a positive title for a blog and this sentiment is certainly reflected in the content to be found within. More about the technicalities in a bit, but I was happy to discover a Typepad blog when I clicked on the link as at least there is a good chance everything will work and will be in the right place with Typepad. The quote from Mark Twain in the top right corner about living life to the full also put me in a genial frame of mind to kick off the review with.
A little more about the technicalities is in order before I move on to the content. True to form, all that is needed can be easily found in this blog – an About Me page, photo album, usual links, archives, blog rings. They’re all there. The only downside to Typepad blogs is they tend to be somewhat uniform in nature – three columns, minimal colours in the background and a generally rather unimaginative template. However, the rather groovy title bar in this blog compensates for this somewhat. Along with the photo album, there are many photos to be found dotted about the posts too, so plenty to keep the visually- inclined reader amused whilst reading.
After having had a boo around, I soon dove in to the content and was immediately touched by a recent bereavement suffered by the author. I think anyone who has the bottle to write about something as harrowing and personal as the death of a family member in front of the world deserves a lot of credit. I am always never quite sure how to deal with situations like this as a reader (I am the same with divorces or whatever) other than to have the utmost respect.
Cruising through the rest of the blog I quickly picked up on the general theme – this is a personal blog, mainly about the day to day life of the author- a married professional lady living in the US and for the most part, getting on with her life as people do. As I was reading, I was trying to think about what made this blog stand out from the millions of other personal blogs out there- why should you bother reading this one instead of all the others?
Well I think the entries really shine whenever the author focuses on her rather individual situation of being an adopted Filipino. I have never really considered this kind of situation before but a few of the posts really made me think – here, here and here for example. These are all posts which deal with family issues, and are written in a very honest and sensitive way. The final link is a poem which raises the nature vs nurture debate which is obviously so pertinent where adoption is concerned. The other aspect of this blog which makes it stand out is the very positive outlook of the author – even the “negative” posts about illness or whatever tend to be tinged with a contagious cheeriness.
On the other hand, there are a lot of memes and posts about shopping which um… may appeal to female readers more than male. Ok, I am generalising here. Please don’t email me with a lecture about Post- feminist dogma; I am just trying to be helpful, ok? :o)
So overall, I wanted to score this highly because I liked the author, but could not go higher than a 3.5 because ultimately it is just another personal blog, albeit a happy one.Life Discovered