Trying to pull things together

Whew!! I managed to survive yesterday's desperate attempts to get a handle on all of this information about blogs, RSS feeds, etc.

I spent much of the morning trying to figure out the RSS feed information, which lead me to Joanne's "trailfires". I didn't quite understand how they worked, but apparently someone else in the course didn't either. Fortunately, they asked the essential question, to which there was an answer that helped me to follow the trailfire on RSS feeds. Once I figured it out, I found it to be quite useful, inparticular the little comments that Joanne provides as you work your way through it. I was, however, a little disappointed that the page with the video didn't work anymore.

So, thinking that I had a handle on what these "things" are, I went to Technorati and signed up there. The only problem was that it was WAY too confusing for me. I found a blog that I wanted to follow, but I couldn't figure out how to add this to my profile. I spent about 3/4 of an hour trying to figure this out, and then the meltdown hit. How can I possibly have gotten myself into this course??? Was I absolutely crazy thinking that I could do this??? Fortunately it was at this time that my husband came home, calmly told me that all would be well, and that it was time for me to move on to something else.

So, I did not go any further on what I was doing. Instead I ran around like crazy doing housework, and finally went to Nanaimo to do a big grocery shop and pick up our daughter from a friend's house. I decided to sleep on it and hoped things would look better in the morning.

They did. I went through the section on RSS in Richardson's book and I decided that I would join bloglines instead, and that allowed me to follow the step-by-step instructions in his book. This was MUCH easier. Infact, I subscribed to his blog, AND I subscribed to all of the blogs from my classmates in EDES 501. Not only that, but I also created a folder to put them all together. I am feeling rather proud of myself, but I continue to feel the anxiety in the pit of my stomach. I wonder . . . . will this go away at all this semester?