I go to a lot of journals because I write one myself. I've always wondered what people look for in journals and what they think of my own. My journal is pretty much off the top of my head and what I'd say so someone I was talking to right then and there (my friends tell me when they read they can hear me say it just that way). I usually get a lot of good feed back, but it's usually from one time visitors . . .

. . . can I have some feed back on here? Or can you give me some pointers?

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2000

It's ok I suppose, but you are pretty and I guess your journal could be easy to get used to.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2000

Yuck, Angelfire. I never explore further on an Angelfire page because the popups really bug me. If you can't switch them off, move to a freeserver that doesn't have them - try Freespeech.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000

Um... I really hope that people want more out of a journal site than just a good-looking author. Isn't communication of thoughts and ideas supposed to be the point of an online journal?

I rarely even look at other people's photos on their websites. I almost never look at them on my first visit to a site. I'd rather get to know a person through their words first, and then I'll look at the pictures if I'm curious. And I don't mind at all if a person never posts pictures of him or herself. I had a journal online for more than two years before I put up some recent pictures of myself. I didn't think it was that important for people to know what I looked like.

When I read journals, I like to see good writing. If the journal's author is a good writer, they don't have to have an exciting life to make their journal interesting. I'm actually somewhat turned off by journals that always chronicle crazy events in a person's life. Those journals are interesting for a little while, but in the end the journals that concern a person's thoughts and feelings about everyday life are the more worthwhile to read. Self-analysis is a must in journals, I think. It helps you have compassion for the author. There's no appeal for me in journals that are just lists of *stuff* that a person did.

As for your journal, Suzie, I like your design, but I think you should focus a little more on the writing. You have so much other stuff on the page (games and chats and photos such) that it's hard to tell that the journal is the center of the site (is it? Maybe I'm misinterpreting your page). Also, in your latest entry (July 23), you shift back and forth from present tense and past tense, and there are a number of misspellings in all of the entries that I read. I like your stories about work (though I wonder what an Asian person would think of all your references to them?), though some of your entries seem a little short and tend to say little more than what you're doing or what you did on a particular day. Try to work on incorporating some of your thoughts about particular situations into your journal. It'll make it more worthwhile for you and it'll attract more of a response from your visitors.

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000

You have pictures of yourself on your site, Laurie? Where?

I always like to know what the authors of journals look like, although the writing is the part that makes me visit all the time.

-dan

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000

Oh, I found it. D'oh.

-dan

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2000

Well, I'm an Asian person (Indian genetically, though not by birth) and I'll tell you what I think (yes, I even braved the popups to read some of your entries).

You're a racist, and that's sick.

July 15:

quote: I just told her at clubs it's usually older Indian (not native, but from India)men that stalk younger girls.

July 16:

quote: It's just . . . . clean, clean, get annoyed at Asian people who tear things up and then leave them there,

Excuuuuse me?? How dare you write things like that and then add 'we try not to make assumptions'? Don't you think Asians have enough to fight against - moving to a different country, learning a new language - without the prejudice of people like you to make it even harder?

And for fuck's sake don't write at the end of every entry 'Sorry this isn't a proper entry' or whatever you do write. 1) If you're not happy with your entries, no one else is going to be, and 2) I seriously doubt that anyone cares.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

I've been living in Bangkok, Thailand all my life, and my mom is Asian. I go to an English-speaking school with people from all over Asia - India, China, Japan, Thailand of course, you name it - and let me tell you that none of my friends, and none of their parents, fit the Asian stereotypes you see in movies or television. They don't speak broken English. In fact, most of the people at my school speak perfect and unaccented English. They are not annoying customers. While English is my mom's second language, she doesn't make embarassing scenes when we go to America.

I have a feeling that a lot of Americans - maybe you as well, Suzie, although I don't want to judge you from your few journal entries - see Asians as broken-English speaking, disruptive and irritating tourists who, ahem, "tear things up and leave them there". I see so many of these stereotypes in movies and television. Come on. I've met so many Asians here and in the States, and I know there are a bunch of Asians on the web, like Helen and Minna and Tracing, that could tell you that these stereotypes are WRONG. Sure, you might run across a loud Japanese tourist with a camera around his neck once in a while, but I will tell you now that American tourists in Thailand are just the same way - and I know that not all Americans are like that.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000

I just read your latest journal entry, so I apologize for making assumptions; I didn't know about your background. However, what I said about Asian stereotypes in general still stands.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000

'Where's my attempt at anything creative?' Right there, you idiot, my name is a link to my page and always is whenever I post here.

It bugs me SO SO much when people ask for feedback at a UBB or forum and then get angry when they get it. 'I didn't write this journal for you' - of course you didn't, I never in a million years imagined that you did. But you asked for feedback and I was giving it.

'An obvious attack' - too right it was. I'm sorry, but I still don't like the way you express yourself. Right, you're Hungarian. I work in a shop, where ALL the customers are generally bastards. But if I got a few Hungarians on one particular day who were horrible, I would never write 'those stupid Hungarians who aren't capable of behaving in a civilised way' or anything similar.

We clearly have different definitions of racism, and you fit mine. Like you keep saying, you didn't write your journal for me, and I'm not trying to change you. I'm just making it clear to you that this is how people might perceive you.

-- Anonymous, July 26, 2000