Complex Numbers

Thoughts for Thirty

Had a great time, y'all!

PROMPT July 30th

Congratulations on making it to the last day of the competition! What was your favorite prompt from the last month? What was the most rewarding aspect of participating in the competition?

This time, I actually went back and refreshed my memory about all the prompts from this month. My memory isn't great and I can't usually remember what I posted from more than a couple of weeks ago.

I think I had the best time with the "biased reporting" one. Not only did it give me an excuse to rant about something I like to rant about, but seeing other peoples' responses was interesting. I stand by what I said, but I still feel like I could have made it more clear or expanded on a couple of the items, especially my train of thought at the end that concluded that there probably isn't a such thing as unbiased reporting.

Everyone has a bias, but some people try harder than others to at least be fair. And by "fair," I don't mean "presenting all sides" on occasions when there really isn't more than one side; I mean presenting the relevant facts as disclosed by people who should know what they're talking about.

Anyway. The most rewarding thing was, as always, reading what other people write. I'm obviously biased and have opinions, so I'm not always going to agree with other people, but I do try to respect that other people have opinions that differ from mine, and often for good reason.

Except for the Chicago-style "pizza" thing. I'll die on that hill.

But the other thing I like about these challenges, and the other reason I keep coming back to participate in them, is because the prompts often make me think. Sometimes they make me think things I'd rather not think, like the prompt about travel, which as I mentioned is a sore spot for me right now. By the way, that's why I won't be participating in Blog Travel Month. I hope those who do have a great time, but I just can't pretend to travel during a month when I was supposed to actually travel. I don't think there's enough depressing music out there to lift my mood from something like that.

Usually, though, these prompts give me the opportunity to write stuff I normally wouldn't bother to write. I often learn something in the process. I hope other people do, too.

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll stick around. I'm not going anywhere (dammit); I have a huge backlog of stuff I want to talk about, and I'll be doing some more mini-contests.