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Posted by: Elena Grama - 7 December 2010 / 8:03

Welcome to Behind the Blogs, where we take a moment to get to know the bloggers in the Scribnia Community on a more personal level.  We’ve read their words, but now it’s time to learn a little bit about the person behind the keyboard.

Today’s interview is with Jean Menzies who writes Jean’s Thoughts. Jean’s blog is just a way of expressing a specific lump of her thoughts. She concentrates a lot on the beauty world of hair, makeup, fashion and skincare subjects. However, her blog, like her mind is not divided cleanly by specific subjects so she interludes her beauty posts with movie and TV show chat; personal day to day experiences; writing about books; politics and other nerdy things ( she concentrates more on this on her Youtube channel) because she is a “nerd” through and through. Jean is Scottish, an Ancient History student; a socialist; a vegetarian; a nerd; a hair obsessor and a complete “girly girl” trying to make her way through life and find people who want to share the same things with each other and all of this is reflected in her blog in varying amounts.

1) Why did you start blogging? Why do you blog today?

It’s hard to pin point one thing that caused my obsession with blogging to begin. I remember I attempted to start blogging a few times before I finally settled down to it properly at my current blog. I think two reasons stand out though: I think I was lonely; I needed a hobby and I loved writing. Ok so number two is kind of two reasons but I had to find a hobby that suited what I enjoyed. Blogging helped me increase my confidence, share things even stupid things and realise there were so many people out there that I had things in common with even if there weren’t any right next to me. I keep blogging because I it has just become part of my life. The community is really important to me even just knowing it is there.

2) What was your life growing up?

Just like anyone things haven’t always been perfect for me but I am really happy with my upbringing when I look back on it as the highs well outweigh the lows. Of course I am still young so I have only so much experience of life but I think I’m lucky and I think I’ve grown up quite well. I am an only child and I lived with both my parents most of the time. They are far, far to the left politically, we are a family of socialists a political view I still believe firmly in. So my childhood was very much surrounded by opinions, politics and people standing up for one another. I was shocked at how common homophobia, racism and so on were when I went to highschool as I had lived in a world where you didn’t even think about segregating and judging people like that. I didn’t have a great time at first at high school my first two years in particular I was pretty miserable I was pretty geeky and got teased a lot but by the time I left I was compfertable with myself I knew I was who I wanted to be. I went through a lot of anxiety problems and I still get panic attacks sometimes but I got a lot better. My dad was very ill for a couple of years not long ago and that was probably the hardest time in my life and I barely went to school. However that is a lot better now so I don’t think there is much point going into it. I mean I’m not that old so I expect life will just continue to improve. This was extremely brief but I just wanted to show that my life growing up had ups and downs but all in all I’m really lucky I can’t complain and say I am hard done by when I get on with my parents, have a house, opinions, an education which is still going on and am able to have fun.

3) What do you do when you’re not in front of a computer screen?

When I’m not in front of the computer screen? I don’t know that I ever am. My laptop is like an extra limb and I feel at a complete lost without it, which I am sure is rather sad. I am a student so I am at University and studying a lot although that involves my computer half the time. I study Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at I am so far really enjoying it. I read a lot. I think you have to read at least a little to be a blogger and a writer. I spend time with friends of course. I have nights out at bars and clubs when I’m in the  mood and trips to the cinema and dinner elsewise. Really the things we all do. I write a lot of fiction (fantasy/ sci-fi) but I that’s at the computer. Man, I’m having a hard time fining stuff I enjoy away from the computer. Even my tv shows I watch online Oh, I and I have to work of course :/

4) What makes your blog unique?

I think every blog is unique as long as the writer is enjoying what they blog about. I enjoy writing in general as well as on my blog so I think my personality streams out when I am doing so, maybe to much so sometimes. Every person is unique so for me that makes every blog unique. My blog topics can be quite frivolous a lot of the time as I feel it’s a place where I mainly want to share the things that put a smile on my face and hopefully on someone else’s. Of course that doesn’t stop me from writing about more serious matters on occasion but I usually save those for my video blogs (I also use youtube under the user name ‘itsjeanhere’).

5) What is your idea of a perfect blog?

The perfect blog is personal as well as appealing to others and has character. For me a blog has to have an obvious person behind it, who displays obvious emotion in their posts and talks about personal experience. It also has to be cheerful at least sometimes. If I enjoy reading someones blog then I also understand and empathise when they have bad days and sad things going on and although ‘enjoy’ isn’t the right word I still want to read these posts because we can all relate. However a blog that constantly concentrates on the negative and doesn’t share some sunshine with the world I find impossible to read. I have suffered from depression on and off and I want to escape from that when I go online. Pictures I also like pictures. Haha, I love writing but it a blog is also quite visual so it is nice to have a post accompanied by pictures sometimes.

Thanks so much for sharing your story with us Jean. Your blog may be random but it’s one of the most interesting blogs I’ve read in a while.  Keep up the writing.

Again..Make sure to read Jean’s Blog and review her.

If you know of an interesting blogger/author that we should interview for the Behind the Blogs series, or if YOU are that blogger, send me an email at Elena [at] Scribnia.com

Tags: Behind, blog, Interview, Jean, Jean's, Menzies, Thoughts