Time to look back and to look ahead here at DrieCulturen

"Like flying blogging is an adventure" photo by DrieCulturen

Two years ago I started my blog. Now it's time to look back and share some of the progress I have made. It has been an exciting adventure writing this blog. I've written nearly 200 posts, received many comments thanks to you, my readers. I have received personal emails and I've been on the national radio in the Netherlands speaking about my youth abroad and explaining what third culture kids are.

So what do people read here?

My 5 Best Read Posts:

1. Top countries for raising kids abroad in 2012 Read more than 2000 times
2. Top countries for raising kids abroad in 2011
3. Cultural Identity Confusion and Third Culture Kids
4. Interview with Graphic Design Student Jessica on Third Culture Kid Book Project
5. My 10 Disadvantages of growing up abroad

Most of my pageviews come from:

1. The USA more than 19 thousand pageviews
2. The Netherlands more than 15 thousand pageviews
3. Russia
4. United Kingdom
5. Germany

I would like to know which post you most enjoyed? Which was most informative or do you still remember? Is there a topic you want to hear more of? Please let me know by leaving a comment. By the way I have a surprise coming up, I hope to have a giveaway on the blog some time soon, I hope this week. So do come back and check the blog again.

I enjoyed writing the post "I'm from....and you?".On my first blog anniversary I interviewed Heidi Sand-Hart author of the book "Home Keeps Moving". I love interviewing authors because it inspires me, remember I have this dream to write a book one day! I wrote about my dream in the post Breaking the Silence. A recent post with quite a few comments was my post on is there a difference between adults and kids living abroad?
So what comes next? The interesting thing about blogging is that I often do not know what the next post will be about. I hope future posts will be informative, useful and inspiring for you. I am adding some interesting links here for you. See you next time!

Related Posts:
I won the Versatile Blogger Award 
Blogging: What's the Point? (JoParfitt.com)
How to make your blogging dreams come true (Problogger)
23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers (Problogger) 

Breaking the Silence

This is only my second blog post in 2013. It has never been so quiet on my blog since I started it in June 2011. The reason is that I read an article Why Bloggers Fail and the article made me think. Derek Halpern says that "It turns out that most people who start blogs quit within the first 3 months." Well I am glad to say I survived the first 3 months! To tell you the truth this blog is nearly two years old.

So what made me think? He says most bloggers waste too much time creating new content. According to him "the secret lies in your ability to promote the content you already have". So I did a small experiment for a couple of weeks I did not create any new content and I just watched to see whether there were still people reading the blog. To my surprise there were still many people reading content, so that was a great discovery. The only thing I did notice was that there were nearly no new comments so that is a little sad. Maybe I should have done a little more to promote the content I already have.

I made another discovery during the time of silence on the blog. I discovered that when I was not in the routine of writing the blog it became more difficult to start writing on the blog again. It's a little like exercising when you are in the routine of going to the sports club twice a week it's easy to keep doing it but once you stop going it's harder to get the discipline and start going again.  

I have another dilemma. I have this dream that I want to write a book. I need to find or make some extra time somewhere. I have a job during the day and all my writing is done in the evenings or weekends. Maybe if I spend less time writing for my blog I will have more time to write my dream book. Do you have the same kind of problem? Do you have any tips?

By the way the dream book I want to write is about third culture kids. I need your help. What kind of book would you like to read on the topic? Do you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions that could be useful for me? Please share them. What topics should be addressed? Or do you think there are enough books about expat kids? Please break the silence with me on my blog and let your voice be heard.

Ps. Let me share another secret with you. If you want more comments on your blog then leave more comments on other blogs and see what happens. I tried it and it works, but it requires some discipline and time.

Related Posts:
Book review of the book: Expat Teens Talk 
Interview with Heidi Sand-Hart author of "Home Keeps Moving"
Book: Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child
Third culture kids speaking "I'm not from Anywhere"
Book review of Expat Alien
Interview with Expat Author Apple Gildley (Adventures In Expat Land)

I would love some feedback on my blog

December is a festive month. It's the month of celebrations. Seeing as the month has just started let's celebrate. We actually celebrated Sinterklaas today. I wrote a post last year: To do or not to do: celebrate Sinterklaas abroad.

Anyway what I wanted to share and celebrate is that I have been nominated by Expats Blog.com for a Top Blog of the Year Award! This is really good news. I have been blogging now for about one and a half years and I must say I am really enjoying this adventure. If you want to know why I started blogging you can read an interview over on the Amsterdam Mamas website. I am excited about the connections that have been made through this blog, the comments you have left, the emails I have received and for the people that daily visit this blog. A big thank you to you all!

For this award it is important that I have reviews from the readers. The more reviews the better. I would really appreciate some feedback. Please go over to the Expats Blog and add your review there. The reviews have to be in before the 9th of December 2012, so that is just about in 4 days time.

One of the reasons that I started blogging was that I wanted more people to know about third culture kids.

Thanks to Olga @The European Mama I know that this goal is being reached.

"I have only heard about Third Culture Kids because of Janneke's blog and found it a fascinating topic! Janneke tackles both the bright and the dark side of being an expat and I love her thoughtful, fascinating posts!"

If you prefer to leave your feedback here then that's fine too. I  also have a very short questionnaire in the margin on the left side of the blog and you can let me know what kind of topics you would like to hear more about. I am looking forward to more good things happening in this festive month.  Thanks to everyone who left a comment about my blog on the Expat Blog.com, I enjoyed reading your comments. Very encouraging.

The results of the contest are out. You can see the winners on the Expat Blog. For the Netherlands these are the winners. Congratulations!

1. Gold for Adventures in Integration A personal blog written by an Australian import bride living in the Netherlands since May 2008 with her husband. 
2. Silver for Invading Holland The story of an accident prone English man.
3. Bronze for A Flamingo in Utrecht by an American, living with an Italian, in a 2000-year-old city in the Netherlands. She loves exploring, with camera and dog in tow, as she learns and shares the history, art and contemporary culture of Utrecht.

There's honours for these 3 blogs:

1. Dutch pancake An American living in Holland and playing in Europe
2. The European Mama A blog by a Polish mother living in the Netherlands with her German husband and two daughters about parenting, multilingualism, being European, and much much more.
3. The Wooden Shoe Dairies A Canadian expat in the Netherlands blogs about the zanier sides of life in Holland.

For those of you interested in raising kids in other cultures then The European Mama blog is the most interesting I would say.


Related Posts:

• Yes, I've won The Versatile Blogger Award
• Nominated for the Expat Award "I'm not a tourist"
• My book review of "Expat Alien" by Kathleen Gamble
• My book review of "Expat Teens Talk"

Why I Started Blogging

As I wrote in my recent post great things can happen online. I have been nominated for the Expatica "I am not a tourist” Expat Blog Competition 2012.

I was asked by Amsterdam Mamas in their Meet the Blogger series to answer a few questions and the first questions was: Why did you start blogging? Which is actually a really good question. I started this blog in June 2011. So I have celebrated my first blog anniversary and we did that with a lovely interview with Heidi Sand-Hart, the author of the book "Home Keeps Moving". There was a giveaway too, so that was one of my posts with the most comments.

Amsterdam Mamas was created in 2010 by a group of expat mothers and mothers-to-be who wanted to support each other and exchange information about their experiences of pregnancy and motherhood in Amsterdam. Do hop over and visit their website. If you want to know why I started blogging you can read it here in the mini interview.

Just to let you know Expatica posted about DrieCulturen too this week.

The Expat Blog competition is open until the 7th of October which is the day of the expat fair at the Beurs van Berlage in the heart of Amsterdam. Hop over and see all the other blogs that have been nominated and cast your vote here: http://www.expatica.com/iamnotatourist/blog_vote.php. 
  
By the way what do you think was my best or most interesting post? I would love to hear from you.

Interesting posts:

• Cultural identity Confusion and Third Culture Kids
• A Third Culture Kid speaking: I am not from Anywhere
• Are you Raising Messed up Kids?
• What do the Dutch Miss When Living Abroad?