One of my first ideas for a blog this semester is doing a weekly
update on my golden retriever, Ellie. I got the idea from my mother who frequently sends me pictures, videos and stories of all the crazy things Ellie gets into on a weekly basis. On Sundays when I usually call or FaceTime with my family, she can hear my voice but doesn’t understand where it is coming from. My mother has filmed this and it makes for a hilarious 30-second clip. Also, I follow several Instagram accounts of golden retrievers in which my sister and I daily tag each other in posts. This sparked my inspiration to log all of the stories, pictures and videos that I have or that are sent to me. Just by searching the Internet, the blog that struck me as the most successful was The Daily Golden . 
This blog was extremely interactive in terms of the several different categories on the sidebar. Also, each post had some sort of picture or video that was so inviting to watch. There is a captivating title then, the graphic or YouTube video following ending with links to the original page and sharable options. One of the most intriguing things about this blog is the Live Twitter feed occurring on the sidebar of the page. If I were to do this topic as my blog, I would set it up so that there would be categories of things she does. For example, she is a chowhound and will do whatever it takes to get food therefore, one of the “categories” could be labeled chowhound. Since, I have videos of her and frequently get sent them this would make the blog multimodal. This Tumblr http://goldenretrieverworld.tumblr.com/ account gives a combination of videos and pictures. It is set up similar to Instagram in which each post is laid out in a table of 3 columns and several rows. For my blog, I would use a similar design however; I would incorporate a captivating headline above the photo.
Another idea I have for a blog is to document the balance between a rigorous liberal arts academic schedule and a Division III Collegiate sport (aka Lacrosse).
What sparked my interest in doing this topic was my coach. When I came in for the weekly captains meeting she had suggested doing this topic since I am biology major and a three-year captain. I have endured many of the struggles that athletes face every day from time management, to finding time for yourself and to keeping your grades up. Although managing academics has been under different circumstances for me ever since I was a freshman. Every Tuesday during the season of my freshman year, I would have to leave practice an hour earlier in order to make my General Chemistry lab at 6:00PM. I requested to be in this lab strictly for the fact that the other sections were during the afternoons where I had games. I had had a different coach then but she was more than accommodating in that her philosophy was that you would never miss a class or lab for practice or a game. Each year, I have had some sort of accommodation for the classes and labs I would be taking. 
I feel strongly to share this experience so that future Dickinson Women’s Lacrosse players can understand that a balance between academics and lacrosse can be achieved without sacrificing anything in between. This blog Adrln and The Lax Magazine Blog offer great examples of lacrosse blogs because of the uniqueness to each post. However, I would set my blog up a lot differently by having an Instagram style layout in which each picture would be its own post with a headline. That way navigating between posts is simple and doesn’t compromise the layout.