Anyone know the Spanish word for "blog"?

Today I decided posting to a blog is a lot like traveling to a foreign country. Well, minus getting lost a lot and taking too many pictures. But stick with me here and I'll explain.

I speak a little Spanish, but significantly more now than the first time I got off a plane in South America. Traveling more than 3 miles in a car with two ENGLISH-speaking women on a gossip streak can be difficult to keep up with. Mix in some of the most rapid speaking Latinas in the southern hemisphere, a culture where it's the norm to cut off the second half of most words, and a significant (and I do mean significant) jet lag factor, and see how well YOU do (assuming you're not Chilean).

After about 5 hours (OK, more like 10 minutes but it FELT like much more) of staring blankly in response to nearly every question asked by two women who had been told I spoke Spanish, I was beginning to believe I'd been sent to Africa or Outer Mongolia by mistake. Or that the entire language department at Utah State had teamed up with my high school Spanish teachers in a cruel plot to ruin my summer (since what they taught me was clearly NOT Spanish).

I know, I know, "Didn't she say something about this somehow relating to blogs before?" Don't worry, I'm getting there.

Anyway, before that eternity in the car, I was terrified of speaking Spanish out loud for fear of sounding stupid. After the ride from the university to my host family's house, testing my Spanish in an audible voice became a matter of self preservation. And maybe blogging isn't quite a matter of self preservation, but it IS encouraging me (or that's the idea anyway) to write "out loud" at the risk of sounding stupid. And that's healthy.