Well, I’m finally going to start making myself blog.   I’ve enjoyed reading blogs for a while, but have deliberately avoided starting one for a variety of reasons, the foremost being that I never wanted the added distraction.  The other main reason is that, while I think I can write well, I am not a writer.  For me, the process of writing is a difficult one when it comes to collecting to my thoughts on a specific topic and then communicating them in a way that others can understand.  I admire people who can quickly parse through their thoughts and opinions on a given topic and immediately express themselves in clear, elegant prose, but sadly, I don’t work that way.   Hopefully, blogging can help me overcome this problem.

I don’t want this post to be some sort of apologia for my lack of blogging, but in the interest of getting things started, I think it can be a good idea for a blogger to introduce him or herself in a way that also gives any possible readers an idea of who the author is, how his or her mind works, and thought process.  For some people, I imagine that is tantamount to writers or artists explaining their work, something they should rarely (if ever) feel the need to do.  Blogging, however, is essentially a communicative art, one that relies on a rapport between the blogger and his or her readers in order to further the conversation.  I plan on writing another post detailing my thoughts on blogging soon, and will discuss this point more, but for now I just want to give you a sense of what I’m like as a blogger.

As I’ve said in class, I tend to be somewhat ADD with my interests and I guess the same could be said about my thoughts and opinions.  The result is that I am a great big mushy moderate on most thing political, and am constantly changing my mind and reassesing what I think about any given subject.  I think this aspect of of my personality has contributed to my hesitancy when it comes to blogging, since publishing a post feels as if I’m doing something  permanent, even if in the next post I recant everything I said before.

Personally, I’d say I’m something of a grazer.  I like to read something and then mull it over in my head for a while before I formulate any sort of coherent ideas about it. I’ve collected a lot things I want to blog about, and even written a few drafts, but haven’t been brave enough to click the publish button, and now things are out of date.  With that in mind, I’m going to warn you readers that my posts will probably end up long and rambling, but I’m going to really exert myself and make a fresh start with this blog.

testing…1…2…3

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