Blogging

You know, this blog is really a very strange, borderline uncomfortable medium of communication the more I think about it. I've come to decide that I have very mixed feelings about the whole idea of blogging. On the one hand, there is a certain therapeutic value derived from putting every thought and feeling into writing and then laying it out there for the world to read. I think anytime you communicate in a form other than a face-to-face conversation with someone there is a certain amount of anonymity that you feel (real or imagined), which makes it easier to express your true feelings. This is the case for me anyway.

On the other hand though, its not always easy to write when you have no idea who your audience is...or for that matter, whether you've even got an audience at all. When I wrote papers in school I learned to write what my professors expected to read more than what I actually felt I should write about any particular assignment. When I write for the newspaper I'm writing for the community of people back home I've known my whole life and who all know me. But when I sit down and go to work on this blog, I'm writing for anyone and everyone out there in Internet Land who is either bored enough to spend their time reading my blog, or who actually cares that my floors grow dirt and that I'm afraid I might blow away in a hurricane. I have no idea who or what this demographic may include.

Maybe I've got this huge, awesome, very loyal following who wait with baited breath for my next posting (unlikely), or maybe it's just a few close friends and family members who have an interest in knowing that I'm still alive and well down here in NOLA (much more plausible). Either way, since I don't know for sure I find it sometimes difficult to be completely frank about things I'm thinking and feeling at the risk of accidentally offending someone I don't even realize is reading. I think this self-censorship is both good and bad. On the bright side, I'm less likely to say something that will be taken out of context or misunderstood or in some other way come back to bite me later on down the road because I'm trying to be super careful now about what I say and how I say it. The downside though, is that I've come to pride myself on my candid writing style; on the fact that I am willing to speak frankly and honestly about my opinions, whether they're popular or not, and I feel like in trying to not offend anyone I may start to lose that a little bit.

So...yes. Certainly something of a dilemma.

In unrelated news, I go in tomorrow to fill out the paperwork and get a physical so that I can start my new job! Orientation is September 1 and I'm just terribly excited. I'm also nervous, but the excitement is the bigger emotion in the Nervous to Excited ratio so I think that's a good sign.

Zack started law school yesterday and so far, so good! He's already had lots of reading assignments but he has handled them really well and I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how quickly he's able to get through them. He's very lucky because he had a number of Political Science classes in undergrad where he had to read and brief court cases, so he already sort of knew how to do that. He says he still has to stop to look up every other word in his Law Dictionary, but they say that one of the hardest parts about the first year is just learning how to read a case effectively and since he's got that down cold, he's able to move pretty quickly. I knew he'd do really well at this whole law school game though, so I can't say I'm surprised. Get this though; when we went for our evening walk last night, I don't know how we got on the topic but he confessed that he thinks I am actually going to want to go to law school in a few years. If there is in fact anyone out there reading this, I'd love to get your opinion on that. It certainly came as a shock to me that he thinks this way. I mean, I thought about law school off and on during my college years but never with any real serious consideration and I've definitely never heard Zack voice this opinion before. So, I dunno. It definitely won't happen anytime soon--one of us has to have a job so we can pay the bills, but I guess it's an option worth thinking about down the road.

Well, how's that for a rambling, convoluted posting? I have to go play wife now and cook dinner before it gets too late.