Breaking the ice

I've been having some anxiety about what to write here, now that I have this official space all to myself. It even has my real name on it, with nothing to hide behind. Will I be intelligent? Insightful? Will I have anything to add to anyone's thoughts? Is this type of soul-baring appropriate for a "Blog"? Is it a journal, or is it expository? How manicured am I meant to be?

I've always been curious about people who keep blogs. (Again, do you "keep" a blog the way you keep a journal?) I used to have a LiveJournal, and I used that as a space to be so outlandish and esoteric that whatever I wrote only had significance to me, and so I never worried about the possibility of anyone decoding my entries and forming unkind judgments about me. But I envisioned this space as being somewhat more formal. Look--I'm already using punctuation 'n all that jazz.

Maybe what I really need is first to reconnect with the freedom of the creative process before I try to write in organized frames. I guess I should just write what comes naturally.

I just helped Matt with some kind of Art History Major duty, where all the seniors have to write up the Senior Studio shows. He wrote about Cara, who I've spent months forgetting to email about selling cheese this summer. His take on her show was that it was about the importance of archiving, how it provides us our only means of understanding the past as it reckons into our present self. Or maybe that's just my interpretation of his piece...he seemed a bit resistant to my suggestions, and it could be that I was just hearing what I wanted to hear.

I finished making a pamphlet to stick outside the Writing Center for people to use as a guide to self-editing. Should I go into editing? I think I'd be good at it, but I would miss the personal interaction that's such a big part of peer tutoring. It would feel like a faux-pas to just slash and burn other people's writing to fit my needs. But then again, I like being in charge of things.

I've gotten really into this LinkedIn thing. I'm going through the same friending frenzy that I experienced when facebook first started to get popular, except with a few more of the quandaries of who it's appropriate to contact. Is it awkward to ask professors who I only kind of know for their professional blessing? Especially because the only relationships that LinkedIn recognizes are peer relationships. Professors aren't exactly my colleagues, or my friends, nor have we "done business together." Actually, there aren't any relationship options that imply anything other than a totally balanced relationship. Then again, it is a professional network...it's not meant for students. If I just wait until I graduate to deal with this, it won't be a problem.

Some anthropologist somewhere must have done some kind of study about the way that social networking websites like Facebook and Myspace and LinkedIn reflect and contribute to the way that people understand their relationships. Like when Facebook gives you the option to describe your romantic status, there are only a few options. And people love to have categories to think in...so do people that use the website a lot tend to adhere to those categories when they think about themselves and their interactions with other people?

I'm at the Writing Center...for 20 more minutes...let's go, minutes...Bah, Friday night. It's actually surprising the number of people that come in for help on Fridays. It's no extraordinary amount. but you know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick andthey won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it's a movement.

I saw a poster today from when Arlo came to Oberlin like a century ago. Remember when Oberlin used to be the hotspot for vocal, radical, influential people? Like besides Nader the Rasinette? Rasinette Roulette?