RafeWorld

I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve written in here. Unused stories for Cinema Blend aside (who I don’t even write for anymore), I really haven’t written much of anything in over a year. In that time so much has happened, and I’ve done a poor job of documenting it. I could use the excuse that I’m so busy, but at the end of the day it’s just another excuse. Meanwhile, I have every excuse in the world to actually be posting.

For one, recently several of my colleagues have started their own blogs. My first response to this was “welcome to ten years ago, when blogs were actually popular.” Frankly, that’s a bit rude. Blogs are still popular, although starting them is no longer cutting edge. Initially, I felt like looking down upon them, because they are starting to do something I’ve been doing for years. But I haven’t been doing it for years, as the dates between posts shows. I’ve had a blog for years, but updates have been sporadic at best. I should be proud of my friends, not condescending, and I am. Working around so many people who are afraid of technology, or hate it, so the notion that my peers are starting their own blogs is exciting. I look forward to reading what thoughts they choose to share, and hopefully sharing some of my own with them.

The bigger incentive to blog is that for three years now I’ve asked my students to keep their own blogs. It’s an assignment in my class, so a lot of them do it because they want a grade, but some of them actually get into the assignment and I get to know them. Meanwhile, my blog sits collecting dust. I was taught to model what I teach, but I haven’t been doing that at all. That needs to change.

So, it is my goal to be much better about updating. I still don’t want this to become mindless drivel about what’s going on in my life (and, frankly, so many people that I know are aware of this blog’s existence, so posting thoughts about them here would be a bad idea), but a place I can share thoughts, stories, and reflections.

One last thought – in the past few months someone who “is hairy” has discovered this blog and left meaningless comments that have been marked as spam. I suspect this is a student, either current or former, who has nothing better to do with their time than troll a dusty blog. Congratulations. Now go read a book, find a girlfriend, or do one of the vast list of things that would make better use of your time than trolling here. After all, remember how William Cullen Bryant suggested we live our life:

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Will your empty comments and wasted time satisfy you when your time has come to a close?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 6:01 pm and is filed under my hectic life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.