Welcome to the world of blogging! Here's to hoping I fit in here!
I am not a woman of many words, some might say, but when I write it seems that I can go on for days. That is really the only way I am ever thorough in what I want and need to say. I suppose that the reality of writing and being judged blindly is a little less frightening than speaking aloud with instant judgment. Though I got over my fear of public speaking long ago, I still much prefer to be read than to be heard. Reflection has helped me to understand why I like to write so much, how I was introduced to it and the path, of sorts, my life took because of it.
During my childhood, I was not much into putting my thoughts in a diary or journal but, in retrospect, I developed a penchant for writing early on. When a good friend of mine moved to another state in the early 90s, letters back and forth to her became my emotional outlet for the time being, you could say. Having a pen pal at an early age allowed me to "talk" about things that were going on in my life that I might not have otherwise mentioned to others, i.e. my parents' divorce drama, school, boys, etc. The process of sending these letters also enhanced my usage of the dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia as I was always trying to make the most sense out of what I was writing! What it never seemed to help with, however, was my penmanship! On that note, I owe much praise to the computer!
Growing up I received a lot of encouragement from teachers and peers to continue writing. In the eighth grade, my English teacher, Ms. Barnes, was always impressed with how descriptive and thorough my essays were. As I look back, I realize that she was very influential in my desire to write. It seemed to me at the time that she highly enjoyed every piece of homework that I turned in! Now that I am older, I understand that she was being supportive to stimulate my interest, as teachers should. Undoubtedly, it was her marks that made me feel good about myself and confident that I could do well in school. In the eleventh grade, continuing on in the Honors program, I was placed in the English class of the most feared teacher at my high school. It was not that she beat students with her ruler, but rather that her curriculum had a long standing reputation of being extremely difficult. After hearing stories about her from my older sister, I naturally requested to be transferred out of the class! My guidance counselor, however, did not let me take the easy road and told me that I had no other options. His exact words were, as I remember, that I would be "sorry" if I didn't stick it out. I am glad I took his advice because, although it was hard, I gained a lot of valuable knowledge in Ms. Chaney's class that year. I also got an early taste of what college would be like as I frequently wrote papers into the early hours of the morning! That was just the beginning.
It took me a solid two years in college to decide what it was that made me happy. I came in as a freshman wanting to major in computer science because computers were where the big bucks were in the working world at the time, right? That went well for a couple of semesters until I had to drop the prerequisite math courses out of fear of failure! Thus I could not continue in the major. When I transferred into Sonoma State, I declared myself a business major because that made Dad happy. The subject was not making me tick, though, and the classes I really wanted to take would not count against my coursework for business. After careful consideration over summer break 2002, and coming to terms with the fact that I would be working at the family business after college anyway, I declared a third and final major in Sociology. I had taken a couple of introductory Soc courses as part of my general education and did well in them, particularly because they involved a lot of writing. After realizing it, and putting my strong suit to the test, I did fairly well in college thereafter. I spent many, many hours reading, researching and writing lengthy papers, but in the end I can say that I actually enjoyed being a Sociology major.
Currently, the only writing I do regularly is that of rental contracts and letters of lease violations! The idea of blogging has appealed to me since the fad began, so to be starting a blog now is actually pretty exciting. I am sure I will have lots of things to write about as time goes on, especially since this will be such an eventful year, and because writing is the best stress relief for me. Happy New Year to all, and stay tuned...
