Jealousy

What has Natalie Merchant been doing lately? Playing shows, apparently.

During this nearly two weeks in Cheongju, I’ve met a lot of new people, each of whom are on their own life adventure. Naturally, a few of them have blogs to chronicle their experiences and whatever else happens to be on their minds. And, while I know it’s not a competition, some of these blogs are like, better than mine. I mean, it’s a subjective judgment, but they’re talking about things like first experiences in Korea and movies and stuff that is of great interest to me, but from another person’s perspective! Amazing. Plus, the authors tend to do a little more legwork for their posts and it shows in their photos and length. Are those fine pages going to spark me into putting some more effort into this guy? Not likely. Right now, it’s 10:40a and I’m typing this on the bed before getting ready to watch my 3rd-ever episode of Mad Men (although the world they’ve created is impressive, I’m not seeing the appeal quite yet). No, my motivation to improve this guy beyond it’s incredible title will come from elsewhere and, given all of the free time I have, it’s bound to manifest itself soon.

I’m wavering about posting their URLs because the authors are all coworkers and they’ll inevitably be drawn back to The $ynchronizer 2: All Due Respect. I wanted to reserve some anonymity in case I ever use this forum to snipe at people and burn bridges. However, I’ve never been that mean and if you like this page, you’ll certainly enjoy:

http://lifeandtimesontherok.wordpress.com/

or http://iamcaliforniadreamin.blogspot.com/

or perhaps even http://niletoandes.blogspot.com/2012/03/oh-look-korea.html

 

Blogging About Blogging

I’ve been sitting here with the blogger window open on-screen for an hour, but I procrastinated for so long that I can’t remember what I wanted to write about. Lately, I’ve considered writing about ethnic flavors in pop music, online dating and my own fitness. I need to continue writing about my ten favorite songs because, as of today, I’ve only covered one of them. Actually, I’ll cover that next time because I think I want to hit La Isla Bonita and discuss the ethnic flavors in the same post.

Anyway, I read a Gawker post about guys who exhibit clingy and borderline-stalker behavior after going on dates. One man, in particular, was able to email the woman he’d gone out with once because he searched for and found it on the Internet. As far as I know, no one is stalking me. However, I googled my screen name just to see how much information came up. It was surprisingly little, though I did run into a treasure trove of sorts. I found my old blogs on Xanga and Blogger! I’m talking about WhatUpThen’s Xanga and Ice Climber! I had the Xanga just for a couple of months, from February to March 2003. Ice Climber happened during graduate school and just a little bit after, from May 2004 to January 2006. I’m surprised these blogs are still up but it’s just…heartwarming–I almost want to cry! It is so fucking cool to see this stuff that I wrote back in the day. What’s interesting is that I feel I haven’t changed much in these nine years. I definitely sound like a kid in the Xanga blog but, for the most part, my situation hasn’t changed; I’m still working in education, still living at home, still talking about entertainment and basketball and observations of people. One of my favorite lines was from a February 2003 post in which I wished my friend Eric a happy birthday and then asked (in the blog) if he was free that weekend. That hasn’t changed, either; I’m still leaning on Eric and MK3 to entertain me on weekends. Kinda cool, yet kinda sad!

And last, I enjoyed this post in particular.

Fuck, I like this one, too!!

 

Debate Page

I found a site this morning which has a good number of school-style debate topics, such as the long-term effects of cartoon-viewing, whether alcohol consumption should be banned on flights and the one linked below on the death of cursive writing. As a kid, I used to love justifying the different sides of arguments like these and I still do! In the few days since resuming writing this blog, I’m concerned that it’s becoming more “grown man diary” than blog, so I can imagine mining a site like this for content in the future instead so that this page doesn’t become a dumping ground for my thoughts on an uneventful weekend!

Cursive Writing Question

Also, while I acknowledge that practices like cursive can age, wither and die, there is still a place for it when formal, elegant writing is needed. I think it should remain just as it is–everyone learns cursive for a few weeks in elementary school, but it’s never really required afterward.

 

Return of the Mack

Okay, now. I’m gonna try this. Haven’t posted in over TWO AND A HALF YEARS. Not Two and a Half Men, which was resuscitated yet never should have seen the light of day in the first place, but it has been a long tie. I know I can do it, though. This blog ran for five years before I quit, and I had a Xanga thing going for a year or two before that. Writing is reflective and creative and cathartic, and reading my stuff (silly as much of it is) brings me joy even today. I think it brought a bit of joy to a handful of people out there, as well. So, I’m gonna try this. See ya soon.