Introduction: February 1st, 2007

Ahhh, the internet. Such a place where one can find anything and everything. It kind of reminds me of that song, "Portobello Road," from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. So, a blog is where a person keeps a diary of sorts, I suppose. Now, in times past, folks kept diaries under lock and key - their little sanctuary to pour out their thoughts and inner-selves. And, now it's all turned around. Inner is presented to the outer world. But, what to say here? I guess I will have to keep it nice. Not mention specific names. Stay away from moralizing and proselytizing. Or not. Marco Polo in his book of his journey to the Far East had an uncanny knack in that he observed without passing judgment. "The Mongol Tribesmen of Central Asia drink mare's milk with blood for breakfast; they seem to enjoy it immensely. They tout its benefits and believe it to be a perfect drink."

Moving on, this blog may be boring. I am a full-time student right now. I am studying to become an English and Latin teacher. Whoohooo!!! I know that is what the reader is thinking! Well, it is fun, to me at least. Chaucer, Emerson, Thoreau, Shakespear, Donne, e.e. cummings, Hawthorne, Milton, Herbert, Hardy, Bronte, Dickens - that's all good stuff! I am crazy about grammar - words, structures, and, style, and crazier even about Latin. To look at words on their most elemental bases and roots gives one a sense of continuity and meaning that I don't believe I'd otherwise have without having studied language intensely. I do know a little of Portuguese too. But it is very rusty (muito enferrujado).

I'm not sure what all I'll put here. With me doing a lot of writing for the several different classes I'm in, I might even put up some excerpts from essays. I might make posts in Latin just for practice. And, I might even break out some Swedish!!! Well, maybe not so much. Who knows,a poem might just fall out of the sky and land here, as far from poetic convention as can be, but poetry after a fashion nonetheless.

And, I don't want to feel like this blog is just a bunch of self-aggrandizement, but, of a sort, it is. How can me talking about me not be about me? I'm not going to post things self-deprecating and blasphemous to me, intentionally! So, how is the balance struck between a Narcissus-like shrine to me and a web-log resembling a diary? Verily, I know not. Whosoever may choose to read can make their own judgments. That, depending on a reader's perspective is always the rub, is it not? Writing is revealing of a person in several ways. You read what I write, you think you know what I mean, and you interpret what I write on account of what you are. You as a reader have reflected back to you what you think I meant depending upon all those thousand things that make you you. I think that the saying, "The meaning of the poem lies in the belly of the poet," could not be a more apt sentiment to express what happens in the exchange between reader and writer. I may mean one thing, and yet, those subtle shades of meaning surrounding words may very well lead another to carry a meaning far, far away from that meaning which I intended. This, I believe, is what makes good writing remain popular. Now, I'm certainly no writer, but I like to do it.

So, I will just make a bunch a random observations at time with some of it bordering on humor or perhaps however a reader may see it. I will write little rants, perhaps. I will write little stories. And, maybe even a biased commentary on something that may be so far off from a realistic interpretation that any sane person would deem full wise and fair.