Saturday, May 05, 2007

Why Do I Blog?

Quite some time ago -- on my mother's Birthday, actually -- Bardiac tagged me to share five reasons why I blog. Because I am such a phenomenal blogging slacker, for reasons which I will share in the second half of this post, I did not complete the task. And I continued to not complete the task for so long that my fellow tagee, Ancrene Wiseass, completed her assignment, and tagged Anniina, who in turn completed her assignment and tagged me. And then I started to feel really guilty about being so slow to get on this meme. So, I let that procrastinator's guilt percolate for a while, and now I am ready to be a responsible blogger and write my post.

*Ahem*

Five Reasons I Blog:

1) Long Story with two parts, in fine TMI tradition: I would classify my experience in my family, although loving, as akin to being in a high-demand cult. Seriously. Part of the pull of graduate school was, for me, the chance to be away. As I planned my move to Microburg from civilization, I became absolutely giddy with the prospect of living far enough away from my family that I stopped being defined, and defining myself, as Daughter of X, Sister of Y. And I know that sounds immature, because it is immature. But there you have it. About two months before I was set to depart, a family member fell ill -- not dangerously ill, but too sick to work, and too poor to go it alone. I am the only unmarried, non-replicating sibling. Therefore, my charge into freedom changed radically. Like, the freedom part of it got taken away. I was determined to continue on to graduate school, but I would have to take my family member with me, and take responsibility for said family member. Moving made me the sole emotional and social support for said person, who is not the type to create a new social network, and be the largest financial support as well. Not a lot of time for that, plus grad school, plus finding a place where who I am is entirely based upon me. One improvises. So, ta-da. A place where I can be bitchy and evil and pompous and self-centered and school-centered and politics-centered and me, and nobody gets hurt.

2) As I wandered about the internet, hunting for information about becoming a medievalist, I found blogs that centered on just that. And they were written by women, most of them. And those women were feminists, too. Huzzah! So, I started to think that I could also be a feminist medievalist, and that perhaps I could bring something to the conversation while we all made our way to the medieval. I'm cartain I don't do that as well as I should, but you can't build a skill unless you work on that skill, right?

3) I had to create a blogger account to comment at Bitch PhD and Ancrene Wiseass anyway.

4) I seriously like my pseudonym, and whenever I'm moderately clever in a very geeky way I like to share that.

5) My friends have heard my anecdotes before, and they aren't as impressed by my rapier wit as I like to imagine all the non-commenting visitors to this blog are. You see, in my mind, the non-commenting don't fail to comment because I haven't said anything generative, or they're creepy pervs who are using the internet to search for sick ways to get sexual pleasure out of medieval torture devices. Oh, no. They fail to comment because they are stunned by my perspicacity. So, to maintain my delusions.


Five Reasons I haven't Blogged Lately:
1) Overflow classes, just in case I never make it back to graduate school.:$0
Volunteering commitments that help me get over myself: $0
Writing decent final papers for all those classes while keeping volunteering commitments so that choice to make it back to graduate school is ultimately mine: Priceless.

2) Relative is ill and requires much shuttling to doctors.

3) I need a job! So far two interviews, no offers. Le sigh.

4) You know how Pandarus always shows up where nobody invited him in Troilus and Criseyde? He does that in papers about Troilus and Criseyde as well.

5) Actually attending when speakers come on campus in case I never make it back to graduate school and I just go around being all ignorant of the stuff they were talking about forever because I didn't learn it now.

5 comments:

medieval woman said...

Welcome back! I'm glad you blog and that you're blogging again after overflow classes and volunteer work. I actually started my blog for at least one of the reasons you mention: I had to create an account to comment on Flavia's blog (when it was La Lecturess).

Are you going to K'zoo?

Bardiac said...

Wow, really interesting reasons.

I know what you mean about Pandarus. Why is that?

This may seem odd, but if I can offer a word of encouragement: even if you decide not to go to school, you never have to give up on learning. That's especially true if you live in an area where there's a decent museum, library, and such.

Anniina said...

Now THAT was worth the wait! I almost had an asthma attack after the sentence about being in your family corresponding to "being in a high-demand cult." I can relate. BTW, I also seriously like your pseudonym , and you're not deluded - I sometimes don't comment on your posts because I don't think I could compose a befittingly eloquent response. And thanks for making me a label - I've never been a label before. (#^_^#)

kermitthefrog said...

I, too, never comment but like the stories!

Heo said...

Sadly, I will not be attending K'zoo. I have interviews this week, as well as these !@#$%^& papers that have just piled up on me.

More and better responses after the papers are done, and I have had a nap.