A Beginner's Blog

I've always been curious about blogs. They seem to be a cross between Twitter and a private journal left on a public park bench. You have something to say, but you don't know if anyone is going to care long enough to hear you. You have a thought that you need to put in writing, but why go to all the trouble to put it in writing unless someone other than yourself is going to read it? That's not to say that all journals are written with the intention of having an audience beyond their authors, but a fair amount of them are written with the intention of being found, exposed, and eventually turned into the Great American Novel (note to self: find literary agent for future blog potential). And so, being the highly commercialized, consumer-oriented, capitalistic English major that I am, I figure it is time to bring my thoughts to the table.

I'm writing this blog in much the same way I joined MySpace, Facebook, and various other social networking sites. I spent months, years even, displaying public disdain for their nonpersonalized attempts at overcoming decades of rejection in high school and college. Really, can we all say popularitycontest.com? I'm sure that's a real website, but probably only because the name was taken before the MySpace/Facebook guys came along. Eventually, however, I, too, caved to the peer pressure of doing what all the cool kids were doing, and I made a MySpace page. My Facebook profile was not far behind it. I started these pages long after it was hip or trendy and right about the same time that people's grandparents got involved. Just as I found myself approaching the 200 friend mark that indicated I had "arrived" in Facebook and become one of the many people convinced of my own importance because surely I am well-liked if I have 200 friends - most of whom I would not recognize if I passed them on the street - I found another disappointment. One of my few Facebook friends who I see on a regular basis invited me to look at her blog. "What are you talking about?" I asked, hoping beyond hope that blog was a misnomer for yet another "All About Me" survey someone had answered and posted as a "note" on their profile. I was wrong. One Facebook profile and three clicks later I found myself laughing out loud (no, I don't mean lol) at her personal thoughts regarding the intellectual abyss that is our college. Cue the dramatic entrance music as I realized my own jealousy and desire to have a blog of my own.

That, of course, brings us here, to my very own blog entitled "Sincerely Cynical." I figure it is a fitting title given my propensity for bitter diatribes about the reality of modern day education, pet obedience, and my daughter's exclusive adoration of her father (Hi Chuck!). I've written blogs before, of course, but mostly for jobs or classes where I had an assignment at hand that gave my blog too much direction and purpose to really fit the stream-of-consciousness lifestyle I choose to lead. No deadlines (at least, none that get acknowledged or met), no final goal (erm, besides graduation), and no one to supervise (provided my supervisor doesn't learn about my blog). Welcome to Sincerely Cynical! I hope you enjoy your stay, but you probably won't.