In a Dear Green Place

I had a worry when I considered starting this, my first travel blog. (Not really just one, but one that I will talk about now.) I will not be traveling around seeing new and interesting places every week like many of the other blog writers. I will be in school. For a year. I worry that a day will come when I have nothing more to say than “In regards to recent events: see last blog and repeat.” It is similar to a problem I used to have in my journals. In response to that silent question “What did you do today?” that I thought I was supposed to be answering I would often only say “Nothing” or “The same thing I did yesterday.”

Like most worries this one disappears with enough consideration. I have been in school for the last three years and even though the schedule is the same from week to week I often have things to write in my journal or talk about with others. My best friend often gets annoyed when she asks people what they’ve been up to and they say “Nothing” or “Just work.” “Come on- there must be more than that!”, she says to me. “Surely they’ve seen a good movie, read a wonderful book, had a thought or two this week.” Granted, she is a fascinating and colorful person and she can tell any number of stories about daily experiences with enough life and humor to have everyone on the ground in laughter. We are not all like that.

Still, once I got past that teenage phase of waiting to be entertained during which my journal entries were filled with laments that nothing happened in my life, I came to notice that there are fascinating things happening all around. Life is cool!

Another worry is that I’ll fill my posts with all kinds of details about classes that most people have absolutely no interest in. For one thing, this blog is hosted by Bootsnall, a travel site, not necessarily the best place to rave about the goings on in my latest Artistic Approaches to Sacred Texts class. Only nerds do that……okay but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. However, as another little voice in my head says, if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times (for some reason that voice in my head sounds like my parents. hmmm): I think this stuff is riveting and a good teacher can make it relevant to anyone. I hope to be a good teacher and I absolutely think that the Humanities are important and relevant to any of us, not just the nerds like me who want to study for a living. I’m sure I will encounter books or discussions or music or art that I must share with inordinate amounts of enthusiasm (anyone who knows can bear witness to this.)

Solutions: Watch carefully and communicate well. There are amazing stories happening all the time. For example, one of my favorite blog writers has been home from his journeys for a few weeks now and the blog is still a riot. It really doesn’t matter where he is.

As one of my old drama teachers used to say, “Any of your lives could be made into an amazing movie.” With a good director and some good screenwriting I think that is true. Maybe it’s time to hire a good screenwriter…..

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 7:50 am and is filed under Preparations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.