Student Request- Dog Politics

There are two topics that dominate about 75% of my non-professional conversations and they are dogs (most especially my dog, Max) and India. In today's FYS class our discussion somehow meandered to the topic of animals and consciousness and then moved along to dogs. I have very strong opinions on most things dog related so I steered the conversation away from that. But after class a student asked me what, exactly, my dog politics are and if I would be willing to write about them. So here goes...

My Chuck It List

Many of you probably know what a bucket is, thanks to a movie of the same name. Blogger Heidi Ferrer decided to make an anti-bucket list which ultimately ended up being called the f*ck it list. I have mixed feelings about dropping the f-bomb on my blog, so I'm going to rename mine the chuck-it list, which still rhymes but is less controversial. It's the things that I'm chucking off of my list the things I want to accomplish in my life.

Lesson Learned...Or Why I Should Have Brought Goggles

I'm all about finding ways to exercise that don't involve a treadmill, so I decided to go to the noon lap swim and try some of what everybody calls "the best exercise ever". Let me preface this by saying that my Mom always used to say I swam like a rock. Meaning that, historically speaking, one could say I've always been a bad swimmer. But everybody (meaning doctor-types) say swimming is the best and I had vowed to try new things along with my students, so swimming I went.

Calling the Adirondacks Home

Since a good portion of my FYS class is rooted in a sense of place, I have been thinking a lot about my place(s) lately. Right now I'm calling Saranac Lake, New York in the Adirondack Mountains home. I moved here a year ago and although it's still in the eastern United States, the culture and climate is certainly different from my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. Whereas Richmond is a large, sprawling metropolitan area whose main climate highlight is hot, muggy summers, Saranac Lake is a rural village set in the frosty climate of the Adirondack Mountains.

Enemies of Creativity

Though people exist in communities, living sometimes seems like a very solitary experience. I'm not just talking about that whole macabre "we all die alone" line of thought. I'm also thinking of those moments where you have this idea or feeling that you want to share with someone, but no matter how you explain it, even if the other person says they get it, you have the feeling that you are being misunderstood. Sometimes you may even feel that you are incapable of being understood on a particular subject or with a particular group of people.

But then too you have those moments where someone else describes a phenomenon you have experienced that is so spot-on, so right that you realize that there are some things that are shared across human existence. I had a moment like that today when I read a list of Twyla Tharp's "habitual demons that invade the launch of every project" in her book The Creative Habit. They are:

1. People will laugh at me.
2. Someone has done it before.
3. I have nothing to say.
4. I will upset someone I love.
5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind.

Tharp put into words the very worries that go through my head whenever I am beginning a new project, even if it's something as potentially dry as writing an essay for school (in the past) or work. I had just never taken the time to separate and really think about these distinct threads of fear.

Tharp, obviously a successful writer and choreographer, has clearly found ways to get past these fears. Which means I should be able to as well. I started thinking about some old tricks from cognitive behavioral therapy to deal with "distorted thinking" and realized that they might be an excellent strategy to deal with the "demons" that plague the start of a project.

Next time I find myself at a standstill, frozen by those five thoughts, those enemies of creativity, I can help myself along by first recognizing those fears and then remembering "So what?". Because if you really think about it, is it the end of the world if somebody laughs at you? No. Just because somebody else already did it, does it mean it's not worthwhile for you to try? No. If a project doesn't turn out the way I envisioned, is it automatically horrible? Probably not. In fact, I had a teacher tell me once to stop striving to be "the best" because then I would be limiting myself to what I had already defined as the ideal outcome and reducing the chance that I might exceed expectations. So true.

And so, despite my fear that this blog post is unoriginal, uninteresting, self-centered or otherwise insufficient, I will publish it. Because sometimes you just gotta get over yourself.

My Favorite Blogs

Even using Google's specialized blog search function, it seems like good blogs are hard to find. Which is weird because there are a bajillion blogs out there. It seems like every major print publication, news site, and even commercial website has a blog. A lot of the blogs that are professionally put out by these websites just don't seem bloggy enough to me-- they just seem like extensions of the website itself and often fail to have that human, personal touch that in my mind is what makes blogs a special and unique medium. So if you're new to "the blogosphere", where do you find the good stuff?

I was thinking about this because although my students are of the digital generation, generation @ if you will, there is bound to be at least one student in my class that doesn't have much experience in the world of blogging. With that in mind, I present you with a list of some of my favorite blogs. Although the topics of these blogs may not fit your personal interests, they are worth perusing simply as examples of diverse, interesting and well-done blogs.

• Already Pretty - This is probably my favorite fashion/style blog. Writer Sally McGraw emphasizes individual style and the cultivation of a positive body image. I like that she has a clear point-of-view and that her "voice" is so friendly and relatable (is that a word?). She also posts really excellent, consistent photos of her daily outfits and has a weekly feature where she publishes links to interesting articles from around the web.
• Young House Love - I LOVE the writing style in this blog. Sherry and John Petersik are a young, hip couple from my home town who make do-it-yourself decorating seem like a fun adventure. They have impeccable style and are really funny. When you read their posts, even when they're giving you a step-by-step tutorial, it feels like they are talking to you. Their site is easy to navigate and very visually appealing.
  
• Jezebel - I admit that I don't love the design of this blog, it is WAY too busy for my taste. But once you get past that the articles are HILARIOUS. They have a definite point of view and a clear audience in mind (young, stylish, ladies). It's like the lovechild of a satirical newspaper, a celebrity tabloid and a style blog. A prime example of how good content can overcome bad design.
  
• thewikiman - It's not all fun and games in the blog world, some blogs are serious. The Wikiman's blog is geared towards professional librarians with a sort of techie bent. It is well designed, thoughtfully written and helps me stay up-to-date on stuff going on in the library world. It's also another example of some good branding.
  
• Smart, Pretty and Awkward - Not to be too caught up in design, but this a pretty nice looking blog. Molly Ford writes very concise entries with a tip for how to be smarter, prettier and less awkward. If you're not into reading long blog entries, this is a great example of how keeping it short and sweet can be effective.
  

So there you have it, some of my favorite blogs. What blogs do you follow?

The blog post about blogging...

T-minus two weeks until the students get here and I've got to tie up loose ends in my syllabus and make official assignment hand outs. Since the first assignment, which is an ongoing assignment, is to start a reflection blog I thought I'd start there. So I opened a Word document and had a staring contest with that blank page for a solid five minutes. It was so...empty.

I have this thing about aesthetics and saw myself spending hours trying to make the page look less like a word document and more like a fun handout or something. And then *ding* the light bulb went off and I thought, why not make a blog post about blogging? The students will have to access my blog thereby giving them a concrete example and the links will be live. Yay!

So eager, young grasshoppers who are definitely reading this entry because it is REQUIRED, why am I asking you to keep a blog? A few reasons:

• Reflective practice is an integral component of your First Year Seminar and will help you grow as a student and professional
• Blogging makes sharing thoughts and ideas easy and will help you become part of a community of learners
• You will become more technologically savvy this way, as opposed to keep handwritten journals (plus I don't have to worry about deciphering messy handwriting)
• Your blog will serve a record of your activities as a first year student and, aside from being interesting reading later, will help you remember events for future school/job/internship/scholarship applications

So on to the nitty-gritty...how do you set up your blog? While there are many blogging platforms available, for the sake of continuity I am going to request that you all use Blogger. Because another blog has already done an excellent job giving instructions for how to get started in Blogger, I'm just going to paste them below, here:

Instructions

This video from Blogger shows you what to do. There are written instructions below, too, if you prefer those.

Click to enlarge

1. Go to http://www.blogger.com.
2. If you already have a Google account and you'd like your blog to be linked to that, then sign in and proceed to step three. Otherwise, click on 'Get started'.
1. Fill in the details on the 'Create an account' page. When you've completed all the details click 'save. You should get a confirmation email to the email address you supplied.
3. You should now be on the Blogger 'dashboard' page. It has two main parts - your profile, and your blogs. Investigate the 'edit profile' option and note that you can change the visibility of your name, email address and any profile picture you upload. You can change these settings at any time.
4. When you've set up your profile as you want, click on 'create your blog now'
5. Fill in the required details on each page. All the options, including blog title, URL and the template design, can be changed later.
6. You should now be given the option to make your first post. Posting is pretty straightforward - note that you have the option to write your post in html, or to use the 'compose' option. 'Compose' is much more straightforward - it's like using a wordprocessor, but if you have html knowledge you might sometimes want to tinker with the html of a post. Options for adding links, images and formatting are available across the top of the editing box.
7. When you've written a post you can preview it, save it for later, and, using the orange button, publish it online.

If you want a little more information, check out this post put out by the Wikiman. While it is geared towards librarians, if you ignore the library-specific stuff there is some great information and links to more information about starting your first blog.

If you have questions please post them in the comment section below and I will address them as soon as possible.

Now what are you waiting for? Go start blogging!