Who wants boring friends?

So, for my blog project I had to get consent from the people I interviewed to save their interviews in the BYU folklore archive. I was expecting just a "I give my permission" normal kind of thing, but I was very entertained by the various responses I received:

I,_____________________, give Anna (Insert correct spelling of [last name] here) full consent and permission to disclose any and all information and responses collected from me both during our interview and in any other informal discussions that she may consider relevant.

* * *

Dear Anna,

You may use the interview from me about blogging for whatever.

Sincerely,

_____________________

* * *

I, _____________________ The First, hereby bequeath my right to complain, demand money, or in any other way be a pooface in regards to an interview I granted one Anna [Last Name]. In so doing I present her with full right and freedom to utilize my well primed prose in any manner she see's fit. I do however reserve the right to put on a pouty face should said interview make me look less than stellar ;)

Most Sincerely,

_____________________ The First

* * *

I,_____________________, being on this day, the 15 of December of 2010, fully conscious of my actions and in possession of all my metaphorical marbles, do grant Anna [Last Name] the right to publish my answers and any information conveyed in our interview, in whatever media she sees fit (barring only the burlesque and Times Magazine).

* * *

Thanks for making life interesting, guys.

This poem I wrote once for creative writing and it's kind of corny so don't laugh

I hop up to the examining chair
Left then right then left again
Through the lenses I sit and stare
The doctor stops and clicks his pen

He tells me with a serious gaze
That my life will never be the same
The remainder of my mortal days
I will spend looking through a frame

I notice first the little leaves
Their outline against the bright blue sky
How much I've missed, I can't believe
That all of this has passed me by

And after years of aided vision
My world all clear and bright;
I have come to the conclusion:
Without blindness, there is no sight

Saddest day of my life

Anna,

You are on our list for December graduation. US citizen and Permanent Resident students may work through Sunday, January 2, 2011. International students must not work after Friday, December 17, 2010.

Please see your supervisor for a termination form.

(This lovely email from the MTC was sitting in my inbox this morning)

:(

So, to cheer myself up, I decided to re-post one of my favorite missionary cartoons:


Hehehe. That helped a little.

Blogging Dictionary

Here are some blogging terms (more than you probably ever knew or care existed) that I found defined on the Internet:


Archives - A collection of all your posts on one page. Can be categorized by month, etc.

Bleg - To use one’s blog to beg for assistance

Blego - Blog+Ego. Measuring blogger worth

Blog - Short form for weblog

Blog hopping - Jumping from one blog to another

Blogathon - Update your website every 30 minutes for 24 hours straight

Blogathy - I do not want to post today and I do not care about it

Blogger - A person who blogs

Blogger bash - A blogger party

Bloggerel - The same opinion posted repeatedly on a blog

Blogging - The act of posting on blogs

Blogiversary - Your blog birthday

Blogoholic - Addicted to blogging

Blogophobia - Fear of blogs and blogging

Blogopotamus - A long, long blog post

Blogorific - (aka blogtastic) - Something which a blogger says is terrific

Blogorrhea - Unusually high output of articles

Blogosphere - The internet blogging community

Blogroach - A commenter who rudely disagrees with posted content

Blogroll - List of links to other blogs in your sidebar

Blogsit - Maintaining a blog while the primary blogger is on leave

Blogsite - A web site that combines blog feeds from a number of different sources

Blogsnob - Refusing to respond to blog comments from “not-friends”

Blogspot - Free Blogger hosting blog at name.blogspot.com

Blogstipation - Writer’s block for bloggers. Can't think of what to blog about?

Blogvertising - Also called blogvert. Advertising on a blog

Blurker - A blog reader not posting comments, just lurking around quietly

Comments - Enabling readers to leave their remarks

Doppelblogger - Plagiarize the content of another blogger: to Doppelblog

GAD - Google Adsense Disorder. Repeatedly checking your adsense earnings

Hitnosis - Refreshing your browser repeatedly to see if your hit counter or comments have increased

Post, Entry - Individual articles that make up a blog

Reciprocal Links - Called link love. You link to my blog, I link to yours, to improve search engine rankings

RSS - A family of web feed formats used for Web syndication. Short form for Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0), Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0), RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0). WordPress generates RSS 2.0

Tags - Labeling / attaching keywords to collect similar posts

Weblog - An online dated diary listing your periodic thoughts on a specific topic, often in reverse chronological order

Making History

I had to read Barack Obama's speech on race for one of my classes...

AND I LOVED IT.

Seriously, amazing. This is history in the making, my friends. I don't care what you think about his political actions, he has a way with words and has definitely made progress in the area of race relations and understanding. I recommend to every person, especially every American, this speech:

"A More Perfect Union"

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Let's fill the world with love and understanding.

Dream Job?

I'm really hoping my post-grad experience doesn't end up like this:



We shall see. I'm on the second round of interviews with a job I really really really want at BYU, so maybe I won't have to go through all that post-grad jazz. If not, I suppose I'll just be like 75% of college graduates.

Fun!

Wish me luck.

Why the heck would anyone ever want to be a writer?

So, I'm trying to plan my presentation for my blog folklore project, and I've been looking up some quotes on writing. I'm trying to talk about why so many people feel the urge to write. I'm pretty sure anyone who has even attempted to write will relate:


"Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind". -Catherine Drinker Bowen, Atlantic, December 1957

"If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad." -Lord Byron

"Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted." -Jules Renard

"The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax." -Alfred Kazin

"Writers are just people who have a whole lot on the inside that they need to get to the outside, with pen and paper as their preferred method of transport. Same with dancers, artists, and singers - all the same urges with differing transportation." Graycie Harmon

"You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won't be able to take a break from being a writer..." -Stephen Leigh

"Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up." -Jane Yolen

"The historian records, but the novelist creates." -E. M. Forster

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." -Ray Bradbury

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. " -E.L. Doctorow

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." -Sylvia Plath

"If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." -Toni Morrison

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." -Henry David Thoreau

"I do not like to write - I like to have written." -Gloria Steinem