Welcome!

Welcome to this blog. I set this up a couple of months ago, and I've been meaning to write in it ever since. I seem to be suffering from a combination of what-to-write-about first syndrome and when-to-grade-all-these-damned-midterm-tests disease (non-contagious, but brain-degenerative). So, why not warm up the fingers with a little welcome message.

When I lived in Illinois, I got a chance to write a weekly mass-email inviting people to the Psychology grad student Happy Hour. It had been a 4 or 5 year tradition at that point (I took over for my last year there) and the emails were typically 10% invitation and 90% some kind of goofy story or fun take on some news item. Every Wednesday I would sit down and try to figure out what the heck I could write about. Some weeks nothing came out, but most of the time I was able to put together something that would amuse myself and at least a couple of my friends.

When I left Illinois and traveled for a while, there was always something to write about, and I had so much fun sending back ridiculous (but true) stories of ... well mostly ridiculous stories about how I injured myself in various countries.

Anyway, the two things I loved most about these projects were the feedback I got from friends, and the practice of regularly writing things. The emails were a great way to keep in touch with people, and I loved being forced (in the Happy Hour case) to sit down and come up with something creative every week.

Since moving back to my home town, I've landed a great job teaching at the college, bought a duplex to fix up, fallen in love with a wonderful person, and now Simon, Kristen, and I basically just roll around in big piles of happiness all day (alas, there's no money in teaching). But I'm missing three things in my life: travel, writing, and you! I can travel (to you) in the summer, but I'm writing now.

I hope you are doing well and appreciating the ridiculous and wonderful things in your life!

jay