Metablogging

I feel I need to give a little thought to the act of blogging itself...

What is this thing? This blogging?

I recall in the fall of 2000 reading some of a crop of websites consisting of nothing much more that the vapid journal entries of random persons, including one young woman who boasted of eating nothing more in one day than a handful of Pirate's Booty. Utter strangeness that. Overall, I thought the sites an odd waste of time, and gave them little thought until my good friend began his own blog, the Hurting. Shortly thereafter I was drawn partially into the blogosphere, though until recently my activity was largely for the purpose of keeping in touch with my blogging friends. This resulted in a kind of strange one-sided dialog - I felt fully informed of my friend's personal lives, though I long neglected to realize that they had no idea what I was up to... This prompted me to start up my own blog - this one here - with the intention of posting personal stories and musings for the purpose of record and their information. That soon sputtered and died. Since then, however, I have grown interested in the wider blogosphere, and seek to contribute again. The question is, what am I to contribute? What am I to say? How will it be valuable? Or interesting?

Let's start with the basics... Why the emphasis on contribution? This is prompted by some reading I did on danah boyd's apophenia right aroung the time my interest in blogging mushroomed. I had just started teaching at a tech-heavy high school, and was fascinated by the students' obsession with Myspace. Basically, if danah is correct, social-networking - as takes place at Myspace and Friendster, etc. - satisfies an identity-formation need. That's why my students and townie friends love the Myspace. Meanwhile, blogging supposedly statisfies an "adult" need for societal contribution. Through that lense, it makes total sense that blogging appeals greatly to me, while social-networking seems strangely pointless. I feel, at this point in my life, I feel very "defined." Extended adolescence is finally over, and I'm finally starting to feel like an adult. I am to a point in my life where I have real responsibility that affects real people, and I feel, to some degree, important. This "adult" "contribution impulse" is something very real that I feel very greatly now (though I did feel it sigificantly at a younger age too). I feel like what I have to say may be interesting to some people, and that it will at least be cathartic to say it.

So, I have established the impulse to "contribute." To say. Now what am I to say? The title of this blog is a reference to the original meaning of the word "geek" as "a carnival performer who does disgusting acts," such as biting off the heads of chickens. I identify myself as a geek in the 21st-century self-empowerment kind of way. The subtitle, "...and other passtimes of a geek" indicates that the blog shall focus on my geek interests. That shall remain true with the current blog revival. The "geek blog" lable shall, in fact, remain an apt descriptor. Most all of my posts shall be classifiable as "geek-outs." You can expect "geek-outs" on music, on politics, on internet-studies, on education, on pop-culture, on food, and on beer. A concise focus? No. Intersting reads? Perhaps. Self-indulgent? Most definately. Do I care? Not much. I'm a teacher - I've got iron skin at this point.

So what is this blog? It is to be a log of things that interest me and my thoughts on them. There also shall be some reminiscing and some philosophizing. It shall be a place for me to field thoughts and hope that there is an audience, and it shall be a place for me to exercise cathartic writing. I hope you enjoy it.