I’ve finally decided to throw my hat into the blogging ring. I’ve thought about writing my own blog for a while, but never gave it any real consideration. Blogs these days are like opinions, and you know the saying about those – everybody has one. A blog always seemed just out of my reach, for whatever reason, which is strange considering the fact I’ve loved writing most of my life. For a while, it was even my occupation. I started writing when I was just a kid, probably around 7 or 8 years old, coming up with silly stories about talking animals with visions of grandeur to be the next Beverly Cleary or Judy Blume.
As I grew up, my writing morphed into more of an obligation, taking on the form of research papers and essays in high school and college. But what was a burden to some of my classmates was an opportunity to me and I did a little happy dance in my desk chair every time we received a new writing assignment. I found a home at my college’s student newspaper and managed to work my way up the ranks from reporter to news editor, all the while engaging in my favorite part about the job – writing a weekly opinion column about anything I wanted. I was in heaven. After college, my writing continued when I got a job as a reporter at my local newspaper. Welcome to the real world. As a professional reporter, I saw the emphasis shift to the doom and gloom, tragedy and terror that most newspapers focus on. I covered a lot of fun, interesting, and moving topics, but those were scattered among fatal car accidents, house fires, trials for animal killers and child abusers. I wasn’t able to separate those tragedies from my work life and my non-work life, and I took it all home with me every single day. After five years, it was too much and I realized that a career switch was in order. I chose to become a paralegal, which is a great fit for me and one of the best decisions I’ve managed to make in my life. But it has left me with somewhat of a writing deficit, which brings me here.
Between the end of my journalistic career and my current state, I have managed to fill the void by combining two of my favorite things – writing and Disney World. I’m a certified Disney addict, been to Disney World around 15 to 20 times, and would live in the Magic Kingdom if I could. I’ve taken the Disney knowledge I’ve soaked up over the years and put it to good use by writing guides of sorts for friends and family members who are traveling to the most magical place on earth. It fills the writing void, but unfortunately those guides come in waves and I really only get to write them when someone I know is planning a trip. And so the deficit continues.
This blog will not be dedicated to one topic or theme, but instead, as the name suggests, to whatever I might feel like rambling on about at any given time. I’m no academic, scholar, philosopher, and I’m no Pulitzer winner. I can put a sentence, heck, even a paragraph together, but I have never considered myself to be a great writer. I don’t expect to really accomplish anything through writing here. Will anyone read this blog? Probably not. Does that bother me? Not really. I see this blog space more as a brain dump for me. I was blessed with one of those brains that just doesn’t ever shut off. Ever. There’s always something swirling up there, usually multiple things, and usually very inconsequential things. My brain doesn’t even stop churning when I’m asleep, it just manifests my swirling thoughts into, usually, very strange dreams. Recently it concocted a dream about my dentist dying in a plane crash. Yeah, don’t ask me.
I’m hoping this blog will accomplish two things for me: 1) Satiate my need to write something, anything; and 2) Act as a catchall for some of my random thoughts so I can clear a space in my brain, which will more likely than not be filled with more random thoughts. But at least I’m making room! Maybe if I can clear some things out, my brain won’t feel the need to create dreams about my dentist’s ultimate demise or other strange scenarios that leave me saying, “What the hell was that?” when I wake up every morning. Who knows, maybe I’ll even solve some problems and start to figure myself out a bit by getting things onto the page. We’ll see, I guess.
So, if anyone is reading this, welcome to my blog! It could be an exciting adventure, or more likely, a boring look into my sometimes strange way of seeing the world around me. Whatever the case, it’s sure to be a lot of random ramblings.
Very nice opening blog, Laprana. Two pieces of fatherly advice. First, walk outside, even when it is cold or rainy. It is much more interesting than being on the treadmill. Second, don't stay up so late at night writing the blog that you come in to work half asleep!!
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