Odds and Ends

Tonight is a very slow night for me. I had a test earlier in my religion class and then I had to come home and start work on my presentation for my psychology class. We have to give a 5 to 7 minute presentation on a disease, in my case I will be presenting on Alzheimer's Disease. It doesn't sound like a lot, the 5 to 7 minutes part, but I almost always end up having stage fright right before I get up to do a presentation. Which is funny because people tend to think that I am quite naturally happy in front of a group. And depending on the location, and my familiarity with the topic I can be. But I just have a bad feeling that I will get nervous and mess up somehow. Inevitably I will just sike myself up and get it over with as early as possible. Luckily I have to present on the first day, so I will probably go like 2^nd or 3^rd (never first because I like to gauge the classes reactions to other people's presentations first).

The start of the summer semester coincided almost perfectly with my decision to begin blogging again. I had originally started blogging back in October of 2010, which was also when I tried my hand at podcasting (which if you really want to you can find those episodes here). For one reason or another though I quit working on the blog and didn't really think anything more about it until earlier this year when Tim Binnall gave a call for new writers for his site, Binnall of America. As I was sitting at work listening to the podcast, I suddenly said 'Fuck it, why don't I try to write for BOA'. This caused many curious stares from my coworkers that apparently had never heard of 'BOA' before. Long story short after I wrote my first couple of columns for BOA, I sorta put it all out of my mind and went on about my

business as usual. But for some reason on a Sunday in May, May 8^th to be exact, I decided to start blogging again. I figured a couple of things; 1) that people must obviously care what I have to say, 2) my insights would be unlike any other ever in the history of the Fortean, 3) it can't be that hard to blog.

I was wrong on literally every single one of those points. Well not entirely wrong, rather I was just naïve about the whole process. The first thing I learned was that blogging was not nearly as easy as I had originally assumed it to be. Especially because I set the bar fairly high for myself. I was going to have new quality posts every single night. After all the sites that I like to frequent are the ones that, you know, update daily. To top it off, I couldn't have picked a worse time to start blogging. Less than a week into the venture, I started back at school. That would be night classes of course. And so most evenings I have to juggle between homework, the blog, reading (my ever growing reading list is evidence I can't spend much time with books). Typically I manage to get out a fairly decent post every now and then. But it can be pretty tough sometimes.

But if it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not. Really I have enjoyed working on this blog. It's been a crazy experience over the last couple of months. Watching the readership grow, seeing my blog listed on other people's sites. Especially sites of those that I admire and have a lot of respect for. Plus I've gotten a chance to talk with people I probably wouldn't have otherwise. So while it can sometimes be a huge pain in the butt to work on this blog, it's definitely a labor of love. It's come pretty far in just the two months that I have been posting at it, I can't wait to see were it will be by the end of the year. Or even the next year. It's success is thanks to you, whoever you are reading this right now. Maybe this is your first time here at Forteania (and if so let me say thanks for stopping by!) or you have been here for a little while. Thanks for sticking around and thank you to those that have commented.

In the end however I'm really doing this blog for selfish reasons. I think that I am hoping to learn something by doing this. Other wise whats the point right? Well that's all for tonight, this post was a bit rambling and I apologize for that. I just had to get these thoughts out, you know how it goes. I need to get going, because I actually have some down time so I can try and make a dent into my ever-expanding reading list. Until next time this is your friendly neighborhood Fortean Philosopher saying “Where's the beef?” (That can't still be copyrighted can it?)