Interesting?

The other day I was reading a request for bloggers with interesting blogs to get in touch, it finished with the following statement "be honest, you know if you're interesting or not."

The problem is, I don't.  I find my writing interesting, but I am well aware that different people have different tastes.  An example of this is my undying love of blue brie, a taste I am well aware is not shared by a great many people.

I believe I have mentioned before that I have social phobia.  This manifests in many ways, often intermingling with my anxiety disorder, but the most common is that something as simple as "you know if you're interesting or not" makes me overanalyse everything I know about myself and how people view me.

The thought process goes something along the lines of:
Do other people know if they're interesting?
They must or they wouldn't say that.
So other people know what is interesting and what isn't?
Am I somehow defective for not instinctively knowing this?
Maybe I just shouldn't say anything.
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to this situation.
I have absolutely nothing to contribute to any situation.
And eventually:

I try to avoid feeling like that through mental and behavioural control techniques, and I try to avoid talking about it because acknowledging that I have this thing hanging over my head which could cause me to break down in tears and thoughts tending towards the macabre at any given moment.

I like to think that on the whole I tend to present myself as fairly happy and upbeat and as people are often surprised when I tell them I have social phobia I assume I do that reasonably well.  However, I am never sure how much faith to put in other people's responses because they may just be humouring me.

So I don't know if anyone other than me thinks I'm interesting, I don't know if anyone else wants to read what I put here.  But I'm going to keep doing it because I enjoy it and I'm hoping that others will as well.

Posting and Postponing

I feel bad because I haven't updated this blog in a while - not because I pretend I have any loyal following that will be even remotely upset by my not posting but because I enjoy writing these posts and the fact that I haven't been posting indicates that I haven't been putting enough effort into doing things that give me enjoyment recently.

That said, the assignment I've recently been doing has been really interesting and fun.  I guess, in contrast to the previous paragraph, what I've been doing hasn't been neglecting to enjoy myself but neglecting to balance the aspects of my life.  Essentially, everything I have done lately has been geared towards university work but be confident that is going to change now that I've finished the summer semester work and can get back into a  more normal routine.

The other problem I've been having is that even though I've had many ideas for blog posts, I keep forgetting them by the time I'm set up to write a post.  I suppose that at some point I'll have to admit that my memory isn't all that great and start writing down prompts for myself but I've been putting that off as well.

The moral of the story is, I suppose, that I need to stop focusing on my uni work to the exclusion of everything else - apart from anything else, it leaves me feeling drained and I'm not feeling like getting out of bed in the morning.  Expect more posts again from me soon.  Hopefully I'll remember my inspiration so there will be more to them than there was to this one.

Stream of consciousness

So yesterday I posted about science and managed to forget to mention the fantastic view in the sky on Monday night that helped inspire the post.  I didn't manage to snap a decent photo of it myself, but it was something like this:

Source

The moon is reasonably easy to pick in the picture, but the small bright dot in the bottom right is less so.  That is Jupiter.  On Monday, blessed with clear skies, this was roughly the view I had before Jupiter moved behind the moon.

This I enjoyed for two reasons, the first is that it allowed me to pull out a word that I don't get to use anywhere near enough - syzygy, meaning an alignment of three celestial objects (and also the only word in English that includes three 'y's).  The second is simply the sheer beauty and awesome magnitude that is demonstrated.

That got me thinking about whether the terms 'beauty' and 'magnitude' have any inherent meaning about the moon and Jupiter, or even to syzygy, and realised that it was (as the cliche goes) all in the eye of the beholder.

The thing I read the following day, about 3.8 million years of success leading to me also got me thinking, and thus came the blog post.  I've said before that I'm writing these stream of consciousness style and although I am going back to fix spelling and grammar and to change wording slightly for clarity, I have been trying not to start these posts with an idea of what is going to be there at the end.

This meant that when I got to the end of yesterday's post I was faced with a conundrum, I had wanted to mention the syzygy (in no small part because of the word itself) of the Earth, moon and Jupiter, but I'd managed to get to the end of the post without doing it.  Even though I liked the post and felt that it tied up effectively at the end I was sorely tempted to change it to include some reference to this.

I eventually decided not to because the whole point of stream of consciousness is that this might happen and something better may come from it, and that I should deal with it.  Also because it gave me a prompt for another post today.

I'll be back soon

So its been almost 20 days since I last posted, sorry about that.

I really want to blame the computer having issues but as I've had it back for over a week and it has taken me until now to actually post anything, instead I'm going to blame it on being in another country for the first time ever and packing my schedule so full that I haven't had time to put a post together until now.

I have decided too, that rather than try to post all my activities for the trip before I get home, or try and start now and catch up later, I will hold off blogging about my trip until I get home and can get them to a standard which I am happy with while still keeping them in the right order.  The only problem this leaves me with is what to write about now.

This problem is compounded by the very fact that I haven't blogged in almost 20 days which has put me out of the swing of blogging again, so soon after starting.  I never realised until I started blogging that it is more than simply sitting down at the computer and writing stream of consciousness until you've had enough.  At least it isn't for me.

Although I do write most of these posts in a stream of consciousness way, because I decided that was how I wanted to handle this early on, I go back and make sure that I feel everything makes sense before I post it. This is because it is a public medium and I would really rather have at least semi-polished work on here to be read, although I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm not doing terrifically well with that.

Well this post has gone in rather a different direction to where I thought it was headed when I started typing.  I was originally intending to post a little about the places I've been, without giving too much away for the more detailed posts later, but I guess that's what happens when you write in a stream of consciousness style.

I might post again before I get back to Australia, but I wouldn't really count on it.  Thanks for sticking with me despite this.

I has comments!

I am feeling really good today, it might have something to do with the fact that I got to play with rare books all day.  This included first editions worth up to $800,000 (Australian so even more in American dollars at the moment).  As I've said before I'm studying to be a librarian and one of the many things that made me want to be a librarian was the thought of getting to work with rare and unusual books.  Today did nothing to shake that desire.

Somehow, though, I feel like one of the big things that has made this day really spectacular was discovering that Hayden from Ultimate Gourmet had left a comment on my blog, not only was it fantastic to get my very first comment!  YAY!  But it was also a message of support from the blogging community which I'm now a part of still trying to feel like I'm part of which was extra great for my blogging self esteem.

Still being new to the whole blogging thing is a little tough, but I kind of feel accepted by having another blogger comment on my work.  It's affirmation that I'm on the right track with my blog, not that I'm entirely sure there is a "right track" at all, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Writing about writing

So I've been trying to post at least every other day to get in the habit of posting regularly.  It's mostly been working.

Today, though, I don't really have any ideas about what to write, so I'm going to go meta again and write about not having anything to write about.  The problem is, about al there is to say about not having anything to write is "I don't really have anything to write today" and I've said that now.

Wow, already I've written more about this than I really expected.  Trying to hold off this post's inevitable descent into randomly shouting words into the wilderness that is the unread corners of the blogosphere has been easier than I expected.  Much easier.

I have heard that the way to overcome writer's block is to just start writing and keep going, don't worry about what you're writing just make sure your pen (or keyboard) doesn't stop.  I always thought it was an interesting theory, switching off the censor and letting the creative side just play in the vast expanse of the mind.  The problem with this is that you need a starting point, like a sentence to finish or a topic that you need to try and start from and I keep not managing to have time to put a list of these starting points together.  I don't know how I'm going to go about it but I figure at some point (probably after America) I will make an effort to add something to a list every day, possibly I'll do it on this blog - one of those blog every day things.  If I do that it probably won't be for a while because I'm still getting used to blogging.

Well I figure that's a pretty good effort, about 300 words written about writer's block because of writer's block without resorting to LOUD NOISES or something.  I'm pleased with that effort, I hope anyone out there who actually reads this is too.

Joining a Community

True to my word I have done more investigating of 20 Something Bloggers and I have already found many more blogs which I'm interested in following.  I want to give them shout outs but as I've now added a blogroll gadget thing on the left it seems redundant, so instead I'll just show off my internet knowledge stuff (or lackthereof if I get this wrong) and say I love their faces.

There are two problems with this, however.  The first is that I now feel like creepy stalker guy because I'm new to this and don't want to make an absolute fool of myself by saying something stupid.  This is more of a problem because the original problem contains a paradox (and now I'll just say the word problem again for the general confusion.  Problem).  This most ingenous paradox is the longer I leave it before posting, the more profound and witty I feel it needs to be to actually be worth posting thus I am less likely to post.  This vicious cycle is not in itself paradoxical, I know, but it makes sense when you consider that a) my fear of not writing anything worthwhile is keeping me from writing anything worthwhile and b) I prefer to word paradox to contradiction.

The second problem is that it appears there is a huge history associated with this site and I'm getting information overload just looking at the forums and stuff.  I can already tell it is going to be a long process to properly come to grips with what 20SB has on offer by way of interaction, culture and general awesomeness.

Still these are both relatively minor problems for me, and I'm sure that in the fullness of time I will be a productive member of the 20SB community and contributing regularly to what happens there.


PS.  Yes I realise the paradox inherent in the content of this post, that I feel comfortable enough word vomiting my fears about word vomiting all over 20SB, but this is getting far too meta already so I'll let that one slide.

Currently

So in my effort to better understand internet culture I'm doing a "Currently" post because according to a couple of blogs I'm following this is a trend and is meme-ing (or possibly the other way around) on blogs everywhere.

WATCHING:
QandA, and thinking the panel is pretty good except for Barnaby Joyce.  Shut up and let Jonathon Biggins, Penny Wong and Stella Young talk, hell I'd even prefer listening to Janet Albrechtson at this point although this may well change once she opens her mouth.
Janet you just proved me correct.
Also watched 48 Shades on the weekend, the film adaptation of Nick Earls's 48 Shades of Brown.  This film is fantastic and I would recommend it strongly to anyone with an open mind and a love of good storytelling.

LISTENING TO:
The audience ask questions and the panel answering them.  Also the music to the game my brother is playing in the other room with the volume set far too loud.
Although I'm not listening to it right at this moment, I'm getting back into The Cat Empire at the moment and, as always, listening to many musical theatre soundtracks, especially Avenue Q, JC Superstar, Little Shop of Horrors and basically anything by the Stephens - Sondheim and Schwartz.

PLANNING:
Right now I'm taking a break from planning anything, just finished sorting accommodation in America and have a lot sorted out for the rest of my placement.  About the only thing I've planned all day has been my transport for tomorrow.

THINKING ABOUT:
How a great many issues raised on QandA tonight have changed very little in the almost ten years which I have been voting.  And now I'm thinking that it is a very depressing thought and a worrying situation.

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

America, as it is my first time leaving the country.

Les Misérables, Hugh Jackman meets Shönberg and Boublil?  Heaven!

I know it sounds pretty naff, but the rest of my placement - I am honestly loving every minute of it,

READING:
Just finished the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy and the particularly interesting The Greatest Lies in History.  I am about to start a Doctor Who novel called The Silent Stars Go By, although Murakami's 1Q84 is calling me as well.

MAKING ME HAPPY:
Having reached the end of QandA, Randy and Sammy J's beautiful song is currently making me exceedingly happy.

What are you currently up to?

A simple request

I just finished writing a ridiculously long post, which I'm not going to upload because I'm still not sure how well this whole semi-anonymous blogging is going to go and the whole once something is in your digital footprint it is there for good scares me.

What I wrote was a long rant against two companies that have been making things difficult for me recently and I found it cathartic - even if I didn't post it.  This has happened a couple of times now, although this was the first time I actually got to the point of writing a post about it.  I don't want to not post things but I'm fairly concerned about the whole coming back to bite me in the ass thing.

I use a different name here to the one I use in real life, partly this is because blogging under the name JR makes me feel like I have a secret identity which makes the comic book nerd in me geek out.  The majority of it, though, is in case I slip up and post something that I don't want to hurt me in future - although it doesn't mean I'm not planning on at least attempting to keep myself accountable for what I say here.

The problem here is that I don't know enough about how internet anonymity (or lack thereof) works.  If anyone has advice on this for me I'd love to hear from you.

Not Perfect

Although I like to think I have tremendous amounts of patience with others, I'm not so good at the whole patience with myself thing.

Usually this isn't a problem and in fact it is often quite a good thing because it helps me to motivate myself to work on necessary but unpleasant tasks when I'd rather be doing something else.  At the moment, though, it is definitely a problem and this is because I see all these other blogs from people who have been blogging for a very long time and my first reaction tends to be "ooh, so good, why can't I make interesting and easily readable posts like them?"

The answer being, of course, that they have been blogging for a very long time, usually several years, while I have been blogging for a little over a week now.  That doesn't stop it from being extremely frustrating.

I don't particularly like showing work to anyone until it is perfect and because of that I often don't end up doing anything with it at all, this is one of the reasons I started blogging, so that I can get used to putting stuff out there that maybe isn't as polished as I'd like because it doesn't need to be perfect for this forum.

However, I'm not doing particularly well at this, I don't find it easy to actually post entries.  The writing is fine, but the posting is not as easy.  This post I'm writing now is on its third fourth draft, and I have spent far longer than I intended to.  Somehow, even though I am inflicting a fairly labourious editing process on myself the posts still feel pretty stream of consciousness which feels good because I haven't done much stream of consciousness writing and its good to know I can do it, or at least kinda fake it.

So yeah, I'll keep blogging, and try not to spend as much time editing as I do writing it all in future.  Mainly because while I'm not so good at patience with myself, I'm even worse at quitting things before I'm done - even when I probably should.

Also, bonus points if you knew the title was a Tim Minchin reference, because that song rather sums up how I feel about the blog so far, "Its not perfect, but its mine."

Enough to be going on with

So, with one post down which explained virtually nothing about me or my blog, despite being all about me blogging.  I thought I'd dedicate this post to some kind of (probably half-assed) explanation of these topics.

First, me.  I am a person of the male persuasion from sunny Melbourne, Australia, for those of you who know Melbourne I say sunny because for at least five minutes now the sun has been out and as this is surely some sort of record for consistent weather I hereby add the appropriate epithet.  I am studying a masters in Information Management (librarianship for all you laymen (and laywomen? although that sounds vaguely sexist for some reason... (also, yay for nesting brackets!))) which actually has a hope of finding me a job unlike my BA in creative writing and media studies and honours in adaptation studies.

I have many interests including Doctor Who, Star Trek, using big and unusual words, musical theatre anything by Joss Whedon and reading (yes jsut reading, although I have favoured authors I felt it was unfair to my overall love of the printed word to single anyone out).  This is by no means a complete list of things that interest me, but its probably enough to be going on with.  Oh, also pirates.

Second, blog.  I think I might actually have said this last post, but I don't really know what I'm going to put here except that consistency between posts is unlikely and I make no apologies for changing opinions from one post to the next (I know weird for a blog, right?).

There is no intended theme for ths blog except my strange ramblings but that isn't to say that one won't develop in future. Stay tuned for further developments as they occur and refer to the previous paragraph on apologies for details about this.

Third, me blogging.  Ok, the majority of what I know of internet culture comes from the film Hackers and what has generally passed into everyday offline, face to face parlance.  That and Lolcats.  So to sum this up my knowledge of the interwebs esstially consists of the knowledge that animated gifs are:

Shamlessly stolen from A Quick Sucession of Busy Nothings

So there is my first animated gif, my first Tom Hiddleston reference and my first acknowledgement of another blogger, all in my second post.  I seem to be clocking this game!


As a final note to leave you with I was planning on labelling all my various references, both to pop culture and other, but I figured that would result in a ridiculous cloud with little relevance to anything.  So I won't, I will instead only label what I deem to be sufficiently well covered in a post to be noteworthy based on my mood at the time of posting.