Purpose

Well, here I am on this blog. A whole bunch of things came together at the right time that convinced me to try again. I'm an Adolescent English Education major in college. I've been doing a lot of my own personal research about how to successfully teach students as well as attending a college with a fantastic education program. One of the things that's been showing up in my life again and again is that I need to commit to learning how to write myself. And then there is this whole concept of brain development. During puberty, the brain begins to weed out its synapses. These are like little trails that it can follow to react to something. It weeds them out and gets rid of ones it doesn't need (like crying for food at four months) to make room for the learning it will do as it grows into an adult-brain. At this time, whatever synapses aren't used get destroyed and those that are get strengthened. So it would seem hopeless to try and change the brain after that. Except that you can. When, as an adult, you may a point to do something you don't do often, you make a faint trail for your brain to follow. It's going to keep following the strongest one automatically, but when you force yourself to create a new path or follow a weak path instead, slowly that path will become stronger and the strong one will fade. You can re-train your brain to work the way you want it to. As a Christian, this blew my mind. In Romans, it says "be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Well, that's exactly what I wanted to do. Transform my mind into the focused and vibrant organ I wanted it to be. I wanted to transform it into a powerhouse of learning and love. But I'm a busy, poor college student, and I needed to use what little free time I had to pay back my loans. And then, I read an article. It basically said "so what. Do it anyway." and here I am. I don't know how long this will last, but I'm going to commit to (hopefully) one or two articles a week.

Restart

Blogging feels entirely unnatural to me. When I was in middle school, I tried it once. I kept a Xanga for about...four days. That was it. My friends kept trying to make me write more. I felt that it was pointless. It was a waste of time. I never knew what to write or who to write it to or how to start or why I was bothering to write this thing anyway since it was basically a diary that people could make fun of me for. No thank you. And then I tried again the summer after I graduated from high school. I was bored, alone, and trying to prove to myself that people liked me, even if they were just on the internet. All I proved to myself is that I still have trouble expressing myself in an open space and finishing the things I start. Well, here I am. I'm giving it another go. We'll see what happens. Wish me luck!