End Of The Semester

This is my last blog post for the online graduate class I've been taking. I will make an effort to continue to blog regularly after this class is over. ENG 830 has made me fall in love with my own blog all over again! I read an article for this class by Stephen Krause in which a student asked the question, "How empowering is is to be forced to blog?" I laughed at that when I read it, but now I can state definitively that it is empowering to be "forced' to blog. The article made a case for blogging as a method for training writers. The unidentified student who voiced the original opinion was in an online class similar to the one I'm taking now. Krause's 2004 class was ultimately a failure. i think if he were to teach it again today, student response would be completely different. The blog explosion that has been taking place has been phenomenal. Everyone has a blog these days.

I never gave much thought to blogging other than as a way to satisfy my own ego via some humorous, relevant and irreverent content--with a healthy dose of snark thrown in. I didn't see blogging as a way to hone my use of language but that lesson is one that I have taken to heart after one semester of "forced" blogging. Any chance to use, and improve my use of, language is valuable. As an English major, I can use my blog as another academic outlet. As a fiction writer in training, my electronic musings could very well end up in some of my work. Blogs are yet another tool through which writing/English teachers can force their students to sit down and write. If the experience is a good one, those students will continue to use the tools at their disposal. I spend another 60-120 minutes a week blogging--two hours of writing on top of the creative writing and journaling I do every day.


End-of-semester final thoughts--the snarky ones. I'll save the real ones for the class discussion boards:

Facebook is fun and so far, stalker-free (knock wood)

Amazon's Kindle is SOOO Star Trek:TNG. Remember how the Enterprise crew read books on tiny little handheld screens? OMG, it's like the future, only now.

I love Apple. I hate Apple. Now that my older iPod no longer functions, thanks to my plugging it into my new laptop thinking it would work (what was I thinking?!) I'm leaning more toward Hate every day.

I prefer email over IMing. I never, ever text.

Eddie Bauer emailed me a $10 gift certificate good toward any item. Because I now had a discount, I bought a sweater I wouldn't have otherwise bought.

And finally:

I am very, very tired.