Generalizations
I'm a twenty-something writer currently stationed in Concordia, a small town in north-central Kansas--and after my August 2011 move, I've heard all the Dorothy jokes. After graduating from Illinois College with a B.A. in English Literature and French and from Iowa State University with an M.A. in English Literature and Speech Communication, I continued down the educational path and currently teach English full-time at an area community college. I used to write for the Rockford Independent Press, a local news magazine.
Philosophizing
Like my good friend Amy over at Things I Know Now, I identify myself as a lifelong learner. I'm constantly observing (and over analyzing). It's a double edge sword. When you think it's a good idea to be aware of an airline's safety record, air travel becomes more stressful than it should be. But I keep doing it--and not just with airline safety records. The world is a big, complicated place but it isn't intractable. The more you know about your town, culture, history, literature, humanities, politics, Hollywood, the nut job next door (and yes, airline safety records), the more successful you will be at doing whatever it is you love doing--and hopefully a part of that is being kind to the world and the people in it.
Why I Blog
I believe in proactive change on the micro and the macro level. I want the world to stop arguing and start working together towards something better. And I want, for myself, to take a cold, hard look at the way I process and interact with the world. That's why I blog about gratitude. If you believe in the newish theories of quantum mechanics (see the film What the Bleep do We Know?), energy dictates our life. So part of this blog is to cultivate daily appreciation, creating more positive energy (much needed if you've realized, just before boarding, that your airline has had fifteen fatalities in the last five years) and a general sense of respect for and humility about the world. But it's also about understanding myself and my past and any future self that will inhabit this physical body. It's about exploration.
