Band Wagon Blogger

I have to start out my very first blog post by admitting unashamedly that I am a band wagon blogger. You see I have always had a love, hate relationship with writing. On one hand I love that writing gives a person an outlet to be creative, expressive, and inventive. On the other hand I hate it their is a certain amount of vulnerability and transparency that is reflected in one's writing. The scariest part of that vulnerability and transparency is that it risks being misunderstood.

In the last couple of months I have become a blog reader. The first one I stumbled on when I was on a friend's facebook page. I hadn't met the blogger at that point but I was so drawn in by her writing and story that I simply couldn't stop reading. (Since then I've met that blogger and she is just as amazing as her blog.) The second blog I read was/is from two of my closest friends. In it they share their hard yet inspiring journey through a difficult time in their life. I find myself looking forward to reading these blogs each week because the posts make me contemplate life, ask questions, and relate to someone or something outside of myself. All in all I love these blogs because they inspire me!

When the idea of starting my own blog hit me one question kept coming to mind. "What makes a blog inspiring?" With that question in mind I began reading a myriad of online blogs; some from people I knew, others from strangers. After reading several the answer was clear. It's not the perfect grammar, punctuation, topic, writing style, or design of the blog that made it inspiring. No, instead it was the passion that the writer has towards the topic that drew me in. Whether it was a positive or negative situation that the writer was writing about it was powerful because of how and what it made the writer feel, think, and learn.

Now, I'm passionate about several things in life but nothing quite inspires me and fires me up like my career. I'm not talking about my "job" at a certain school or in a certain class. I'm talking about teaching as a whole because honestly my location could change and I'd still love teaching just as much. Of course my career is not anything without my students. They are what get me up in the morning and keep me up at night. :) In theory I teach them but in reality they teach me. I'm convinced that they handle and understand life better than I do. That said I couldn't write this blog without them. Their stories will be the voice from which I share my story. It's a look into, "my life through their eyes."

I suppose the possibility of inspiring someone coupled with the therapeutic release that writing brings, has trumped some of the anxiety I have about my writing being imperfect or misunderstood. I hope you'll check out my blog and I hope that something I say or share may inspire you. If nothing else I hope it'll at least make you think. Until next time.... Shannon