So, I've decided to become one of those lame people with a blog. I'm conflicted, because in my opinion there's nothing worse than becoming a part of the graphomania that epitomizes our generation. We're the facebook kids, who insist on publishing every mundane detail of our lives on the internet and document them with hundreds of photos. I've always prided myself in not being one of those people (which includes just about everyone my age), and I do my best to try and avoid participating in such facebookery. It's completely worthless: even its chat feature, the one thing it's useful for, sucks (and I suck at using that too, maybe it's because I waited until I got to school to talk to my friends instead of using messenger as a kid, but for me it's no surprise that for my generation we had to invent a form of conversation even more difficult and awkward that talking on the phone). And I don't want to lower myself to the level where I've made a webpage presenting myself to the world that has my interests, favorite TV shows, quotes, relationship status, and more! It was lame, but then people outside of the 18-25 age group starting using facebook, since the .edu was no longer a requirement (Mark Zuckerberg, you suck and you've become a corporate sellout). That's when it got REALLY lame.
On a level slightly above that are the bloggers. They insist on making webpages chronicling the adventures of their cats or narrating their experiences in the grocery store or showing off their artwork. Or they start spouting off their ill-informed political beliefs to an uninterested audience that doesn't have time to actually read the millions of blogs online. Then there's that post-college kid you know posting about his adventurous travels in a far-away foreign land (usually Southeast Asia) from the safety of an e-cafe with wireless internet. So why then, with this pretentious sense of superiority, am I becoming part of the problem and making my own blog?
It's completely for practical reasons. That's my excuse. I'm going to have dozens of people constantly asking me the same questions over and over again: what am I doing, how's Korea, how are my classes going, etc. etc. etc. This is not because I'm a socialite who has hundreds of friends who care about what I'm doing. My parents are though, and for whatever reason their thousands of friends are curious as to what I'm up to. There's also relatives to think about, and maybe there will be the occasional friend from Idaho or Spokane who I've lost touch with thanks to my poor facebook habits (that probably didn't happen all that much in the pre-facebook or pre-cell phone era, imagine that) that might be bored enough in the USA to wonder what I'm doing. So with a blog I don't have to constantly send out mass emails, and I save myself from the embarassment of documenting my life on facebook. And I don't have to worry about my Korean students scrutinizing everything I have to say about them. They can find my on facebook but they can't find me here. Although, maybe they can, it was a real stupid idea to put my full name in the web address. But most importantly, it'll be my diary, so I can remember my experiences later on. It's more for me than for you.
So, I'll have this blog here, and if you want to know what I'm up to, I'll just point you here rather than have an actual conversation about it. That's no offense to you, it's just that there won't be time. I'm going to have 40-60 teaching hours a week with this job, teaching highly condensed AP classes. And unlike high school teachers, I'm going to be teaching several different subjects that I have to write curriculums for. So yeah, it's going to be at least an 80 hour work week, and I'm not going to have time to talk to you. The very little free time I will get will be spent exploring Seoul. So don't take it personally.
And BTW what is with these paragraphs? Why are they so narrow? I can only write three sentences before it becomes too long for people to read (for the old it's because of their eyesight, for the young, it's because they're so used to messenger and facebook that a normal sized paragraph is nearly impossible to read). Any suggestions?
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