My mind feels like the basement of a pack-rat.

READ WITH CAUTION: This entry may contain highly confusing, discombobulated, unorganized, overly analytical, undercooked, and silly thoughts.

So, I'm sitting here on the couch in my apartment shifting between facebook and an article from onmilwaukee.com.  As I continued with this internet "shifting," I couldn't help but think regretfully about this sad excuse for a blog that I have here.  It seems that every time I use the internet to keep myself informed about the world around me, I find myself thinking about how important it is to record my own thoughts.  

The benefits of reflection and journalling are endless.  Not only is this practice incredibly valuable in regard to my profession, but the whole idea of diligently recording my thoughts is one that I value on a personal level as well.  With that being said, I am highly disappointed in the skimpiness of this blog.

As I sat here contemplating the shame that I was feeling, I also found myself wanting to delete a video that I had previously posted on this blog.  My reasons for wanting to delete it are as self-deprecating as my reasons for wanting to blog more: I feel guilty, inadequate, and naive.  Now, I don't want this blog to appear as some sort of warning of a major internal conflict I am experiencing; instead, I want this blog to display a sense of discontentment with myself.  I shall elaborate...

Although I am aware of the fact that these here blogs are dated, I need to re-emphasize the date for my own stylistic purposes: IT IS JULY 8TH, 2009.  Why is this important?  Well, this date is important because it marks a time in my life when I should feel so incredibly accomplished.  I mean, I have graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in English Education, I have completed an entire semester of student teaching in a public high school (this feat alone is one that I will forever take immense pride in), I have secured a full-time teaching job for this fall, I am going to be getting married in a few months, and I was able to (thankfully) find a job for this summer.  Well, now that I have reached the end of that overly complex sentence, I feel the need to remind my reader (myself) of the fact that today should mark a time when I SHOULD feel accomplished.  Well, I don't.  Instead, I feel incredibly overwhelmed, guilty, inadequate, and naive (you know, the same wonderful feelings I expressed in the previous paragraph).

My solutions to this issue are about as simple as my "problem" is.  As an individual who was cultivated in the UWM English Education program (I am now silently praising the gods for Tom Scott and Donna Pasternak), I cannot deny the power of self-reflection.  So, problem solution #1: you're reading it.  In addition to accepting the special place that this reflective practice NEEDS to hold in my life, I am also considering the fact that it is impossible for me to separate my professional life from my personal life.  Therefore, problem solution #2: let's pause for a small "story-time."

Cue story-time:

Okay, so after dissecting my nagging desire to blog, I decided that I really would like to have two blogs.  In one blog I could carefully and eloquently place all of my professional experiences as an educator.  In this blog I would insert profound educational statements about the heart of learning and my passion for the advancement of Milwaukee's youth.  In the other blog I would carelessly and eccentrically toss all of my personal experiences as a wonderfully confused gathering of cells.  The mere idea of these two blogs could function as an ironic demonstration of my own hypocrisy in the Court of Bullshit. 

End of story-time

Cue actual blog entry:

So, going back to problem solution #2, I have decided that this blog (appropriately entitled "Blood, sweat, tears, and learning") is no longer restricted to professional reflection.  Instead, this blog will now serve as an unfiltered bucket into which I will toss the cookies of my head.  Undeniably, these cookies will feature both professional and personal experiences as ingredients.  However, a new (secret) ingredient to these cookies is acceptance.

This new ingredient (bare with me as I try to smoothly transition out of this overly-elaborate metaphor about cookies and back into a more accessible voice) will be a thought I am going to work hard to carry with me every second.  The whole idea of acceptance (acceptance of others, acceptance of the world, acceptance of denial, and acceptance of self) is a beautiful mixture of simplicity and complexity that any self-respecting hypocrite can appreciate.

Long story long, I'm not going to apologize to myself for posting a video that I am not proud of, I'm not going to apologize to myself for not blogging enough, and I'm sure not going to offer self-criticism about my expertise in the art of experiencing life.  As an imperfect perfectionist, I can appreciate the hard-work I put into posting that freakin' video a while back (I would not be exaggerating if I said it took several hours to figure out the video program, record with sound, and figure out how to upload the product), I can appreciate the gaps between my blogs because they only offer true insight to the nature of my mind (spacey at times, followed by moments of pure excellence--insert sarcasm here), and I can sure appreciate the fact that I am proud to be a newbie (I will forever be a life-long learner).

Because I feel unsatisfied by the concluding qualities of that previous paragraph, I am going to re-end this post by stating that I couldn't be more scared or excited about this fall.  I feel the urge to further describe this duality of emotion, but I will resist in the name of mystery and its intricate style.