My first blog entry!

Wow! Now that I have a place to say things, I find myself at a loss for words. I guess I'll start by saying a little about myself. I live in Middle Tennessee just close enough to Nashville to be convenient but far enough away to enjoy the country. My husband and I live on a cul-de-sac with our three furry children--two Jack Russell Terriers and a Cocker Spaniel. I am currently on summer break until sometime in August when I have to go back to my job teaching English to college freshmen and sophomores. Maybe by that time I'll be ready to begin reading their essays again, but I sort of doubt it.

When school is in session, I don't have much time for recreational reading, so as soon as I finished the last student essay a couple of weeks ago, I headed for the library and checked out several books. The first was a Nevada Barr mystery (I can't believe Anna Pidgeon is engaged!). The next was a book called When Jesus Became God, a work which discusses the origin of the Trinity doctrine, and now I'm about to start God's Politics by Jim Wallis.

I like to talk about the Bible. I just finished my second year of Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) where we studied the Acts of the Apostles, which included several New Testament epistles, and I'm looking forward to the fall when we start back up and begin studying Genesis. I really like reading the Bible, and I try hard to be more like Jesus, but it's difficult.

I also like to talk a little about politics, but I'm not very intelligent about it. Even though I try to stay informed about what's going on, I find it challenging to know what opinion I should have. The "Religious Right" says I should believe one set of ideas, but sometimes I find that what I think is right doesn't really match up with what they say is right. The "Liberal Left" has some ideas that I think are a little over the top (well, OK, a lot over the top), so I can't always agree with them either. I have come to the conclusion that there is a big "Us against Them" war going on between the left and the right, and the media like to report on this because it brings more ratings. I think, however, that there are a lot of people like me who are more in the middle and feel sort of left out.

What else do I like to talk about? A lot of stuff that just isn't important. For instance, though sometimes I really hate to admit this, I like the TV show Survivor. My students won't talk to me about it, though. They don't watch because they think it's stupid. I think it's pretty stupid too, but I still watch it. There are other TV shows that I like, but now that summer is here, there aren't any new episodes. Why is that? I'll bet as many people would watch in the summer as do in the fall and winter. I just hate having to wait until September to see the next new episode of Joan of Arcadia.

Well, this is probably enough rambling. It's a good thing this isn't one of my student essays; it wouldn't be pretty after I finished marking it up. I'm actually a little nervous about posting this. What if someone comes and actually reads it? What will that person think of me? Nobody has read anything I've written since I took my comprehensive exam in graduate school. Apparently they liked it, since I passed. Actually, the last thing I wrote that anyone read was a letter to my sentator. I take that back--he probably didn't read it.

I have no definite plans for this blog. I see other people's blogs and they have a theme and intelligently crafted essay-like posts that all deal with the central theme, and I know that my blog won't be like that. My mind wanders from topic to topic so much that I can't focus on one subject all the time. So I might talk about Jesus one day and faux painting techniques the next. Also, I don't have any plans for how often I'll write. Maybe I'll write every day for several days, and then maybe I'll go for several days without writing. Who knows.

I hope nobody reads this.

I hope somebody reads this.