"What is the Point?"

Of my

?

I am enrolled in a writing class this semester, and in our textbook the author discussed the purpose of writing. What I took away from the reading is that writing without focus and a clear purpose achieves nothing. I then began to think about the purpose of my blog and why I write the entries I do. I thought about my friends' blogs and the purposes they serve. I could identify a purpose for many of them although there were some that I could not. The reason a person writes or blogs can be for a plethora of reasons. I will name a few.

People write to...

• share experiences
• make sense of their world/experiences (lists, notes, diaries)
• transfer knowledge
• help remember and organize their lives
• help understand themselves
• relate ideas
• solve problems
• influence others

So why do I write? Why did I create a blogger account, design a page and start posting different entries for the whole world to see? I am not sure that I even know the answer to that question. This current post is me writing in order to make sense of my world (#2) and understand myself (#5). See! It does serve a purpose!! 

Back to my blog... My blog needs to serve some sort of purpose, and my job is to figure out why I am writing so that I can better reach the audience that I intend to reach. My audience could be simply myself or it could be my Facebook friends. Or perhaps my blog is meant for people that I do not know. Regardless, unless I am able to determine what the point of my blog is, it serves no useful purpose. 

To be honest, my current blog(s) result from these things:

• wanting to be like someone else that had a cute blog
• wanting people to care about my life
• wanting to prove to myself that I have a life worth caring about
• wanting to impress others
• wanting to influence others for the better
• wanting to make a difference in someone's life
• wanting to fit in
• wanting to be known
• insecurity
• pride

To be honest...

While some of those things may be good (look back to the middleish area), most are a result of me trying to figure out who I am and what my place is in all of... this... whatever "this" is. Almost all of those reasons are not healthy reasons to blog, and if I truly want to accomplish or reflect something that is good and worth sharing with the world, I have to eliminate every future post that attempts to steer me away from my purpose. I am still not sure as to what that purpose is, but I am sure I will very soon. Most often the purpose of a blog is written as the subtitle. Notice my subtitle is a verse from Scripture. How nice. That verse probably impacted my life greatly in some way, yet instead of personally sharing that experience I simply copied and pasted it from Bible Gateway and expected my readers to have that same experience by simply reading it. That doesn't happen in real life. If it did, writing would be easy. A good writer is able to take what they have in their head (which for me is always a big mess) and use letters, words and symbols to clearly reflect what was being thought up there.

Ha!
Most of the time I have no idea how to even clearly speak what I am thinking let alone eloquently write my thoughts and experiences. Writing takes practice, and it takes time. "Write" now (sorry, that was really cheesy) I am simply spending time reflecting on my purpose as a blogger/writer. Writing (and LIFE) without direction serves no great purpose, and I intend to clarify that purpose that God has for my writing (and LIFE) so as to not be careless and aimless with the gifts He has given me. Someday soon I am going to be teaching people how to write, and how can I teach them if I cannot do it well myself?

Stay tuned for purpose and clarity... :)

- love, briana -

"Clarity"

I recently had to blog for class and answer this question: Why do you want to teach? I decided to share my response with you. 

I originally wanted to be a teacher because I really enjoyed the "school environment." I always had positive experiences in school and was a successful student. School was the one area of my life where I (almost) always felt confident in my abilities. I was never good at one particular subject but could manage an A in all classes with, what to me was, little effort. When I was younger I would play school with my friends during the summer. For a majority of the time I would be the teacher with my little grade book of all my pretend students. Sometimes I was the student if the person that was the teacher was older than me. Even playing pretend school I would learn a lot from the older "teacher" and that made me excited to be learning things that they were learning in school. It was not until college that I really found a "good" reason to enter into the teaching profession. I was taking education classes and observing in the local schools, and I was blown away after seeing how much poverty and baggage students had to carry with them to school every day. They were carrying a lot more than what their little backpacks could hold. Having grown up in private schools my whole life, I did not understand how desperate some of these students were. Students shared their stories with me. They told me stories of going to their parents' funerals, not sleeping the night before because of adults fighting and the police arriving at their house, being able to visit a parent in jail and having one of their parents deported to Mexico. My heart truly began to break for these children who seemed to have nothing going for them, and for a short while I debated switching my major to social work so I could help protect these kids. When you teach you do not see the final harvest of your labor, and I felt that if I switched to social work I would be able to help these children now and make sure that they were cared for in some way. After I thought about it for a little while I came to the conclusion that while feeding, clothing and loving them now might be best for me, the best way that I could help them was by giving them a quality education and preparing them for the life they have ahead of them as adults. Food, clothing and shelter are all good things now, but if a student grows up and does not have a good education and the tools to succeed in life, you have only appeased that need for a short time, and they will have even greater needs later.

So this is why I want to be a teacher. I am confident that I can give my future students a quality education that will help prepare them for whatever might be ahead of them. I have usually encouraged my peers to begin careers in the field of education, but lately I have been more hesitant because I have realized that there is too much at risk if another "so-so" teacher enters our schools. The students that I will teach are going to be the ones that will someday run our country, and there is too much at risk if they are just passed along because I was selfish and just wanted the school environment. Instant gratification and selfishness has seeped, no flooded, its way into our everyday lives and teachers that do not realize what is at risk if they do not do their jobs will someday see the results of that lack of clarity.

- love, briana -

"Children's Literature"

My mom got me a $100 giftcard for Christmas to buy some books for my future classroom! Yesterday I had a BLAST sitting and reading books at Half-Price and picking some out!! Here is what I added to my children's literature collection.... now all I need is a class!! 

You Can't Take Your Body To A Repair Shop by Harriet Ziefert and Fred Ehrlich, M.D. - Illustrated by Amanda Haley

The Matzo Ball Boy (Jewish take off the Gingerbread Man) by Lisa Shulman - Illustrated by Rosanne Litinger

Marley Goes to School by John Grogan - Illustrated by Richard Cowdrey

Bad Dog, Marley! by John Grogan - Illustrated by Richard Cowdrey

Miss Smith Reads Again! by Michael Garland

Martin's Big Words (The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) by Doreen Rappaport - Illustrated by Bryan Collier

Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo by Ayun Halliday - Illustrated by Dan Santat

Cinderella by Max Eilenberg and Niamh Sharkey

The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln by Mike Reiss - Illustrated by David Catrow

Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

The Getaway by Ed Vere

Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt

Carmine A Little More Red by Melissa Sweet

See-Through Mummies by John Malam

The Woodcutter's Coat by Ferida Wolff - Illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf

Wackiest White House Pets by Gibbs Davis - Illustrated by David A. Johnson

- love, briana -

"Our First Christmas"

Well it wasn't our first Christmas together (4th actually), but December 25, 2010 was our first married Christmas, and let me just say it was my BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!! We spent Christmas Eve with my family. We had our annual Feast of the Seven Fishes (it's an Italian tradition) and spent the evening with each other and our family friends, the Dickman family. Rachel is my best friend and has been since we were eight years old, and I am excited that for the past two years they have been able to have dinner with us on Christmas Eve! December 24th is also Rachel's birthday so I got to give her her birthday present too! Rachel goes to UK and I'm sad she isn't here all the time, but I always love it when we get to hang out and spend time together. I am ready for next spring when we both graduate from COLLEGE!! I am getting soooo off topic right now. Anyways, after dinner we went to the midnight service at Southeast and then slept in Christmas Day and opened presents together. After relaxing at the apartment we headed back to my parents and spend the entire day/evening with them. This was the first year that my mom hasn't worked on Christmas Day so that was a special treat! Here are some pictures from our feast and a couple from Christmas day! 

Here's to a Christmas like this one EVERY year!! (Exaggeration... :)

- love, briana -