Rules for the Road

Students now blog or tweet as part of their studies.  Many already do it on their off time, but why do it as part of their studies if they already know how to 'do it'.  Setting up a blog or a Twitter account is more than just a username, password, and may be CSS for a cool background.  The technology is great, but it never replaces the technology given to us between the ears, namely a little thought and common sense.

I do admit sending an e-mail, or posting on a message board, without proofing or missing an error.  People can sound grammatically correct and funny, but if they say mean things about another person or write about work in great detail it's only asking for trouble.  I admit to thoughtlessly writing about someone, a person not completely innocent either, in my earlier blogs.  I thought if I used the first letter of the person't name then it's perfectly fine.  I did notice something after I posted the entries.  I felt strangely depleted.  It's not the kind of emptying you get from really expressing yourself with its giddy overtone.  The depletion I felt made me feel hollow rather than powerful for saying a witty barb regarding the person. 

Yes, people get off on saying more than barbs on a person.  Some even set up careers blogging about people, mostly celebrities, in the most brutal terms possible in the name of honesty.  Some people get off by bullying a person.  Trolls are fascinating creatures on the internet.  I wonder what they are like as people once they shut off the laptop or monitor.  What kind of black energy does it take to fuel the vitriol?  How does it feel to bully someone so much online, the person takes their own life?  I saw the black energy coming a long time ago and made a choice.  I stopped writing about the person and usually reserve such discussion for my written journal.  Yeah, but your doing the same thing and nobody sees it, comes the wise response.  Nobody sees it but I do, and the whole point is ask myself what's up and why.  Do you see many bullies stop themselves to ask those questions?

Here's what you will get on this blog.  I am a geek.  I make no apologies for it.  My wall paper on my home laptop has Richard Armitage.  (Sometimes I quip about a 16 year old trapped in a 41 year old body.)  I like what I do as a Library Technician and have no ambition at the current time to get my MLIS.  I also what to write entries asking the whys and hows of something and sometimes I just want to 'geek out'. To all the students stopping by with a blog to write as part of an assignment, ask if someone wrote about you, would you use the same words?

Happy (writing) trails.