Introduction

Hello,

Welcome to my blog! This is my very first post, which I will use to introduce myself and the purpose of this blog. The blog was created under the instruction of Mr. Ketelaar for his third period class, Print Journalism I, at Wall High School (N.J.). Each student in the class was assigned to come up with his or her own "beat," that is -- his or her own area or expertise, to cover and report for the school newspaper, The Crimson Courier. I believe that my "beat" is technically targeted toward school clubs and organizations. However, I think it can be argued that other activities, such as educational procedures and school-sponsored events, can be lumped together under my "beat." Hence, I use the word “activities” to encompass a broader range of topics to write about that occur within the walls of the school and its outside community (curricular, extracurricular, related, semi-related, or otherwise). Anyway, I am one of those students in Print Journalism I and, on this blog, I plan to follow up on school-related news and write ideas and stories that could possibly go through some revision and eventually be published onto the crinkly, black ink-covered pages of The Crimson Courier itself.

I was initially surprised by Mr. Ketelaar’s lesson plans this week for setting up our own blogs (in a similar way to the first time he made us do a drill without a day's notice). I thought that our "beat" proposals were supposed to be more generally targeted toward school news. So, in my proposal, I just wrote how I was qualified to report on school news related to clubs, organizations, and the whole nine yards (I know, I know... cliché = bad *sigh*). I honestly thought that our "beats" had to be specifically targeted toward school-related news since we are supposed to write for the school newspaper, after all, aren't we? It was to my astonishment that we were going to set up blogs where we are supposed to cover news on a weekly basis. Several of the students chose a certain area of entertainment for their "beats," which were mostly associated with music, I believe (but I could be wrong with my assumptions). Oh, how I envied them. Here I was, self-assigned a "beat" that I felt I was not thoroughly interested in, while they were granted their fullest wishes and hearts' desires. While they have the chance to just sit at the computer when at home and surf the net to find news and information about their favorite celebrities and artists, I have to do the dirty work by actually attending meetings after school and retrieve quotes directly from their participants' own mouths. I was angry with myself for not pushing toward something more exhilarating and exciting in my "beat" proposal but, oh well, what could I do at that point? The decision was made and I had to deal with it. Sure, the glamour and glitz of my fellow peers' "beats" seemed appealing, but I had to make due with what I had. I accepted my decision and began to ponder about ideas to write for my blog. Then, it dawned on me that I may have something that they don't have. I realized that I may potentially have a secret weapon against them. Muhahahaha!

The truth is that I am no stranger to the art of blogging. Yes, what I am saying is that I actually do already own another blog. I actually have had it for a few years now. I created my first blog in July of 2005 and used it to post entries fairly often for quite a while, especially when I was a freshman. Now, it just remains as a ghost site floating on the vastly desolated fringes of cyberspace. Currently, I only visit the blog for purposes of reminiscence and to find a new post there is indeed a rare sight. While looking at last year's Print Journalism I student blogs, I noticed that many of the students indicated that they never previously owned a blog before. This leads me to believe the same is true for this year's Print Journalism I students. What I have that they may not necessarily have is experience, a very important and vital tool. While searching through my older blog's archives, I discovered some interesting statistics. Lo and behold!

• 55 entries in 2005 (from July to December)
• 35 entries in 2006
• One entry in 2007
• Four entries in 2008

By the time my blog reached its one-year anniversary, I had posted a total of 90 blog entries. If each blog entry was posted on its own separate and individual day, that means I posted blog entries for nearly a quarter of the whole year! The second-year anniversary tally is far less impressive for the simple fact that, oh… I don’t know, I did not even post a single thing whatsoever! It’s strange to see how I went from posting 90 blog entries per year to zero, but that is only to attest to my waning interest in the blog itself over time. Meanwhile, the third-year anniversary tallies a total of four blog entries. For the upcoming four-year anniversary, I only have one blog entry thus far, which was posted on Sat., Nov. 15, 2008.

My passion and dedication to my blog during my freshman year now astounds me. I hope that I'm not giving off the impression to others that I'm conceited or anything, but I'm impressed with my writings from back then. I feel that I have lost some of that spark of creativity I possessed and wish to retain it to its fullest potential. People have always complemented me on my writing throughout all my years living on this Earth, but I always felt the need to be modest and not take any praise from others to heart. In fact, my Sixth Grade Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Lackett, suggested that I should join the newspaper while I was attending Wall Intermediate School. Now, why didn't I listen to her and take her advice? I did recently receive a 100 on the essay portion of my English 12 Honors mid-term exam, after all. I possess an ability to write pretty well and you could maybe even say it is a talent. Why did I wait until I became a senior in high school to even join a Journalism class? God only knows, but now is the time to fix and make up for all that I missed out on.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that I have been somewhat "enlightened" as of recent times. Knowing that I wrote some pretty awesome blog entries just for fun in my leisure time when I was about 15 years old, gives me the confidence and mindset that I can do it once again for school-related news purposes. My mind has been filled to its fullest capacity with over-flowing ideas for possible news stories to write about over the course of the next few months. I actually have formed a few ideas that can be covered within the next few days before February Break and, yes, they include a story concerning this year's Super Bowl and its festivities. Honestly, there are myriad possibilities to write about. I'm actually glad that I chose my specific "beat" concerning school activities and think that covering the stories may be even -- dare I say it? -- fun! I am looking forward to actually posting some stories in the distant future but, just to let readers know, none of them will be nearly as subjective as this piece of writing before your eyes (nor as long in length). This is just my introductory piece and now I will move on to covering some stories. I wish everyone a happy, healthy, and safe year!