You Can't Make Mistakes.

Every morning I wake up, eat Cheerios®, drink coffee, and read the news on BBC.co.uk and BBCArabic. Then I check my e-mail and read a bunch of blogs. Most of the blogs that I read talk about the same sort of stuff that I do in this blog: nothing of any importance really, mostly just shameless self-promotion and boring things that no one in their right mind would care about.

I have, however, noticed an increasing trend in the content of blogs that I don’t frequently read, but which someone, somewhere has identified as important. For instance, check this list of pages detailing “Where’s the Fire?” This is a pageful of a bunch of useless data that you can link to and read about in various blogs. Now here is the interesting part. While I will identify that the vast majority of the data found in my blog is totally useless, these folks take themselves entirely seriously, believing that their data is worthwhile and entirely important. I will not go into detail about any of these pages specifically, as they change daily on Technorati’s page, but you can see for yourself the type of quality content that I am talking about.

This is a worrisome trend for two reasons. One: the internet content has always been middle-brow. This sort of thing which just drags the internet into the low-brow category. We are now reporting on things that are less important than Britney Spears’ hair and Paris Hilton’s toenails.

My second major concern is that we have been talking for some time about the “blogosphere”—a word which I am loathe to use—as the next wave of journalism because it allows for a more democratic approach to news distribution. Blogs are—for the most part—free of the machinations of giant, corporate entities which would inhibit the free reporting of many events and situations worldwide. I worry that they will continue to be viewed as a just another bunch of internet crap, rather than being taken seriously as a news source, if the content continues to be as worthless as it seems to be sometimes.

Only the future will tell us, but here’s hoping that we can up the brow of blog content a little before it is too late. We should all take a stand and write about something meaningful for a change. Or not. You decide.

Again, as I attempt to get back into my own groove after months and months of being a one-track monkey, I will be writing relatively frequently. So, that said, please bear with me as I bore even myself with the minutiae and details of my daily wheelings and dealings.

Things are coming together for this fall’s adventure to Alexandria. Each day I get a little more anxious and a little more prepared for the trip. It is going to be possibly the most academically beneficial experience of my career so far. Not to mention fun. I really look forward to being there again. I feel at home there, even though it might not always be the easiest place to live for an American student—or anyone for that matter. Plus, this site will afford me an opportunity to broadcast what I am doing and to share my experiences with everyone on this side of the ocean. I will also possibly be launching a podcast on this site to further augment that sharing, so stay tuned.

In other news, I—along with Kalamazoo author W. Donta Andrews and the Rev. Ericka Parkinson, Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Richland—will be appearing on Just Friendly Advice with Shalini on Kalamazoo TalkRadio 1360AM this Sunday at 3:00pm. They are doing a series on modern spirituality and I get to go talk about what I actually know something about for a change. Very exciting. It is the first step to my ultimate goal to be a public radio expert on religion someday. I have always wanted to be one of the folks that the Diane Rehm Show or Talk of the Nation staff calls up to have appear on the show to talk about religion, Islam, or whatever. I can’t wait.

For now, however, there are errands to run and there is work to be done on other fronts.

Wow, a month gone and I haven’t written here. I hadn’t realized that it was that long. What have I been doing all this time? Oh yah, I was—along with many others—putting together a huge community-wide event, working for myself, attempting to do some planning for my thesis, write a couple of overdue papers, et cetera. I’ve been busy.

I meant to write last week, but after Kalamazoo Pride there was still a ton of work to be done. I also took a bit of a vacation with some friends in Colorado. It was nice to get away, but it is nice to be home now, and be able to get back to work.

I am, as always, still taking on more than I probably should. We are working with Kalamazoo Pride right now to appoint a board, begin the planning and fundraising for next year’s event, and really get this organization off the ground. We threw one hell of a successful event. It was amazing. People came from all over the area. The bands were great. The food, wine, and beer were all wonderful. We had about 800 people show up at best estimate. I kept getting weepy about whenever anyone would thank me at the event, thinking of how thankful I am for all of the people who have helped us over the course of this project. It really was incredible. I can’t wait to see what they do next year. I hope that it all goes well.

As of this afternoon, I am still tired. The vacation was wonderful. Jeff, Erich, and I went to Mesa Verde National Park. It was beautiful. The cave dwellings were really amazing. We went, by accident, on a three-mile hike up the side of a mesa looking for petroglyphs which we totally missed somehow. It was still a really good time. Durango was wonderful as well. It is a beautiful area, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Driving in the mountains is one of my least favorite things to do. The kind of stress that I feel when doing that is the kind that puts people in the ground at a young age. No thank you.

My most recent project to get back into is a new online media company. John Tobey and I decided that we have some skills that we could possibly make money off of, and we are going to try. John Media is what we are calling this venture. To start off, at least, I will do web and graphic design and Tobey will do graphic design and sound engineering. We will need a video guy eventually, but that should be no problem. It is nice to work for myself again. Things are less complicated when you always agree with your boss.

Last, but most important, things are looking up for the thesis project. I am getting more research and background reading done and preparing myself to start writing more draft chapters. I still have yet to actually propose the thing, but that is a formality which will be taken care of in no time. Then it is off to Egypt in the fall.

I still believe that boredom is the first step to depression for many people. I feel that I will have no trouble with depression this year.