Back to the Basics

Many years have passed since I have kept a regular blog. In high school, I was a regular writer for “The Voice,” The State Journal-Register’s teen section (that has long ceased being a section of the SJ-R). In college, I found a place at The Journal, UIS’ student newspaper (now known as The Observer). Also in college, I would write a daily blog on MySpace. Since roughly 2009, Facebook has taken the place of those outlets in my life and my blogging discipline has slipped substantially. Today, I pick back up with a regular blog. So much is going on right now in the world—politics, social justice, environmental issues—and I want to have a place to share my views that is less dependent upon the Facebook algorithm. In other words, I want to get back to the basics.

As time goes on, I will expand this blog. I have some big aspirations. I want to create a YouTube channel where I can share ideas in a visual way. I want my followers to be able to subscribe to my blog without needing to use a social media app. Instead, I hope to email directly to my followers whenever I write. I am not too sure how often I will blog, and I certainly do not want to land in my followers’ inboxes on a daily basis, so I will need to develop a way to throttle who gets emailed and when.

As this is the last week of the summer semester (I dropped out of college and dropped back in), I will hopefully have more time in the coming weeks and months to really ramp up my writing. Got some topic ideas? Drop them here.