The idea of a blog always seemed foreign for me and mainly because I saw it as a place in which brilliant people would post their thoughts in order to allow others to critique, agree, or add to their recent "ah hah" moments or clear up certain conundrums etc... Not that they really wanted or expected there to be answers to their conundrums because in many situations it seems as though there are no answers, or at least concrete answers to the conundrums :) For poets or literature fanatics it seems to be an outlet in which to expose their talent and be vulnerable with their personal writings as they allow others to read and critique. Or some simply like to use it as a way to up date people on their lives, post important quotes or life altering moments. All very good reasons to blog and reasons I appreciate greatly. But as for me, why I have decided to start blogging?? Well... I can't really concretely state why. A part of me decided that it might be a good way for me to start processing some of the things that i have been holding in for some now and another part of me thought it might be a good place to update people on my life because it seems as though all other aspects of communication are far to overwhelming and difficult to keep up on. However, the present reason, or the reason that brought me to finally looking up the website and deciding to sign up, is that I have recently found myself heading out on a very unexpected journey to Southeast Asia. And in order to prepare me, and the 28 students that I will be going with, I have been sitting in on a Cultural Anthropology class where I have been learning about the importance of observation and realizing the extent to which this trip could have some grand affects on my life. However, the reality is that you get out of a trip/experience by what you put into it. So, therefore, I felt it might be beneficial to have a place to really spend time reflecting on what I am observing while I am there, how it is affecting me and the ways in which my worldview or perspective on life, who I am, how I live etc... etc... is going to be altered.
Some of the desires that I have heading into this unexpected travel term:
1. Be a time of rest, a break from the out of control life I am living here in St. Stephen
2. Expose me to a culture I have never, nor ever expected to be exposed to which will be a learned experience for me.
3. Allow me to truly pour into the lives of the students I spent all last year getting to know in a very unique way and allow me to relate to them more having experienced a travel term and
4. Strengthen my understanding of God, Christianity and Truth as I will be brought face to face with religions that will challenge what I believe and in some ways be more attractive than one might expect them to be.
Anyway, I am going to leave it at that for today. One thing I know I have the tendency to be is wordy - it was always my main problem when writing papers - but I do hope that this Blog will be worth while reading and if nothing else a source for which I might be able to process much of what I am pondering in this life unexpected.
