Since becoming a writing instructor, and hence, someone who is in a position to judge pieces of writing, I have noticed a significant decline in my ability to read more than one or two entries of a blog that is new to me and that I don't find especially interesting. I have also since come into contact with lots of language that is not exactly perfect English... words used in inexact ways, bungled sentence structures, misspellings almost certainly attributable to spell-checkers... And I think this is starting to drive me a little nuts.

Being a writing instructor has also put me into contact with vast amounts of staunch apathy. As someone who used to be apathetic, but has finally come into strong political opinions and the habits that follow, I have a drive to show my students things that could lead them to their own strong political opinions. At the same time, however, I know that especially in a writing class, it is not good to show students your political opinions, for one reason so they do not feel those opinions are being foisted on them, and for another so that when they turn in shitty papers, they will not attribute their shitty grades to my prejudice against their (unrelated) political opinions (or lack thereof).

So it's odd to have a public forum and be allowed to voice my strong political opinions when I'm so used to censoring them.

So with that in mind, I will work to let my political leanings come out in whatever form they choose here. Click on the links at the right, please, and recycle as much as you possibly can, even if people think you're insane for pulling plastic bottles out of the trash and taking them home.