Wednesday, May 07, 2008

On the inanity of online journals

It occurs to me that half the reason I don't post more on online journals is that I don't really consider the day-to-day details of my life really much worth mentioning. I mean, would I really care, years later, whether I had pizza or salmon for lunch today, or whether I had to fence yet another phone call from someone with too much money and too few manners?

I have a pair of journals from when I was somewhere in the vicinity of 7 or 8 years old. They were required writing when we first got into class...and although I'm glad I kept them, I wonder a bit what the hell the point was. To make us write? We had English assignments for that. Maybe they were meant to make us more introspective, more...hmmm...thoughtful, maybe. Or however thoughtful you can be at 7 years old. I'm looking at an entry right now, and it reads: "Describe how your life might chang if there were no t.v. It will chang a little then I'll have to work every day your friend Yingzhi"

Yes. Very thought-provoking. I'm a little astounded that, even though I was only 7 and relatively new to the US, I wasn't able to come up with something a little more interesting in half a bloody hour. Come on, younger me! You're embarrassing me! I'm also mildly disturbed that we were encouraged to befriend an inanimate object. Isn't that like saying, "Here, since you're so socially inept you can't seem to get along with the other kids, why don't you try talking to this bundle of notebook paper instead! It'll be great for your self esteem!"

Or is that cynical of me? *GRIN*

I probably shouldn't make fun of it. I might not have fallen in love with writing if it weren't for those strangely nerve-wracking half-hours every morning. And truthfully, I'm pretty glad I have this little window into my much younger days. I'm not sure there are that many people who can say the same.

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