Information Space

Annie's Log, 10/04/15:

I have done a lot of writing in my life. Like, a LOT. When I was in high school, I thought that I was doing SO much writing, what with Creative Writing and English and History classes, and then essays for college applications and scholarship essays.

And then I got to UNC. At the end of my freshman year, I had a total of 27 pages due in the course of one week. Once I was an English major, I had one semester where I had a total of 23 books (and you can imagine how much writing I had to do during THAT semester). I wrote lab reports, short stories, emails, play reviews, research papers, kvetches, articles, lesson plans, and so much more. I did a lot of writing. I wore out my laptop's keyboard. I probably set myself up for carpal tunnel syndrome and back problems.

But I discovered something about myself while I was doing all of that. Hours of typing and planning and sitting and thinking and procrastinating and cranking out work.

I like writing.

It's not so much that I enjoy the act of endlessly typing out characters in the hopes of getting a good grade on something, though I guess I do enjoy typing. (I remember taking "Digital Communications" in high school and while almost everything about it was pointless (I literally had a 100.00 average at the end of the semester because the assignments were incredibly simple), it did make me a better typist.)

No, I like words.

I like writing my thoughts out, phrasing things just so in order to get my point across. I like incorporating humor and heart into whatever it is that I'm trying to get across. I like seeing something that I've put a lot of work into in its entirety, getting to hold it, in print, in my hands.

And it's not just long projects. I really enjoy Twitter (my profile says "I like words. I think a lot. Sometimes I put my thoughts into words."). One of my absolute favorite memories from UNC was the bet between me and my best friend to see who could get more kvetches into the Daily Tar Heel's weekly "Kvetching Board." Between the two of us, we had over 125 1- to 2-sentence joking complaints published in a Friday opinion column. The DTH even wrote an article about it, which can be seen HERE.

So why am I talking about writing in this post?

Well, I recently started this (b)Log, where I get to write about random stuff every week. And I've been enjoying it a lot. So much, in fact, that I looked into other writing opportunities and, long story short, I am going to be writing for my graduate school's blog, InfoSpace!

Information Space is Syracuse University's iSchool blog. Posts are written by students, and occasionally staff, faculty, and alumni, but they all have to do with the field of Information Studies.

Every other week, I'll be publishing something on InfoSpace for the iSchool. I'm very excited to start this new project, and I'm already working on my first post. Because I like words, remember?

To end this week's post, I'd like to share one of my favorite quotes:

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead,... either write things worth reading or do things worth writing." -Benjamin Franklin.

That dude knew what he was talking about. Just look at him:

Dude.

End Log.