Things to Look Forward to in 2009

I can't help but feel that it's no coincidence that I completely dropped off the face of the blogosphere as soon as the school year started and I was up to my ears in master's-degree-getting. But it's a new year--and I'm out of class for the next couple of weeks--and I am re-inspired. I make no promises (to my very small audience) about whether I will continue to blog. I'm commitment-shy like that.

And to kick off the new year, I've decided to pull together a list of Just a Few Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2009.

• The end of the Bush years. When he was "elected," I was a senior in high school, just beginning to understand politics and the relationship between the US and the rest of the world. Now, I'm beyond glad to see him go, and much beyond glad to see Obama stepping in to replace him. In fact, I think Stonewall deserves some recognition here for calling the election results back in June.
• Finishing my first year of grad school. It'll be one down, two to go. The program is technically a two-year program, but since I'm balancing school and work, it'll take me a bit longer. And by the end, I'll have another degree to put up on my wall! And I'll be many many more dollars in debt. Wait! That's not something to look forward to! Strike that last bit.
• The return of Lost. This one I almost have mixed feelings about. When the season ended last year, I was nearly giddy with my anticipation for the next season. I also know that as soon as it starts, every free moment is going to be consumed with thoughts about Lost. (Maybe that's an exaggeration, but not much of one.) I'm almost nervous about getting that engrossed all over again. But, oh, I can't wait.
• Following all my favorite blogs. This isn't unique to 2009, I suppose, but I'm still excited to read these blogs everyday. So here's a shout-out to Feministing, Feministe, Racialicious, and I Can Has Cheezburger. One of those things is not like the other.

(It's been not hard to look around and see all the ways that 2009 got off to a really fucked up start, and right now I'm thinking about the attacks in Gaza. I may want to write something about that at some point, but it's not easy to process the information that I've been gathering about that unbelievable situation.)

Evidence of our idealism.

To pick up on something I sorta said yesterday, the blogosphere is a really freakin' ugly place. I spend a lot of my time on the internet reading blogs, letting one entry lead me to another, reading through peoples comments -- generally weeding through it all. And "weeding" is a fairly apt term, because there are definitely some weeds out there, clogging everything up.

No doubt, part of it is just my questionable desire to get myself angry and riled up. As in, angry that anyone could say or think that racist or sexist or homophobic or (on and on) thing, and the pleasure I get from when someone (namely someone else) steps in to lay it all bare and make it right. It's never quite right, though. Those ugly ideas are always there. If in my day to day life, I might suspect that someone's beliefs/thoughts would clash with my own (if he/she spoke up) -- on blogs, those people do speak up. And I don't know if I seek that confrontation out because it confirms my cynical expectations or activates my idealism.

Like this quote I read once, in The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie:

"Can you hear in my voice that I'm angry? Good. I've been reading a book about anger. It says that anger is evidence of our idealism. Something has gone wrong, but we 'know,' in our rage, that things could be different. It shouldn't be this way. Anger as an inarticulate theory of justice, which, when you act it out, is called revenge."

Yes, anger as an inarticulate theory of justice, but anger as a starting point too. I commented once to one of my mentors that I needed to develop a tougher skin, so that the wrongness of everything wouldn't bother me and so that I could approach it rationally, with a cool head. She said that, no, when you stop being angry, it's because you've stopped caring.

Jumping in feet first

This isn't the first blog I've ever had, just the first in a long while. I lost interest years ago, after having had some unsettling blog-related experiences that convinced me that maybe the blogosphere wasn't for me.

And now I'm back and I'm looking forward to starting fresh. In the past few years, and especially in the past few months, I've been reading other peoples blogs more and more, and feeling like I wanted to jump back in. I've been one of those people who "lurks" a lot on other blogs and online communities, and even if I feel strongly invested in the ideas that I'm reading and the discussions that I'm listening in on, I feel uncomfortable weighing in. I've seen some ugly things. But I've also seen great things happening in some of these places.

Right now, I'm not sure what will be the purpose of this blog -- if it'll be more serious of more light-hearted, or what I'll feel like writing about. We'll see how it goes.