this blogging thing

Not sure what to make of my fascination with the blogfest going on here.  I love reading these!  And I'm thinking a blog all the time in my head now. Not really in a 'what will I write' rehearsal but more in a frame work for my thoughts sort of way.  It's kind of cool since it anchors all those swirly rascals so I can get a better look at them for a moment. 

My boss at the museum is a wonderful person.  She is a pragmatist, fairly traditional, can play all those smooth games you have to play to run an non profit arts organization but she does it all with such integrity.  She can have actual meaningful conversations about fundraising and marketing strategies that would make my skin crawl.  And even though she plays the necessary political games, she always tells the truth.  I like her.

Yesterday we were talking about creativity and how different people manifest it.  She was talking about the ways that she uses creativity in her work and in her thinking and ways that it is hard for her to be creative.  She half-jokingly calls herself obsessive compulsive but she isn't.  She likes things 'just so' in life though, to an extent that I almost can't imagine wanting.  One thing she said (and the reason for this long introduction of her in a blog about blogging) is that she feels she is most creative in writing.  That something about the structure of written word and the conventions of grammar soothes her and frees her up to be more creative in thought.  She said some things she has to 'think' in written form to solve. 

I like this theory of hers about writing.  It's one answer to the questions I was about to ask myself about blog appeal- the ones I'm asking now. 

When I teach at the college, I teach teachers about the arts.  I tell them that they always have to know 'why' they are doing what they are doing when they teach, especially around the arts which so often have to be justified to administrators.  I ask them to have a running conversation with themselves in their heads about what is actually happening in any given activity and how it translates into the educational objectives and developmental goals for their students (This isn't my original idea - Mimi Chenfield Brodsky wrote about it in her essay, "The Wolf at the Door") so that if someone pops their head into a seemingly chaotic classroom and demands to know WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!! , a clever teacher can say, 'Yes, they are flinging scarves and dancing wildly to Mariachi music but they are also exercising gross and fine motor skills, they are learning about personal space, and the physics of weight and motion, they are learning about traditional music from another culture to exand their awareness of the diversity of the world!" and hopefully, the administrator, or principal or shocked parent will hear familiar words with good associations that make something scary into something they can see the value in.  It may never actually happen, irate administrators may never burst into their rooms, but the act of formulating explanation goes a long way for them as teachers.  Making what they know instinctively based on what they've learned into speakable words helps them clarify and organize and build conviction and passion for what they are doing and why.

This is another long winded attempt on my part to draw some analogy to why I'm blog crazy.  In the reading:  I get to see other people organizing their thoughts and beliefs and big questions into unassuming written word.  Written word, you say?  Oh, yes, I can handle that.   I can read it, I can write it. In the writing, I get to put all those wispy ponderings of my own down in concrete written form.  The process of making them readable (heaven forbid another person should try to wade through all this!), makes them more digestible for me. 

Next question:  why is this so much more appealing than journaling?  That's a bite for another day, though- now I have to go to work!


Whew.