Merry Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas, everyone. Today we celebrate the physical incarnation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Most High God.

Let us please bow our heads in silence for a moment in remembrance of this miracle.

...

Thank you. Now, onward to my Christmas announcement.

Actually, there are two.

First, for those who haven't learned yet, I'm going to be studying abroad in London, England next semester. It's going to be a fantastic and intimidating trip. The school I'll be studying at offers several creative writing classes, certainly more than they offer at my home university, so that will be an exciting learning opportunity. And of course, it goes without mentioning, London is a fantastic city and it will present a number of travel opportunities. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this.

So my first announcement for next year is that I'll be maintaining a weekly photo blog here. At least once a week I'll upload a selection of photos from my recent travels and activities and include some brief commentary with each one.

Second, my purpose behind starting this blog was to provide structure to my usually scatter-brained interests. My goal is to select a subject, project, or activity each year and devote regular time to studying and practicing that subject for the entire year. During that time, I'll post regular entries detailing my progress, both what I'm learning and what I'm doing.

While my primary goal is to provide a means and incentive for me to channel my unquenchable thirst for knowledge in all things, I also hope that this process will provide some level of insight into the creative process (as many of these topics will be tangentially connected to my work), as well as bring to light a number of otherwise-obscure pieces of knowledge.

So, this coming year has been dubbed:

The Year of Words


Over the next few days I will detail what this means by setting specific goals and expectations for me to reach throughout the year. For now, my stated goal is to study the use of words in as many facets as possible before this time next year. This will include: reading, writing, grammar, definition, and metaphor, among others.