The first post is the hardest?

Wow, so despite having been in Ecuador for over 8 weeks, this is my first blog post. I feel bad, because I told almost everyone I saw before I left that I would have a blog about being abroad and that I would send them the link. Here's my biggest and most significant excuse for getting such a late start: I was working on a very important essay for my first month here, and I couldn't justify writing blog posts when I should have been writing about community organizing. By the time the paper was finished and sent off, so much time had passed that it seemed impossible to recap everything.

Another reason I haven't been blogging has to do with my previous experience of the "blogosphere." In middle and high school, I had a quasi-blog called a "Livejournal," which served as a place for my angst-filled musings that sound incredibly silly now. I was so self centered, immature, and trivial! And what made me think that the whole world (or just all my friends) would want to read my feelings on a grey-on-grey web layout?

Blogging is a weird medium. It's a place to reflect and digest, to make sense of one's feelings by writing. At the same time, though, it's a public log that shouldn't include a lot of the musings that would end up in a diary or journal. So I feel a bit hesitant about blogging because it's hard to strike a balance between complete divulgence of feelings and dry statement of fact. But having (and writing in!) a blog is a good way to keep people updated, especially far-away people who are important to me. If you're reading this, you're probably one of those people. Hi!

So there's my disclaimer. That said, enjoy my silly musings!