Journaling

For my poetry class we are supposed to journal everyday. I only plan to do it when the mood strikes me. I started my first entry today and lo-and-behold I missed the inauguration because I was writing it. Though this particular journal was not a freewrite (writing with no editing or even looking at the screen) it was a blurb that came out and may sound absurd and/or arrogant, awkward because of tense shifts, and frantic because of my basic jump-around train of thought. The purpose of the journal is to put on paper ideas that could possibly be put into a poem. Freewriting works well with this because then I don't have to worry about grammar or spelling. It's a pretty cool exercise, but I will try to refrain from putting freewrites down in this blog as they can be confusing and annoying. This week is List poetry. Maybe I'll write a list of all the ways I'm dependent on my computer.

January 20, 2009
Logging on. It’s done everyday as soon as you wake up or sit down to your computer. It’s like an addiction. You dream about it. Just this morning while I was trying to wake up I dreamt that Ed asked me if I was logging into work today. My response was, of course, why wouldn’t I? This makes me wonder: are we addicted to our computers? I wish I could say that I’m addicted to reading or to writing. Something that I deem a little more worthy than logging on to my computer and checking my email. Logging on does make you feel important though. You open your computer or turn on the screen to see if anyone has thought you important enough to write to. Has anyone left you a note on your Twitter? Is there a “You’ve Got Mail” jingle? Are there any new events and invitations on Facebook?
Ultimately, logging on makes you feel important. Can’t we feel important by doing something else? I don’t want to say that we should be doing something more useful, since logging on means getting work done for a lot of people, but our day-to-day lives revolve around it. Well, my day-to-day life revolves around it. I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to go a day without my computer or the internet. “The Internet Is For Porn” perhaps, but it has become a part of my life that I can’t live without. Is this a sad realization or something that has happened to everyone?
Youtube. Oh, Youtube. I’ve been known to say “I’ll Youtube it later”…for instance with Obama’s speech. I was writing this journal. It totally thought that the inauguration was later in the day. See, if I would have logged on earlier and checked the news sites I would have known!

This journal entry was done right after I woke up. I find that I come up with the weirdest stuff after sleeping. I don't think I would have thought of this stuff if I were just sitting on the sofa.