The Accidental Blogger

SO here I am, a woman in her early 50's (52 to be exact). After years of working a variety of jobs (bill collector, travel agent, event planner, preschool teacher, auditor, salesperson, property manager, and administrative professional) along with some time as a stay-at-home mom, I finally found my niche at a local university in their Honors College.  Soon after landing this great job opportunity, I made another great decision, and married an awesome guy who I had been friends with for 7 years. Between the two of us we have four adult children, three dogs, and a cat.

 

                                                          Two of our girls, Rory and Laika 

My husband and I have many mutual interests- motorcycles, traveling, food, watching British cooking shows, going to wineries, good bourbon, and music (he is a crazy talented guitarist and I am a mediocre singer). And although we don't see eye to eye on some things, we still have the ability to talk for hours about a variety of topics, and always with respect and open mindedness. Sounds like I have everything, right?

Wrong. 

While working and being a wife and a mom, I have been inconsistently working on my bachelors degree....since 1988. Think about it- over the past 35 years we have experienced the removal of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War,  the end of the Cold War,  the birth of Google and Amazon, the O.J. Simpson debacle, cloning of Dolly the sheep, the death of Princess Diana, the Bill and Monica scandal, 9/11, the Space Shuttle Columbia exploding, the creation of the iPhone, the election of our first African American President, and then the reality "star" with a bad hairstyle who shall remain nameless. That is a lot of history.

But during the time all these events were happening, completing my undergraduate degree was not one of them. And over the years it has become more important to me, because I want to continue to do new and interesting things at work, as well as finish what I started. 

So I applied to Old Dominion University in the fall of 2022, and started with one class in December and then followed up with three for the spring 2023, maintaining the 4.0 average that I brought with me from Radford Universtiy. 

Which brings us to this point. One of the courses that I took in the spring was Technical Writing, and I did pretty well in it. I also liked the instructor, and when I noticed she was offering a Digital Writing class for the Summer, I decided to sign up, forgetting (or suppressing, not sure which) that one of my classmates last semester talked about a blog assignment that she was working on for ENGL 307T class. And when I signed into the course a few days ago, there it was. My blog assignment.

Blogs. Another thing that has been created over the last 35 years, and something that I do not know a lot about. And when I say "not a lot", I mean nothing. Well, that's not completely true. My bonus mother-in-law has a blog and writes about a variety of things, but she is doing it fun. She is also extremely intelligent, witty, and does interesting things. I go to work, come home, cook, talk to my husband, watch TV, snuggle with the dogs, go to bed, and get up and do it all over again....all of which does not make for good blogging material.

But luckily, for this blog, it is not based on current events in my life. It will include a summary of the assignments that I am working on for the week, peppered with some personal opinions (supported by sources, of course). I am terrified, but cautiously optimistic, for as you can see from the picture below (circa 1973), I truly am an analog girl in a digital world. 

So with that being said, let's get this blog started!