A Not-So-Brief Introduction

I’m not sure how to write a blog.

I get the basic idea of it, of course, but unlike short stories, or sonnets, or Music History Research Papers (which seem so important to my degree that they deserve to be capitalized), blogs are frustratingly free of specifications. Obviously there are millions (trillions probably) of blogs on the Interscape, but relatively few are highly read or even noted, and of those, there are few consistent formats that truly explain how to write a blog post. Specifically, I don’t know how to write a first blog post.

I have multitudes of ideas for future blog posts, but they all depend on me writing a successful first post that not only explains the nature of the blog but gives you, my dear audience, an accurate view of me while I hide behind the green curtain of my laptop like Oz’s infamous wizard without being too dull.

I think the first thing I’ve already learned about blog writing is that my sentences should be shorter…

But going back to my previous concern, because I am not entirely sure how I should introduce my blog in an interesting yet creative and witty and (dare I say) unique way involving paragraphs of text, I am instead going to make a list. This list shall list (I’m not sure if that was punny or just moronic) who I am, why I’m writing this blog, what this blog is about, and anything else that crosses my mind. I feel like that should do it for a first post, and hopefully future posts will be more interesting and better formatted.

Still with me, dear reader? 

Our list begins, unlike many others, without cooking ingredients, chores, or homework assignments. Instead, it begins with a little bit about me, your currently clueless writer.

1. I’m a 20-year-old female from a town in Texas solely known for its large STD rate, its propensity toward intensely horrendous dust storms, and as the birthplace of a certain 50s rock star who died tragically young and inspired the excellent song American Pie.

2. You can call me Julia, if you’d like to refer to me by my proper name. And I shall refer to my hometown as At-Least-It-Ain’t-Raining-Mud-Today. (On days where it is raining mud, which occurs when there’s light rain along with a dust storm, which does occur on unfortunate occasions, obviously this name will have to be edited. But for today, it works.)
 

3.My blog is named Abled Perspective. This is in contrast with the phrase “Disabled Perspective” for reasons I will make clear a little further down this list.
 

4. The purpose of this blog is multi-fold. First, I made a pact with myself that I would start a blog because I have a lot to say about life (both mine and in general) that I usually keep to myself more than is healthy.  Secondly, I wish to be a young-adult fiction writer someday, and the best way to get experience writing about early teenagers to mid-twenty-year-olds (as I still consider myself a young adult) is to write about myself and my friends and my surroundings as often as possible. Thirdly, I have yet to find a blog written by someone my age with a disability that focuses not only on how a disability affects daily life but also how daily life does not have to be affected by a disability.
 

5. Hence, the name Abled Perspective. Although I consider myself to be a fairly normal individual, I do have a rare disability – a birth defect known as Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome. I know that’s a mouthful, so it shall be forever referred to as K-T. I’m going to save the extended description of this, and how it has affected my life, for its own blog post. In the meantime, however, I’ve provided the link to the Wikipedia article about this disability in case you want to learn about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klippel%E2%80%93Tr%C3%A9naunay%E2%80%93Weber_syndrome

6. Very few of my friends actually know I have a disability. I do my best to keep it hidden, for reasons that will definitely be detailed in a later post. But it is easier to be honest on the Interscape, when no one can see me and not everyone knows me personally. And I feel like K-T is an important part of who I am, and it has focused my view on life. However, I dislike referring to myself as DISABLED, because it is a terrible adjective to describe human beings. That word makes people with disabilities seem less capable of living fulfilled lives than people without disabilities. Everyone, with or without disabilities, is differently abled, and thus I am providing my own Abled Perspective on life.
 

7. This blog is not about disabilities. It is about my daily life, whatever strikes my fancy to write about. There will be discussions of popular books, movies, various forms of music, my stress about school, ideas about people, and on occasion, disabilities and people who possess them. But it is basically just about life, and one Texan girl’s view on it.
 

I hope my incredibly long list points haven’t frightened you off. Here are a few more facts about me before you fade away!
 

8. I am a Violin Performance Major getting my Bachelors of Music, which (for those of you who know nothing about classical music) is an incredibly intense degree although in my opinion doesn’t hold a candle to the difficulty of an Engineering major or things such as that. However, music school is hard. If you think in the future posts of this blog that I complain too much about music, try picking up a violin and having 40+ hour weeks of school, practicing, and rehearsals. Believe me, it’s not the easiest thing in the world.
 

9. Music is one of my main loves. The other is fiction. The writing of it, the reading of it, and (more recently) the editing of it. My career goals include becoming the Principal Second Violinist of a fantastic symphony orchestra and a Young-Adult book publisher and writer. Ambitious? Yes. But worth the hard work? Hopefully…
 

10. At the moment, I don’t have a boyfriend. I mention this now because, as most young adults in their early twenties know, the romantic life influences the rest of life in interesting and often inconvenient ways. And as this is a blog on life, I’m sure my relationships and relationships in general will come up quite often. Also, 

11. I’m running out of tidbits of information to include in this list and this popped into my mind as something potentially worth writing down.
 

12. I have a male best friend who is incredibly fantastic and my rock in this world. While he currently lives several states away in the gorgeously mountainous Colorado, he still exerts a major influence on my life and will probably be featured in this blog a great deal. However, for the sake of anonymity, he will be known in these pages as The Senator because of his potential future awesomeness and public speaking expertise. (Also, I think the name “The Senator” sounds pretty dang excellent.)
 

13. A few other friends who will probably be mentioned quite a bit include The Roommate (my brilliant Engineering Major friend who was my roommate my freshman year of college and who I wish I could room with still, although she now lives off-campus), Little Sister (who I wish was my sister because I’m an only child, but who is really just my slightly-younger-in-age violin-virtuosic really great friend), and The Cello Siren (who manages to get all the boys but makes up for it by being a great duet partner and fantastic college friend).
 

14. I’m obsessed with Italy. My violin (newly purchased…it is my child for all intents and purposes) is Italian, my ancestry is Italian (at least, far back down the line), my favorite language (which I am attempting to learn) is Italian, my favorite European country is Italy, my favorite art is Italian, my favorite composers are Russian (which doesn’t have a lot to do with Italy, actually…), my favorite food is Italian. You get the picture. You’ll probably get a lot of Italian phrases mixed in with the English in this blog, because my love for this romantic country is so pronounced.

15. I’ve recently started to master the art of cooking. I’m having relative success (minus the Vodka Tomato Sauce disaster a few weeks ago, which deserves its own blog post) and may deserve a regular spot on this blog.

  

16. I’m finding a lack of things to talk about now, so I feel like I shall conclude my list here. Hopefully my dear readers find this blog interesting enough to stay tuned for a future update. I promise it will be less erratic and more coherent than this one!

Until next time,

 

Julia