Double Edge Sword

I would consider many things in life a blessing and a curse, a double edge sword if you will. Take for example Netflix. Netflix is a blessing because I can stream the first six seasons of How I Met Your Mother without having to scour the internet for links to each episode or settle for grainy quality or un-synced audio. Netflix is a curse because I have now been in bed for 60 straight hours watching every available episode. The second example that comes to mind is my Xanga account. I rediscovered my first two blog accounts today. The first post is dated November 24, 2004. I am 100% sure I thought I was the coolest thing in November of 2004, but looking back, that was certainly not the case. Reading through my posts was something near excruciating. If I were ever in a group discussing the most embarrassing thing that we ever did, I would be hesitant to admit that Xanga is my answer in fear that they may find the URL address. I would probably tell them about the time I dropped my white denim shorts in the toilet in Barcelona and had to walk around the city without pants on. Though embarrassing, that experience pales in comparison. How then does Xanga fit into my category of the double sided blessing/curse sword? I would hope that the curse part is obvious. It is written proof of how ridiculous and embarrassing I was as a 14 year old. The posts are littered with misspellings, full of content that not even my own mother would care to read about, and feature surveys that I filled out for no reason. See below. 1. NAME: Julie 2. NICKNAMES:jules3. EYES: blue4.HEIGHT: 5’7 5. HAIR COLOR: blonde 6. SIBLINGS: spencer adn Keith7. do you like to sing in the shower? i don't 8. DO YOU LIKE TO SING IN THE TOILET?: haha 9. BIRTHDATE: May 10 10. fave saying:strange btu wonderful 11. ADDRESS:1914 thats al you need to lknow 12. SEX: famale 13. RIGHTY OR LEFTY:righty 14. WHAT DO YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP? oh a relationship would be nice 15. EVER CHEATED OR BEEN CHEATED ON: no 16. MARITAL STATUS: unmarried 17. DO YOU HAVE A CAR?: uhuh 18 WHAT KINDA CAR YOU HAVE/WANT?: cadillac ******FAVORITES******* 19. Fav. movie? remember the titans, lol 20. SONGS:way to many 21. BAND/SINGER: greenday? 22. TV SHOW:dont watch tv to much anymore 23. ACTOR/ACTRESS:uhhh 24. Food: italian 26. NUMBER: 11 28. DISNEY: character? ariel 29. COLOR:pretty green for today It is highly likely that many of this were this self centered at that age, but why did I fill out 101 question surveys about myself when no one even read them? Had I never heard of spell check? Now, to attempt to justify some blessing in this... As dumb as I sound to myself reading over these blog entries, that is who I was. It is an honest look into the days of my life that age, which for most people is pretty rare. Of course you remember the highlights from your mid-teen years, but without Xanga I would never have remembered that on May 15, 2005 this is what happened: "heck and yesterday i stepped on a staple from a staple gun. it freakgin ghurt adn is still sore. aiie chihuahua. today i went to Nana's and sewed. pretty soon here i will plug in my straightner adn watch the simpons. oh and i have a new friend." My foot has healed from the staple, I still say aye chihuahua, and I have no idea what new friend I would have been talking about. There are a lot of comments regarding the end of my freshman year of high school and how it went so quickly and how I can't believe it is over. Here I am 7 years later having eerily the same feelings about my entire education and college career. I want to be able to look back and know exactly what I was thinking and experiencing at this time in my life. I will always remember the big events, but sometimes it is the details matter too. So what do I do with this double edged sword of internet blogging? I wield it, obviously. This time (hopefully) with a little more experience and accuracy. My first goal is to cut back on the spelling errors, but I have a Macbook to back me up on that one. My second goal is to post updates on what I am doing/thinking/experiencing/seeing. I can only hope that these posts include less information on the time that I woke up in the morning and pointless details from my AIM conversations with friends. I'll take a more worldly view, and since I will be be visiting Austria, Czech Republic, Germany/Sweden/Spain/Greece, India, and Atlanta this summer, hopefully I can achieve this goal.