LIS 768: Hello? Is this thing on? (My Choice of Topic #4)

I'll admit it, I really dislike writing (or typing, as the case may be) my thoughts down. I did keep a diary for 2 years in junior high, but got rid of it soon after.
I mean, it's not like I thought back then, "Huh. So when I run for the office of the President of the United States, this stuff could totally come back to haunt me."

It's not even that I think my random musings are so interesting or revolutionary now that they need to be kept under wraps.

My Mom thought my aversion to keeping a journal was amusing and and would tell me, "Maybe in a past life you got caught out on something like that, but you know, they don't burn people anymore..." to which I'd usually reply, "You don't know that for sure."

So, anyway, here I am having to do just that. Spill my thoughts out on a public forum for all to see. Or not see...there are approximately a gazillion blogs out there (give or take a few), and the odds of someone randomly finding and reading mine are fairly slim. Sure, I tag all my entries, but that's mainly so that I can find them again. But, if the right search is done...there I am, 3rd from the top (how weird is that?!?!)

I write with the thought that someone somewhere will find this, and what I say can (and very well might) be used against me. Does that make me self-censor?

Uh, yeah.

Too many horror stories get told about the bad things that can happen when a blogger writes about certain topics (like dooce, for instance, who wrote about her job and got fired for doing so). And knowing that I will be applying for a professional librarian position in the not-so-distant future is enough to keep me in line. For now.

Even so, oftentimes I feel like I'm writing in a vacuum. I mean, I post, and can tell by the Sitemeter that others come and take a look (besides my classmates, who have to), but there's no 2-way conversation taking place which seems odd. I admit to always being somewhat surprised when I discover that someone has left a comment on a post. On the flip side, though, when I read the different blogs, although I might find myself nodding in agreement, or wondering about a point, I don't leave any comments either.

According to Technorati, there are approximately 1 million blog posts a day. One MILLION a DAY. Wow. That's a lot of voices to be heard at any given time. And for now, anyway, I'm one of them.