Moviegoings

I believe it is customary to announce a hiatus before it happens rather than after the fact, but the truth is, I don’t ever plan to go on a hiatus from blogging. It just happens when life gets overwhelming. My last post here on Moviegoings went up around the time when I completed and defended my master’s thesis (1 or 2 portions of which have appeared here while it was in process). Having generated 60 or 70 pages of intense academic writing during the previous month, I didn’t really feel like sitting down to write anything for quite some time after that.

Furthermore, the day that I defended my thesis, I also attended the first meeting of my final graduate class, and about a month later, before I had even walked across the stage to receive my degree, I had begun my new job as a school librarian and social studies and English teacher. As librarian, I am also in charge of textbook distribution, and the first month of school I was in the building for most of every single day, easily surpassing 60 hours each week as I organized textbooks, reorganized the library, planned lessons, graded papers, and . . . Well, too many other things to list. It has been intense and challenging, but also highly satisfying and meaningful to work so closely with children from kindergarten through high school.

In the meantime, I have felt like I’m doing well to watch any movies at all, let alone generate any meaningful thoughts about them. And that is a state of affairs that I am simply not satisfied with. What I do here at Moviegoings is important to me, and I have no plans to abandon it, or even to lay it aside. However, with the start of my new career and other big changes on the way at home, it was clear that my return would require effort and intentionality. As the weeks went by, my thoughts turned with increasing frequency to how I could return to some kind of semi-regular posting schedule without neglecting my personal and professional obligations.

Basically, it comes down to something very simple that can still be very difficult to accomplish: a return to the basic discipline of writing every single day, no matter what, even if only for a few minutes. And that is what I propose to do, starting with this post. So, if any of you are still out there, expect to see some activity at Moviegoings once again! And if no one is still out there, I hope you come back and join the conversation I am beginning once again. I blog for myself (the only way to really sustain this form), but I prefer dialogue to monologue when I can get it.

~ by Jared on November 24, 2010.

Posted in Reflections