First Post

Hello interwebs!  My name is Sydney, and last year I graduated from Western Oregon University with a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics with a minor in American Sign Language.  I'm a self-published author and also an assistant submissions editor at Not a Pipe Publishing.  I have a cat, I love to read, I've recently picked up embroidery, and I love linguistics.

I've been wanting to start this blog for a while now.  It began as a New Year's Resolution, but, as befalls so many resolutions, it was not fulfilled.  January passed without any action from me, and as February dragged on and turned into March, I felt even more intimidated by the idea of it.

"I need to start my blog," I told myself. "I should start now."

"Just wait till the beginning of the next month, that way it's a fresh start," myself replied.

"What will my first post even be?" I wondered.

"Well it has to be good otherwise what's the point?"

"Ugh!"

And so my inner monologue continued until now.

There's always a lot of pressure on the first.  First kiss, first car, first date, first time doing anything.  I began thinking back to why I wanted to start this blog in the first place--so I could keep up with my linguistics skills while not in school for it.  I began to put pressure on myself that my first post needed to be some incredible research or idea.

Then I thought to the first page in my Copic sketchbook.  Artists put a lot of pressure on the first page in sketchbooks, thinking it has to be great, that it'll set the tone for the rest of their sketchbook.  The first page of my Copic sketchbook is a swatch page, where I can test out colors and blends.  A swatch page takes the pressure off the first page, because it gets you started but it also doesn't have to be perfect.  It doesn't have to be anything.

So this is my swatch page, of sorts.

Rather than using this blog as a place where I can put my groundbreaking research and never-before-though-of linguistic ideas, I'm going to use it more like a journal.  I'm going to write for an audience of me, and hopefully anyone that comes across this blog will enjoy it as well.

I'll make posts that might be just speculative, jotting down questions and ideas for research before I actually delve into them so I don't forget.  Some posts might just be notes as I reread some old textbooks.  Others could be responses or thoughts on a video I watched or article I read.

The point of this for me is to keep my head in the game, to not forget everything I learned as an undergrad before I eventually go to grad school.  I also want to hopefully figure out what subfield I'd like to focus in.  But really I just want to continue exploring the world of linguistics, because there's always more to learn.

So here we go!