Obligatory First Post Explaination

The worst part about writing, is figuring out how to start. This is the point at which I'm suppose to come up with some sort of clever quip to launch my brilliance, thus securing high readership and Blog-Superstardom. I've always struggled with this, and even now, with academic papers, I often avoid the first paragraph or so and jump right into the paper. Sometimes I go back and write an intro, but more often, I just figure what I have written can serve as one. Over the last 10 (yes 10) years of higher education, I haven't gotten too many complaints about my writing, so I guess it has been sufficient.

Anyway, do you like how I just made an introduction out of how I don't like writing introductions? Mission accomplished, I may not have sucked you in, but you're still reading at this point, so I kind of did. I've never really blogged before. I'm not sure I even like the idea of me blogging for a variety of reasons of which I won't bore you (who wants to read a blog about someone who doesn't even know if she likes blogging?). However, there are reasons I do want to start this blog. The few that relate to the title of the blog, I will share. 1) I have had a lot of experiences that have taught me that attitude and choice are everything. I may not always choose to have a good attitude, but I try. 2) Life is an adventure, and often I have a choice in that adventure (or at the very least get to choose to view it as such). It isn't always the kind we would choose for ourselves, but I am grateful for the lessons I've learned from my experiences (sometimes it has taken a while, but the gratitude has come). 3) (Which is really an extension of #2) Another name came to mind, while I was trying to find something clever. The two choices were: "Choose your own adventure" or "Adventure is out there". The first is from a series of children's books, some of which I had when I was a kid. For those of you who didn't experience this, these were books where you literally chose at the end of each page there were a few options of next steps to the story, giving you a different story each time. My intent was not to rip off the title, but to point out that our choices create our life (Read: our adventure). The second comes from the Pixar movie "Up." I was thinking of the same sentiments, but decided it was too subtle with the choice thing that I wanted to emphasize.

The point of this blog is to share parts of my life. It is not to inspire or give advice to others of how they should live their life. This is just simply how I choose to see and live mine. It's helpful to me to think of life this way, as a series of choices that have positive and negative consequences (ones that I don't get to choose). These choices build on each other and form who I am, influence what I think and do. In short, I think my life is an adventure because of the choices I've made and how I choose to view them. Sure I count large experiences as adventurous, but I try to have an attitude that allows me to see the adventure in my daily, more mundane experiences. It is my intent to share both large and small experiences.

Two Disclaimers (You've been warned):
1) RARELY do I ever re-read what I've written (it's my least favorite part of academia), and I never have/will be an English Major/Professor/etc. So if you can't handle improper grammar, this is not the blog for you. (You've been warned)
2) I often have many thoughts and have learned to type quite quickly (Read: I can be very long-winded). If you don't like meandering stories, this is not the blog for you. This also applies to grammar, because I tend to write long sentences with lots of commas (I blame my elementary education that gave me new rules for commas every year in school).