It's Alive!

My loyal readers haven't had much to read from me as there has been no update to this blog since June. That changes now because one of the requirements of one of my classes is that I maintain a blog and update it weekly.

"Requirements? Classes? What is he on about?" you might be saying to yourselves. Well, there have been some changes since my last post in June. In July I became disemployed for the first time in 8+ years. In August I enrolled at university full-time in an effort to get the bachelor's degree that has eluded me for the 20 years that I have been ostensibly seeking it. I have no specific update regarding September, except to say that September was spent preparing for October. In October I got married (despite my disemployed status, amazingly enough) and my spouse and I enjoyed a wonderful honeymoon in San Francisco. November and December were spent on family holidays and finals. And this brings us to January 2010 which is, as of this writing, the present.

Today is the first day of the Spring 2010 semester at the learning institution I have sporadically attended for over 20 years, but for the first time my goal is within sight, even unaided by any form of telescopic magnification. If all goes according to plan (and why wouldn't it?) I shall graduate in May with a BA in Communication.

One of the requirements for my degree is COMM 303: Introduction to Communication Technologies. I'm taking the class online. It's the first class I've taken online, so we'll see how that goes. Still, it seems appropriate that a class about Communication Technologies be mediated through same. It's called hands-on learning, folks.

As I mentioned in my opening paragraph, one of the requirements (1/6 of my total grade) for the course is that I maintain a blog. Well, I've been maintaining a blog already, if "maintaining" can be understood to mean "posting with decreasing frequency after the election of 2008 and then ceasing altogether upon disemployment."

I rather thought that I would be posting with more frequency in my disemployed state, but many of the things about which I previously posted became less important in the absence of a regular paycheck. Green energy and electric cars, especially. I still discuss politics and investment strategies ad nauseum, but I have done so recently without resorting to posting my thoughts on these subjects on the series of tubes you see before you.

Anyway, for those of you (I know there's at least one) who have this blog on your RSS feeds: It seems only fair that I give you a heads-up about the renewal of this blog and its new context. According to the syllabus for my class, blog "entries will mostly be responses to web sites or questions given to [me] by the instructor. Good entries will get more credit than bad entries. The entries will be evaluated on how well they are written with both content and form taken into consideration. Good entries may become required reading for other students in the course."

I'm assuming I'm allowed to blog about other matters that occur to me also, but if past performance is indicative of future performance then non-class-related-posts will be few and far between. Besides, if I know my fellow classmates may be reading then I may exercise additional gate-keeping ability on my thoughts and opinions, at least until May.

Regardless of the impetus, this blog is once again active and promises to have (at least) weekly updates for the next four months. Comments are, as ever, welcome.

UPDATE: Or not. Syllabus has been revised since my last post. The blog for the class has to be set up at wordpress, so my blogger / blogspot blog is somehow unacceptable.