and I was a girl from school, helplessly helping all the rules...

With the commencement of my freshman year came the opening of The First Blog. For me, opening The First Blog-- a "real," "official" Blogspot blog-- entitled me to semi-Blogger status. Exhausted and embarrassed at my reputation as another SpaceBookWhateverer, I composed my first post, entitled with a punny play-on The Zombies' "Time of the Season." Armed with my pseudonym of C.F. Kats (Child Formerly Known as the Self, which I obtained upon my christening at the Empty Room), I was ready to counter MyMurdochMonopoly and prove my unexperienced, angst-ridden self to the masses.

The First Blog lasted all of one post.

By the second week of my freshman year, most of my high school anxieties had been alleviated by the monumental mentors who will become regulars here.

Feynman In Vans, my brilliant, jack-of-all-trades Conceptual Physics teacher won my heart. From day one, I was astounded by his mercurial spirit: he balanced Steve Martin caliber family-manning with high school teaching, holistic veterinary practice, and Duke-educated philosophizing.

Somehow, from my standpoint, FIV was far more commendable than my English teacher, The Lone Ranger. LR was my usual crush material. Short, skinny, and horn-rimmed-glasses-sporting, LR rid me of the potential crushage by proving himself to be exceedingly egotistical. And he made way too many Fight Club references.

I found solace in my journalistic journey alongside Felines Before Headlines. As my journalism teacher and newspaper advisor, I looked at her classes as anchors, safe-havens. I felt welcome. For fifty minutes a day, I nearly forgot my obsession with approval. And Idle Ideal was in there...

Come semester two, I had met a less attractive, more authoritarian intimidation factor, The Bastafarian. The sophomore AP European History teacher, Bastafarian had earned his reputation among lowly freshman in his Photography class for the constant cadences of his three-inch binders clattering against the counter adjacent to the darkroom. I now endure The Bastafarian's Western Civ lectures morningly.

Of course, by the conclusion of that second semester, I had developed acquaintanceships with Streisandologist, NonEbonicizer, and Bred Bohemian. I had embarrassed myself by trying to develop differentships with two of my infatuatees: Would-Be Esquire and Fiacre Junior.

Aside from the energy I unnecessarily put into the differentships, Felines Before Headlines and Idle Ideal chose me for the position of newspaper editor-in-chief. (II left for college in St. Fiacre's good friend Drew's hometown.) I also somehow ended up with a position as student council sophomore senator with Fiacre Junior.

To me, my first two and a half weeks of a sophomore year have basically sucked. To everyone else, my first two and a half weeks have been nothing unlivable. Everyone else is right. Happiness is effort. I need to suck it up.

However, I am satisfied with several of my achievements this year. Like, for example, this book review, which I turned in to my Chemistry teacher Lanky Lovitz (as in Jon's thinner counterpart-- not my teacher's real last name) after reading his summer assignment of Jared Diamond's poorly-edited nonfictional epic, Collapse.

With an inside-the-beltway DC liberal for a father, and an inside-the-Expressway more conservative, iconoclastic stepfather, my heart is politically divided. Even when it comes to taking a stand on less political issues, my dad and my stepdad still radically differ. Sometimes, I feel that this keeps me from being the intellectually rebellious teenager-- no matter what candidate I say I support, regardless of what I read, it's upsetting one and impressing the other. However, upon my mention of an interest in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, both my father and stepfather scoffed. Each of them had an argument about his training as an ornothologist, claiming he "poses" as a historian. One said he had better writer friends than Diamond who could never dream of making the New York Times Bestseller list. One complained of his mainstream status.
When I saw Collapse on the summer reading list, needless to say, I was highly interested.
Not only did I want to read something discouraged by my two paternal roles, it's not often that I get into historical accounts lately. I won't deny the intimidation factor of the daunting 525 pages of those accounts. But after skimming each chapter, I was prepared to at least attempt to immerse myself into the rituals of the Maya, the Easter Islanders I thought had disappeared, and the days of an inhabited Greenland.
Diamond made it somewhat difficult.
While I understand books are outlined, and it is important for writers to explain the organization, this is usually laid out in the introduction. Throughout the sometimes fascinating, sometimes yawn-inducing details of past societal collapses, even by page 350, Diamond seems confused as to whether or not he is still writing the introduction. Although he is a well-studied professor nearly emeritus at UCLA, and arguably has every right to do so, I as a reader am more intrigued with reading about the cannibalistic tendencies of the late Anasazis than I am with whether or not cannibalism fits into Diamond's "five-point framework." To me, it seems as though repeatedly stating the factors playing into societal collapses makes no collapse unique: such a thorough narrative of a millennia of details is less effective after being stifled by a "framework."
As much as I learned from Diamond, and as fragile as I now realize our earth really is, his monotonous style makes me hesitant to check out Guns, Germs and Steel as I had originally intended...

Here you have it. The commencement of The Second Blog. With my new nom de plume, the Maddador, which has already been spread across the socialnetworkosphere, I will do everything I can to prevent it from going defunct anytime soon.