Blogging in Boston

I am blogging, although I am currently in Boston.  Interesting considering I have never blogged while being in classes but, I am currently enrolled in an Advanced Writing in the Disciplines course at school (Northeastern University) which has me thinking all the time.  It has me relating ideas and readings we discuss in class to almost every action in my life.  I have a friend who once told me, "Abby, you are always relating your life to something, whether it be song lyrics, books, stories, why?"  She advised me to just allow life to happen and let it be your own.  I would do that but I believe every event in life occurs because of some other force or current, which has probably happened before or to someone else.

For instance, last week in class we read a few chapters written by a woman named Deborah Brandt.  I love the way she writes and how she took the time to analyze literature and reading.  She conducted interviews on people ranging from all walks of life and asked them to think about when they first began to read and write.  She had them think about times in life when literacy affected them and about their parents and their literacy growth experiences.  It was fascinating to me.  

Looking back at my own childhood, I had a hard time remembering the first time I learned to read or write.  It may have been because it was always easy for me or because we never talked about it in my house but whatever it was there had to be some event that sparked literacy desires. I was read to every night, my favorite book of course, Goodnight Moon, but I was never asked to read out-loud perhaps because I was just expected to know how to do it.  First born child syndrome?  Who knows, but whatever happened it leads to a lot of unanswered questions now about how I process literature, the types of books I choose to read or even how I write. 

Back to blogging and back in Boston.  It's going to be a refreshing summer.