It's ironic...

Today is the first day of the 2013 Wordcount Blogathon contest - for 30 days I must blog each day. I entered last year for the first time and ended up blogging more, but not for the entire 30 days.

Dr. Gail Griffin

So...I'm at it again this year. It will be an interesting challenge as I am not the type of person who likes to put herself out there. In some ways I look at blogs as public diaries -- and I hated it when my siblings read my diary when we were kids. As I said to a friend of mine recently, I became a journalist because I didn't have to write about myself - I asked questions and wrote about others.

Ironically, this first day in the Blogathon falls the day after the woman who taught me to write about myself retired. I first met Dr. Gail Griffin, now Professor Emeritus of English at my alma mater, Kalamazoo College, when I took a course on autobiography my freshman year. We had to write an autobiographical piece as a final paper, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever written.

Gail became my academic advisor and I graduated with a BA in English and a lifelong friend. So Gail -- I'm going to try to draw on what I learned in your class 34 years ago and I hope I do it justice. Congratulations on your well-deserved retirement - K's English Department will not be the same.