Hello,
This is one of what I hope is to become many posts on this internet sensation we've come to know lately as a "blog". Part of the reason why I've chosen to create one in the first place is because I've grown tired of reducing my thoughts to confining little blurbs on Facebook. That and the so-called "News-Feed" makes things feel a little..."spam"-y to me, in my honest opinion. I've figured, if people really give two cents about what I'm going to write, I want to have that luxury of being able to share my thoughts unlimitedly (and without the confines of a puny HTML box). So that's why I bring you "Culturally Competent", today (or...tonight, if you want to be technical about it...).
Now, I'm sure you're wondering "Why the heck are you starting a blog in the first place?".
Well, I guess it all starts with me, really. I'm a writer at heart, I always have been. It's probably one of those things as a child you take off and run with, like sports or art; writing was one of my first hobbies...and as kid, that probably started for me in kindergarten when my teacher commended me in front of the whole classroom for spelling the alphabet in capital letters correctly. See what wonders positive reinforcement can bring about in someone's life?
Naturally, as life would hit you in the face, other things came my way: soccer, swimming, chess, theatre, basketball, singing, tae kwon do, etc. But somehow, the "writing" thing always bounced back every now and then. Kind of like "Charlie Brown" specials on television, if you were to allegorize that with real life. I wrote, directed and starred in a one-act play my senior year of high school. In college, I tutored writing to undergraduate, graduate, and theology students, as well as helped them edit their papers. I tried getting a stint with my college newspaper, doing "Arts & Leisure", but that never really worked out. My college newspaper was never the most organized or, heck, professional thing on the planet. My apologies to anyone who worked on that paper, but a little quality control would have definitely improved your reputation among the student body. I can certainly vouch for that.
Anyway, writing has pretty much led me to a hazy but honest philosophy I have that basically dictates the need to express whatever is on your mind for those who want to know. But with that philosophy comes a price - words are weapons - especially in 2011. What you say and write to people really does label who you are. So, "choose wisely", as I always say, or at least in my case; have an outlet to express these thoughts in as clearly and eruditely as you possibly can. That is where the need for me to have a blog originates. I intended to start this blog a lot earlier, as I graduated college last May (BAs - Psychology, Spanish). But of course, a relief trip to Honduras, and summer prep courses for the LSAT popped up. For those of you who don't know what the LSAT is, it's this little slice of Hell; the Law School Admission Test, published annually by the Law School Admission Council in the form of a three-and-a-half hour-long standardized test, basically designed to make law school admissions' lives easier (for more information, in case you were that curious: http://www.lsac.org/). After that ordeal was over, and my applications to law school were squared away, I got a job, and finally revisited my plans for a blog once the holiday madness of 2010 was over.
So, now you're probably wondering "What's up with the name of your blog?" "Culturally Competent? Are you like, some kind of crazy hipster or something?"
I'll start with the answers to the second question: "Yes, that is the name of my blog, and no, I'm not a hipster, I don't exclusively associate with groups"...but I will make fun of them from time to time for their idiosyncracies, and hipsters, in my opinion, have a lot of idiosyncracies.
"Culturally Competent" is an actual definition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_competence) and comes from another summation of my personality: I'm like a sponge when it comes to this world we live in - I've learned it's okay to take more risks, try more new things, and try to live more in the moment. So in a sense, I'm "Un-Culturally Challenged" (the original name of my blog) from being close-minded, coy, or averse to exploring the world. A lot of what I will post about has to do with basically anything in the news, media, what have you, that crosses my path. Pretty much anything I feel like I want to write about will go on here. I'm not setting out to become the next Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist or anything like that, I'm simply doing this for fun. And after all, there's people out there who I'm sure will enjoy reading this.
I hope you do, too.
Goodnight,
- Jon
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