Initial Post

All right, so I've decided to start a new blog. I used to blog on the message boards of my web site (www.ragepirates.com), but then the boards were destroyed by Turkish hackers (seriously). I also haven't spent a great deal of time online during the past year or so, which is why I never bothered to start another blog somewhere else until now. I've recently moved into my own apartment in Syracuse (I'm pursuing a master's degree in print journalism at SU) and have high-speed internet, so I figured now would be a good time.

I moved into my new place about a week ago, and I've spent that time trying to acclimate to my surroundings and find my way around the city a little bit. I like the location of my apartment quite a bit; I don't feel like I'm in a crowded urban environment, but anything I could want or need is only a short drive away. The suburbs are where it's at, yo. There's also some really cool stuff in Syracuse, despite it being a small city. One of my largest concerns about moving here was whether or not I would be able to watch my beloved Bills on television once football season starts up in September. I'm told that there's more of an allegiance to the NYC teams here than to the Bills (although I have seen a lot of old men wearing Bills caps and windbreakers), so I worried that the Bills might not be carried on local network TV. Well, fortunately I found out that there's a bar about two miles from my apartment that's sort of the headquarters/meeting place for the Syracuse chapter of the Bills Backers. Interestingly, this bar is also a haven for Red Sox fans. So I'll probably be heading to this place (It's called The Beginning II, if you're interested. Where The Beginning 1 might be, I'm really not sure) every Sunday during football season, and also during the summer to watch some Sox games and escape from all the damn Yankees fans around here. I actually might head out there tonight to watch the game.

I'm somewhat apprehensive about the master's program I'm about to begin (classes start June 30th), but not because of the coursework. That I'm sure I'll be able to handle. After the semester at USC when my book list was over 40 titles long, I'm confident I can take any amount of work they decide to heap on me. My concern is that in the journalism industry, experience is more important than education. So I need to find a way to build up a body of work to show to prospective employers after receiving my degree. Meanwhile, I need to keep up with my classwork, and hopefully find a part-time job that will help me pay the bills, so I'm not just living off loan money. There's going to be a whole lot on my plate for the next year, and it'll probably be really stressful some of the time, but like I said I have quite a bit of confidence in my ability to handle whatever gets thrown at me. And on top of everything else, I'm still hoping to find time to work on my own writing, both fiction and non, which brings us back to the purpose of this blog.

I guess I'll use it partly as a journal, just so friends and family can keep up with what I've been doing, but I'll also post my thoughts on current events, politics, sports, etc. Basically anything that pops into my head or that starts to dominate my thoughts. And if I do produce some creative writing, I'll probably post it here, or at least give you all a preview if it's a longer work. I'm not going to promise that I post here every day; I'm sure there will be times when I'm just too busy/lazy. Besides, that kind of promise in the first entry of any king of (b)log is basically worthless. How many times do people start a journal or something similar with every intention of writing in it every day, then after a week, or a month, or six months, their interest starts to wane? I know it's happened to me multiple times. So I make no promises. But I will say that I'm pretty excited about this, and I want to use it as a way to keep my writing skills sharp, even if it's just by writing a short summary of my day.

I guess that's all I had to say in the first post. Catch you next time.

-Nick