I keep telling myself I need to write something here in this weblog, and everytime I pull up the weblog I draw a blank. So I’m just going to write various things that come to mind. This coming week should be hellish. I basically have two big essays due next Monday. Blah, blah, who cares?

I’m really sick of my writing now, in terms of sentence structure. I need to do some exercises where I vary my sentence structure.

I’m working on changing some things about myself, and I also think I need to re-brand my online identity. I want to get a new name for this weblog. I wouldn’t delete this. In fact, I’d probably try to migrate all the old entries over to the new site. Okay, so maybe I would eventually let this domain expire, but I’d keep all the old entries. I did let psycho-ward.org expire. By the way, most of the stuff is up at psychoward.agnoiology.com.

Yeah, change certain things about myself is very vague. I guess I want to be purposely vague because I’m not sure how I want to change, or if any of these experiments will work out. I do want to work on the various skills that would make me a successful politician. If you know any politicians, you should tell me. I want to ask them: “What is the most important skill to have in order to become a successful politician? Where and how can I get this skill?”

I recently read a book called Talent is Overrated. Interestly, my friend thought I was reading Gladwell’s new book Outliers. I’m not the biggest fan of Gladwell. He’s a fantastic writer, and I really admire the way he puts together anecdotes. However, I felt like Blink was mostly fluff. When it comes to non-fiction, I tend to like stuff that’s practical and can improve my everyday life. (My definition of practical probably is still more abstract than many people.) Hence why I picked up Talent is Overrated instead of Outliers when I was stuck in Chicago waiting for my delayed connecting flight. It devotes a lot to describing the process of deliberate practice. I should enumerate these but I’m rather tired so perhaps I’ll stop writing now. Or not.

I’m over 50 books on the year now. So I’ll have read more than 1 book a week by the end of the year. That’s not bad. That includes school books, but that’s so totally not cheating. I read way more during the summer than during the school year. Plus, I don’t think you can not count stuff like Crime and Punishment.

I need to become more versed in policy. I need to become an expert in some type of field. I realized that I’m pretty damn ignorant about a lot of things. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. At least I can recognize when I’m just spouting off, unlike the talking heads on cable news. I’m thinking energy policy is something good to look into. I recently read a book by a husband and wife team that seemed like a good primer on the issues. I don’t think it had enough math or science. I can understand that you’d want to make it accessible, and I think that was my original intention when I picked it up — that is, to find something easy to read for someone who doesn’t know much. Well, now I’m primed, and now I need to learn more. Plus, it was really big on biofuels (not corn).

What will be the biggest issues over the next 10 years? The next 50 years?

Okay, that’s enough unedited rambling. That should help me get back into the swing of things. Of course, weblogging is kind of about being unedited. Still, I need to be a good writer in general, not just a blogger. (No offense to blogging, but I need to augment my writing skills beyond blogging.)

No wait, one last comment. I can be pretty vicious when I criticize people’s arguments or writing. If I can apply this same standard to myself, then I’ll be a damn good writer.