Audiences Will Listen to Anything in Anticipation

Welcome to Mr. Wright's Blog.  My name is Joel, and this is the beginning of my new (semi) personal blog.  I live in the college town of Champaign, Illinois, and am currently a graduate student preparing to become a special education teacher.   I live with my wife, Robyn, and my two cats, Coraline and Marlowe. 

For your pleasure, there are three other of my blogs that I would like to draw your attention to.  The first is my old blog, Logios Dolios Eriounios.  This was my personal blog from 2008-2012, but, you know, it really petered out after 2010.  Logios is a chronicle of Robyn's and my years in Chicago - my starting at the University of Chicago, a lot of talk about Obama, some cats, some baseball, then the economic collapse and unemployment in Chicago, followed by our move down to Urbana, my working as an aide in a special ed room in a middle school, and Robyn's beginning at the Library and Information Science program at the University of Illinois.  I tried, rather lamefully, to revive this blog once or twice, but there really was no direction or purpose to it. 

The other two blogs that I want to mention right now are my totally awesome sports blog, Fourth and Inches, and my professional blog, http://joelwrig.weebly.com/.  The sports blog is mostly my personal excuse to obsessively rank college football teams according to my own whims and whimsies.  The Weebly blog is my official University of Illinois website, and mostly contains examples of my lesson plans, my educational philosophy, and my reflections on the state of education - especially special education - in Illinois and in America. 

So why am I writing this?  Blogs are hard to keep updated, and it's especially hard to identify what needs to be recorded on your professional blog, or your personal blog, or your hobby blog.  But I guess that I have missed having this kind of public thread documenting my life, talking about myself, reflecting on my thoughts, and having a venue to broadcast to friends and to family.  Nevertheless, I also just like talking about teaching, about philosophy, about cooking and sports and public transportation and politics and mythology and good books.