now class, what have we learned thus far?

I'm glad I took this job.

It's the lowest paying job I've ever worked.

I get no benefits, no health plan, no 401k, no vacation days, nothing.

but I've been doing it for 20 years.  since we got our first dell computer with windows 3.1 and what was this new information superhighway everyone is talking about?

I became a blogger that day, since we were encouraged to write essays in every english class, we were also encouraged to free write if we struggled.

I did a quite a bit of freewriting.

I'd finish my paper, then go back to freewriting.  with no assignment in mind.  just random thoughts. words. whatever came out of my head and etched itself on that pad of paper in front of me.  I wrote.

I told fragments of stories, but piece by piece, and though completely random to others, it was a giant jigsaw puzzle to me and each thought was another piece.  and by putting it all down, I'd give myself the piece of mind knowing that all the pieces were in that box.

I'd look over and see this brunette by the name of Angela, smaking her gum, whining that she didn't understand the point of freewriting, and wouldn't know what to write, so she'd write the same word over and over and over just to force herself to write something.

But not me.  It was a way to express how I really felt.  just me and my thoughts. it allowed me put stuff down and take it out of my head.  and then suddenly I wasn't stressing about whatever it was I was stressing about.  well, for the most part it was therapeutic, it didn't solve my problems or anything.

20 years later, I still seek it's therapy, sometimes as a tool to document random shit, thoughts, dreams.  Other times, its just my therapist.. the person who lets me ramble on about my day with no fear of judgement.

Well it is different now.  especially after the introduction of the internet.  and sharing.  and commenting.  and hating and trolling and rick rolling.  well, thats just funny.

there's connections that you would have never made without internet, the friendships and relationships, the moments you realize that you're making an influence in someone else's life who doesn't even live on the same continent as you.

And that population of people you can connect with, growing large enough that you actually have a group of people who you can have a real conversation with, granted at least 60% of them are younger than me, 40% of that younger than 25.

but they're thoughtful, insightful, well read people who feel very passionately about... well a lot of things.  especially sherlock and dr who and supernatural.

and learning about themselves and coming to understand all the feels that they express through their blog.

there's a lot of them.  and I'm just one, a part of this group, this community.  but a group large enough that we've revived a trend that died years ago before the internet would allow it to go viral, especially not with the rise of the kardashians, brangelina's kids and, well, other mainstream media shit.

no one but psych students and human resources departments were talking about this and while a lot of information was made available online through people sharing their wealth of knowledge with the rest of the world, it didn't catch on.

until now.

I read a post of someone's skepticism of this new trend going around.  but its all bs bc I get different results every time.

but someone randomly posting a request to anyone willing to do it, to type every character in supernatural.  you know, since it's a thing now.

there's a rather clever blogger who runs a crystal blog.  has nothing to do with my blog.  or most blogs for that matter.  it's all crystals.  but she used the mbti tag to give each crystal a different type.  no type description.  just crystals.

310 notes in the first hour.  probably one of the biggest on their blog. seeing as to how its less than a month old.  but now they have traffic.  bc I chose to acknowledge their feeble attempt at social media marketing.  but it works.

and that's kinda what you have to do to get shit recognized.  in any social media platform.  you need to take advantage of whats trending and point ppl to your blog using that.

readingontheroof is one of the sweetest most awesome ppl I've met on tumblr.  she dropped an ask in my box one day, and this was the first we've ever spoken, but thanking me for reblogging one of her posts.  it got her a handful of views and new followers, but enough that she was excited about it.

that made me excited too.  and I was happy to help.  I was so happy in fact that I said thank you back to her in my 10k announcement video.  for expressing her gratitude and being open about it.  it was the first anyone had done that. and I wasn't expecting it.

so she puts together a couple more posts on her blog relating back to mbti.  and I was the very first one to reblog it.  24 hours later, 25k notes.  the biggest post she's ever had.  that I've ever reblogged from 1 note.

the community is huge.  and that excites me.

at the same time, it scares me a bit.  because its huge.  and it's always running.  like a faucet where you can't shut the water off.  the water just keeps running.

people will continue to talk about their personality type bc they want nothing more than to understand themselves better, understand their relationship with their mom, dad, brother, sister, close friends, coworkers, everyone.

its important to them, to me that people understand me because you have no idea whats really going on underneath.  and mbti is one way to help lay it down.

I just happen to be one of them.

I guess I could always stop posting if I really wanted to stop.

but I don't.  even if I do get paid $3/day.