Oh, hey! I didn’t see you there. Welcome to my blog. Pretty exciting, right?

As you might expect, my blog is in its beginning stages right now and is still finding itself. It keeps asking me the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my ultimate purpose? To which I respond, “I don’t know, Susan’s Blog. Stop pestering me. Go away.” Essentially, my blog is having an existential crisis and is channeling the philosophical college freshman deep within it. Trust me, we’re all tired of it. It’s not long before it moves into our basement and starts eating all the food in our fridge. And I don’t even have a basement! In order to help my blog find itself, I’ve taken to asking various people I know what my blog should be when it matures to adulthood. I started with my older brother.

His advice was…somewhat helpful. First, he asked me an important question: “Who would make you a blogger?”

“Uh, the Xpress staff did.”

“They must be out of it.” I was not offended. This was shaping up to be one of our more positive conversations.

“Oh, okay. Could you please be a little more helpful?”

He took a moment to think and said, “You could have it be like a book club sort of thing. You could read books outside of school and talk about them on your blog.” All right! My brother actually squeezed out some sound advice for once. My blog could have book, music or movie reviews, though that might not be antiestablishment enough for my petulant, whiny blog. It keeps talking about “sticking it to the Man,” which is frankly not the point of having a school-authorized blog. Oh well.

To gain further insight, I asked my cousin Charlotte, an Arcadia freshman, for assistance. Exemplifying the eager, excitable freshman archetype, she suggested that I write about school events, such as dances or rallies. Consider it done. However, she forbade me from writing about animals, because I apparently get a little too obsessed. She went so far as to imply that my dogs, Tango and Mango, are generally uninteresting to the Xavier populace. Impossible!

My mom interrupted this conversation with my cousin to suggest that I write about college applications. At the time, I did not have it in me to dignify this suggestion with a response. Even the thought of it horrified me. Since then, I have changed my mind. In a fit of anger at the college admissions process, I wrote a very fiery blog post about it. Stay tuned for that uplifting piece.

At this point, my blog didn’t think it would ever find itself. It would spend all day counting the blades of grass in our lawn and quoting Plato on repeat. I was worried that there would be no end.

Then, at my blog’s lowest point, I took to the streets and found myself asking two 7th graders for help. I hoped that this would prove to my blog that hard work is actually a helpful tool, not something that The Man uses against us.

Like my brother, the “sevies” knew the right questions to ask, beginning with, “What is a blog?” Despite my pristine status as an expert in the field of blogging, this question was a little difficult to answer, but I managed to describe it as an “online discussion thingy.” From this point on, the conversation derailed. Somehow, in the span of under a minute, the pre-teens managed to mention pit bulls, world cuisine, the dark side of social media, the apocalypse and Kanye West’s potential candidacy for president in 2020. I understand that the last two items listed are redundant. My apologies.

Upon hearing the 7th graders’ ideas, my blog had an awakening of sorts. What is a blog? Does anybody know?! Is it a platform for new ideas or old ideas phrased a little differently? Can it be used to begin expansive discussions about the human condition? Are teenagers even capable of properly assessing the human condition? And is it okay for me to post about animals once in awhile?!

In truth, my blog is whatever it wants to be at the time. Throughout the school year, my blog will discuss literally anything that is approved by the administration. An advice column element has been suggested as well, which shouldn’t be too hard, since my blog already thinks it knows everything. It may not have fully found itself yet, but my blog is on the path. Wherever that path leads, I hope that it is paved with a powerful metaphor, preferably one that could end a blog post, tying all loose ends together perfectly.