I have no title for this. McPherson and stuff.

I am now less than 14 hours away from playing basketball at my favorite place ever.
- If not for basketball, I would have never left this place.
- If not for basketball, I would have never found this place.



Safe to say, emotions are running rampant. Despite being cut from the team shortly before our first game and being forced to transfer [KWU debacle, circa 2005] in order to pursue my dream of playing college basketball in an actual game--I have nothing but fond memories of both McPherson the town and the college. I love it there.

-- The ankle is feeling better-ish. I ran on it for the first time on Wednesday. It's still pretty sore, and for an idea of what colors still appear on my foot and ankle, [click here]. Neat, huh?

But it's playable and shouldn't be as difficult in a half-court, 3-on-3 setting as Wednesday's full-court pickup ball was. Here's hoping...

Other topics:

- Had a lengthy blog written the other day, posted it and quickly removed it due to its controversial nature. Apologies to anyone who saw it and clicked, only to see it'd been removed.

- 10 days away from my favorite day of the year--Cubs Opening Day! You could say I'm excited.

- Effectively limited everything I look for in girls down into one specific trait--nerves. If I get nervous while talking to a girl, very good sign. If not, probably not a chance. Not sure why this never occurred to me, but I feel like I've stepped on a gold mine. Eureka!

- I'm really curious what everyone thinks of the new layout. I received an e-mail from Blogger, advertising its new features and felt like trying something new again. Any feedback is appreciated--as always.

Quote of the day:
"Worry often gives small things a large shadow." - Swedish Proverb

Word of the day:
criterion - Singular of criteria. Used it (in the flow, I might add) in the aforementioned deleted blog and wanted an excuse to throw it in here, too, because I've always liked the word. So there.

Do the right thing,
Derrick

Social networking be damned...

Well, it's happened.

The time has finally come when I am not able to write openly about just anything. Like it or not, I must consider any and all potential readers, and any potential ramifications that my ramblings might have. This is weird to me.

I love sharing my nonsense with any of my friends who wish to indulge themselves, and not only get lost in my nonsense, but conjure up some of their own, as well. And because of the often wonderful, if not distracting world that is social networking, I can do so anytime I darned well please. That's pretty neat.

That being said, it's becoming evident to me that I must now consider my audience. Generally speaking, I can talk about whatever I want, I suppose. Whether it be my seemingly hot-and-cold trivial sports jargon, the occasional pop culture jab, or any of my other overly-opinionated hooey (according to the masses, I imagine), I can write whatever I want...or so I once thought.

I cannot write about one particular topic that occasionally pulls at my core--due to one of my Facebook friends who happens to be a relative (err, sort of). Even the mere raising of a particular topic, if seen, could be disastrous. Ironically, this particular topic was at hand in what I still feel is my best piece of writing ever--a MySpace blog from August 12, 2008. It's still posted there, if anyone is overly curious--the relative at hand isn't on there, to my knowledge--so it's safe where it is (for now).

Another topic exists which affects me greatly--even I can never quite decide just how much--has become extremely taboo, especially given the depths in which I could explore within said topic. This saddens me a little. Sometimes more than a little.

All of these restrictions put in place, in large part, by social networking.

If only folks like Mark Zuckerberg and Tom Anderson weren't so innovative, I wouldn't be in this predicament, right? Wrong. If only I were more innovative, I'd be able to more adeptly maneuver my way out of this mess, I reckon.

Curious thing about all this is--I have absolutely no qualms discussing anything in life--most people know this about me by now. It's just gotten to the point where I can't be 100% open about certain things, where it can be seen by all.

While I'm fully aware that I'm not a writer per se, I do enjoy writing, without a doubt. I often enjoy using it as an outlet to delve into personal topics--both my own, and those of others. It allows us all to open our eyes, our hearts, minds, and souls and let others in. I love it, I really do. But the concept of not being able to share whatever I want with whoever I want--however I want to do it--bugs me a little.

I'll probably work my way around it, in time. Just something on my mind in my quasi-triumphant return to Blogger, which I intend, as of now, to use as my future writing source. I'll try it out this time, while posting/sharing a link via--you guessed it, Facebook.



Ah, the wonderful world we live in...

Do the right thing,
Derrick