For Namesake

If you're reading this, then welcome.  About ten months ago, my friend Alex suggested I start a personal blog.  I thought the idea was great because it would give me writing practice, but my hold-up was that I could never think of a name, and I wasn't sure what to write about.  Alex suggested I write about politics, since that's what I like.  That seemed like a good idea, but I wasn't sure I would be able to say anything worth saying that someone else hadn't already said or thought.  Alex bugged me weekly about the blog, but still I couldn't think of what to call it--nothing seemed good enough and nothing I came up with seemed to be "me."

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, I went to the English department at the University of Leeds in Leeds, UK to discuss my course (or "modules" as the British say) registration options.  I was a bit hesitant about this because for the past three months I have been emailing a staff member in the English department with heaps of potentially annoying questions.  Although this man has been very responsive and very kind in his emails to me, I can imagine his frustration when he opens his email inbox and there are two or three emails from me sent within an hour of each other because I've thought of additional questions after I sent the first email.  Regardless, I was hoping to avoid coming face-to-face with him.  Like anything at a university, finding who to speak to about my issue was difficult and I was redirected half-a-dozen times.  Finally, I ended up at the office of the aforementioned man.  When I arrived outside of his office, I took a deep breath and lightly tapped the door-knocker.  (I should add that I was in a very English, medieval, dungeon-type building.)  I turned the door handle and the door cracked and squeaked as I pushed it open, and I realized that I had entered the office of a man who could have been Ebenezer Scrooge.  The gray-haired, long-nosed, old man who had sent me dozens of emails over the past few months was bundled up in a heavy coat and was hunched over his computer with his shoulders just slightly lifted above their natural placement.  After introducing myself, he said nothing and barely lifted one of his frail hands from his desk and turn his palm upward as if motioning for me to take a seat.  I was seriously regretting not just emailing him my questions once more.  After asking my questions, which were regarding dates, he pointed me toward a calendar posted on his wall and said, "Notice the days in different colors.  The red letter days are the significant ones--the ones you can't forget."

On my walk back to my room from the university, I was replaying the experience in my mind and committing it to memory.  When I recalled his comment about the red letter days, I thought how incredibly significant and relevant that is metaphorically.  Who wants to have a bunch of black and white and lifeless days with no color and energy?  I also considered my current location in northern England where we are heading in to winter and the sky is always gray and there is little to no sunshine.  Since I'm used to having sunshine everyday of the year, I'm going to have to find a way to find the "red" in every day despite the gray and gloomy skies.  Why not try to make every day a red letter day?

When I returned to my room, I turned to my reliable source--Wikipedia to help me out.  I looked up "red letter day" and found the history behind the phrase, and it is quite interesting.  Click here to read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_letter_day.

So, there you have it--Days in Red, and finally, I've started a blog.  This isn't going to be a politically-focused blog (although I can't promise that won't slip in occasionally), but instead a personal blog about whatever has made my day "red" if you will.  Now, I know not every day is going to be filled with color, but that isn't the point.  The point is that it is important to find some good or "red" in every day, which I hope to highlight in this blog.  I hope you will be coming back for seconds and thirds, and that this will be a good thing for many months to come.  

Oh, and Alex, I hate to admit that you do deserve some credit.  However, even though he scares the bajeebies out of me, I think good ol' Ebenezer deserves some, too.