Dirty Little Blog Secret

My dirty little blog secret is that I steal and plagiarize bits of my own personal e-mail messages. I find that I'll write something to someone and then think, "I could use that in my blog!" "I could make a whole post out of that!"

Is this allowed?! Am I cheapening my personal communications? Is it for the greater good of the many? I don't know the answer to these things but I'm pretty sure my posts would not be considered "greater good for the many". And, regardless, I'm going to keep doing it anyway.

Of late, my most inspiring muse is my friend Holly. In an effort to not cheapen my personal e-mail communications, I will not tell you exactly what she said. I will only tell you that I am currently ruminating on the various veils of understanding that accompany a move to a foreign country and an immersion in a foreign language.

For now, here is what I have plagiarized from a personal e-mail to yet another friend of mine (not Holly, though perhaps I’ll e-mail it to Holly too – three uses for one bit of writing!):

So far, my novice take on the moving to a foreign land thing is this:
You arrive and then,
1st - excitement and fun mixed with exhaustion
2nd - hope at the possibilities mixed with exhaustion of having to make them happen
3rd - you start to get a read on things and feel like it's not really that different (and maybe you were too tired to make some of those 'different' possibilities happen)
4th - you realize that everything is very different but you don't know shit about things and so you just carry on...

Maybe I'll have something more pithy and enlightening to say later on.