I used to blog.

I used to blog.  And you know what, I used to get paid for it.  Once I left my former job doing public relations for a large corporation (and by "doing public relations" I mean driving a giant vehicular hot dog) I hung up my blogging gloves thinking those days were past.  Even before driving the "big dog" I had a work study job at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities where I represented my undergraduate major via paid blog content.  Honestly, I didn't know how much I liked the darn activity until I stopped.

Former blogging alias="Dyl-icious"

Almost a year later, with nearly a whole 48-credit graduate degree under my belt, much like the mythical phoenix, I rise from the ashes of my burnt-out-blogger-self the reinvent my compositional identity with reinvigorated gusto and new perspective. 

Or...I just write about my thoughts/feelings/impressions/learning regarding my eventual ascent into professional school counselor-dom.  Can you tell I am excited?!  And did I mention that I am currently looking for a job for the 2013-2014 school year?  Because I am...

Before I get to the deep thoughts and embarrassing newbie counselor anecdotes- I want to walk you through some of my previous blogging lives...basically, I am trying to prove to you (and myself) why I should continue to blog.

Examples:

1) I can do accents...and videos.

"Big Bun Turns 1000 Miles-HotdoggerBlog.com"

2) I celebrate the little things.

"Buns in Motion-HotdoggerBlog.com"

and 3) I try to have fun with it.

"Stretching our Buns"-HotdoggerBlog.com

I don't have any of the posts from my undergraduate blog since they deleted my profile when I graduated (all of those memories gone in a simple stroke of the 'delete' key), here is a link to the blog of the person who took over for me.

Now, who and what has inspired me to come back to the blogosphere?  Well, while doing my PR job, I got pretty familiar with the world of social media.  I was constantly looking for impressions that we had made while traveling the country to report back to my bosses-basically to show that we were doing our job.  Some of those social media mining habits/rituals/obsessions have spilled over into my new work/life-dedication as a transformative school counselor and I was so happy to find the following "inspiration" sites.

1) School Counselor Blog

This school counseling blog is simply great.  The moderator, Danielle, is a young school counselor who has been sharing her insights since 2009, when she was a counseling intern.  She shares information about job searches, suggestions for working with specific situations, and basically serves as a conduit for many of the school counseling web resources out there.  Super helpful for us youngins in the field.

2) Pikesville High School Counseling Department

Kind of a weird pick since it is literally a high school counseling web site, but I use the resources on this site often in my own internship work at a Baltimore City high school.  This site is thorough and broad.  I wish every high school had counselors with the resources and know-how to create accessible content for all of their students like this.

3) The Diary of a School Counseling Intern

This is the blog that really got me going recently.  I found the blog via some Twitter connections and found myself reading post after post.  Here I am reading the content and then I stopped and said to myself, "HEY, wait a minute-YOU ARE LIVING THIS TOO!"  I have a cohort of 9 in the School Counseling Fellows at JHU (and I am the only male), but it certainly is nice to gain some perspective from another student 1000 miles away... and it is definitely nice to know that I struggle with some of the same things.

Anyway, here I am-breaking the champagne bottle on the side of this blog's figurative ship hull to christen my maiden voyage.  Any suggestions, questions or comments will not go amiss.