To blog...

Well, here I am, beginning my first blog post of my life, and here you are reading it.  Good for you! Or, Bless your heart! Or, something.  I'd been thinking about creating this for several months now, and for some reason I chose 12:23 A.M. as the appropriate time, and my aunt's spare bedroom in Provo, Utah as the place for my blog's creation.  For future reference, however, the only thing that one should be doing at that time and place is sleeping and hopefully dreaming of a place where there is not snow on the ground and where frozen and icy knives, aka icicles, are not hanging from, well, everywhere.  But, no matter.  Let me document the reason for my blog (and an explanation of its name at the end)  - 

1. Typing is fast and my hand doesn't cramp up.  Most of my life I've used pen and paper journaling as my mode of thought processing and memory encoding, but this will be quicker and most likely not leave pencil lead smudges all over my right hand.
2. I have a lot of thoughts.  Some good, some bad, and some not worth mentioning to anyone besides my trusty cat, Edgar (he'll probably get a blog post of his own at some point.  Brace yourselves. #meow).  This'll be a good place to unload my mind.  I truly don't care how many people follow it or if any read it at all.  It could be fun if they do, but it'll be nice to post about all sorts of things - good news, mysteries of the universe, issues in my life, random thoughts and feelings, etc. 
3. I am a communications major at BYUI with a News/Journalism emphasis.  Ever since I could pick up a pencil (or crayon, more likely) I've been writing up stories, drawing pictures, and even making up my own math problems and homework assignments.  My goal right now is to be a journalist, or a reporter, or something of that nature.  So, I figure that I should practice writing about real things that I care about on a medium that people I respect and want to impress will have the opportunity to read.  I'll probably post links to my blog posts on Facebook, and I'm friends with all sorts of people - past English teachers, principals, bosses, potential professional connections, church leaders, and who knows who else?! Usually when I've journaled before in my 6"x10" book labeled "Diary," it's a free-for-all stream of consciousness about Nicky, the cute guy in 2nd grade, oh and my mom grounded me which is so unfair because the other day we went to the aquarium and octupuses are really really gross and oh my gosh Ms. so-and-so is the coolest teacher ever and I want to be just like her and I want a horse and I hope that someday I'll be able to ride one because riding horses is fun also colby jack cheese is the best. See what I mean?  Stressful.  So, this is my chance to practice writing intelligently and cleverly about interesting things.

And now the name of my blog: Internal Validity.  There's a good chance that you, like myself, are familiar with both the words "internal" and "validity," and could probably come up with a feasible prediction as to what "internal validity" may be.  I, however, actually learned about this term in my Psychology class in my first semester at college.  It was defined as "The characteristic of an experiment that establishes the causal relationship between variables." Neat, huh?  My life is essentially an experiment - an experiment in which I am experiencing exciting elements and events and learning all sorts of new things about myself, others, and the world in general.  As I do so, I - and everyone else - am consciously and unconsciously establishing and learning about life's internal validity, i.e. the things that define why one thing causes another.  Why do I LOVE ice cream?  What causes that?  What causes my breathing to get louder and faster when playing a competitive board game?  What causes that high-pitched drone I hear in my ear occasionally?  Why do I feel so passionately about the orchestration of a song that came through on Pandora yet so indifferently about whether or not my socks match?  How come I can comfortably speak in front of a crowd for an hour yet struggle to tell a friend how I feel about a guy I've been on a couple of dates with?  And not just internal validity about me,but about anything - Why is the choice of a handshake or a hug with another person so awkward?  What caused Obama to change immigration laws with little consent from his cohorts?  Why would Taco Bell ever have a bad reputation?

So that's why I'm here - to talk things through with myself and whoever else may be reading.  To thing about things in the world I live in.

Oh, crap.  People usually have a clever thing they do to signify the end of their blog posts.  A witty saying or a limerick, perhaps.  In middle school, I was in charge of saying the morning announcements on Tuesdays and Thursdays over the intercom, and at the end of my messages, I was supposed to say "This is Rachel McIntosh.  Make it a great day, or not.  The choice is yours."  
But that's lame and tacky.  (Better than tame and lacky, I suppose).  So, I won't say that.

I think I'll post a line from a song I listed to today.  Because today involved about 9 hours of driving, I got through a lot of music.  It'll be a fun decision.  Besides, I listen to music pretty much every day, so that should be a fairly decent way to end my blog posts.

Thanks for reading!
"I've barely begun, I'm hardly through"