Entering the Blogosphere: Testing 1, 2, 3

Hi.

So, um...here I am...blogging...

Bear with me...it may take me awhile to establish my own extra-special blogging "voice."

Anyway, the title of this blog, "Order, Cupcakes, and Chaos" morphed from my email address on yahoo, which, in turn, refers to a Wallace Stevens poem entitled, "The Idea of Order at Key West." It also stems from my sense of hovering on the edge of utter chaos and my sometimes almost obsessive compulsive desire for order. Oh, and it also derives from my totally endearing fetish with cupcakes, which not coincidentally, often mediate my balance between order and chaos. I'm a grad student and am nearly finished with my dissertation, you see, and in one of life's ironies, I am contemplating jumping the academic ship at the very moment that I stand to become a bonnified (i.e. degreed) academic.

So you see, it all really does make sense...

On a more pragmatic level, I wasn't allowed to have "orderandchaos" or "ideaoforder" for my blog spot, so I just threw in the word "cupcakes." Although, cupcakes WILL be a feature of this blog, I promise. I bake them, decorate them, eat them, and apparently even pursue them at length in New York City. More on that later. But really, who doesn't like a good cupcake?

They're petite & cute, they're aesthetic, they're diverse, they're entirely unthreatening, and downright scrumptious...At any rate, this blog will likely document my attempts to finish the dissertation, the procrastination that seizes and sabotages me, my thoughts about what might happen next--i.e. post-dissertation, post Ph.D., and the experiences that intersperse this process--socializing, baking, my responses to televisionary miracles and travesties...Wish me luck.