"Random Thoughts"

The first time I heard the term "blog" (contraction of "web log") was in my last year of high school in Mr. Dornn's computer science class. There were only two of us that wanted to take the course (and Jason wanted to drop it), so grades 11 and 12 were taught together. Well, Jason and I were given books to follow (think along the lines of "Visual Basic for Dummies"), and were given an exam at the end of the year. I didn't open my book once, and spent most of the semester writing a Monopoly game.
Mr. Dornn took a couple of days off for some reason and left us a "Mrs Taylor" assignment (the kind of assignment that required no work on his part). He gave us the web address of an article, and we were to write a two-page summary of the article. The article was two-and-a-half pages long. Anyway, the article was written about the emergence of blogs. There was a "linking sentance" that I remember: "And guess what? People actually read them." The first thing I thought was, "Guess what isn't a question, so it shouldn't have a question mark after it." Then I thought, "Yeah right! No one's going to read a stranger's journal." and I forgot all about them. Apparently they caught on. Apparently people do read them.
I do. I read blogs about cycling (mountain bikers, commuters, randonneurs, racers, utilitarian cyclists, product developers, and everything in between), origami, kiting, people visiting foreign countries, and anything that catches my eye. As the author is the master of his own blog, he can use it for what he chooses: ride reports, news updates, for sharing information and experiences, photos, or whatever. A blogger can write several times a day or once a year. Two lines or ten pages. Grammatically correct, structured, coherent, politically correct - it doesn't matter. No one has to read it. No one has paid to read it.
(Does it matter if anyone reads it? - exploring this thought may take me wildly off topic, so I won't... today.)

I don't like writing. I don't like writing fiction. Or poetry. Or answering questions about the last chapter of the ridiculously boring novel you had to read, ("What do you think Johnny was thinking when he killed the fly?"). And of course there is never a wrong opinion, as long as you justify it, (and it doesn't conflict with the teacher's). Essays or lab reports weren't so bad, as at least there was a "recipe", and I'd always get a good mark, but they'd take forever, (university physics lab reports took an average of 5 hours to write up, and were due at 5pm on the day after the lab).
One English assignment required I identify three instances of "literary devices" (alliteration, simile, consonance, anthropomorphism, hyperbole, oxymoron, etc.) in the essay I'd just written. I couldn't find one. "Yes, your writing style is very technical, isn't it?", responded Mrs. Taylor.
But I could write journal. For about a month, we had to write a couple of paragraphs of journal at the beginning of each English lesson. Others would sit there chewing their pens, while I could scribble away pages about nothing. Miss Bartley left a comment on one of my journal entries reading, "I enjoy your random thoughts!" I found this strange, as comments on my work usually said "Good Work" or "Well Done". They make stickers that say "Good Effort", but I've never seen an "I enjoy your random thoughts" sticker. If written by another teacher (eg. Mrs Taylor) though, this comment may have said "Lack of structure and coherence". Is it a case of "fine line between the two"? Is it about the mood/preferences of the reader? I want to say it's more about the context. Are "random thoughts" are allowed (welcomed? encouraged?) in journal, but out of place in other writing? Is that the point of journal? A string of thoughts? A tangled ball of kite line? Pick an end and keep following it and see where you end up? The entire tangle could be one long string, or you could only get a meter before you come to an end. You could pull to hard and snap the line, (this is walking away from the keyboard to get a cup of tea, and forgetting where the thought was going - the metaphor doesn't really work here, does it? See my "literary devices" deficiency above). You could knot all the short strings together, but no one wants knotted kite lines. While following a long string, a short one you've already detangled could (will!) blow away in the wind (I'd like to give an example of a short string here, but I've forgotten it).
Here lies my dislike for structured writing, (revisiting a topic started above - does this count as accidental coherence?). You choose (or are given) a place to end up (thesis), and have to provide a coherent way of getting there (and extra marks for literary devices). So really the kite is the introduction (a way of getting the audience's attention), the bridle is the body (strings leading from the kite, all meeting at...) the flying line is the conclusion (...just because, that's why). Oh, and literary devices are ... line laundry!

I think I've gotten off topic. Wrong string?