Failure puts things in perspective

I failed this week. I don't particularly wish to go into the details of my failure, but I failed. This brings up a few observations:
1). I am genuinely disappointed with myself. Surely that means something.
2). I am faced by the thought: if I get don't get into grad school, what will happen?
3). I am willing to consider that possibility, and not be scared out of my mind.
4). I still want to go to grad school. More than ever.
Thus I must improve, as always. Be better. Demand more, because I have, this past week, offered so little. If you read this, understand that I am not proud of my failure. I must better myself.

And so, with this in mind, we begin

I would like to think that I strive, in all things, for the truth. Perhaps a truth. Hopefully an honest truth. Thus, though few, if any, will ever read it, I find it appropriate to call this what it is.
This blog is the result of a tradition of irresponsibility, of laziness, of simple stupidity. Fully capable, I have often, in the past, found myself in an impossible situation, where what needs to be done cannot be completed with the appropriate level of quality in the time that I have left myself. I was supposed to "do" this directed study this summer. I started it--I usually start just about everything--and then failed to take it past the first slightly demanding assignment. A similar plot was followed in my directed study through Historical Methods, and it is to avoid the climax of that story, now completed, that I am brought to this web-page.
I am lucky to have around me an adviser who is both wise and patient, and a peer who is everything I should be--and by that I mean she is driven, responsible, and very good at what she does. She has already begun a blog for the purpose of aiding the completion of her senior thesis, and it is an impressive thing. Hopefully it can be a model.
Now, none of you few who may perhaps read this have come here for this type of post. Too bad. I am already finding this medium, this blank page, this blog, to be quite fun. So, in addition to my academic endeavors, I am going to fill this fount of potential with whatever tickles my fancy. It feels a place to stretch rhetorical wings.

If he falls, he fights from his knees

As per recommendation from my ever-wise adviser, I have created this blog for the purpose of accountability. It is here that I will post with, I now vow, regularity and frequency. The subject of these posts will be my reactions and thoughts as I progress through my Medieval History directed study. This in the hope of assisting me in my efforts to improve my discipline, to "fight from my knees."