I feel the need to remind myself why I blog (or, at least, why I should blog).  I'm feeling a little listy, so I'm going to this in bullet point format.

A lot of what I do deals with sadness--war, death, rape, abuse, violence of all kinds.  Some days it wears me down more than others.  Here are some blogs that have the seemingly contradictory yet simultaneous effect of breaking my heart and giving me hope:

• 'Imagine' A World of Peace, Understanding, Tolerance
• PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within
  
• Recall: An Involuntary Soldier's Story

and there are some forum posts that do the same:

After my original dissertation idea was determined to be unfeasible (by myself and my dissertation chair), I found myself struggling to find a topic that still fit the spirit of my work.  Ideally, I would use the dissertation to create a theoretical base for my future study into narrative and trauma.  This, however, is much easier said than done.  The truth is that I don't know how to write a theory without the use of real world applications.  I imagine this has something to do with the way that I value theory as praxis and vice-versa, and, while I am by no means rejecting that belief, it's making this dissertation thing kind of difficult.  So, I'm trying to determine how, given the resources readily available to me, I can make a significant contribution to the