Let’s Do the Time Warp Again!

It’s just a jump to the left and then a step to the right. Put your hands on your hips…

Okay, maybe not exactly *that* kind of time warp.

When I was in college at the University of Illinois one of the local bars had a theme night every week called “Time Warp Tuesday.” My friends and I were regulars and we would go there to socialize, have a few drinks and sing along to our favorite tunes that the DJ would play from the 1980’s. We each had “our song” and we would get very excited when it came on.

My song was “Cool it Now” by New Edition and I could (and still can) sing/rap almost every word to the song! I even won a trivia contest there one night for being able to name four of the five last names of the members of New Edition (I knew Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Mike Bivins and Ronnie DeVoe, but didn’t know that Ralph’s last name was Tresvant). At some point during the evening the DJ would play “Time Warp” (the theme from the Rocky Horror Picture Show) and then near closing time, just before 1:00 a.m., they would play “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler, usually followed by the theme from The Greatest American Hero television show “Believe it or Not” (remember that?).

I knew so many people that went to “Time Warp” every week, that often on Tuesdays when I had a lot of school work to get done, I would study down the block at a coffee shop and then around 11:00 p.m. I would head over to the bar by myself, with my backpack on and “do a lap.” I would stay as long as I saw people I knew and wanted to visit with, which often would last me until close (two hours later). It’s funny to reflect on this now, as these days I am usually in bed between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. and asleep by 11:00 p.m. at the latest. Except for now and then when I give in to my natural tendency to be a night owl.

Anyway, I was in the shower the other day, where I do some of my best thinking, and I had this idea for a “blog hop.” I have really enjoyed participating in a handful of blog hops over the years. Two of my favorites, each of which helped to inspire me to do this in their own way, are: Lori’s Perfect Moment Mondays (originally a weekly event, that went on hiatus this summer and will be returning on a monthly basis September 25th) and Mel’s Blogger Bingo (which I actually won the first round of back in September 2009). I have contemplated trying to host a blog hop in the past, but never felt like I had a worthy concept until now. This is my first go at it, so please bear with me and let me know if you have any feedback as I get this rolling. I will do my best to explain it here and I would LOVE for any and all of you to participate when I kick it off one week from today.

I decided to use the title Time Warp Tuesday for this blog hop, inspired by that nostalgic event from my college days. Every week I will share a topic, theme or question and you will have one week to browse through your old posts and find one that you think relates to it.

The idea is to revisit and share some of our favorite blog entries from our archives and reflect on our journeys since we wrote them.

So after you choose one of your old blog entries, write a new post in which you introduce the topic and your old post, link to your old post and write about how your situation and/or perspective may have changed since then. As participants in the blog hop, after you write your post and link up here, I encourage you to click through to read and comment on other’s posts (both the new blog entries and the older ones that the other bloggers chose to link to).

My hope and intention in doing this is to help us all to realize how far we have come over the course of our blogging journeys (whether you have been writing online for 4 months, 4 years or more). I see it as a way to give us ideas and inspiration for new posts (in the spirit of Prompt-ly), as well as to encourage us to visit and comment more on other’s blogs while continuing to build and strengthen our community.

You do not need to be an Adoption, Loss and/or Infertility (ALI) blogger to participate in this blog hop. You also do not have to participate every week to do this. You are welcome to join in this blog hop as often as you like, whether you post weekly or now and then.

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The topic for next week is: WAITING

Look for a blog entry in your archives where you wrote about a time in your life when you were waiting. Maybe you were waiting for some news or important test results, or maybe you were waiting for something to happen that you were hoping would take place. Then write a new post on your blog about what has happened in your life since you wrote that blog entry.

You can write about whatever you want in your new blog entry. However, if you need some help and inspiration to get started, here are some questions to consider:

How did things turn out for you? Did you get the news or results that you were hoping for? How has your perspective changed since the day you wrote that original post? Do you think you would still feel the same way now if you were writing it today? What have you learned about having to wait for things in your life since you wrote your original post?

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To recap:

1) Browse through your old blog entries to find one that fits this topic.

2) Write a new blog post in which you introduce, link to and then reflect on your journey since you wrote the older blog post and put it up on your blog next Tuesday (September 27). Please include this link http://chicagobensons.blogspot.com/search/label/Time%20Warp%20Tuesdays in your blog entry, so your readers can find their way to my post with the list of other participants, in case they would like to read more or participate themselves.

3) Share the link to your new post here (on my post next Tuesday, I will either be using a linking program or you can share the link in a comment) and then visit, read and comment on the other blogs that also link up here.

4) After you have done all of these things, you are welcome to grab the code for the the Time Warp Tuesday button by clicking here and put it on your blog. The link will take you to a Google Doc where you can copy the code. If your browser does not allow access to your computer’s clipboard, you can use Ctrl-C for Copy and Ctrl-V for Paste, or use your browser’s Edit menu.

5) Check back here every Tuesday to find out the topic, theme or question for the following week (I welcome your ideas and suggestions) and then return to Step 1 of this recap.

Have a great week! Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see you back here next Tuesday when we’ll “do the time warp!”