Tweeting on Twitter???

I have been experimenting with twitter over the past couple of days and I must say that is has been pretty interesting so far. Its so interesting to me because I have almost NO idea what is going on when I am the website. There is a ton of symbols - have notices quite a few RT's and @'s and #'s - which are indecipherable to me. Many people that I have am close with (colleagues and friends alike) absolutely rave about twitter, and to be honest: I want to rave about it too! However, at this point I just do not get it.

Aside from the whole "language of twitter" I also remain confused on what is the purpose of twitter.

What does twitter want from me?!

For Chris-sake this question keeps me up at night! Am I supposed to be sharing my thoughts about random occurrences in my life like some people do? Does twitter want to know my thoughts on the rain, the sun, the sewage goes away on my street, my favorite cracker? Or is it more serious: I often feel like I am supposed to wait until I have some thing incredibly profound to say. Something that will shock the world! However, the problem with that is that these thoughts rarely occur for me. So, what is a boy who is trying to tweet do? Maybe I should tweet about it??????

(Warning: This next part has NOTHING to do with twitter.) Also, I have been impressed with the amount of emails I am receiving from AP students for their summer reading assignments. The large majority of the students seem to love the challenge of a summer reading assignment. So, my fellow teacher brethren, why are we not assigning more summer reading?! Next year??? Whose in?