Happy Blogoversary to me
I don’t like to write about the blog on the blog, because that seems silly and self-indulgent, but I can’t help noticing that today is the five year anniversary of my first blog post.
It doesn’t feel like I’ve been blogging that long. Perhaps that’s because I post only once every few years. If you like the blog (and if you don’t — why would you read a post like this???), you’ll be happy to know that I’ll be posting more often in the coming year. I’ve found a posting rhythm that works for me: write all my posts at once while I’m on holiday, and queue them up for the rest of the year.
I’m happy I started doing this. I often mention my posts when my students ask me for advice, which has the benefit that my students get tired of hearing about the blog, and therefore stop wanting to meet with me. This leaves my students with more time to carry out excellent research, while leaving me with more time to play old versions of Minesweeper. Everybody wins.
Any regrets? Perhaps only that I wish I could write more silly posts like my manifesto on the political future of Scotland, but real-life politics have grown dark enough that I find myself unable to summon the spirit of fun.
Even without fun, I have lots of ideas for posts about career advice and about the academic and research enterprises. So this will probably be that kind of blog for a wee while longer. It’s fascinating how the theme and how the tone of a blog evolves. I had some ideas about what the blog would be like when I started, but the more I continued, the more I found the blog grow into something different than I expected. Much like life.
What I can guarantee (disclaimer: this is not a legal guarantee) is that the blog will continue to be reflective and introspective, and that if you’ve liked it so far, you’ll probably like what’s coming next.