Happy Blogversary

Five years.

I don't think I necessarily had any notions of how long this blog would last when I first began, but I probably wouldn't have guessed it would be going five years later.

During the time, many things have changed. Pictures and video are much easier to embed now and the whole Blogger interface has changed. But mostly I think things have stayed the same. I still seem to blog about the same kinds of stuff, maybe I blog a bit more about my dissertation work, but considering its LARGE role in my life, that seems natural.

When I first began, I thought the blog would be a way for friends who were far away to keep up with what was going on in my life, instead of having to write the same email over and over. But it very quickly changed, partly because I realized that the people who I email are not necessarily the same people who read the blog. So as a kind of mass email, it has failed.

But the blog is just the medium, and its purpose (at least for me has changed). One of the things I really have found useful about blogging, particularly as I blog about the dissertation, is that it has taught me how to talk about my academic work in a way that is less formal, and a bit more approachable. Now, before you protest, know that I do recognize that I've still got a long way to go before my writing about the dissertation really becomes approachable, but I'm starting to see differences, and if for nothing else, the blog has been instrumental in making that happen.

So here's to five years - who knows what's yet to come?