[Editor's note: This post had been almost completed in its entirety when, due to a moment of profound stupidity, I decided to experiment with a particular button combination (whilst trying to remember how to restore a closed tab in Firefox) and succeeded in closing my browser altogether, eradicating the entire post in the process. What you will now read below is my best reconstruction of what I had spent the previous half-hour formulating in temple-clenching mental effort, tinged with the detritus of the raw fury which can only be experienced by pressing CTRL-W before taking the time to press CTRL-A and CTRL-C in anticipation of potential disaster. Enjoy.]
After having received several comments lately questioning my lack of regular posting, I thought that I'd take some time to re-consider my relationship with this site, and my reasons for not giving it the attention that it deserves. In this process, I found myself re-reading many of my posts that are now at least 3 years old, and doing so lead to several interesting revelations, which I thought I'd share:
- I used to spend an awful lot of my time attempting to craft posts which would be entertaining, as well as insightful. In doing this, I think that I largely succeeded. However, what is strange to me is that I seem to have completely forgotten having come up with most of the insights and witty comments that appear in those earlier posts. The upside to this situation is that I am able to be entertained by my own writing. The downside is that I now suspect that I may be suffering from some sort of degenerative mental condition. But both factors balance each other out, I suppose.
- Many of the photos that I had hotlinked to are now non-functional. I suppose that this serves me right for hotlinking in the first place. There was a certain point in the development of my blog where I made the decision to stop hotlinking and to host all of the pictures myself (or at least to use a reliable off-site hosting service, such as Flickr), but the task remains to go back and update the non-functioning graphics.
- Similar to the previous point, there are many links which are now dead, or which are pointing to places that I would rather not link to. Especially perplexing is that my friend Julie's blog, which I regularly read for her honest and self-revealing insights, is now the site of some lawyer's blog. I'll have to take some time during one of my more boredom-infested days to update all of the links, and if you're reading this Julie, perhaps you can tell me if there is some newer repository of your insights available to be used as a potential link target.
- Most of the comments that were posted before this blog was migrated over to its current address do not exist on this site, and can only be viewed at its previous address. Only time will tell how long this previous address will stay functional before the host decides to shut it down for lack of activity. Hopefully I can find some way to import the comments from the old site to the current location.
When it comes to my lack of regular posting, I think that there are two main things to keep in mind:
First, one would think that, now that I am gainfully employed and am regularly meeting new people with fresh insights and ideas, I should have more material to write about. However, I find that most of what I want to say I am unable to share. How can I risk writing about office antics, ranting about college bureaucracy, or sharing a classroom mishap when doing so may jeopardize my ability to retain my position in the most lucratively paid EFL program on the planet? I write that last sentence without hyperbole.
The other consideration is that much of my internet time is now spent on Facebook. And between keeping up with status updates, commenting on posted photographs, sending brief notes to distant friends, and cyber-stalking people from highschool, personal blogging (whether for "keeping in touch", or just for entertainment) often seems a little redundant. In fact, I'll bet that 80% of the people who are reading this post are actually doing so on Facebook, since my RSS feed automatically takes my blog posts and imports them into Facebook as "notes" or "posted items" or something.
That's not to say that I'm giving up on this site altogether. I've just started re-reading Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About, and every time I do so it gives my creative organs the defibrillator-like jolt needed to excrete blog posts that are high in entertainment value. Incidently, the reason that I'm re-reading this book in the first place is because I received a Facebook message from my friend Shawna asking for book suggestions, and in recommending TMGAIHAA to her I found myself picking it up off the shelf for a "reminder sampling", which has now turned into a full-fledged re-reading.
So while Facebook may own 85% of the property in my total internet landscape, and while I have subjected my choice of blogging content to the harsh mistress that is self-imposed censorship for the purpose of continuing to receive a paycheck that makes me double-check that the numbers are indeed correct (and not some flagrant accounting error in my favour on the part of the college) every payday, I will do my best to make this webpage something worth coming back to. If nothing else, I can use it to entertain myself when my memory completely fails, and every day is lived like that guy in Momento (but with less killing and tatoos).
