Exiting My Blogosphere Hibernation – A series of Catch Ups

I feel like I should do that "tap, tap, tap... is this microphone on?" moment. It has been so long since I posted anything that I had to re-log in!

I really fell off the writing wagon with the start of summer. I can’t even come up with a particularly good explanation of why this happened. I had plenty of experiences to write about, but I just didn’t. I seems it might have just been a perfect storm combination of a couple of things.

I think I was just beat after my first year of grad school and my brain went on hiatus. As much joy as this usually brings me, it was probably more thought and work than I was willing to invest. Then, I just became overwhelmed by the sheer number of things I could write about since I waited so long to write, so I think I just chose to not write at all. Finally, I had a weird funk that plagued me for much of the fall. Nothing was particularly wrong, I just felt a little out of sorts and unhappy. I think it happens to all of us – we get these weird little mental dips. It’s almost more frustrating when you can’t pinpoint how you are feeling due to one specific event or reason. No one wants to hear you feel a little blue just cuz!

Anyways, as my semester began winding down, I spent some time thinking through what was aggravating my moods and pushed myself to work through my issues and move on. So, I feel much better and much more optimistic for the start of a new year and semester!

Which left me with the damn blog… what to do… what to do... In a burst of inspiration (mainly based on the end of the year blog posts I have been reading), I concluded that I could do a reflective recap. It felt weird to not mention anything at all that I have done since, oh July. However, it is way too daunting and time consuming to do my usual more detailed summary of my experiences. And practically speaking, I don’t know that I could really remember enough at this point to write about it well. Instead, I see this as an opportunity, to share a few memories that do stand out and reflect on the good things that happened in 2011. And realistically speaking, I know my readership is small, so I am thinking this is all more for myself than anything else!