June 19, 2022
It's been three years since I first started this blog, and a few weeks ago I finally got around to implementing a simple blog platform using Django. Moving the blog from Blogger to a Django app means it is now nicely integrated into the rest of my website, which I upgraded from static HTML files to a Django project a year ago. In celebration of this redesign (of both the website and now the blog), I'm going to provide some updates and reboot the blog (hence the title of this post).
In my first post three years ago, I had a few "stated" goals for the blog. I called them "stated" goals because that's typically how you describe what a company claims to pursue but may or may not achieve. At the time, I wasn't sure what my success rate would be, either. Let's see how well I did:
My first goal was to get better at writing. Although I did not keep up with the blog after the summer, I've gotten good writing experience in other forms, and I do feel more comfortable with writing in general. For example, I've tried to write reviews of books and courses on this site. These are typically short paragraphs, so it's a good exercise in concision. I've also had excellent practice with critical writing via my Plan II seminar, world literature, and philosophy classes. Currently, the biggest weakness in my writing process is that I take too long to get started (I habitually start the night before an assignment is due). And then I get hung up on the phrasing of the introduction, sometimes just rewriting the first sentence over and over and over (basically, I'm stuck on a writing treadmill). Once I do get past the first paragraph, however, things typically go smoothly. So, I'm going to renew this writing goal as "decreasing the activation energy of my writing process."
My second goal was to keep track of my thoughts. It's far easier to text myself or use the Notes app on my phone if I want to keep track of random thoughts. So I'm going to restructure this goal into tracking my more well-formed ideas, observations, and opinions. Most likely, I'll find myself writing about math, movies and TV and their soundtracks, electrical engineering, sports, and history, among other topics.
My third goal was to maintain a record of my personal projects. Instead, I created a Projects section on the website which allows me to display a description, source code, and a link to the project. This is a much cleaner way to organize information (and if I do write a full-length blog post, I can easily add a link to it in the Projects section). I also plan to add some more content related to my research and internship work (if not on the Projects page, then elsewhere on this site).
My fourth goal was to document the cool things I find or learn about. Recently, this has been through reading books and textbooks, so I've used the Books section on this site to write quick snippets about things I read. I haven't really written a full-length blog post about one topic in particular, so maybe I'll do that in the future. But more importantly, my goal is to continue exploring and learning new things.
My fifth goal was to catalog the funny things I find. My definition of "funny" has evolved to include "amusing" and "entertaining," and quotes from movies and TV shows are probably my biggest source of amusement nowadays, so the Quotes section of this site serves this purpose well. (I also don't actively search for memes anymore, so broadening the scope of this goal was a good idea.) Somehow, I always find the time to watch an incredible amount of TV and movies, so I don't foresee this section slowing anytime soon.
My final goal was a catch-all. I'll renew this goal.
That wasn't too bad! With these updated and renewed goals in mind, I'm looking forward to posting with more regularity!