Happy blogiversary to me

I started posting to this blog a year ago today. I guess that makes this a time for reminiscing or something, so I'll give it a try.

I like the geoblogosphere. It can be a little like being at a conference without having to drive or fly. There are the discussions about current research. There are the discussions about world events (especially geologic events), and about extraterrestrial events. There are great pictures. There's a little catching up with people. There's talk about life as a scientist, about kids and theses and dissertations and jobs and why geology doesn't get any respect from the other sciences, even in a world with earthquakes and volcanoes and landslide dams threatening collapse. No beer, and none of that cold scared feeling in the gut before giving a talk, but it's still both social and scientific.

For me, personally, blogging has helped me think about teaching, both about pedagogy and about content. It's given me a reason to dig through both old and new papers (even if I rarely blog about them). It's given me ideas to use in classes - "Where on Google Earth" might return when I teach the intro class again in the fall. It hasn't given me new research ideas, but the act of writing has made my writing faster, I think, when I've got things that need to get done. (In the three work days that I had last week, I wrote a GSA abstract and a grant proposal. I don't normally work that fast. But I've found it's a lot easier to write short proposals, at least, when I've been writing and thinking a lot.) Nobody at work knows that I blog, but when they find out (and they will, eventually), I'm not going to be embarrassed about it.

So I'll keep doing it. I've thought about moving to Wordpress (because it seemed like such a good idea when Brian did it last fall), but I'm not going to do it now. (I haven't figured out how to add a picture to my header here, and I'm trying to sell a house. Maybe I'll do it next year.)