500th Post

When I started Potions for Muggles, I was not sure how long I would keep at it. Five-and-a-half years later, I’m writing my five hundredth post. I’ve surprised myself, especially this year, by resuming my average of two blog posts per week. I might have Covid-19 to thank for that. Last year, I thought I would progressively reduce writing blog posts. I had reached my milepost of a hundred blog posts in a single year in 2018, and after that I felt I was running out of steam. Also adjusting for a big move far from home for my sabbatical dominated my headspace for several months.

The lessons I’ve learned from keeping a blog haven’t changed substantially from my reflections six months into the process. I think my writing and editing has improved, possibly with diminishing returns over time. I did re-read the Harry Potter books again, in a more compressed timeframe throughout the month of January while on holiday. However, in recent years I have not thought as much about the connection between science and magic. The blog has mainly focused on teaching, some research, and on things I find interesting in books I’ve read.

While my keyword labels are not necessarily the best way to categorize my posts, I thought it would be interesting to see what I think I wrote about. Posts may have multiple labels; a few have none.

·      I was surprised that book reviews topped at 43%. I do read a lot, maybe 40-50 books per year. 214 of my 500 posts prompted me to write some thoughts related to my reading.

·      Teaching was at 36% and specific things related to my classes 17%. This is not surprising. I think about teaching a lot. Many of my posts that don’t carry the ‘teaching’ label often have a few sentences related to teaching.

·      Research was at 8% and the origin-of-life specifically at 10%.

·      Higher education at 11% and the liberal arts at 6% are significant categories. (One might call this the ‘administration’ category.)

·      Magic still featured in 12% of my posts.

·      Games (board and card) make up slightly over 5%, while future tech is slightly under 5%. These all tend to be science-related.

Because I primarily write for myself, and not an external audience, I haven’t bothered to check which of my posts get lots of clicks, or which categories are of interest to others. The blog functions as a cyborgian appendage – I offload thoughts and ideas to the blog, and when I want a reminder, the search function helps me find what I wanted to recall. Occasionally a conversation reminds me of something relevant, and I send a link to someone else who I think might find a particular post interesting. Blogging is a memory bank and memory aid of sorts.

I don’t have a specific label for chemistry, although I do have one for alchemy. I’m sure the subject of chemistry permeates my posts and gets mentioned all over the place. I’m always thinking about it, I suppose.

Well, I don’t know what the rest of 2020 holds, at least where my blogging is concerned. It’s been an interesting year thus far. I’m happy I made it to Post #500.