happy birthday blog

First off, if you are reading a feed, come check out the new look.

My baby here is one year old. It's interesting moment to pause and reflect how far I've come in the past year...so much is still the same (ABD, no children) but some things feel subtly shifted (I can now envision my defense date and what I'll be doing afterward).

I don't often look at my archives; I find the writing awkward and the memories, in turns, teasing and unpleasant. I also think to the things that are not recorded in the blog - too personal, too professionally revealing, or just too mundane to be recorded here. But for now, here's a sampling of the archives, with emphasis on popular posts, recurring themes and/or decent (maybe?) writing.

• April 2005: Homecoming - a reflection on the tension between work and play upon returning from a work-related trip
• May 2005: (Science)womanifesto (suprisingly still pretty true to the theme of my blog) and Lessons learned in New Orleans - I'd probably mark that conference as one of the turning points in my ABD career.
• June 2005: Dialog between dog and owner - a rare piece of more creative-style writing.
• July and August 2005: (mostly just stress about being too busy teaching)
• September 2005: Joining the chorus of the career v. kids debate and responding to a good comment on the subject. A grad student's guide to (pretending to) being an adult.
• October 2005: Family matters, Business Man's story, and lots of travel.
• November 2005: Thankful, feasting, and gluttony. Three reflections on Thanksgiving.
• December 2005: Polar bears and penguins (righteous indignation and education) and advice to a young graduate student.
• January 2006: Perhaps a high point in my blogging so far. There was the very popular "proper name for a woman series" (1, 2, 3), some science/social commentary, and reflections on happiness.
• February 2006: A useful post on how to organize journal articles and some musings on writing science for kids.
• March 2006: Fluffy but popular tea-ology and a blog against sexism day post.
• April 2006: Sporadic posting + recent = too hard to evaluate.

So what can you look forward to in the next year of this blog?

• Dissertation struggles, defense jubilation, post-doc and job search round 2
• Who-knows-what on the family front
• Continued focus on issues of women in science and women in academia
• Continued side focus on science communication and education in society
  
• Probably somewhat less science writing. Those posts don't seem to generate comments and they take a lot of time. There are good science blogs out there already.
• The occasional meme or completely fluffy post. I always reserve that right.
  
• Some cosmetic changes to the page (new banners, TTLB, site meter, creative commons license...)
• Things of interest to my blog readers. Believe it or not, if you have suggestions for post topics or even recurring features, I will listen to you. So please comment or email me.

Stick with me. This baby is just getting her feet under her.