What do you mean I've had this blog for 15 years

I started this blog in June 2011 because Blogspot was the hip thing to have back then. God even knows the number of blogs this one has outlived due to my love of my own writing voice (callback to what I wrote in the About section of this blog) and stubborn refusal to abandon the social media trends I actually like. I still have a Blogspot/Blogger, but death before getting a tiktok account.

My first ever blog post 

My first ever book review  (was I actually giving books letter grades back then?!)

My first post of flash book reviews written because I didn't want to write a dedicated book review post for each one, a common staple in this blog

Upon rereading my first-ever blog post, it looks like I meant for this blog to be a place to put my writing and other thoughts. I have done a bit of that (you can still find almost everything I wrote here as I haven't really deleted anything), but what I've written the most seems to be book reviews. To me, there is something very comforting about how old-school blogs and the ability to configure their look feel. It reminds me of the good old days of the internet, how it was when we were both growing up together.

People still share their thoughts online, but mostly in short-video format. I think few people really have the attention span and patience to read others' long-form thoughts anymore. We went from blogs (web-logs) to MySpace/Facebook posts to tweets to... We don't really have a new set way of communicating textually, do we? It's just Bluesky/Threads tweets still, maybe memes, and video (tiktoks) dominates all. 

I don't kid myself by thinking I have or have ever really had (or will ever have) an audience; even in the first-ever blog post, I address the "possibly nonexistent reader". The near-anonymity makes me feel comfortable writing and posting whatever stupid thing I feel like. Just a month or two ago, I got over 1200 hits on this blog, possibly due to having posted something on Instagram (I link to this blog in my link.tree, which in turn is linked to on my IG profile); clearly people were nosy enough to click through. The number staggers; that many people are looking at my Instagram and my silly little blog? I've only ever written for myself, although I like to check the stats to see how many hits I've gotten and what posts have been viewed (and cringe if it's my old poetry). Anyway. 

Thanks for coming to my blog's quinceañera I guess 

A note

Hello Russian search engine bots, casual googlers trying to find a book review for a specific book I've happened to read/write one for, and perhaps even nosy people who accessed my blogspot through a different social medium back when I linked to it there:

I just wanted to mention that the HarperCollins strike is in full effect, and as such I will not be reviewing books published by HarperCollins or any of its subsidiaries until the strike is over. (My understanding is that buying HC books is fine, as the strikers/union does not want to deprive the authors of their income.) 

I stand with the HarperCollins workers and hope HC will do the right thing. People deserve to be paid a living wage for their work.

I've been majorly neglecting this blog. I told myself I'd blog on winter break when I had free time, but now that I am/do I don't feel like it. And that's that I have this whole list of things I wanted to write about. I guess I only feel like blogging when I have schoolwork to do.
This last quarter has been the most difficult. I'm glad it's over. So far I've been able to do most of the things I wanted to do on winter break, such as hang out with friends, read books for fun, waste the day on the internet, etc. Good stuff.

Books I've read so far:
-Jane Eyre (4.5/5 stars. If you know me, even just a tiny bit, I don't even have to explain why I love this book so much. It's basically the favorite book of every shy, introverted quiet bookworm girl. I'd actually been reading this slowly throughout the quarter on my Nook.)
-Inheritance, the 4th book in the so-called Eragon Cycle by Christopher Paolini (3/5 stars. I knew I was in for a ride when as early as the second sentence of the preface I wanted to roll my eyes. This wasn't Twilight-horrible, just derivative like the previous ones. You're better off reading the originals [aka LOTR and such].)
-Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style (3.5/5 stars. Rather enjoyable if you're the sort of person who likes style guides [I am]. Tim's voice is great in this but I get the feeling that he and his cowriter don't really get what it's like to be normal people who don't shop at Neiman Marcus.)
-The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop (3.5/5 stars. I remember loving this one when I read it at age nine or so. It was much shorter and basic than I remembered. The selfishness of the protagonist annoyed me.)

Currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Gahhh it is so good.

I do love a good pun

Which is not to say my blog's title is one. I'm just way more tolerant of the puns I make than of the ones made by others. As are we all, I'm sure. The tagline ("Random thoughts from my mental hard drive") comes from a book my grandma gave me some years ago. It was the title of one of the chapters and just perfect, I felt, for what my writing usually is.

I've been wanting to start a Blogger account for a while, but I waited until I was on summer break. I have this compulsion to write things down, and while I do have a Tumblr (I haven't figured out how to link to that yet in my Meta post), I find it's best for pictures and other such snapshots of a person's life instead of long rambling text passages, which is what I often feel like writing. I have many thoughts that weigh heavy on my head. (This is the sort of thing I will sometimes write. Consider yourself warned, possibly nonexistant reader.) Writing is one of the best ways, I find, to explain things to myself and to figure out what I really feel or think about something. Thinking long and hard about something is the best/main way I do so, but what I think so often changes; writing it down in words creates some distance that one can use for better examination or analysis. Writing organizes my miscellaneous, random thoughts.