Excuses

If you follow, or rather, have been wanting to follow my blog, then you have probably noticed that I have been silent for exactly one year now.

Such a long hiatus was not at all intentional (although the length – exactly one year – is a complete coincidence and does make me giggle), and this post marks my return to posting. But first I’d like to clarify a few things.

One of the main things that has held me back, has been that I simply lost sight of what this blog was for me. I started this thing, as it says on the about page, “to document my experiences while abroad. The publicity of my documentation was intended to encourage me to update regularly.”

Well, after I had told every person that I spoke to for more than five minutes about my blog, my audience widened. I was getting hundreds of views from not only Germany and the US, but the traffic to my site began to expose me to countries all over the world. I think my record was something like 17 different countries in one day. While that was incredibly exciting for me, it quickly got overwhelming.

I began overthinking what I was writing, and attempting to write for the reader, instead of for myself. That might not have been such a big problem, if I did not try to appease every reader that visited my site.

Anyway, after many long talks with myself, I have come to peace with the idea that this blog is for me, me, me! That means that I am not going to criticize myself for ranting about all the things I did and saw and ate. This is my blog, and in a way, my travel journal, and if I am the only person who cares about reading what I did, then oh well! That’s what pictures are for, right? 😀

Secondly, I became lost in my posts. Even if I was writing for myself, I didn’t know what I wanted that to look like. I think I have reached some kind of conclusion now (although I am sure it will change as time passes), so my posts will hopefully be less wordy while still maintaining the personal narrative of my trips.

I do hope to include more hard facts about my trips, such as how much I spent on travel, food, or lodgings, what sites I used and how I found out about different things in each location, and so forth. I would also really like to include more posts that are more personal, specifically related to my life and opinions therein.

Finally, I had reached 98.6% of my capacity for photo uploads using the free service. I resisted deleting photos that I had previously uploaded, and remained at a strange stalemate with what to do about the lack of space.

I am happy to announce that I have finally decided that it is worth it to loosen my purse strings and spring for a registered domain on a personal account with WordPress! Soon, germanlyon.com will be a thing, and I will have double the storage capacity. Yes, 6GB is not a lot, so when I reach capacity again, then I will figure out what to do next. But for now, that problem is solved.

Also, ads have been removed from my page, since I am paying for it. So that is also a cool thing.

As always, thank you to everyone who reads my blog. I appreciate your support and interest, and I will admit that although this blog is mainly for me, it will probably always be a little for you as well. I really do intend to get caught up on my posts by the time the fall semester begins, and I will do my best.

In case you are wondering, the featured image I chose is from one of my summer internships in Solano County. I will include details about it in a future post once I am caught up. I thought it was appropriate because at first it looks like a vast expanse of land, but at closer look, there really is a lot going on. It’s somewhat of a metaphor for my absence on here; I’m not gone, just have a lot of things going on. 🙂

I’m gonna end this with a favorite quote of mine, just for fun:

“Your life is a sacred journey. It is about change, growth, discovery, movement, transformation, continuously expanding your vision of what is possible, stretching your soul, learning to see clearly and deeply, listening to your intuition, taking courageous challenges at every step along the way. You are on the path… exactly where you are meant to be right now… And from here, you can only go forward, shaping your life story into a magnificent tale of triumph, of healing, of courage, of beauty, of wisdom, of power, of dignity, and of love.”

Caroline Adams