It appears to be lessons learned week for Blapril, and the overall timing works out well to reflect on blogging among other things.
The official period of Blapril is 3/29-5/9. Some 42 days total. Of those 42 I currently have 33 posts that ran consecutively from 3/29 to 4/30. I am more than pleased with that result. I didn’t quite manage that with this past Blaugust, but when push comes to shove my blog takes a back seat to classwork, and both events are strangely placed in context of classes.
Since my school runs on the standard semester system, classes spin up in early August. This coming semester will begin on August 10th, for instance. What happened to me last time was that the first major assignment/exam for every class ended up on that last week of the month and I just didn’t have time to push through the end.
I can only assume it is situations like this that led to the expansion of the posting “window” for Blapril. I even ran into a similar issue here. With most of my classes having a final exam or test of some sort piled up into the last week, I had to stop writing posts long enough to secure victory. Worked out to around five days total, it seems. While I don’t expect to maintain my current GPA forever, I will not relinquish it without a fight.
In both cases, my idea of success is somewhat strange, though. I am less concerned with the final grade and more interesting in the subjective judgement of feeling like I got the best score possible given the resources and skills available at that time. The Gold award from Blaugust 2019 is a great example. I am not at all upset about missing Rainbow by a day or two, because I understand and recognize the constraints that led to the decision, and I’m okay with that. This is what guides many of my time management choices. Does this decision represent my best effort to advance the highest priority activity at this moment? Do I think I will agree with that choice tomorrow, next week, next year, or 5-10 years from now?
If I have erred in my assessment of priorities or time required, I take note of those things and try to adjust my method to accommodate it. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as I attempt to learn from them. Human error is a fascinating topic in and of itself that’s well beyond the scope of this post.
Since we’re at the end of a cycle, I’ve been considering what manner of content I’ll be publishing as well. I have some long-term goals that are going to be difficult for me. I want to eliminate the “I’m posting this sentence/paragraph so it counts as a post” sort of posts. I don’t feel that they have any real value beyond keeping a “days since last incident” counter going. My “lizard brain” likes that counter, though. It’s a number. Activity that makes numbers go up is “good.” Numbers going down is “bad.”
As for what sort of topics I’m discussing, I foresee a lot of research and statistics in the near future. I put my project on the backburner so I could keep up with school and daily posting. I intend to pick that project back up now that time is a little less restricted and if I’m working on it, I’ll be thinking about it. If I’m thinking about it, I’ll be posting about it.
I still haven’t replaced my banner either. Back at the beginning of the event, I said “but hopefully I’ll get the banner sorted out before the end of April.” So that’s still on my to-do list. I’ve… got some ideas. They just don’t feel “finished” yet.
Either way, I’ve gotten a bit long, so y’all take care. It seems I need to go watch some people who don’t understand a process try and fix it, my favorite form of entertainment.
Hey, it’s Blapril time! The goal is to simply promote and stimulate the blogging community by encouraging people of all skill levels and backgrounds to post. The official post can be found here and it’s never too late to start.
Unidentified Signal Source 