Friday, January 4, 2013

actually not so transient

I was going back and looking at old posts, because I vaguely remember writing something mean about something that might come back to haunt me today and I was trying to find it to belatedly hide it.  Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised at what I used to write.  Sure, the pictures are all broken and I was clearly very wrong about some things, but I am not totally embarrassed about what I wrote in 2007.  Some of it wasn't so bad.

At times I used this thing like Instagram, but well, now there's Instagram, so I probably won't do that anymore.  I can't believe I started writing here in 2006, over six years ago!  Little did I know visiting MIT in March 2007 that I'd be spending the next five years here (p.s. I just did a linking thing that I hate, using each word for an example of the phrase, but look at little 2007 neha visiting MIT!).  Actually at that point in time I was fairly sure I'd be back in SF real fast.

It's funny, I'm having some of the same dilemmas today that I had five years ago, like the question of where I want to live the rest of my life.  I lived in New York for a few months AGAIN and wasn't totally taken with it... I might just have to give up on having a life there.

Also, I think I was like half libertarian back then.  Defending chain stores?  Yikes.

Most of my sharing has spread to other services, but a lot of it just doesn't happen anymore (unless you happen to find me when I'm particularly up in arms about some issue [sorry Brian]).  No place has taken over as the comfortable place to rant.  I would like to start writing essays on contained topics.  Fear of being wrong or regretting what I write has kept me from doing it for years -- but looking back on this blog makes me feel a little bit better.  I was particularly moved by my friend's article on doing academic inquiry in public (spell check is telling me enquiry is wrong even though being an enquirer is a thing?  WTH english language).  Not writing means you aren't part of the conversation.

I'm still working out where I will write research stuff and where I will write personal stuff, but for now, I will just put everything here.  One of my New Years resolutions is to write a couple of sentences about every article I read, so I started a little tumblr here:  Neha's Grumbles.  It was initially called "Neha's Tidbits" or something but then I realized everything was negative so beware.  Anyway it's amazing how much less crap you read when you are forcing yourself to write about it.

Oh and re: TV go watch Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and Homeland.  I also really like Nashville but that might just be because I'm starting to enjoy (tolerate?) country music.  Damn you Taylor Swift.