As I get older, my life seems to become more boring. At least that’s what the amount of blog entries seems to suggest:

Starting out in 2014, I logged eight entries, 2015 saw eight articles as well, 2016 was an incredible year with 12 entries (one every month, I can’t believe my productivity!), while 2017 went back to my regular rhythm of eight texts. Yet, in 2018 my writing plummeted to an unprecedented six entries!

If that’s really sign of a boring life I can’t tell; might as well be that in the midst of so many adventures, I haven’t found the time to scribble down stuff. Who can sit down and write notes whilst fighting off alligators on a boat trip to a deserted jungle temple to discover an ancient Maya technology that might help reverse the effects of climate change? Well, not that I was really doing that, I was just sayin’…

Yet, when looking back at my 2018 entries, it’s obvious what happened: I left the university. And the initial idea of this blog was to write down encounters and endeavours within academia.

When, at the end of 2017, I started out as a secondary school teacher, I didn’t find the time to update this blog. That was a shame, as really interesting things happened during this time; yet, it were also some really busy months, and when I came home in the evening, I didn’t feel like ruminating about those experiences even further.

When I logged my first entry of 2018 in March, I was still not far behind my usual schedule: In other years, I had already taken my time to write something down. This time, though, the absence of academic input (with some notable exceptions) resulted in prolonged silences and me reflecting about what I’d like to publish on these pages.

The urgency of that question was somewhat alleviated by my entry into the Institute for Research in Higher Ed in Wittenberg, and as the rest of the entries shows, I decided to mix updates on my low-level academic life with ruminations on … let’s call it miscellanea.

Thus, a third reason for the diminished number of blog entries was the phase of professional re-orientation this year. That, and an accompanying factor of stress according to familiarising myself with three different job environments this year.

Thinking about it that way, six entries don’t seem too bad; and 2019 might well be a fresh start for this blog.