So, I haven't updated this in a while.

"...Well, I do check your blog from time to time"

"... So, would you like it if I started writing it again?"

"Yes"

*****

Blogging to me doesn't feel like a moral obligation, which is why I stopped doing it. From being an entertaining way to report back to people about my trip to the USA, it became something that struggled to find its way into any kind of 'to do' list that I had post it noted to my window. However, I plan to change all this. I already use slate on my facebook page, but want to kick start this again.

In no real order, this is why I stopped updating:

• I started third year at University. I would love to sound all wise about this year and give out sound advice to the proverbial Fresher Grasshopper, but third year (despite me being as prepared as I could) has felt like I jumped out of moving bus and was made to keep running. As it has for many hours, my life has become one full of piles of books in my room, late buses home and devastating amounts of money-more like the GDP of a particularly obscure nation-spent on stationary. I do actually have a life (what with Student Radio and all) outside of the library, but it has become a rare day that I do not finish before 11pm most evenings. Apart from that, thirs year is fun, considering how much how much you try to cram into one day.

Linked to this has been...

• My Dissertation. Before third year, dissertations had always been mentioned to me by older peers as either really easy or with the same gravitas that you might announce that you are about to have a major heart operation. I deliberetly chose a topic that has a limited interest, but I have become (slightly) obsessed with it. I'm taking this as a good thing, yet feel that not everyone is as excited as me about finiding census data.
• My writing-Ha! I wish, I haven't done any for a while. I love trying to, but I rarely have any ideas about what I want to do, and I always feel that at heart I don't have anything to say in fiction (which has the unfortunate effect of me wanting to write emo like poetry). I'm rather thematic in what I write (ie: odd science fiction). However, I have a few ideas boiling away in the back of my head, and I will actually write them soon... Like, seriously!
• Reading other people's blogs. I love the website 'BoingBoing' (http://www.boingboing.net/), and spend quite a bit reading other people's blogs on there. The images and stories they find are always interesting. They also recommend really good books.
• Knitting. Yes, I knit now. yes, I knit in public. No, I don't really care that much about the public reaction-it's hardly poledancing after all. It is a past time that has really developed because I get to see my mate Beck more often through it, and also because it is a lovely way to unwind when you are tired of reading for the day (slight rant about Marxist historians; why do some use such stupidly convoluted language to convey their ideas when I thought the fundamental idea of Marxism was to represent the people? I take great joy out of summurising arguements that they have and putting them into two sentences. This when I am left wing; *sigh*). If you can see a picture at the top of this page, it is of a teddy I made last summer. it's name is Bernard.
• Student Radio. I will miss this-along with all the other opportunities I had-so much when I leave University.
• Drawing. I have had an idea of getting one of my recent ideas done into a comic strip.
• Feeling I have nothing to say. This has been slightly disproved by the length of this blog, which is pleasing.

I'm not good at keeping promises to myself, but I will update this-work, life and piles of yarn permitting. I may even put some of my writing up on here.

So, before I leave, here is a list of the websites I have liked recently (I would put down academic ones, such as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, but these ones are a bit more fun).

I am now off to bed.

http://www.boingboing.net/

http://www.knitty.com/

http://www.superdickery.com/

http://www.atu2.com/

http://www.iwatchstuff.com/

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/knitting/

http://wanderingscribe.blogspot.com/

http://whythatsdelightful.wordpress.com/

www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho

http://www.cracked.com/

http://www.theonion.com/

http://vgcats.com/

http://xkcd.com/

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/