I'm thinking

that I need to shift the focus of this blog slightly. I have not had any motivation to write for a very long time. It's not that I'm bored by what I'm writing or reading or learning about, but that when the day is done and I've spent hours studying, I don't feel like putting a lot of time into posting something journalistic or complicated. And I don't know that that's really my style, anyway. Maybe it's just something that I decided I should do rather than something I wanted to do. I do that often.

I'm sure that what I've done is create an idea of what my blog should be. And I'm holding myself to that idea, even though I haven't actually been producing any work in sync with that idea. You're probably thinking, journalistic and complicated? I've been reading this blog for a while and there's nothing journalistic or complicated about the post content! And you are right. But in my head, I'm under the gun to produce those things. I've set up standards that I don't have the desire to live up to and as a result, I don't enjoy writing anymore. So, I'm changing my expectations. This blog is going to be something - but I'm not going to say what that something is because I don't want to set myself up to stay within certain boundaries until I'm sure about what it is that I want to be writing about.

So, I know I haven't really written about paleo in a long time, but there's a nagging feeling that I should, so I'm going to take that pressure off of myself. Accordingly, I'm not going to expect to remain on anyone's "paleo blogs" blogroll (or any blogroll for that matter). That's not to say that I will stop writing about paleo as a rule. I'm just going to write about what I want to write about, when I want to write about it. And hopefully, once I've stopped telling myself I have to write about paleo, I'll find that I want to.

So, I hope you'll still visit this place. I know that there are a lot of people out there that like to read a nice coherent, sciency blog. I'm just not in a place where I can devote myself to that. I'm still devoted to school, still devoted to all things ancient, still devoted to rocks and wildlife and all of those awesome things. But I'm also learning something about myself that I think I need to address: I tend to decide who I am and what I should be doing so rigidly that I mark any deviance from that as a failure. I'd like to be more flexible than that.

You can expect some changes here. I will still keep the same html address (which is http://www.selfdesignedstudent.blogspot.com) though I will likely make some template changes. I might even change the name of the blog. I will probably post more photos. I expect that school will remain a central focus, since it's the most exciting and consuming part of my life. And hopefully, I'll be writing more often.