4 Years of Blogging!

Four years ago today I started my blog, and now it is still going, having been active for much longer than I had ever expected it to be! Let’s take a look at what has been happening on this blog in this last year!

First I would like to start with an apology. There were only 21 posts this year, which is pretty pathetic in comparison to those of other years, even years when I deleted over 200 posts! I would like to keep the content more regular than this, and everything else I write next should be taken with the knowledge that I released significantly less than I normally do.

Stats

With that being said let’s take a quick look at the stats this year (as of 27th of December 2020)

Overall it’s been a pretty amazing year! With all months instead of February being over 3k views! Then there was an amazing month in September where the Sakamoto Desu Ga Death theory post went massively viral again. In addition to this, and I’m not sure how happy I should be about this, my Top Ten Reasons Why Anime Sucks post also went viral, getting more monthly views than the Sakamoto post! And yes, the comment section has turned into a crazy death match which I refuse to look at anymore.

To give you an idea of where most of my views come from, it is all essentially from two or 3 popular posts, and everything else does really badly, still, it’s nice to be noticed! The top ten reasons why anime sucks post only started going viral recently, and has started to beat Sakamoto in the most recent months, so I would be interested if next year it beats Sakamoto, the post that has always been at the top of the list, taunting all my other posts with the fact that they won’t ever reach this level of fame!

One last thing to mention…

This blog passed 100k views this year! What an amazing thing! I don’t know if this is good/bad/normal progress for a blog after 3 years, but regardless, I’m very happy with this achievement!

Comments on the Blog This Year

Perhaps it is that my brain is starting to become completely empty, or perhaps it’s a struggle with writers block, time, and motivation. This year I had 40 drafts of really good, sometimes completely finished ideas that I just didn’t want to publish, even now. The first blog post of the year, Facts in Genesis: Is The Creation Account In Christianity Correct? was so thoroughly researched and worked on that it sort of set an unreachable standard that I couldn’t reach for pretty much all of my other ideas. Since I didn’t write very often, I had to come to terms with the fact that anything I wrote would be on the front of my blog for quite a lot of time, and having that pressure really didn’t help at all!

I also have pretty much never had a break from work since March when coronavirus broke out, since I used my university holidays for completing assignments and as soon as my exams were over I started a technical support job, which then became a full time year in industry. This between having a relationship, learning Chinese, and starting a TEFL course (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) I really didn’t and still won’t have very much time at all for writing. This now is my first vacation since March, which means I am taking as much time as I need to relax!

21 blog posts is just under 2 a month, which is somewhat close to a regular schedule. I really like some of the things I’ve written too! I think as the only real thing I have to say about my blog is that I liked what I wrote, but just wished I wrote more of it, I will celebrate 4 years with a top ten list of what I’ve written this year!

10 – Can You Beat Ocarina of Time With No Magic and Three Heart Containers? – Child Link to Adult Link

This post was not necessarily about the actual writing, but about playing the game. I loved going back to this game with new and increased challenges and reliving the same amazing memories again! It was also a game that I had struggled a lot with in the past, mainly from the heart containers perspective, so learning to survive with just 3 heart containers for the entire game really made me feel like I was a true Zelda master! Re-telling my stories in the form of blog posts was just so satisfying!

9. Why You Should Watch Jackie Chan Films

It’s always fun to develop new interests, and for me, Jackie Chan films was one of these things. The breath-taking stunts, hilarious comedy, entertaining action and brilliant stories all made me want to share this interest! What made this post special to me, was the fact that Jackie Chan was always a film star who I had deliberately steered away from, and I felt a lot of people had done the same, so I wanted to make the post to give the guy the credit he deserves!

8. From HSK2 to HSK3 – Thoughts on HSK, And The Different Methods of Language Learning

My Chinese went through pretty radical changes from HSK2 to HSK3, and my approach changed dramatically. The same things used to pass HSK1 and 2 would not work for HSK3, so it was interesting to reflect on the changes that made me able to ace the test completely!

7. The HSK3 Exam Process Has Some Problems

Although I did reflect that my approach changed a lot for the HSK3 exam, however unfortunately the HSK3 exam itself did not test things in quite the way that I expected it to. Namely the online testing system was pretty rubbish and seemed very unreliable not to mention the way that they assessed you was also quite poor in many areas. This was interesting for me because although I had aced the test, I felt like I really was not tested to the extent that I thought I should have been. This was interesting to write about.

6. What Mistakes I Made In Language Learning (Chinese)

Yet again another post about my changing approaches to language learning. This arrived at a point where my SRS had just become unsustainable and I was going to have to really alter my approach to continue progressing at the same rate. It is about all the mistakes I had made in the past which had negatively impacted my learning. Since this post, I have made more mistakes, but language learning is such a huge process and undertaking that naturally you will slip up somewhere, on the flip-side, my Chinese ability has improved dramatically which also makes me very happy!

5. The Tragedy of Memrise Removing Decks

Memrise is the flash card system I used before changing to other places. It is a great starting tool, but eventually became too much for me due to just adding so many words for review to it. This post expressed all my aggravations and feelings of annoyance towards Memrise and their bad decisions at the time. Since this time they have made some improvements, but now I am not interested in it since I’ve already moved on. It came at a very important time as I was learning Chinese, and thus offers very serious and interesting criticism towards the platform.

4. Ode to My Lost WordPress Website

I didn’t realise how attached I was to my WordPress blog until it was lost. I really loved that thing and I had no idea. This is a poem expressing all of my frustrations and annoyances towards WordPress in a way that shouldn’t sound like a person just whining. It was against the terrible block editor I am having to use now, and the way that it led me to losing the design of my WordPress site. I wanted to make the point of how special these blogs are to all of us, and how the fact that our blogs are so special is exactly why these changes hurt us so much, and in my opinion a normal blog post format isn’t good enough, so I really poured my heart into this poem and was happy with the result.

3. Satan is Controlling You!

I love writing posts that make you think, this post tried to not only make you think, but also make you think about how you think. I have a lot of knowledge about dangerous cult techniques which I feel I have not shared enough. Simply showing and deconstructing a dangerous thought control technique brought me great satisfaction, and I hope freedom for anyone unlucky enough to be reading the post while under the control of a harmful thought control technique. It was not a post criticising religion especially (although the example did come from religion) but rather something condemning thought control techniques in general and encouraging people to identify if they were victims to them.

2. 1 Ticket to Hell Please

If there is one thing that I hate, it is being misrepresented. In my opinion the existence of a hell is one of the most evil things imaginable, endless torture and no possible chance of redemption, I would condemn anyone who would wish hell upon someone, or send someone there. This post was a response to the assertion that atheists send themselves to hell by rejecting God. There are so many things wrong with this, and I was very happy to put something on the internet that could rebut this argument convincingly.

1. Facts In Genesis: Is The Creation Account In Christianity Correct?

It is of vital importance to me that we are as correct as possible about science. I’ve heard both Atheists and Christians say that the creation account in Christianity is pretty much in line with what actually happened according to science. I wanted to test this idea very much.

In order to do this I examined every detail to as much depth as possible, looking for things that it got right and that it got wrong. I tried to be as thorough as possible, and give the bible credit when it was due and to point out the inaccuracies when they were there.

This was quite difficult, and easier said than done because there were many interpretations that were possible for many things that were said, and examining all of them was quite a challenge.

Overall I felt like I had made a very useful resource for people wondering how correct the creation account was, and I felt like I had been as fair and unbiased as possible, trying to only look at what Science has to say, rather than going in line with my personal biases.

Goals from Last Year

1. Still be blogging by this time next year – Yes!
2. Blog what I want to blog about, don’t force myself into only talking about one thing again – Yes!
3. Pass HSK3, and be thinking about HSK4 (language progression target) – Yes! The coronavirus situation meant that I couldn’t take the test, but I’m definitely at a level where I can pass it
4. Make posts on holy books – complete an entire series writing about every chapter of a holy book. That could be one that I’ve already started, or a different one – No! I tried to do this starting with Genesis, and even getting through chapter one took many days, and so much research that I felt it was more important to only look at specific events rather than overall books.
5. Complete large posts/projects specifically about the new topics I’ve chosen to blog about – language learning and atheism – I have definitely done this to an extent, but of course having more posts would have helped this.
6. Finish Writing the Monks of Meres and release it on this blog, self publish if good enough – Nope! I have not written anything about this in 2 years, the process of going back and editing a 70,000 word book 2/3 in the progress of writing is far too much for me!

Goals for Next Year

1. Make more blog posts
2. Have the attitude that getting more good ideas out there is better than having a post you feel is potentially not in line with what you normally write
3. Write about TEFL and teaching English as well as English grammar
4. Continue to write language posts and atheism posts
5. Continue to have fun with the blog!

Ending

The last thing that I of course have to say is thank you very much for reading my blog, it just wouldn’t be what it was today without people reading and commenting, liking and sharing, I appreciate every reader so much and it really helps to give me motivation and continue going on this blog journey, so thank you so much!

With that being said, I would like to thank you for reading this post, and I look forward to seeing you over the course of next year!