I stumbled upon the fact that this website hadn’t been updated since 2019 and wanted to write a few words. I think I had plans in 2019 to write more, and then 2020 happened. My work life exploded as the impact of COVID-19 was felt through so many different facets of everyone’s lives. This was not a short term blip. My experience working at a University was surely not unique — juggling online teaching, the uncertainty of student engagement and rapid changes to processes, working out how online exams could work without rife cheating, the effect of losing staff members in an already resource constrained environment, and the long lasting ripple effects.

In the mean time, I’ve been wondering about what to do about a website like this. Do I still have the time and energy to write? (The past evidence is not great, but there’s always the future.) Is a website like this just totally old-fashioned now? It’s interesting to think that any of the writing I’ve done in sites like Twitter and Facebook is essentially emphemeral, and while it’s possible to trawl through posting histories there it’s not the same as having a written archive like this website provides. I have this hopelessly sentimental feeling that one day it would be nice to look back on this tiny slice of creativity in my life.

So on balance I remain hopeful that I can stabilise my work-life balance, and spend some more time writing here. Recent work experiences have made me yearn for doing more generative creation rather than process driven documentation. I’m not too sure what that will look like and where I can manifest such work — is it more active research output at work? Or is it more actively creative time spent outside of work? — but I’m trying hard to step back from what feels like a continuous state of being overloaded.