Hey, Someone Left the Mic On...

I've been neglecting this space since the end of my Northern Ireland adventure; mostly because I know the vast majority of my miniscule readership picked up this feed because they wanted to hear about NI, and, well, I'm back.

But I feel like I can still make use of this space. It feels flat-out wierd to post religious thoughts of any substantce on my livejournal, and the vast majority of my lj readers aren't interested in international politics. I could see this space becoming a replacement for my 'outlook' filter on LJ-- a place to discuss my faith journey, my ongoing studies in intercommunity conflict, and how the two relate. I could use it to reflect on international news concerning Northern Ireland and other areas of interest to peace research.

I don't know how many people would actually be interested in reading that sort of thing, but I'm also not sure it matters. It seems to me that if I want to write it, there's nothing wrong with just writing it for myself. Since I vastly prefer typing to writing by hand, a blog is a very convenient way to keep things organized. And since there's nothing about what I'm planning to write that I would mind other people seeing, I see no reason not to keep it public, so that on the off chance that someone is interested, they can see it.

Perhaps that is, as one friend described blogs with little to no readership, shouting pompously into the void. But this isn't livejournal, where mutual readership is expected and people are reluctant to unsubscribe from journals they're not reading for fear of hurting someone's feelings or causing drama. If people don't want to read A Speaking Life now that I'm home from Northern Ireland, I' not going to take it personally. It's a blog with a fairly narrow focus that's not likely to draw a large number of readers.

So, to anyone who's still picking up this feed: I'm going to start using this space again. If you're interested in international conflict, peace research, and the faith journey of a Christian Quaker, you can look forward to post about exactly those subjects in the future. If you're not interested in these things, you may want to unsubscribe from the feed so it doesn't clutter up your feed reader.

Cheers,
Annalee

ETA: Chose a new template that's less with the ugly.