Obviously, I’m writing a blog post. More specifically, the first post on this blog. More specifically still, the first blog post I’ve ever written, on my first ever blog – despite having had all kinds of ideas for blogs, and blog posts, over the years!
This first post is almost inevitably a bit meta. It’s something of a test and will no doubt be followed by more interesting posts (I hope!). Those might cover all kinds of topics that interest me from time to time. (You’ll have to wait and see.) Some will no doubt be reflections on my own experience, some will relate to my university research, some will be reactions to things other people have said or done, and others might be works of pure fiction.
Why this blog now?
I had been procrastinating mainly because my perfectionism drove me to look for the right blogging platform with the exact set of features I wanted. But over the past year, having been more active on Twitter than before, I’ve frequently found myself wishing I could say a little bit more about something than I could write using 140, or even 280, characters. So I decided that starting a blog should be a New Year’s resolution, and I declared this publicly to my followers on Twitter. Now I have to do it!
One thing I really want to write about at the moment is my experience as a trans woman in transition. That’s very current for me, and I think I will find it therapeutic to write stuff down even if it’s not first and foremost for public consumption – but if others read it and find it interesting and perhaps even helpful, that will be a bonus. If you’re curious about the name of the blog, that’s one possible etymology: trans ponderings. (But I won’t claim this is definitive: other readings are valid!)
Another reason to start writing a blog now is simply to start writing. On the one hand, I’d like to do a bit of creative writing – so there may well be stories in store! More importantly, though, I’m currently on an extended break from my PhD in Linguistics, and it would be good for me to start writing informally about my research before I return: I have a pretty intense 13 months in which to finish when I do go back. Because I’m studying aspects of Gaelic syntax in particular, I may also write the occasional post in Gaelic.
So that’s where things stand right now. Thank you for reading this far (or at least for scrolling to the end and reading the last paragraph). I hope to see you back again soon.