Farewell

I have been blogging since 2002. I started out just to link to funny and interesting stories that my students might enjoy reading. I quickly evolved into blogging about current events. I never thought I was adding anything all that special to all the online commentary that is out there, but I enjoyed doing it and thinking of visitors to my site finding something interesting to read in the stories, columns, and essays I linked to. I occasionally had something of my own from my knowledge of history or experiences as a teacher to add.

For the past few years, I’ve been finding blogging to be more of a burden than a fun hobby. It might be partly because of the news out there, but it is also that I just don’t think that blogging is worth the time I’m giving up for other things like reading more on my own, doing my work for school, or just having some down time to do nothing at all of importance or value to anyone but myself. My daughters have been questioning me for a few years why I continue blogging if I was resenting the time it demanded and I really don’t have any answer for that.

I used to worry that I would stop for a bit and then miss having an audience, but that I could never regain a readership once it was lost. I worried that I would eventually retire from teaching and wish that I still had the blog to fill my time. But I’ve come to realize that, if I want to point people to interesting stories, I could just use Twitter, so please feel free to follow me at @betsynewmark. Also, you might be interested in my husband’s blog.

Thank you to all of those people who have been making my blog one of your stops during your time cruising around the internet. I have been honored and gratified that anyone would be interested in the musings of a middle-aged history and government teacher. Thank you and au revoir.