Me
With the year coming to an end, and the holiday season in full swing, I thought I’d give a little update into this blog. I have been blogging for over 2 years now. I started writing in August 2008 and have been at it every week ever since. For those of you who have never written a blog, or ever tried it, it’s a labour of love, but it is labour. It’s not easy to come up with new ideas, or to keep travelling the world, or in my case, Japan. I am always thinking of new things to talk about, and I have many things sitting on the backburner waiting to be written. To maintain a good blog, you have to actually write posts weeks, or months in advance. The reason I keep to a weekly schedule is because of time constraints. I am not earning any money from this blog, and I am doing it purely out of my own self interest. I tend to write several articles over the span of a month, in short bursts, and publish them over a couple months. This gives me enough time to relax. It has come to my mind that I might want to stop someday, but at this moment, I enjoy writing this blog as it’s still a good collection of my thoughts and a good way to remember what I did in my life and where I have been.
In the last year, I have seen a large jump in visitors. The last time I gave any stats for this blog, it was August 2009, on the one year anniversary. I missed the second year due to my personal schedule, so the following stats are for the last year and a half. The biggest month so far was in December 2009. I had 1357 hits that month, and it was probably due to the “Holiday” post. It had the most hits that month. Coincidentally, the best day of this blog was in December of that year with 75 views in one day. In terms of 2010 itself, as of writing this post, the biggest month was August at 1033 hits, and the best day was on November 13 with 74 hits which almost tied the record number. I had also seen a large jump in average hits. In 2009, I saw steady growth in hits, and by the beginning of 2010, I was averaging 600 hits a month. By April, the number of hits has been no less than 800 per month. That’s a huge jump from the few dozen or so when I just started this blog. If anything goes to show, perseverance pays off.
Resting on the way down
There are also a few other reasons for the jump in numbers. I started to promote my blog just a little more, and very recently, I listed this blog on a few ex-pat sites. I have also just been listed on InterNations which is an online networking site and Ex-pat Blog. I can’t say much about either of these sites as I haven’t had enough time to really go through them, but I don’t see anything bad with them either. It’s an interesting take on things and how to find new people. In the last year, I have also started my own Twitter Feed (@dru46) and my own business doing tours of Tokyo, and Japan. While I went in with high hopes, but VERY realistic expectations, I have not been discouraged. I have an average of a few hits per day on my tour site, and I hope to have it re-done in a professional manner very soon. In fact, this blog is going to be moving within the next year with a slight change. I decided to finally put some money into my company and try things out a little more. We’ll see if anything happens.
On a personal note, I’m at a point in my life where I need a change. I am trying to find a new job, away from teaching, and I’m trying to branch out. While I have been travelling around Japan extensively, I haven’t really networked enough, in my eyes. It’s time to move out and try something new. 5 years of teaching is a long time, and I’m sure there are more adventures that await me in the near future. If you know of anything, feel free to drop me a line. Again, I’m very realistic and never expect anything. 🙂 That said, please drop me a line dru.tang@hinomaple.com or leave a comment here. I’d love to hear what you think about each of these places.
Dru