One year of blogging

On April 15th, 2013, I did something that quite surprised me. I started a blog; this blog. Why was I so surprised at myself? Because for many years, I was under the impression that "blogging" meant "writing down all the boring, everyday stuff you do and whining about all your problems, as if you were keeping a diary, but instead putting it in the Internet under the impression that someone would be interested." I had absolutely no interest in doing that.

However, I now have a blog that just celebrated its first anniversary, and I'm very happy about it. So far I've produced 61 blog posts and gained ten followers. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of these ten wonderful bloggers (most of whom I follow myself and others should take a look at too) for keeping such high-quality blogs and bringing up such interesting things that I always want to learn more about. The best example of this is my to-read list, which will never end thanks to all the wonderful reviews from other bloggers that catch my interest.

As well as my fellow bloggers, I want to thank everyone who has ever spared so much as a glance to my blog, and everyone who has given me an idea for a post. Comments from readers are always such a delight as well, no matter how long or short they are.

As this anniversary came by, I started wondering if the past year of being a blogger had brought any substantial changes to my life. It wasn't very hard to make these observations about myself:

• I've become much more active a follower of all the happenings in the arts. I feel like I have to be on the lookout for new things to blog about, so I'm constantly adding new things to follow on Facebook, new websites to look up, and so on.
• I feel like whenever I'm having a conversation with anyone, no matter what subject we end up talking about, I say "I'm planning a blog post about [subject]" sooner or later.
• Whenever I feel annoyed, frustrated or something of that kind, I think "Let's go to the blog, it will help."
• I find myself endlessly baffled by the question of how exactly someone from Brazil or South Korea found their way into my blog. 
• I have to admit it – I feel ridiculously intellectual when I get to tell someone "I'm a blogger, I do reviews on books and theatre and other sorts of arts." I know, it's completely hilarious.
• I've become more and more convinced about where I want my future career to be. I'm no longer content to be simply a spectator for the works of theatre; I want to be a part of that world, a part of the system that brings theatre productions to audiences. I've noticed that I talk about theatre very differently than most of the people around me, often resulting in the other one asking "How on Earth did you pay attention to that?"
• This isn't really a consequence of my blogging habit, but worth mentioning because it is a change that happened in the past year and has altered somewhat the way that I perceive the things I blog about. I recall saying in one or two of my blog posts that I'm not easily moved by things that happen in books and movies and such, that if something makes me cry it must be noteworthy. Well, that isn't true anymore. I've seen the most definite change in the way I experience characters' deaths on page, stage or screen – it holds a whole new level of intensity for me now. But even things less tragic than deaths do make me emotional nowadays. 

Now, after musing about the effects of my blogging, I would like to try something with you readers. In celebration of the first anniversary of Music & My Mind, I'll host an "Ask Me Anything" event! It means, quite simply, that you can ask me any questions you can think of, they don't have to be related to the subjects I usually blog about, and if there are enough questions asked, I'll do a separate blog post where I post my answers! You can get as imaginative as you like with your questions and ask as many as you want, but I do reserve the right not to answer questions that I think are too personal. 

So come on, join the blog celebration and surprise me! :)