Year-End Recap

This blog only came into existence in mid July of 2008, but the end of the year is a good time to take stock of what’s gone on here so far.

If you’ve been following along, or if you take a look through the archives, you’ll notice that my posting frequency fluctuates wildly.  When I set out on this venture, I had hoped my posting would be a little more regular, but the effects of grad school take their toll on how much time I can devote to the blog during certain stretches.  I am trying to fight the perfectionist tendencies that tend to slow my writing, so I may get better at churning out quick posts about things that are on my mind, but the posting frequency will certainly continue to ebb and flow a little bit.

With that said, might I recommend that, if you’ve enjoyed some of what I’ve written, following this blog via an RSS feed like Google Reader?  I know many of you already do this, but it’s a great way to keep up with sites that update irregularly without the frustration of checking sites repeatedly only to find the cupboard bare.

Below the fold are some stats about the popularity of my blog over its first few months of infancy:

Busiest Month: September

Loneliest Month: July

Top Posts:

• Assume a Spherical Physicist 517 Views
• Creative Exam Curving 219 Views
• Allow Me to Re-Introduce Myself… 161 Views
• Science, Liberal Arts, and the Two Cultures Debates 82 Views

With the exception of the “Re-Introduction” post, these all benefitted from links from Uncertain Principles.  The Spherical Physicist post also received a boost from a link via Built on Facts.  As I am still in the minor leagues of physics blogging, most of my readership has come on days of such links, but each time, I think I manage to pick up a few more regular readers.  For now, I’ll just enjoy these brief moments of popularity, as I continue to find my voice.

Most Clicked Links on my Blog:

• Morning Coffee Physics (A fellow grad student)
• An American Physics Student in England (Another fellow grad student whose blog is now inactive, but lots of good posts in the archives if you haven’t already looked)
• Wikipedia entry about spherical cows

Top Search Terms that Lead Here:

• Xavier University (Really?  People searched for XU and found my blog?)
• first excited state (I’m proud to say that I’m the first result now on Google, beating out real science pages.)
• Santa (Again, surprising, since he’s only mentioned in one post.  Probably the jolly man Googling himself on the day after Christmas.)

I look forward to another year of bringing you inside the mind of a physics grad student.

UPDATE:

I discovered that the weird searches that were leading to my blog were due to some of my pages turning up pretty high on Google image searches.  For some reason, my blog spent a few days as the first image result for Super Mario, due to a picture I used in the “Think Like a Physicist” post.  The traffic those few days dwarfed the traffic of any other week I’ve had so far.  In fact, January already has more page views than any month from 2008.  Thankfully, this anomaly has disappeared, so hopefully my stats will now more accurately reflect the visitors who come here to see hat I have to say.