I haven’t published any posts on here for quite a long time and my podcast has been silent as well. This is because I have been really struggling with RSI (which I’ve written about previously here and here) and had one of my busiest academic years as well. This has been frustrating for me because I have got a lot out of blogging and podcasting, mostly from the interesting comments and interactions I’ve had with people who engage with them, and I don’t want to give this up. But I simply haven’t been able to touch a keyboard or mouse at all after a day of working on tasks I have to do (as opposed those I just would like to).

When my RSI started up badly again I intended to try writing blogs just using voice dictation (which is what I’m using right now) but found this didn’t really fit with how I was used to writing. This is because I like to add links, images and sometimes citations which requires certain amount of physical engagement with a device which was exacerbating my condition. This is even more of a problem with podcasts which I wanted to edit to cut out on any unnecessary sections, adding bits of music and introductions and endings. These tasks were all doing a fair bit of damage, I think.

So I’ve decided to try to get back into both blogging and podcasting but I realise I just have to accept that I will do things differently. My blog posts will, I hope, have the same kind of content as before but might be a little less edited and less likely to have links and references.

I’ll also be putting some podcasts out but they will be pretty much unedited sound files. I have quite a few stored up which I haven’t edited, all of which are interviews which people very kindly gave up their time for so I feel really bad that they have just been sitting on my hard drive. I think this will be the only way to get them out into the wild and I’ll have a think about whether to continue with the podcast.